For our final honorable mention for our 2011 South Atlantic League All-Star team, we go to another player who’s a promising prospect: Jesse Biddle, a left-handed pitcher who spent 2011 with the Phillies’ Sally League affiliate, the Lakeland Blue Claws.
Jesse Biddle was the Phillies’ 1st round pick, 27th overall, in the 2010 MLB Draft. Baseball America just ranked Biddle the Phillies’ second best prospect for 2012 (albeit in a sub-par organization after all the trades they’ve made). But while Biddle showed enough to be an honorable mention here, I saw several things I didn’t like, both in Biddle’s stats and scouting report.
Biddle’s overall season numbers were nice, at least on the surface. He went just 7-8 but with a nice 2.98 ERA in 24 starts, a relief appearance, and 133 innings pitched. Just from that, you would say that Biddle is a good prospect. But of course we’re not going to stop there. The next layer is strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed. Biddle struck out 124, an 8.4 K/9, walked 66, a 4.5 BB/9 that is not exactly what you want to see. His strikeout to walk ratio came at 1.88, just below the 2.00 minimum mark that a pitcher really needs to maintain to be effective. However, he kept the ball in the stadium, allowing just 5 home runs all season, a great 0.3 HR/9. His FIP registered nicely at 3.38. If I stopped there, it would seem like Biddle is indeed a good pitching prospect, albeit one that needs some work on his control. But thanks to Andrew Grant’s Minor League Central, we have a lot more data available.
If I were to take a blind guess, I would say that Biddle posting such a low HR/9 is indicative of at least a decent groundball rate. But as we see from Biddle’s MLC page, we see that he actually allowed fewer groundballs than the average Sally League player, posting a 37.8% GB%, well below the league average of 42.8%. He did limit the line drives, allowing a 15.3% LD% compared to the league average of 16.4%, but he allowed way too many flyballs, 42.0% of the batted balls he allowed, including 33.9% to the outfield, noticably above the league average of 29.2%. Biddle’s SIERA (a “true ERA” estimator based on strikeouts, walks, and groundballs compared to flyballs allowed) came in at 4.10, significantly above the league average of 3.98. Also, generally as you allow more flyballs to the outfield you allow more home runs. 9.1% of the flyballs to the outfield that South Atlantic League pitchers allowed in 2011 went for home runs. But for Biddle just 4.1% of his flyballs to the outfield went for home runs. We saw by Biddle’s line drive percentage allowed that he didn’t allow too much hard contact. However, despite the fact that Biddle allows so many flyballs, just 19.3% of his flyballs were pop-ups, actually below the league PU/FB of 19.8%. His flyballs weren’t really so softly hit. And even if that was the case, Biddle allowing a HR/OFB% less than half the league average has to be due to at least some amount of luck. Biddle’s xFIP in 2011 (using the FIP equation but replacing the amount of home runs he allowed with .091 multiplied by the amount of flyballs to the outfield he allowed) comes at at 3.98, considerably above the league FIP of 3.78. Biddle is due for a regression in coming seasons, and unless he can improve his walk rate, he could be a serious trouble.
Speaking of his walk rate, the additional stats we get from MLC tell us some interesting things. 67.4% of Biddle’s pitches were within the strike zone, just below the league average of 68.7%. So why was Biddle’s BB/9 register at 4.5, well above the league average of 3.3? As it turns out, pitch recognition and foul balls. Batters swung at just 13.6% of the pitches Biddle through outside the zone compared to the league average of 24.6%. But so what? They also swung at just 86.0% of the pitches Biddle threw within the zone compared to the league average of 89.4%. The much more worrying statistic is that when they swung, batters made contact with Biddle’s pitches at a 59.2% clip, exactly the league average. Biddle recorded a nice strikeout rate, but it had nothing to do with swing-and-miss stuff. Biddle was extremely reliant on batters taking called strikes, with 31.5% of his strikeouts coming on a called strike three compared to the league average of 25.0%. Batters seemingly identified Biddle’s pitches well to begin with and the hitters will just get better at distinguishing whether Biddle’s pitches will be balls or strikes as Biddle progresses through the minors. Jesse Biddle could really be in trouble going forward on multiple fronts, his ability to strike out batters and the amount of home runs he allows.
In the past, Biddle’s fastball has ranged from the low to mid-90’s and touched 97 MPH. In 2011, Biddle struggled to hit 90 MPH with his fastball at times. As an evaluator, you have to hope that the decrease in velocity was due to the fact that Biddle threw the most innings in a single season that he ever had in his life. But you can’t be so sure. Biddle’s secondary pitches are a changeup and a curveball. His changeup, which he really didn’t out as a full-time pitch until this season, showed some nice movement as he threw it in the high-70’s. His curveball’s movement was acute, but he simply could not control it at all. Biddle does throw all three of his pitches with deception and the stats appear to show that his control shouldn’t be too much of a problem going forward (and he’s a lefty, raising his value exponentially), but unless Biddle can get fastball back to at least 92 MPH consistently and seize control of his breaking ball, he does not project as anything more than a 4th or 5th starter.
Hopefully Biddle’s 2.98 ERA in 2011 raised his confidence, but other than that there were not many other positive signs from him. Biddle still has potential, but he’s a ways away from even dominating any professional hitters right now. In my mind, Jessie Biddle is a big question mark as a pitching prospect. He’ll strive to become more consistent going forward and start harnessing the potential the Phillies saw in him when they drafted him in the first round.
We’ll begin the real South Atlantic League All-Star team tomorrow.
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