José Leclerc Has Not Lived Up to Expectations so Far
When the Athletics signed José Leclerc for $10 million, he seemed to be a great set-up man to All-Star flamethrower Mason Miller. Leclerc brings postseason experience, veteran stuff, and was thought to be able to take some pressure off of Miller.
However, things have not gone to plan for Leclerc and the A's to start the season. Leclerc currently holds a 7.11 ERA and two blown saves in six appearances.
On Opening Day, Leclerc entered in the eighth inning with a 2-1 lead, thanks to two Tyler Soderstrom solo home runs. Leclerc went on to give up a mammoth game-tying home run to Randy Arozarena, who had a very emotional and expressive bat flip. After that, he walked the very next batter and then gave up a two-run home run to Jorge Polanco and was pulled from the game.
Three days later, Leclerc came on to pitch against the Chicago Cubs in a blowout loss, and he recorded four outs which took him 37 pitches, facing eight batters. In the series finale against the Cubs, he recorded two outs which took him 21 pitches, facing four batters. Both times he entered when the A's were losing by a significant amount of runs.
Eight days after the Opening Day blown save, Leclerc recorded another blown save against the Colorado Rockies, a game the A's ended up winning in extra innings. Leclerc pitched against the San Diego Padres a few days later when the A's were leading by five runs and it ended up being the best outing for him so far this season.
His most recent outing came against the New York Mets on Friday night. Leclerc entered in the seventh inning with the A's trailing by two runs, he had a three-up-three-down inning, striking out one. He came back out for the eighth inning and started strong, forcing the first two batters he faced to ground out.
Then the Polar Bear, Pete Alonso, came to the plate and smoked a home run out to left center field to put the Mets up three. Leclerc would finish the inning, but the damage was done.
The A's would later score two runs in the bottom of the ninth, doing their best to rally, but came up short and lost 7-6 to the Mets.
Leclerc is recording some of the higher exit velocities (89.1 mph) on average in his career to start this season. His hard-hit percentages (41.7) are way up and his whiff rate (32.1) is way down. Leclerc had a 30.9% strikeout percentage last year, ranking in the top eight percent in baseball, and so far this season that number is down 12 percentage points.
Not to mention, he is currently giving up a .588 expected slugging percentage, which ranks in the bottom eight percent in baseball.
Part of the issue here is that his velocity is down a tick from last season, going from 95.3 mph to 94.3 from season to season, and his fastball has just been more hittable with a little less horizontal break on it. His slider is down nearly two ticks as well, taking two big pitches from his arsenal and making them more of a question mark at this point.
It's safe to say that Leclerc has not lived up to what the A's wanted him to be thus far, which has forced A's Manager Mark Kotsay to put him in games when the A's are behind, instead of leading.
The A's gave him a pretty penny, granted on a one-year deal, to help them hold leads late in games and so far he has done the opposite.
Hopefully, Leclerc can figure it out and start to improve as the season goes on. He has a lot of experience, so a turnaround is possible, and would be a big boost for the A's bullpen.
Matt is currently studying Business at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a life long A's fan and looks forward to pursuing a career in sports.