Tonight, Cade Cavalli will be on the mound against the Marlins. Overall, his big league stint has been a success. While his ERA is a mediocre 4.85, a blow up start at Yankees Stadium has inflated that number. Outside of that start, Cavalli has been very sharp. However, he has one big problem, right handed hitters.
In the big leagues, Cavalli has had extreme reverse splits. He has carved up left handed hitters. They are hitting just .203 against him and he looks very comfortable. The control looks good
and outside of the occasional homer, they are largely helpless against Cavalli. Here is a taste of what he can do against left-handed hitting.
However, righties have been giving Cavalli fits this season. They are hitting a crazy .415 against him so far in the MLB. That is bound to come down as the sample gets larger, but that is an extreme number.
If you look at his numbers in the Minor Leagues, you see a similar pattern emerge. Left handed hitters were not a problem for Cade. They hit just .210 against him. However, righties hammered him to the tune of a .352 batting average.
After seeing this, I wanted to dive into why this could be. Simply put, his weapons are just better against lefties. He is a real north and south pitcher. The curveball is Cavalli’s best pitch and it is a real 12-6 breaker. It has a ton of up to down movement and not a lot of side to side action.
That makes it platoon neutral, or even a bit better against opposite handed hitters. We see something similar with MacKenzie Gore, who also has a great curveball. For whatever reason, it is just a bit tougher for opposite handed hitters to pick up. That is why Gore developed a slider as a weapon to deal with lefties.
I think Cavalli could do something similar. He needs a breaking ball that really moves away from right handed hitters to unlock his arsenal. Right now, Cavalli is mostly a fastball-curveball guy to righties.
Against lefties Cavalli has another weapon and that would be the changeup. He throws the changeup way more frequently to lefties. Against them, he throws it 21.2% of the time and lefties are hitting just .067 against it. However, against righties he is only throwing it 8.3% of the time.
Throwing changeups to same sided hitters is tough. However, if Cavalli trusts the pitch enough, throwing it more to righties could help solve some of his problems. He has a deep and effective mix against lefties, but right-handers can really narrow things down.
With Cavalli, I am happy that we are able to talk about this stuff rather than having to cross our fingers and hope he is healthy. He has great stuff when he is on the mound and can be a very good pitcher. Problems like this come up when a pitcher is robbed of development time by injuries like Cade has been. The stuff is super sharp, but the pitch to pitch execution can be lacking at times.
In his MLB stint this year, Cade Cavalli’s talent is clear for all to see. However, there is so much that can still be unlocked. Despite being 27 years old, he is relatively inexperienced. He did not pitch a ton in college and has been derailed by injuries lately.
Obviously that is frustrating, but it also gives him much more untapped upside than your average 27 year old. With a fastball in the upper 90’s, a wipeout curveball and a sick changeup, the ingredients for a good starting pitcher are all there.
However, if he wants to truly reach his ceiling, Cavalli needs to unlock a way to get right handed hitters out. There are a few ways he can do this. One way is to develop a breaking ball that moves away from righties. He has the big curveball, but a slider on top of that would be a game changer. Cavalli also could throw his changeup right on right more often.
A combination of the two is probably what is needed. Right now his arsenal just does not get right handed hitters out. He needs to rethink that approach and find new weapons this offseason. If Cavalli can do that and stay healthy, the sky is the limit.
