Clement, Carpenter and Mulder would have made a great rotation in 2005.

Now, they're fodder for the DL.

Still, not a bad low risk, high reward signing. Just hope they're not counting on those three to do much.

Crap. I wanted him for the Pirates.

Apropos of nothing, I used to work with a lady who was Clement's prom date.

Good idea for the Cards, I think.

Depends on the money, but probably a good deal. Someone has to pitch, and Clement might still be good. I like the club option.

Carpenter is out till 2009. Mulder....whatever. Assuming they're still shopping Reyes, Clement could be the #2 starter.

No. Adam West is not DB Cooper.

I'm afraid I was, your honor.

why? matt clement was really frustrating to watch with the sox and cubs. such good stuff and no idea what to do with it. as a matter of fact, he's one of those pitchers that i think scouts love: guys with movement. i really think scouts ought to be more wary of these pitchers as they seem to have as much control of their curves and sinkers as wakefield does his knuckleball.

Carpenter is out till 2009. Mulder....whatever. Assuming they're still shopping Reyes, Clement could be the #2 starter.

Carpenter is on schedule to make it back in the last two months of '08. Doesn't seem as of now that they need to count on Mulder at all, though they'll just un-convert a reliever if/when he is back.

why? matt clement was really frustrating to watch with the sox and cubs. such good stuff and no idea what to do with it.

Then Duncan would be perfect for him. Giving pitchers a cohesive gameplan is what he does best. The problem is that his stuff is probably no good after major shoulder surgery.

Carpenter is on schedule to make it back in the last two months of '08. Doesn't seem as of now that they need to count on Mulder at all, though they'll just un-convert a reliever if/when he is back.

Yeah but that doesn't mean he's back to circa 2004-2006. You can't really count on too much more than being a warm body.

You can't really count on too much more than being a warm body.

Sadly, that's pretty good for a member of the Cardinals' pitching staff.

Bad time for a Josh Hancock joke, I gather?

Well, he isn't a warm body any more.

One of these days teams will treat pitchers returning from major shoulder surgery like A-ball pitching prospects.

why? matt clement was really frustrating to watch with the sox and cubs. such good stuff and no idea what to do with it.


Then Duncan would be perfect for him. Giving pitchers a cohesive gameplan is what he does best. The problem is that his stuff is probably no good after major shoulder surgery.

Duncan didn't do so well with Kip Wells, a very similar pitcher.

The OB/GYN at Washington University @ St. Louis is goign to be busy.

ESPN says it's for 1.5M. I can live with that.

Bad time for a Josh Hancock joke, I gather?

i didn't think there was ever a good time.

Clement was actually decent for the sox, until he became a friggin ball magnet. He got hit by 3 batted balls in the second half of the season. I think that got to his head. I always liked him, minus the walks (duh). I'll be rooting for him.

i didn't think there was ever a good time.

I wasn't sure there was a bad time.

I wish Clement luck in any games he doesn't pitch against the Cubs.

How about Dizzy Dean broken toe jokes? Too soon?

I hope he gets his career back on track so long as it doesn't heavily affect the Cubs. He was an exciting and maddening pitcher to watch on any given day. I still fondly remember his near-no-hitter against the Mets early in the 2004 season.

This seems like an appropriate time to repost a story I told in the Lounge awhile back about Matt Clement:
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In ‘03, my cousin and I went to ‘Fan Photo Day’ at Wrigley (where the fans got to go down of the field and meet some of the players and take pictures). Neither one of us were terribly interested (we were both much more interested in just seeing Wrigley from the field, more than anything), with one exception. He absolutely had to get a picture with Matt Clement (who, for various reasons, is his favorite player - so much so, that his license plate reads “HMC 30” - the H stands for Honest). The way this whole thing was set up, there was a rope and the players would sort of walk along the rope from one end of the field to the other, posing for pictures and shaking hands along the way. It got pretty crowded along the rope and the crowd was probably 5 or 6 people deep at this point. When my cousin saw Clement, he politely pushed his way through the crowd to get up to the front, yelling “Matt! Matt!” the whole way to get Clement’s attention.

My cousin is a big guy (6’6”, probably 280). He gets to the front of the line, directly in front of Clement, and my cousin says “Matt! I’m your biggest fan!” At this point, the chucklehead standing next to him yells, “Literally!”, due to my cousin’s size. My cousin and Clement both crack up (at which point I snap the picture from the back of the crowd - one of my favorite pictures ever) from the joke. It became one of those stories that gets told over and over again and “Literally!” became something of a catchphrase within our circle of friends.

Around this time last year, I’m starting to think about my upcoming wedding and what to get my cousin for a best man’s gift. I wanted to get him something really, really special, because he’s done a lot for me over the years and the traditional stuff just wasn’t going to cut it. I was thinking about getting an autographed ball from the internet or something, but I decided that wasn’t good enough, so I wrote Clement a letter telling him the story and what a big fan my cousin was and asked him if he would mind signing the ball that I sent. A few months pass, and I get a package in the mail from Boston. I open it up and Clement signed the ball, “To Ben, My Biggest Fan - Literally! Matt Clement # 30”. This absolutely made my freakin’ day. I don’t think I stopped laughing for a week.

The night of my rehearsal, I give my cousin the ball and he was just stunned. I mean, he practically cried. He got me a truly great wedding gift (the best gift we got from anyone, in fact), and he later told me that he was embarrassed about how crappy his gift to us was compared to the ball. It’s one of his prized possessions now.

So that’s the story of the best autograph I’ve ever gotten. Very cool of Mr. Clement to do that for us.
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I'll be rooting for him (and 1-0 wins by the Cubs on days he pitches against them).

The OB/GYN at Washington University @ St. Louis is goign to be busy.

Yeah, the shoulder that he blew out while pitching for the RS was actually healthy. Surgery showed that there was no damage. None at all.

I still fondly remember his near-no-hitter against the Mets early in the 2004 season.

13 Ks. No-no broken up by a homer by someone or other.

I didn't find Clement particularly frustrating; sure, he had bad games and moments of poor control, but he was a consistently good starter as a Cub (with not-infrequent brilliant starts), and it's not like he was ever counted on to be the ace of the staff anyway.

I'm nostalgic for the 2003 Cub pitching staff. Any rotation with Matt Clement v.2003 as its 4th starter is frickin' loaded.

really cool story, Weeks Olive.

How awesome is that story!!

Great stuff - literally!!!

I'm with you, retro.

Someone with access to BB-Ref PI (I'd do this but I'm on my BlackBerry - we'll see if this works) should compare Clement's Cubs track record up to the Joey Cora 17-pitch (or whatever) at-bat vs. afterwards. My recollection, which could be wrong, is that it derailed a great season.

I love BB-Ref, even on BBerry. Sure enough, Clement was 5-1 with a 2.29 ERA going into the Cora game. He finished the year 9-13, 3.68.

Good luck, Matt. Just not against the Cubs.