In his return to the big leagues last night, Cade Cavalli left me wondering how on earth he had an ERA of 6.09 in Triple-A. His stuff looked absolutely electric, especially in his first couple innings of work. It looked like the pre-injury version of Cade, maybe even a little bit better.
This was a big night for Cade Cavalli, who has overcome so much to get back to the MLB. Heading into 2023, it looked like the 2020 first round pick would win a spot in the Nats rotation. He was coming off a strong season in AAA and even made his big league debut.
However, disaster struck in Spring Training that year. Cavalli blew out his elbow and had to undergo Tommy John Surgery. The normal TJ recovery is about 15-18 months, but Cavalli had some setbacks. 2024 was a really weird year for him, where he was on and off the field. He only managed three starts before a combination of dead arm and a mysterious illness kept him out.
This year he got a slightly late start again, missing Spring Training and the first couple weeks of the season. However, he has been mostly healthy this year. The problem this year has been the results. Cavalli has been on the mound, but he has not been very good. His ERA in his 15 AAA starts this year was 6.09.
However, there is some reason to believe he got a bit unlucky down in AAA. His FIP was 4.46 and his xFIP was 4.07 in Rochester. Cavalli was getting a lot of strikeouts and plenty of ground balls which you like to see. A combination of bad luck, home runs and some control issues cost him though.
The Nats probably wanted to call Cavalli up sooner because of his pedigree and stuff, but the results simply were not good enough. At this point, the Nats did not have much to lose, so they decided to call him up.
Last night, it looked like the right call. His stuff looked fantastic, as did his command. Cavalli was throwing five pitches for strikes last night. The fastball and sinker averaged over 97 MPH and dominated early on. In the first couple innings, the fastballs were sitting 97-100 MPH. As the game went on, he lived more in the 95-97 MPH range.
Despite his velocity, Cavalli’s fastball has usually been more hittable than you would think. The shape is not great and he does not create a ton of deception. However, he makes up for that with a couple filthy secondary pitches. Cade’s curveball and changeup were filthy last night. The curveball was his weapon of choice to righties and the changeup carved up lefties. Unlike some guys, he will throw those pitches to both lefties and righties when needed. He also mixed in a cutter to keep guys off his heater as that fastball began to lose some steam.
This dominant stuff resulted in 19 whiffs and six strikeouts in 4.1 innings. He was only able to go 4.1 innings because his pitch count began to climb and the stuff tailed off a bit. A combination of errors and a really long at bat with Gio Urshela probably cost him about 2o pitches. On another night, he could have gone six scoreless with that kind of stuff.
Despite that, it was still a wildly successful night for Cavalli. These last couple years have not been easy for him. You saw that emotion come out when he left his start. There was a cool moment where he embraced his good friend and college teammate Jake Irvin on the bench when he was done. It is clear how much this means for him.
This start is also something Nats fans desperately needed. There has been so much negativity and we need something to cheer about. We can all get behind Cavalli after this kind of outing.
While Cavalli will be in the rotation for the rest of the season and will probably get a shot to start going forward, I wonder what he would look like as a closer. You saw the stuff start to back up as he got deeper into the game. However, that stuff we saw in the first couple innings was truly world class.
The thought of Cavalli ripping 100 MPH heaters with his awesome changeup/curveball combination in the 9th inning is intriguing. With bad numbers in AAA, the injury history and the stuff not holding up deeper into games, Cavalli might be best served in a high leverage relief role. The broadcast also mentioned how competitive he is a number of times, a trait that is perfect for the 9th inning.
As we zoom back in, let’s appreciate that start from Cade Cavalli and the performance from the bullpen. After record setting levels of ineptitude, the Nats pitching staff only gave up one run last night. A returning Cade Cavalli was the guy who set the tone for all of that.