It’s been a long, strange trip for Clay Buchholz. He was the Next Big Thing when he no-hit the Orioles in just his second major league start back in 2007. But from there became a model of infuriating inconsistency, looking like a human dynamo one minute — mostly in 2010 when he won 17 games and finished the season with an ERA of 2.33 — the losing his head or hitting the DL the next. He went 12-1 in 2013, but only made 16 starts, and his only notable act in the postseason was being the guy who gave up all the runs that David Ortiz’s dramatic grand slam erased in game two of the ALCS.
Now, he’s gone, roughly 5 months later than we thought he’d be out of town. The Phillies will be paying him $13.5 million. I predict they’ll get about $3 million dollars’ worth.
