Nuke Nippert

Ever since “Bull Durham“, people have had a mental picture of the pitcher with a million dollar arm but not the results to match. If you throw hard but don’t command the strike zone, you’ll inevitably hear the words Nuke LaLoosh tossed around. Perhaps no pitcher the last few years has personified that great arm/bad results combination more than Dustin Nippert.

In short stints over the last four years, Nippert has racked up 119 innings of major league experience, and he has not been good at all. His career FIP of 5.29 is lousy (although quite a bit better than his 6.88 career ERA) and he’s ran up a -1.28 WPA/LI in his combined work that totals half a season. His performance makes him a replacement level pitcher, and he’s earned it, mixing in lots of walks and home runs with only a slightly above average strikeout rate.

However, it’s not enough to just look at Nippert’s results and conclude that he’s terrible, because Nippert has legitimately terrific stuff. His average fastball sits at 93.8 MPH, which puts him just ahead of CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, and Edinson Volquez among starting pitchers. Clearly, his fastball has enough get-up on it to get major league hitters out. He also has a power change-up (84.1 MPH) and a slower curve (77.5) MPH that give him two off-speed pitches and enough weapons to attack hitters from both sides of the plate.

Overall, the package of stuff seems good enough on paper for Nippert to turn into a quality pitcher. The big problem for him, so far, has been command – his 4.69 BB/9 rate is terrible, and when you’re pitching from behind in the count all the time, you’re simply not going to have much success getting people out. Nippert also appears to lean a bit too heavily on his fastball, as 70% of his pitches as a major leaguer have been the straight heater. As a four-seam guy who isn’t inducing weak grounders with his fastball, he simply can’t afford to be using his fastball that frequently.

With better command and a better approach to pitching, Nippert could still have a decent career ahead of hismelf. He shows flashes of potential, like his seven shutout innings against Seattle this afternoon, but it will take more than an occasional quality performance to shake the LaLoosh comparisons for good.