The Tampa Bay Rays traded top prospect 1B Kyle Manzardo to the Cleveland Guardians for RHP Aaron Civale. Civale spent some time on the injured list at the start of the season with a left oblique strain, but has been pitching consistently since the beginning of June.

In this post, we are going to do a quick deep dive on Civale and what he brings to the Rays.

If you prefer video breakdowns, check out this video:

Weak Contact Pitcher

Civale is the type of pitcher who relies heavily on command to limit hard contact. He is not a ground ball pitcher and does not have overpowering stuff that gets high swing and miss or strikeouts.

He has historically above average control, as shown through his walk rates each season:

Civale has never had an above average walk rate. The highest he’s had is 7.2%, which is 1.2% better than MLB average,

His command is harder to quantify with stats, but is a huge key to his success. Generally speaking, pitchers that rely so heavily on command can certainly be successful (as we’ve seen with Civale). However, if their command is off during an outing, things can get out of hand very quickly. “But isn’t this true for all pitchers?” Yes, but pitchers with more dominant swing and miss stuff may find it easier to pitch around command issues.

Civale’s Plan of Attack Against Each Hand

Civale shows two very different plans of attack when facing right-handed hitters (RHH) and left-handed hitters (LHH).

Civale vs RHH

Civale uses four pitches against RHH:

• Cutter (30%)
• Curveball (25%)
• Sinker (24%)
• Fourseam (12%)

Looking at the heat maps above, we can see he typically throws outer half to RHH with the cutter and curveball. He will occasionally throw the sinker in on RHH and rarely mixes a fourseam to the upper outer third.

You may have noticed there are two areas of concentration for where he throws the curveball. In counts with two strikes, Civale tends to throw the curveball below the zone. You can see this more clearly in the graphic below, which is Civale’s heat map for curveballs in two strike counts:

Note: This mix looks very different from his mix to RHH last season. He made his cutter his primary pitch vs RHH this season and reduced the usage of his sinker in favor of the cutter and the curveball.

Civale vs LHH

Civale uses two primary pitches vs LHH, but also rarely mixes in his two fastballs:

• Cutter (47%)
• Curveball (26%)
• Fourseam (13%)
• Sinker (10%)

Similar to how he was staying outer half most of the time vs RHH, he throws the cutter and the fourseam to the outer half against LHH. He throws the curveball down and in to LHH and the sinker upper half.

Civale mostly throws his cutter and curveball to left-handed hitters. His cutter is his go-to in all counts, but he start mixing in the curveball when he is ahead and with two strikes.

Civale’s Best Two Pitches: Cutter and Curveball

Civale’s best two pitches are his cutter and his curveball, so it makes sense that he is throwing both of them the majority of the time against each hand.

His cutter is 87-90mph and has slightly above average cut and depth:

His curveball is 76-80mph and has plus sweep and depth:

Closing Thoughts

Civale is a nice addition to the Rays’ rotation and provides depth heading into the playoff race. The Rays made a strong rotation even more lethal now with a top four of McClanahan, Glasnow, Eflin, and Civale. And Civale not only helps this season, but is under team control through the 2025 season.

Let me know what you think of Civale and this trade!