Your application of these stats is not correct. It’s not that hitters never “figured them out”. They improved! From 2013 to 2014, Kluber increased his whiff% by a substantial amount, mostly due to the development of his slurvey pitch. He also almost cut his HR/FB ratio almost in half during his breakout year (it returned to normal levels in years since).
This is all we’re saying, Civale and Plesac were effective last year, but they won’t continue to be without substantial improvements in some key areas.
I’ve already posted about the stabilization threshold multiple times, but here it is again:
When pitching stats stabilize.
www.baseballprospectus.com
In short, you need at least two years worth of starts (300+ innings minimum) before you’ll see numbers like BABIP and HR/FB stabilize (which then stabilizes ERA, FIP, xFIP, and any other number that derives from the aforementioned stats).
So, no. After a little more than 100 innings I don’t think we’ll know much at all about Plesac or Civale’s long-term outlook.
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.