Civale did a very good job of using tunnels with his arsenal to be effective. The biggest single change he made (relative to the bulk of his minor league career) was he started to throw his FB at the top of the zone. Changed the dynamics of how his entire arsenal worked. That made him very effective, and could continue to have him be effective as there are dynamics when you do that, that are not easy for hitters to ever combat. So his strategy was his best asset last year. I am sure he will deploy a very similar one this year as it is a change he made coming to the big leagues based on work with Carl after he watched it play out on the big league staff for a few years before Civale's assent.I was responding to Jup's statement about Civale's success being due to "the league not having time to get a fix on what he does and how he does it. That simply won't be the case this year."
IOW, Civale's success last year was due not to his pitching ability but batters simply being unfamiliar with "what he does and how he does it". I responded by saying that wasn't the case for Kluber or Nagy. They didn't get worse their second or third years as hitters saw more of them, they got better.
The difference is Civale was better as a rookie than Kluber or Nagy. Is it possible he's already developed the pitches he needs?
Both you and Jup agree that if Civale and Plesac pitch at exactly the same level as last year they will have worse results. You said neither of them will be "effective without substantial improvement in key areas". Not minor improvements - "substantial" improvements. You both seem to agree that neither of them was anywhere near as good as their 2019 numbers indicate and if they trot out the same crap they threw last year it won't be pretty. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration - sorry.
But then you said Civale pitched "great" in 17 innings against the Twins and Yankees where he only allowed one home run. If he pitched great against the two best offenses in baseball last year and probably in many years, why wouldn't those same pitches work this year? Why would he need "substantial" improvement?
In Civale's first nine starts he allowed 11 earned runs and three of those starts were against the Yankees and Twins, the highest scoring teams in the majors. If he throws the same stuff this year you’re saying he won’t be effective? Why not?
You’re also saying that if he throws another 60-70 innings this year with the same results as last year we’ll still know “next to nothing” about whether he has a succesful future in the bigs. If he limits the opponents to two earned runs or less in 18 of his first 20 starts we'll still know "next to nothing"?
Under that logic if a pitcher had an ERA of 6.60 after his first 20 starts we should just keep trotting him out there until he gets to 300 innings, then start tracking his progress. We don't know anything until the numbers stabilize, right?.
I prefer to look at what the guy is throwing. Here’s a quote from a Justin Lada column:
“What Civale does well is spin the fastball (2268 - 85th percentile), which helps his 93 mph fastball play up. He did touch 95 at times, something we didn’t see in the minors from him. His curveball spin is in the 96th percentile and gets 12% better than league average on his vertical drop on it. He limited hard contact well, finishing with a 2.4% barrel rate, the top 1% of the league [in 2019]...It’s a mid-rotation type arsenal just lacking above average velocity.”
I guess we’ll see if he’s improved his pitches this year and if the league smacks him around if he doesn’t.
Now how effective that strategy will work (in his particular case) once hitters are aware of what he does, is still an open question because of his short stint at the big league level.
His arsenal is setup much like Bauer's, and one of the key pitches in it is his cutter. How he handles his cutter/ FB mix and zone placement will go a long way in determining the success of his strategy going forward.