May 17, 2015
Tug Haines/Reading Fightin Phils
Former No. 1 pick Jesse Biddle is now a Pittsburgh Pirate.
At the moment, Jesse Biddle is plenty frustrated. After encountering the same problems on Saturday night and then in turn having to answer the same questions, there’s little doubt that he’s unhappy with the direction his season is trending.
“I’ve been pretty shitty actually,” Biddle said after his fifth consecutive outing surrendering three earned runs or more. “When you suck, you suck, and right now I suck.”
Biddle’s self-assessment was harsh, but the final result of his latest start -- three earned runs in four innings of work -- doesn’t look too disastrous in the box score. Not great by any means, but the damage was at least somewhat limited. As Reading manager Dusty Wathan was quick to highlight after the game, his pitcher didn’t give up the big inning.
When you examine the process that led to him getting pulled after only four innings (against an Erie Seawolves lineup that was held scoreless the previous two nights), though, it’s much easier to see where Biddle is coming from. Even as far as baseball prospects go, he isn’t an easy one to get a handle on.
In between the lines, the reason for Biddle’s struggles last night is pretty clear-cut: Channeling his inner Rick Ankiel, he couldn’t find the plate whatsoever. Biddle threw an ugly 45 balls to 43 strikes, walked five batters, and uncorked a wild pitch that allowed a run to score.
“I stopped throwing the ball over the plate, stopped throwing it where I want to,” Biddle said. “It is what it is.”
“It was his fastball command,” Wathan said when asked what specifically hurt his starter against Erie. “You know, he’s got to get better at it and we hope it clicks soon.”
With Biddle, the primary problem has never been his stuff. The fastball generally sits in between 91-93 miles per hour and the curveball and changeup also flash the potential to eventually become at least above-average pitches. The question is if he can ever consistently start throwing strikes, one that isn’t easy to answer at this point of time. Throughout his entire minor-league career, Biddle issued an average of 4.4 walks per nine innings, which is no bueno.
“That’s one of those million-dollar questions,” Wathan said of how to fix Biddle’s control issues. “If I had the answer, I wouldn’t be sitting behind this desk. I’d be traveling around to all of these places in the minor leagues with guys that could throw in the mid-90s and they would all [eventually] be sitting in the big leagues.”
There’s an easy narrative sitting out there that you could use to explain Biddle’s performance: It’s easy to wonder if the 6-foot-5 lefty needs a change a scenery, if he would fare better away from Philly and the added pressure that comes with Reading’s proximity to his Mount Airy home. Not only was Biddle a first-round pick, which already carries with it a set of expectations and pressure. He’s also a homegrown product from a place where not too many guys advance to the highest level, not in this sport. Joe Mauer is the only comparable case that immediately comes to mind, and he was rightly viewed as a sure thing.
By now, you probably already know his background, which helps accentuate the point about increased expectations. Biddle was a star prep pitcher at Germantown Friends, recording ERA’s of 0.64 and 1.06 in his last two years there. Unless you’re a hardcore draft or prospect nut, you probably don’t know where J.P. Crawford or Aaron Nola went to high school. You probably don’t know where Larry Greene and Anthony Hewitt went, either.
Throw in the fact that the Phillies haven’t been good at the major-league level (which shines a brighter spotlight on the minors) and that the farm system has been pretty barren as a whole (which shines a brighter spotlight on the top individuals) and you can certainly make the case that Biddle hasn’t been living on Easy Street. For his part, Biddle will have absolutely none of that narrative.
“I do everything everybody else does,” Biddle said. “I’m pitching on the same field as everybody else, so I don’t have any excuses or anything. I have no pressure, there’s no nothing. I’ve got to do my job and I’m not doing it.”
Last year, Biddle saw a freak accident at least play a part in derailing his season. He was driving in the middle of a hellacious hailstorm, one that broke the front and back windshields of his car. When Biddle left the vehicle in search of cover, he was struck in the head and suffered a concussion. In the five starts following the incident, Biddle’s ERA was 9.82. For the season, it ballooned to 5.03. Ruben Amaro had some interesting comments about the situation, saying he didn’t know if it was a full-blown concussion.
As you can easily decipher from Biddle’s blunt honesty, he’s not one to make excuses. To improve, he needs to find the strike zone more.
“I’m trying to work on it,” Biddle said. “There are maybe a few things I can do mechanically that’ll help me lock in and get me down in the zone but it didn’t happen tonight.”
There’s no sugarcoating the fact that Biddle has seen his stock drop dramatically over the past year. Heading into 2014, ESPN’s Keith Law touted him as the 77th-best prospect in all of baseball, a ranking he wouldn’t even come close to currently. Maybe the lowered expectations are exactly what Biddle needs. Maybe he’ll orchestrate a turnaround and revive his career. Maybe one day soon his family won’t have to drive all the way to Berks County to watch him pitch. The stuff is still there, after all.
“Sometimes it just takes guys longer to click than other guys,” Wathan said. “It takes something to turn that switch in their mind and hopefully we can find it here in the next couple of months and he can go forward in his career.”
Up Next: The four-game set closes with Zach Eflin (2-3, 3.12 ERA), a former San Diego Padres farmhand who was acquired in the Jimmy Rollins deal this past December, taking the mound against Erie. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
