A reach if there ever was one, that is; doing a play of words on Que Sera, Sera which would have been most relevant like 500 years ago. Look man, I’m getting old but not that old. I did consider a play on The Witcher since maybe I could have threaded the needle on a Henry Cavill strategy (toss a coin to your Civale?), but it never came to fruition. Which is really gross when you think about that sentence and what exactly fruition means and how it came, but I’ll leave that to better men (and women) than myself. And if you don’t know what any of this means, I don’t either, so at least misery loves company… and since the wheels have already fallen off, something that usually doesn’t happen until at least the second paragraph of our weekly get togethers, let’s just get down to talking about Aaron Civale and his wonderful yet “measured” start and whether or not this is sustainable. And yeah, just to come full circle, I am most definitely not the man who knew too much. (Just show this to your parents, they’ll get it. They’ll have questions, but they’ll get it.)
I normally don’t cover pitchers, and it’s not that I don’t enjoy pitchers, I actually dabbled horribly in high school and college, but covering a player once-a-week, bandwidth just seems to be filled more with trending hitters and analyzing that half of fantasy baseball. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game man. But in terms of fitting themes and trends that synergize (corporate jargon achievement unlocked!), I think Civale kinda begs some attention and I need some more pitchers for the imaginary quota I just proclaimed.
| Year | ERA | K/9 | BABIP | LOB% | GB% | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 4.74 | 8.39 | 0.33 | 72.4 | 44.2 | 4.03 |
| 2021 | 3.3 | 7.05 | 0.23 | 77.2 | 48.2 | 4.20 |
| Career | 3.57 | 7.61 | 0.277 | 75.2 | 44.3 | 3.90 |
A contextually young hurler, Aaron Civale has found a unique niche this season, insofar as sustaining an ERA of 3.30 in 9 starts and 60.0 innings pitched while just netting 47 strikeouts, as if Bob Tewksbury was his spirit animal. A 7.05 K/9 isn’t quite a death knell, far from it, but at some point someone is going to start asking if his above-average sucess is sustainable, and while on the surface it looks like it might not be, I find it always best to find out for sure. After all, what am I doing here if not to provide analytical content? (This would be the loose definition of “analytical” and “content” mind you.)
So right of the bat (HEYOOO) you’ll probably notice the same things I do, but just in case, I’ll go down the list and confirm. Yes, that BABIP of .230 seems a bit low. Yes, that LOB% seems a bit high. Yes, that GB% seems a bit higher than it should be. And yes, that FIP does concern me.
That’s basically the TL;DR of his stat sheet, thank you. I’m actually not sure why I’m thanking you, but it seemed natural at the time so I’m just going to roll with it. So look, long story short, those are the clues that perhaps his very pliable (?) ERA might regress a bit. Case in point, if you asked me to provide a conclusive thought as to whether his value will go up or down, I’d take one look and probably say, yeah, Civale’s been a bit lucky, and based on his career numbers, is throwing a bit better than he should be.
But that’s now how we roll. I want to first quickly mention that while measuring against career numbers is something I do often, that type of data point loses a bit of weight when it’s a younger player. Small sample size can be an issue, you know how it is ladies. Keep in mind, the totality of his career so far essentially equals out to one full healthy year of pitching, just 191.2 innings.
Most importantly though, the largest driving factor in Civale’s success so far wouldn’t necessarily be found at the top of his stat sheet. As has been touched a little bit on other platforms, and something that easily could have been missed is the fact that Civale has reworked his changeup into a split-change, a pitch that he is throwing more and more as the season progresses. Also complimenting this major change in his profile, Civale has also appeared to lose the “sinking” fastball for more of a traditional four-seamer and has upped the usage of his slider at the cost of his cutter. Keep in mind too that this specific profile that he’s using now, straight fastball with a slider and split combo is essentially that of a groundball pitcher and explains a lot of the numbers he’s producing.
On top of that, this new profile appears to be providing a vehicle for better efficiency. For example, he’s facing an average of 3.9 batters faced per inning this season, that number stood at 4.21 last year. So we’re getting, with this new profile, more groundballs (explaining his stat breakdown from earlier), more innings, less strikeouts, but perhaps great effectiveness.
I realize the easier answer here is that we should remain skeptical of Civale. No doubt, I think that’s actually not crazy, this post withstanding. There are still certain statistical issues to be aware of, and while we can definitely confirm he has changed his style of throwing, we should always want to see continued results as the innings grow. Always the eternal optimist (lol), I actually am willing to double down on this new profile and confirm that while there is a solid basis to think this success can’t last, I believe there’s enough here to think this is the new and real Aaron Cavile, (who is already standing up for those who asked).
Of course, time will be the ultimate judge in this regard, whatever may be will be…
Nailed it.
Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell. You can follow him @jaywrong, or read his rarely (like never) updated blog Desultory Thoughts of a Longfellow.
