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

Now, none of these numbers are great. Germán Márquez has a career wOBA of .318 as a starter for the Colorado Rockies, so each of these numbers are already elevated. But those jumps are pretty drastic. In his career, his splits look like this:

• No one on – .314
• Runners on – .324
• RISP – .329

For more frame of reference, here’s where league averages are for the 2022 season on each of these splits:

• No one on – .299
• Runners on – .320
• RISP – .320

So it’s not a shock to see hitters hit better with runners on. That trend is pretty consistent through the last five seasons also, generally seeing an increase in wOBA of between 12-15 points from 2017-2021. And we’re always going to have outliers, but Márquez’s gap is just too significantly large to ignore.

Now whatever Márquez is doing to tip pitches is happening most obviously when runners are on, but I believe he’s also giving up something when he’s in his windup that’s maybe not quite as noticeable for hitters but they’re still picking it up.

Let’s go back to his start on Wednesday against the Miami Marlins. In the top of the 3rd inning he faces Miguel Rojas with no one on and gives up a home run on an 0-1 slider. Check out the video from the Marlins’ broadcast and watch him talk to Willians Astudillo in the on deck circle after he rounds the bases: