Examining Tanner Bibee's Struggles. Let's Get Excited About Edward Cabrera
Tanner Bibee, Edward Cabrera, Nick Pivetta
Guardians Tanner Bibee has had a rocky start to his 2025. He’s made some pretty substantial mix changes. To righties, he’s backed off his changeup and curveball entirely after throwing them ~20% combined last year. He’s also throwing the sinker he broke out in the postseason 22% to righties. His four-seam and slider (tagged as a cutter) are out of the zone a ton compared to 2024. Both those pitches had 50%+ zone rates in the second half last season. They’re both below 43% this season. His chase has fallen from 29% last year to 20% this year as nothing is being established in the zone. Below is a heatmap of his two primary pitches to righties. I can’t imagine many guys succeed sitting out of the zone this much with their primary offerings, even with good command. 🧐
Versus lefties, the changes are equally as dramatic, but the results are more promising. He’s all but stopped throwing his slider and curveball to lefties, leaning on ~90% four-seam changeup instead. His fastball is also out of the zone a ton against lefties (~32% zone rate is very low), as he’s throwing it above the letters a ton like his righty approach. The success versus lefties is because he’s generating more chase. I know the four-seam shape doesn’t grade well, but Bibbee found success with more meddling zone rates. What he’s posting right now is just unworkable in my opinion.
Marlins Edward Cabrera made his 2025 debut. It’s only one start, but we already see some changes from the Marlins’ new pitching staff. His curveball is different. He traded ~1 mph of velocity for nearly double the amount of vertical and horizontal break. This might be one of the best curveballs in the sport from a shape perspective. It’s comparable to what Kimbrel and Clarke Schmidt throw. He’s averaging 84 mph with -12” vertical and 11” glove-side—insanity. His righty approach is entirely different too. He threw 52% four-seam and changeup last season. The combo of those two pitches is down to ~12% this year. He’s throwing 42% slider and 26% sinker instead. Versus lefties, we’re seeing more changeup (up ~10 percentage points), and his four-seam is down from 33% to 15%. 📈
I’m pretty into all of these changes. The curveball shape is a head-scratcher (in a good way). From a location’s standpoint, the approach still looks like “good stuff in zone,” but the distributions at which that will occur based on these usage flips are encouraging. I’ll take the under on a 4 ERA this season, with a ~25% strikeout rate and a barrel rate below 6.5%. Even if the walks still linger, this is a 2-WAR arm in ~100 IP.
Padres Nick Pivetta is throwing a new sinker. It’s a lightly used offering, ~5% versus either handedness of hitter. The shape is more four-seam fastball given his release height (20” vertical break, 9” arm-side movement), a byproduct of his slot. He’s also leaning heavily on his fastball-curveball combo to lefties. Usage of his sweeper/cutter has fallen from 20% to 5%. He’s daring hitters to lift his curveball in the zone, and they’re not. The byproduct of the zone-heavy curve approach has been less swing-miss on the offering but more success with his fastball at the top of the zone (swing-miss up from 21% to 42%). 👍
Pivetta’s slot has also kicked up about 6 degrees this season so far, a moderate amount. He’s already carrying his fastball so much that there aren’t any shape changes of note. He may have also made a very subtle rubber move toward the first-base side (~6”), but this could be connected to his arm angle shift up. His swinging strike rate looks good, strikeouts will bounce back. The thing to monitor here is his barrel rate and home runs, a continual problem in prior seasons. It’s probably early to gauge whether he’s improved considerably. Early signs suggest his barrel rate is up (~17% this season, ~10% last season), but it hasn’t resulted in home runs.