Colorado Rockies: Is Germán Márquez tipping pitches? The stats suggest he is

It’s pretty obvious that something’s not quite right with Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Germán Márquez this season. He’s getting hit a lot harder than he’s used to and he’s giving up way more runs that he’s accustomed to.

There’s a multitude of reasons that can be behind him being more ineffective (decreased movement and velocity, more predictability in pitch sequence, more missed spots, etc). All that factors into it, but I believe some of it is as simple as the fact that Márquez is tipping pitches.

This is nothing new to the game of baseball. Pitchers tip pitches all the time. It just depends on how obvious it is.

On Saturday, Jomboy released a breakdown on Tigers’ pitcher Elvin Rodríguez and his start against the Yankees in which he was tipping pitches and how obvious it became to the Yankees (who capitalized on Rodríguez’s tell):

It got me to dig in deeper into Márquez’s stats to try and see if anything popped out that could indicate that he’s tipping pitches. Sure enough, something popped out pretty drastically to me.

Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Germán Márquez might be tipping his pitches

Here is the wOBA for Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Germán Márquez when he’s facing a hitter with no one on, with runners on and then with runners in scoring position:

• No one on – .348
• Runners on – .434
• RISP – .385

That near 90 point jump in wOBA from no one on to runners on base? It’s incredibly drastic and is a tell to me that something is happening once runners get on base. A little more interesting is how it drops with runners in scoring position. What’s happening there?