Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Released Friday, 15th March 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Gerrit Cole Update, Blake Snell Linked to Astros, New Faces in New Places, Deep Dive Into Curveballs

Friday, 15th March 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:07

Well, greats and

0:09

barrels, it is

0:11

Friday, March 15th.

0:20

It is a live one. Derek and Riper,

0:22

Eno, Sarah, Trevor, May, all here with you

0:24

on this Friday. On this episode, we got

0:26

some news on Derek Cole. We have rumors

0:28

about Blake Snell. We have some

0:30

new faces in new places that have intrigued

0:32

us that we're going to discuss in some

0:35

detail. We're going to take a deep dive

0:37

into curveballs and we got some Q&A coming

0:39

up a little later in the show as

0:41

well. Listener leagues are blowing up.

0:43

We're up to five listener leagues. We may

0:45

actually have to cut it off soon. So

0:48

yeah, just a heads up there. Get in

0:51

if you haven't done so already. The link

0:53

is inside the Discord. So be sure to

0:55

jump in there. Let's just get right

0:57

to it. We have some news on Derek Cole. No

1:00

UCL tear detected. He's still expected to miss

1:02

one to two months. It just feels like

1:04

we're in this holding pattern. I saw some

1:07

analysis from a few different physicians out there

1:09

that they weren't the ones that read the

1:11

MRI or anything like that, but it

1:13

still kind of feels like this

1:15

is a possible like long-term problem

1:17

lurking until we hit some kind

1:20

of prolonged stretch where Derek Cole

1:22

is healthy and pitching effectively again.

1:24

So Trevor, do you have a point in

1:26

your career where you were waiting for

1:28

something like this where you didn't have a clear

1:31

tear or something that was known to be

1:33

a major problem but you had to work

1:35

through this sort of window of uncertainty? Yeah,

1:38

actually all of 2016 had a

1:40

back issue and that we couldn't,

1:43

the diagnosis didn't seem quite right

1:45

and it just seemed like it was

1:48

like, okay, just do this rehab program

1:50

and then strengthen everything around it and

1:52

it'll be, you know, you'll feel better

1:55

at some point. That uncertainty,

1:57

it sucks. I'm honestly,

1:59

my ton of. on surgery. My

2:01

tear was so clean that it was just like I just knew what

2:04

the next like 16 months were gonna look like immediately

2:06

which was really nice at

2:08

least. If you're gonna be hurt you want to

2:11

know what's going on and then how to fix

2:13

it right away. Yeah hearing that about Cole is

2:15

not great. It has that feeling like we're in

2:17

a holding pattern and let's see if he feels

2:19

better. That's just never anything you want to hear

2:22

because I feel like this could be

2:24

recency bias but it's usually a lot

2:26

longer than they're anticipating. Have

2:29

we heard any details? Like this

2:31

is the first time seeing no UCL tear. Have

2:34

you seen any other details? I haven't seen

2:36

anything like a PRP injection or anything.

2:38

I haven't even seen like a diagnosis.

2:40

They said his elbow hurt and then

2:42

that... They're probably like there's inflammation in

2:44

the area I guarantee you that's what

2:46

they like yes that's what happens when

2:48

things hurt. That's easily what it is.

2:50

When there's inflammation in the area have

2:52

you seen your own MRIs? Have I?

2:54

Yes. Have you been like walked through

2:56

like what you're looking at and like you

2:58

get so you like when you an MRI

3:01

if there's that inflammation around the area does that make

3:03

it hard to see if there's a tear? Like

3:05

does inflammation block what you might see?

3:08

Yes so the biggest the best way to find

3:10

out if there is a tear in your elbow

3:13

is like with an

3:15

arthrogram which I won't get

3:17

it's a little bit awful because but it's like

3:19

you put dye in the area and then that

3:21

dye like can travel within a muscle and then

3:23

if there's a like tendons block. You'll see a

3:25

bright you'll see the no color somewhere. Yeah so

3:28

like color will go somewhere it's not supposed to

3:30

be and that means there's a tear like for

3:32

mine it was just like the colors yellow and

3:34

they just pulled up the image and before it

3:36

even start like before it even the whole thing

3:38

was yellow so he's like yeah it's everywhere so

3:42

it's gone it's not even leaking it's gone so

3:44

it was I knew immediately he just said we're

3:46

gonna see if it's yellow or not and he

3:49

opened it he's like whoa whoa but again if

3:51

there's lots of inflammation

3:55

or swelling that might close that up and

3:57

that might not even work so it is

4:00

It is kind of a guess and check a

4:02

lot of times. You gotta wait for

4:04

things to calm down before you can see what's

4:06

going on. So basically they're gonna

4:08

take another MRI in four

4:11

weeks or something. And the swelling will be down and

4:14

then they might get, they might be like, oh, well

4:16

it was a tear. That happens very

4:18

often, yeah, that's common. There's the land

4:20

of uncertainty we're living in with Garrett Cole and

4:22

if you're in the position of Brian Cashman, you

4:24

have to decide, do I take advantage of the

4:26

fact that Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still

4:28

out there as free agents? Do I go ahead

4:30

and throw money at the problem because in

4:33

a world where Garrett Cole is not available, you've

4:35

got Rodan, you've got Stroman, you've got Nestor Cortez,

4:37

you've got Clark Schmidt, you kind of have the

4:39

open competition with a lot of younger guys, maybe

4:41

Luis Heel stepping up into that number five spot.

4:43

I mean, Eno, do you think there's a pressing

4:45

need for the Yankees to go out and make

4:47

an addition or do you trust the depth enough

4:50

for them to weather the storm even if this does

4:52

turn into a longer term absence for Cole? You

4:54

know, I kind of like the idea of Snell

4:56

because Snell, when he's in, can pitch like an

4:59

ace and the question is only when is

5:01

he in? And so you kind of just like line

5:03

up the, when is he in with the other guys?

5:05

You're like, okay, Snell will be held to begin the

5:07

season and then if he's not later

5:10

on, then hopefully Cole will be back, you know?

5:12

And I don't think that throwing, you know,

5:14

like Jordan Montgomery, I like, but they

5:16

decided at some point the

5:19

Yankees decided, he's not that much different from

5:21

when they decided this, that he's not a

5:23

playoff rotation guy, you know? They traded

5:25

them away because they had their three or four

5:27

of a playoff rotation guys and they traded him

5:30

for Harrison Bader. I don't think he's actually improved

5:32

since then. I think he's just been in a good situation

5:34

and pitched well. I don't see any sort

5:36

of like, oh, he did this or he pitched this way or he

5:39

didn't know. He's like, say the guy. So

5:41

I think Snell represents more like, hey,

5:43

we lost our number one and here's a guy

5:45

who can pitch like a number one. The only

5:47

question is innings. And I think,

5:49

you know, to some extent, maybe they would

5:51

like what the rumor is that Snell is

5:53

looking for right now, which is kind of

5:55

the pitcher version of the Matt Chapman deal,

5:58

which is something with a high end. AAV

6:00

and some opt-outs. I think

6:02

that might be okay for the Yankees You know, they

6:04

don't get they don't get locked into something long term

6:06

and maybe they can they can set their eyes on

6:09

some sort of Cap reset, you know two or three

6:11

years in the future But you know

6:13

Brian Cashman, this is one of the first years. I

6:15

think that he really has this fire under his ass

6:18

I mean this last year was the first time

6:20

they've missed the playoffs in like, I don't know

6:23

12 years or something I mean something ridiculous and

6:25

he hasn't won at all in a while And I

6:28

think there's a little bit of pressure on him. I think

6:30

that's fair I think the concern

6:32

you would have is that even if Cole

6:34

misses two months and ends up being fine

6:37

Which does seem like the less likely outcome

6:39

based on where things stand today You

6:42

still have a group of guys that have

6:44

a lot of injury problems in their history

6:47

Right between Rodin and Cortez and Clark Schmidt

6:49

So you really don't trust that all three

6:52

of those guys stay healthy start to finish

6:54

So your trust level in the

6:56

likes of heal and will Warren and beater

6:58

has to be really really high If you

7:00

don't go out and do something interesting thing

7:02

too is that we're seeing some reports This

7:04

one's from Chandler Rome be athletic that the

7:07

Astros remain engaged in the starting pitching market specifically

7:09

Blake Snell It could be a fit in Houston

7:11

Which I mean that would bump them

7:13

from probably like a top 10 rotation to clearly inside

7:15

the top five wouldn't it Trevor? Yeah,

7:17

that's That

7:20

would be really good for them and

7:22

they have already done one kind of

7:24

out of nowhere move with haters So

7:26

now I'm not putting anything past them

7:28

and and letting them swoop

7:30

in to really try to lock in that

7:33

eight straight ALCS if

7:35

I'm another team I just now

7:38

I'm like if I'm the Yankees I mean we

7:40

we not only can we do we need him

7:42

we can't let them have him Yeah, cuz they've

7:44

always been meeting in the LCS and they can

7:46

they keep getting beat That's

7:50

just another that would be another thing just

7:52

wow I can't believe this happened again But

7:55

yeah, he would fit really really well in that

7:57

rotation and they have the bullpen like even

7:59

the end thing like it's just a good fit

8:01

because they have such a Quality bullpen

8:03

to get to that if he were throwing

8:06

the five five plus regularly and they had

8:08

a you know Two-nothing lead they're in a

8:10

good shape Yeah, it'd be

8:12

the kind of lift I think that we just saw

8:14

the Padres get with the addition of Dylan cease in

8:17

terms of taking a good rotation and making It a

8:19

great one, you know, you wrote about that a little

8:21

bit before the athletic today the best rotations in baseball

8:23

I mean, I think having a top five rotation just

8:26

off the cup makes you a playoff

8:28

contender That alone is good enough unless

8:30

your offense is just horrific. You're going

8:32

to be a team that's in contention

8:35

all season long So as

8:37

you went through that process, but there any teams

8:39

that popped a little higher than you expected I

8:41

mean, I know we're talking and thinking about pitching

8:43

all the time on this show But was there

8:45

any any group of pitchers that just by the

8:47

projections were above where you thought they'd be you

8:50

know the Phillies by Fangrass has a second

8:52

best and It's

8:54

just one of those sneaky rotations I think the park covers

8:57

up a lot of things where you're just like, you know

8:59

Like look at their ERAs and like they're not those aren't

9:01

the greatest ERAs They you know, I haven't had great defenses

9:03

behind them in the past too So like, you

9:06

know, they have these high threes ERAs here

9:08

like yeah, they're good But then

9:10

when you kind of look at how many they strike out

9:12

how many they walk and how deep they are and what?

9:14

They've got you're like, oh that that could be one of

9:16

the best rotations in the ball So I think the Phillies

9:18

were big were kind of a surprise there They show up

9:20

like top three if you look by Fangrass When

9:23

I did it by stuff plus like it

9:25

was a little bit more what I expected

9:28

the Mariners were like you know second I

9:30

think and the Astros were like third or

9:32

fourth and The Padres made the list and

9:34

made the top five So, you know the

9:36

stuff plus list I'm so deep in that

9:39

that I'm always working in that like I

9:41

wasn't I wasn't too surprised But the

9:43

Astros gained and the Padres gained when you looked

9:45

at it, but just by stuff plus Because

9:48

you know cease for

9:50

all its flaws Did represent

9:52

a huge stuff upgrade for the back end

9:55

of that Padres rotation? Do you guys

9:57

have a favorite for their number five spot now? I mean they

9:59

got Johnny Brito Randy Vasquez, Matt

10:01

Waldron, Pedro Avila, Robbie

10:03

Snelling, a lot of options now that

10:05

they've made another edition. Anyone

10:07

pop? I want Waldron. You want

10:09

an Uncle Volley? I want

10:12

an Uncle Volley. Just from a, from

10:14

a, yay, we got another one, a

10:16

new guy to check in on and everyone's

10:18

going to have some of the corrosive

10:20

swings and misses and those just

10:23

nailed outings. Yeah, that's

10:25

just fun, I think, but that's just where

10:27

I'm coming from there. Yeah,

10:29

I think that would be fun. I did sit in

10:32

on a Johnny Brito start with my

10:35

eldest and we actually, the Kissspring

10:37

training is so cheap, we got like

10:39

eighth row, ninth row seats behind home

10:41

plate and we were sitting among the

10:43

scouts. My

10:46

mom was laughing that all the scouts were

10:48

wearing the same brand of clothing. Yeah.

10:51

Like tailor-made hats? That's it. I

10:53

think it was... Travis Matthews.

10:56

No, that's the one. It's the Matthews.

10:59

It's a tee, something, tee something Matthews, right? Travis Matthews,

11:01

I think. Travis Matthews, that's what they were wearing. Oh,

11:04

I know. They were Travis Matthews. I think a while ago,

11:06

it used to be like Lulu Lemon was the big thing,

11:08

but I guess Travis Matthews is the big one. So like

11:10

we, like, we had literally like four guys in a row,

11:12

Travis Matthews on the back of their shirt, like right in

11:14

front of us. And I was

11:16

playing with, with my son being like, you know,

11:18

imagine standing in, like what, what, what pitch was

11:20

that? What pitch was that? And the thing that

11:22

really kind of stood out for me was that

11:24

Brito, he did get a little bit

11:27

like nervous against Mike Trout. I

11:30

think he had like a pitch clock violation and the

11:32

guy stole a base on him and he was really

11:34

trying to get Mike Trout out. But the good news

11:36

was he got Mike Trout out twice. I

11:38

saw him have a plan with his sinker

11:40

and I think it was a new cutter against

11:43

lefties. I think his sinker is actually good

11:45

enough that he can do stuff with it

11:47

against lefties, which is a tough thing

11:50

for a lot of sinker ballers. I think it's a really

11:52

good sinker. I think it's good enough to

11:54

get by. I think his sinker and his breaking

11:56

ball are two pitches that are better than

11:58

anything Randy Vasquez has. And

12:01

so my favorite is Johnny burrito for the number

12:03

five there my youngest kept calling

12:05

him Johnny burrito I

12:11

would call myself Johnny burrito acceptable,

12:13

but I mean after after ten

12:15

days in in Phoenix

12:18

I was Eno Taco. So yes You

12:21

were absolutely were I'm with the on burrito

12:23

We talked about the just a major shift

12:25

in park factors leaving Yankee Stadium Going

12:28

to Petco the problems he had at home

12:30

last year with the long ball that gets

12:33

cut down considerably So I think that gives him

12:35

a really nice floor kind of one

12:37

of those guys It's a big winner from the offseason

12:39

that people don't talk a lot about I like him

12:41

as a favorite for that spot as well But they

12:43

have a couple of young prospects. It will probably get

12:45

a chance in that rotation before the end of the

12:47

season Snelling makes the most

12:49

sense. I think of that group. Oh,

12:51

by the way, Snelling has quads, you

12:54

know Like I was I think

12:56

it's after strider. I've been

12:58

like, oh, yeah quads I mean like

13:00

with the with the like What's

13:04

that the kinetic chain right Trevor like kind

13:06

of everything? Comes like up

13:08

out of the ground and like towards your

13:10

shoulder and out to the arms is like

13:12

that's the kinetic chain Yeah, I

13:14

mean like you can have a guy like Chris

13:16

sale Obviously it works, but you know when I

13:18

see a guy now with quads, I'm like I

13:20

notice it And Snelling has

13:22

those like I'm a workhorse quads, you

13:24

know, it's just like I'm a solid dude.

13:27

I can do 180 That's

13:30

funny, but that's what we're that's our

13:32

standard now just like what kind of quads he got

13:36

Anything's easy squat

13:39

just ask him how much he's squatting That's

13:43

a big one the Break news scrolling

13:45

by here from the live hive shout out to James

13:48

Regular listener of the show Robert Stevenson still

13:50

feeling some shoulder discomfort kind of a frustrating

13:53

spring for him so far might leave our

13:55

guy Carlos Estefes even though his pants were

13:57

bothering him the beginning of spring training It

14:00

still may be the closer there if

14:02

that injury lingers for Robert Stevenson. So we'll

14:04

keep tabs on that. But again, shout out

14:06

to the Live High. I love those comments.

14:08

Keep them coming. We'll take some questions at

14:11

the end of the show. Let's

14:13

get to some new faces in new places.

14:15

You know, you've just kind of brought one

14:17

up in passing that you want to talk

14:19

about. Chris Sale, a big addition to the

14:21

Atlanta rotation. And they also extended him too.

14:24

How are things going to be different for Chris

14:26

Sale in Atlanta? Is it just a clean bill

14:28

of health and a fresh start outside of Boston? Or

14:30

is there more to it than that? I think

14:33

one is psychological, which is just like,

14:35

you know, the last three, I think it's

14:38

the last four seasons, he has like 160

14:40

innings and probably

14:42

not the best feeling with like the Boston

14:44

staff and like, you know, just like, I

14:47

think there's, you know, if he was

14:50

honest about it, he would say that it was

14:52

getting to be a slog there, you know, where,

14:54

you know, all these, the questions about innings. I'm

14:56

sure, you know, every time a

14:58

reliever, a journalist is talking to him

15:00

or he goes on a show or something, they're talking about

15:02

his health, you know, it's like, you know, or

15:05

you turn on the local talk radio and like, how many days we're

15:07

going to get out of it? Like, are you going to start starting

15:09

for us? You know, like whatever that was, that was never really a

15:11

Boston point. Crushed it.

15:13

It was more and more just like a talking

15:15

head voice. But

15:18

so I think a fresh psychological start is a

15:20

big deal. You get on a team that has

15:22

aspirations for making the World Series. It's like, you

15:24

know, it's all, it's like a let's, it's

15:26

an LFG moment. You know what I mean? I

15:29

feel like he was probably pretty happy to hear that phone call.

15:32

But another thing that's interesting and we're going to

15:34

get less and less of this over time because we're,

15:36

we have a new schedule that's like more and

15:38

more balanced and you have to face everybody

15:41

else in the league at least once,

15:43

you know, and so, you know, we're

15:45

trying to sort of balance the schedule

15:47

out. We didn't have that for a lot of the

15:49

last four or five years. And so I looked at

15:52

his starts in the last four years. He had 99 starts

15:54

in the last four years. 11

15:57

at the game were against National League opponents.

16:00

And of those 11, only I think

16:02

six were against National League East opponents.

16:05

And so if you are in the National League

16:07

East, you have not seen much Chris Sale. And

16:12

I will point out that no matter what stuff

16:14

Fluzz says, no matter what anybody says, Chris Sale

16:16

has a fairly unique

16:19

set of stuff and pitches

16:21

and arm angles and potty

16:24

type. And I think you

16:26

want to get comfortable with Chris Sale. You want to

16:29

have faced him a lot of times. I

16:31

think the first time, that was Mad Dog.

16:37

Nailed it. Definitely Mad Dog. But yeah,

16:39

so I just think that for the National

16:41

League East batters, it's going to be an

16:43

uncomfortable situation for them this year. They're

16:46

going to be seeing sliders from first base. And

16:49

for the lefties, it's going to be something they haven't seen

16:51

in a long time. And for righties, they're just still going

16:53

to have to see all these elbows

16:55

and all those knees coming at them. So

16:58

I think it'll just be one of those things.

17:00

And from stuff research, we have seen that people

17:03

do get comfortable with shapes over time. So

17:05

people who haven't seen Chris Sale are going to have

17:07

a harder time with them than people who have. What

17:10

do you think about that fit, Trevor? I agree, wholeheartedly.

17:12

I think he fits into that. Also,

17:14

the looks from their rotation. Now

17:17

they got Fried, who is funky in his

17:19

own right. They got Strider,

17:21

who's a little bit more of a classical right-at-you

17:23

guy. So they got all of these different looks.

17:27

And you slot him in there. It's just not

17:29

a... There's

17:32

no day where you're like, okay, here's

17:34

our Joe Random creative player, right? Where

17:39

we're going to see the guy I always use.

17:41

And I know this person, but I always said

17:43

the Dylan G, if you remember. He was very

17:45

straightforward. You

17:50

could see his mechanics on any street corner, but they

17:52

don't have one. So you add him in there. It's

17:56

going to be really tough for a team to get used

17:58

to him. I know

18:00

that from experience to guys talking about him

18:04

like that was like Tory Hunter's big thing was like

18:06

trying to give guys But

18:09

hadn't faced him before like as much information before as possible

18:11

because he was just a unique guy to face You know

18:13

that was in his prime too. So you gotta add that

18:15

in but he's that type of guy He's always gonna be

18:17

like that even when I the stuff kind of gets older

18:19

in his stuff dimensions a little bit He's still gonna be

18:21

funky and so he's still gonna be able to get guys

18:23

out in different ways And he's really smart knows how to

18:25

pitch so it's just a great fit And then like I

18:27

like the I like to take on the Boston.

18:29

There's some baggage Sometimes you just

18:32

need a clean slate. You need to kind

18:34

of not have the stigma that

18:36

you feel like you might have and then You

18:38

know, it's nice to know another team wants you too So

18:40

like it's there's a lot of that and

18:42

he doesn't need to be the ace either

18:44

So like there's a lot of pressure off

18:47

there that just sometimes you need to get

18:49

kind of going again so it's just a

18:51

really great I think situation for him and

18:54

Surprise Braves great move got

18:57

the extension done with Chris sale as well I

18:59

think that's the thing I look at from kind

19:01

of like a fantasy perspective and say hey This

19:03

is a team that makes good decisions. They still

19:06

believe there are a lot of productive years left

19:08

I thought that previously it seemed like around the

19:10

injuries the biggest issue would be occasional lapses in

19:12

command Which probably was the result of rust more

19:15

than anything else So could see that being

19:17

a really good fit one little interesting side

19:19

story there is that they they acquire Chris

19:21

sale and extend him Before max freed. So yeah,

19:24

you know max free has the forearm strain

19:26

Is it because they've seen something where they're

19:28

like we were worried about that? I mean,

19:31

but to say we're worried about max freed

19:33

and then the extent cuz sales like a

19:35

little funny. So Maybe

19:38

maybe they'd done some early engagement with max

19:40

as agent and we're like, oh Like

19:43

those numbers are not we're not we're not close like

19:45

maybe something like that But it is it is kind

19:47

of interesting. I think how's max freed. I'd be a

19:49

little bit like what? I

19:52

think if you're max free and he's 30 years

19:54

old already He's got one really great shot at

19:57

the mega day. You know, if he goes through

20:00

this season completely healthy, he's

20:02

gonna get a ton of money this winter.

20:04

So I think that's part of the appeal

20:06

for him, waiting it out. Ever

20:09

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the journey pack today. Another

21:10

guy with funk came up a little earlier in

21:12

the show. Josh Hader gets added to a

21:14

real strength. I mean, Houston's bullpen, at least their

21:16

A bullpen, I think their whole bullpen was already

21:18

good. And they're the team that went out and

21:21

got Josh Hader. And Trevor, if you gave me

21:23

five guesses as to where Hader was going to

21:25

sign, the Astros wouldn't have been any one of

21:27

those five. So how

21:29

do you like this move from Houston's perspective?

21:32

It's Josh Hader, right? So he's, you know,

21:34

I think he's been the most consistently dominant

21:37

closer for the last five years. Easy. And, you

21:39

know, a lot of people are like, well, what about

21:41

Edwin Diaz? Edwin's

21:43

had a couple of years where he wasn't that guy.

21:46

Josh, outside of a one month

21:48

stretch, has been like a one, five

21:50

year stretch. One, five year a guy

21:53

like never giving up any runs and

21:55

never blowing anything. So he's as automatic

21:57

as you could possibly get. And you

21:59

add him to Ryan Presley. Who are

22:01

maybe was second most automatic and then

22:03

you add Brian a breu in the

22:06

7-8 so nasty He

22:08

so let's just put it this way Ryan Presley

22:10

is the record from a scoreless innings

22:13

or appearances in a row for a Reliever

22:15

and I'm pretty sure a breu is like

22:20

So they both have three months plus stretches

22:22

where they've not given up a run and

22:24

then you add that to hater Who's probably

22:27

been even more consistent over the last five

22:29

years than them? So like the games over

22:31

if you're winning going in the 7th inning

22:33

It's just it is and

22:35

I keep saying well, it's gonna stop at some

22:37

point. It just hasn't yet I just don't understand

22:39

I don't I can't see a world

22:41

where it would have to be injuries Like they

22:44

have to not be pitching for some reason and that

22:46

you just don't see one three guys like that Everyone's

22:48

got like some guys have two some teams have two

22:50

and then you got like two guys that are Will

22:53

be like matchups in the seventh or whatever. It

22:56

doesn't matter left right left or right. He's

22:58

coming up Whatever those three guys are gonna

23:00

face Whoever it is coming up

23:02

and it's gonna be every single time they're in

23:04

that position And that is something that you can

23:06

just literally check that box and not to worry

23:08

about it anymore That is a luxury that nobody

23:10

else will have the way they have it so

23:12

that is I mean you can maybe make the

23:14

case for Maybe the Yankees

23:17

or the twins like like not quite the

23:19

same thing not the track record Not there

23:21

yet like Griffin Jax could be there. He

23:24

could be a Brian of radio like put together one

23:26

of those runs He just has none yet. So it's

23:28

like those guys are doing it and doing it now

23:30

so I think he adds he just fits so perfectly

23:32

and The games when the games

23:34

over and you can just count on that now you're starting

23:37

pitchers like only have to throw six innings and You're

23:39

great. I think they're pretty different looks I

23:42

mean haters way out there with the side

23:44

army weird rise ball thing Brian

23:46

of radio is your traditional power

23:49

dude Like just power at you

23:51

like high 90s with a

23:53

with a like a mid like low 90s breaking

23:55

ball Just like it's just ah,

23:57

you know at you and then Ryan Pressley

24:00

comes out there almost like an internet charl-

24:02

I mean not internet, a reliever Charlie Morton.

24:04

Just a guy who throws like an 85 mile

24:06

an hour two plane breaking ball and we'll

24:09

talk a little bit more about curve balls

24:11

in this episode and Ryan Pressley's features highly

24:13

there, but it's just like it's such a tough curve

24:16

ball. It's just like everything

24:18

kind of comes off of that and

24:20

he's got two really good breaking balls. So you've

24:22

got your spin guy, you've got

24:24

your power guy and then you've got your

24:26

funk guy and the funk guy, oh well

24:29

he also throws 95, 96. So like yeah

24:31

he touches he touches 100 even. It's

24:33

amazing to be able to just end the

24:36

game maybe even at the sixth inning. Let

24:38

me get Rafael Montero there too. He's really

24:40

good. He'd be probably an eighth inning guy

24:42

in a lot of other bullpen. So really

24:44

nice addition of course with Hader joining the

24:46

fray in Houston. I'll throw my first name

24:48

out there. I'm gonna go a little deeper. Not

24:50

a surprise being a Brewers guy, but

24:53

DL Hall like they're gonna use him as a

24:55

starter. You can tell by how he's being stretched

24:57

out this spring. They also need him

24:59

to be a starter this year because their

25:02

rotation is a bit of a mess. They're

25:04

gonna cobble it together, maybe do some raise

25:06

like stuff. Makes sense with Matt Arnold having

25:08

originally come from there when he was the

25:10

assistant GM a few years ago. But DL

25:13

Hall has a deep

25:15

arsenal with multiple plus pitches. It's

25:18

just a question of command and we were seeing

25:20

it just for a little while at AAA last

25:22

year. He was working as a starter, had

25:24

a really nice stretch. They needed

25:26

him in the bullpen. They decided to make the

25:29

move there instead. Am

25:31

I out of my mind for

25:33

thinking that DL Hall could actually

25:35

be a really good starter already

25:38

in year one with Milwaukee? Not necessarily

25:40

be a guy that fully replaces Corbin

25:42

Burns or Brandon Woodruff or anything

25:45

like that, but could he actually be more

25:47

of a stabilizing presence for them

25:49

than people are giving him

25:51

credit for? I'm a fan. One of

25:54

the reasons that I'm a fan is that I

25:56

think that once you get to the major leagues,

25:58

there is an opportunity at the end of the season. actually to cut your

26:01

walk rate a little bit. And that's because you're

26:03

working with the best framer in your organization, probably.

26:05

Like I doubt, there's not many organizations that

26:07

have a better framer in AAA or AA

26:10

than they have in the big leagues. So

26:12

you're working with the best framer, you're working

26:14

with your best coaches, your best sort of

26:16

game prep coaches. Maybe you were game prepping

26:18

pretty well in the minors, there's gonna be

26:20

a little step up. And then you're working,

26:22

like all of the analysis, the

26:25

R&D, everything is just a little bit crisper on the

26:27

major league level because they're just, that's where the focus

26:29

is. That's where you need to win games. You're

26:33

gonna stop with some developmental stuff too. Like

26:35

let's say you have one pitch, you really can't

26:37

command that well, but then in AA and AAA,

26:39

they're like, yeah, yeah, keep throwing that thing until

26:41

you get a good feel for it. Then you

26:43

get the big leagues, nah, we gotta win today.

26:45

Sorry, you're not throwing that change up very much.

26:47

You know, like it's, you just can't command it.

26:50

So there's all these sort of like winnowing down

26:52

things that happen when you get to the major

26:54

leagues that can actually help a walk rate. And

26:56

I think, you know, he's got enough stuff where

26:58

he could actually stop throwing one of those pitches

27:00

if he can't command it and still be a

27:02

good pitcher. If he was

27:04

just a two pitch pitcher and like couldn't

27:06

command either of them, I might be

27:08

more, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen here.

27:11

But if he has pitches where he could lose one

27:13

and still be good. You nailed it, by the way.

27:15

That is something that is very real. And

27:17

I actually did it too. I had a much higher walk rate

27:19

in the minors than I did in the big leagues. And

27:22

that is because there's just a lot of

27:25

like your developmental, you're doing developmental stuff. You're

27:27

kind of like failing, I don't wanna say

27:29

on purpose, but like the organization doesn't mind

27:31

as much too. So you're more willing to

27:34

go show how nasty you are to get

27:36

to the big leagues and

27:38

Take shots like that. And You also like the incentive

27:40

to like be really dominant. Like You're taking more shots

27:42

to get, and guys are like swinging at more bad

27:45

pitches. And The umpires are worse. And The umpires are

27:47

worse. So Like you add all those things in. Like

27:49

You can get swings and stuff. You're not gonna get

27:51

swings in the big leagues. It Forces you to kind

27:53

of remove that from the back of your head. Like

27:56

This is okay if I throw this here. You Get

27:58

a little, you feel a little bit better. About

28:00

throwing the ball in the box and then

28:02

also you're like it's the big leagues and

28:04

to give a more hits probably organ does

28:06

not gonna be more dominant. fear it's an

28:08

acceptance thing and confidences as East look at

28:10

it differently and that has or they especially

28:12

for me where you know I'm I'm very

28:14

much in my head at all times as

28:17

you can tell the so like it is

28:19

made a made it like simpler if anything

28:21

so you could commit to not to like

28:23

throwing the ball over the plate more often

28:25

and and East is disgusting I see him

28:27

on our on our stuff plus top with

28:29

already to. Up there and he

28:31

hasn't really. Happened so like

28:33

it's it's it's can be really fun to

28:36

watch and and I think they got somebody

28:38

who's potentially a big factor in for success

28:40

this year. And. They may have to

28:42

be careful with how they manage innings maybe to

28:44

kind of gotta get skipped a couple a times

28:47

are on the all star break if they're contending

28:49

than of course Bill Bill do some things to

28:51

make sure he's available later in the year so

28:53

the shape of the season might be a little

28:55

bit different If everything's going well for it is

28:58

our dirt. It was two hundred like a few

29:00

times. We are not necessarily last year because there

29:02

were some injury but if you look back like

29:04

he's gonna like ninety five. Yeah. You

29:06

probably thing in like a one thirty one Forty years of only.

29:09

Twenty Five. They'll probably push him a little harder

29:11

than it was like Twenty two. That's kind of

29:13

a factor in that the team sort of making

29:15

these things up as they go along. At least.

29:18

Really? Feels like that based on the conversations

29:20

eve how it's front office people is it

29:22

still seems like they're at a seems about

29:24

right. Just. Gonna make a chilly instead

29:26

of having a science to something that should probably

29:28

last comedy about Paul scenes in particular and was

29:30

like you know do would you think about this

29:32

in terms of like innings or you've liked well

29:34

we just track the things that are things and

29:37

way to the do the work load and we

29:39

say you mean I got this and drops them

29:41

way that we take mouse and he's like no

29:43

you have to talk about things and innings on

29:45

some level because you have to plan your season,

29:47

the antibiotics where is he gonna be at what

29:49

time and like you know and and if we

29:51

have aspirations for making the post season how many

29:53

innings do we keep in the. Bag. You.

29:56

Know in for October, you know and how

29:58

do we do that? How do we may?

30:00

There's the zebra season self to some extent.

30:02

You know there's a number for Paul schemes

30:05

hanging around that front office somewhere. They decided

30:07

what it is. ah if they may push

30:09

past that if hey they're making a powerplay

30:11

awesome and he looks good. But they still

30:13

talk about things in this weirdest number which

30:16

is innings at Ces of weird number to

30:18

think it is. You think about it because

30:20

it's like innings are so different. There's like

30:22

the inning where you had you know, ten

30:24

guys on and gave a bunch of runs.

30:27

our those like the any where you through

30:29

four pitches. Better hadn't thought he got out

30:31

of the getting like they're the same thing. we're

30:33

just. Those. Readings. At.

30:35

That. South, but so they

30:37

still have some. It's a little bit retrograde, but

30:39

they're still some might you know. We've got a

30:41

number of innings and are had for the all.

30:44

We're. Going to manage him around that and help

30:46

out did leave a couple couple starts in

30:48

the in the holster in case of make

30:50

posts. It. Was. Good to another one.

30:52

I actually like his move when the Mariners

30:55

made it because we talked about their second

30:57

be situation in described it as weird before

30:59

they paid this trade. Trevor you like Jorge

31:01

Polanco going to Seattle? Why do you like

31:04

that fit so much. Be. Reasons:

31:06

Ah, I know where a very well that's

31:08

that's one. I have a little bit of

31:10

a inside knowledge there. I know what type

31:13

of player isn't like how he goes about

31:15

his work Second base is just spin an

31:17

enigma for the Mariners over last few years.

31:19

Like there's like was can we get somebody

31:22

to light. The. Of since. Basically since

31:24

Can Alaska is like I've never gone

31:26

through Guys am Fraser yeah on the

31:28

road take us through and and that

31:30

those a pretty much every one of

31:32

those guys been tried another position at

31:34

some point. So ah so Jorge. He

31:36

He is very much a i think

31:38

middle the road type of defender. but

31:40

they have an elite defender at short

31:42

so like I think that the work

31:44

together I don't think they necessarily need

31:46

ah you know at a gold glove

31:48

it at second but he has a

31:50

career Oh Ps. plus of one fifteen

31:52

which. is very very good very solid

31:54

i would see even say and twenty

31:57

nineteen he was probably our best all

31:59

around hitter ah that twin team that hit

32:01

307 homers, I don't think that a lot of

32:03

people think of him when they think of that

32:05

team. He's a very good natural hitter, yes his

32:07

swing and miss has been up a little bit

32:09

more recently, but he's also a switch hitter. So

32:11

like one thing that the Mariners did and

32:13

I don't think that I talked to a

32:15

lot of Mariners fans these days because I'm surrounded

32:17

by them and what thing

32:19

they don't realize because like that's the same team

32:22

again. I'm like it actually

32:24

isn't at all. You have a

32:26

lot more versatility in terms of

32:28

righty lefty, platoons, switch hitters, the

32:31

way to kind of mix up your lineup in order

32:33

to get it like very very off and on off

32:35

and on. So matching up with the bullpen is very

32:37

hard to do now, like things that you couldn't do

32:39

before. You were like Suarez and then Hernandez back to

32:41

back, you know, putting your best righty strike them both out.

32:44

Right, big strike out righties right in a row. Yeah

32:46

they might hit a homer, but like if it's you

32:48

know if they're facing your best guy, if a Bray

32:50

who's going in there, they're not going to take him

32:53

deep. So or even maybe even

32:55

touch it. So he's going to strike them out

32:57

probably and that's just not the case anymore

32:59

and I think that Julio is going to be helped by

33:01

Palaupo because I think he's going to hit so

33:03

either before or after him most

33:06

often. I think that that's going to

33:08

even open up more pitches for him to it because

33:10

he's just he's more of a contact guy than those

33:12

other two guys work too. So I just think he

33:14

just generally makes this team better in so many different

33:16

ways, but again health has been a

33:18

concern last couple years. It's been lower

33:21

extremity stuff a little bit so he's you know

33:23

it's kind of hard to tell with those things,

33:25

but if he can stay healthy and he's in

33:27

that lineup and even if he's just like the

33:29

basic version of himself, he's going to make that

33:31

team like a lot better. He's changed over

33:33

time. He's become this guy that gets to a

33:35

lot more power. He used to be a good

33:37

hit tool with kind of ample power, a little

33:39

bit of speed, but double-digit barrel rates,

33:41

three straight seasons. I mean the k-rate going up

33:44

might be a little bit of function of how

33:46

he's approaching hitting now, but it's a trade-off that

33:48

you'll make. He's turned himself into a guy that

33:50

can hit 25 or 30 homers,

33:52

which is not something I would have thought about him at

33:54

the beginning of his career. You guys

33:56

both mentioned his hit tool ability and

33:59

there's been something... that's been kind of

34:01

a common thread for Mariners acquisitions I think

34:03

has been guys who don't strike out too

34:05

much. Teosker aside they've had a

34:07

lot of guys that they brought in there

34:09

that can make contact and

34:11

that is a bit of a segue

34:14

to my guy who left Seattle. One

34:16

of the reasons I want to bring up the the

34:19

park factor there, Seattle increases

34:21

strikeouts by more than almost any

34:23

other park in baseball. I

34:25

don't know exactly why but Teosker's talked about

34:27

in terms of not being able to see

34:29

the ball. You know getting

34:32

guys with good hit tools and bringing them

34:34

Seattle maybe they think you are more likely

34:36

to be able to handle this

34:38

park. You know like you are gonna put

34:41

some balls in play and whatever

34:43

the strikeout park factor whatever it is about our

34:45

park that increases strikeouts like you're gonna be able

34:47

to handle it because you have a good natural

34:49

hit tool. Teosker I think one of

34:51

the reasons I'm kind of excited about him in LA

34:53

is just like also it's a little bit like the

34:55

sale thing where like it's no

34:57

longer on him you know he might be

34:59

hitting six or whatever like you know it's

35:01

like it's it's just a superstar lineup they're

35:03

just like hey do you do your thing

35:06

hit us a homer every two games three

35:08

games like you know we're you know that's

35:10

all we're asking out of you but there's

35:12

this quiet thing about him which is he

35:14

just left the place that augments strikeouts by

35:16

you know second most of the big leagues

35:18

to a place that's further down that list

35:20

I think Dodger Stadium is like sixth or

35:22

seventh on on that list so you

35:26

know he could just with this settling

35:28

in factor with a you know like I'm

35:30

not one of the main guys you

35:33

know and then also think about other teams preparing for

35:35

the Dodgers because you're gonna be like what do you

35:37

do about Otani what do you do about that what

35:39

do you do by Freeman and you're gonna and like

35:41

if you're in the pitcher meeting like you're the starter

35:43

with the catcher and you're in the pitcher meeting you're

35:45

gonna spend a lot of time on a bet and

35:47

Otani and Freeman you know because you're gonna be like

35:49

how what are we doing the first that back what

35:51

are you the second at bat they're gonna be thinking

35:53

about all of it when you get to task or

35:55

just be like okay he doesn't like this he doesn't

35:57

like this good enough let's go yeah

36:00

Like you only have limited time to talk

36:02

about these guys. So, you know, there's some

36:04

point where you make a lineup so deep

36:06

that like the last guy, you're

36:08

just like, hey, slider's in the dirt and, you

36:11

know, and fastballs up high. Let's go.

36:15

That happens, like the extra focus on

36:17

the top hitters in a loaded lineup like that,

36:19

where the kind of the bottom half guys, even

36:22

though they're still really good and dangerous too, as

36:24

prepared for them as you are for the big

36:26

hitters. The best way to kind of approach a

36:28

team is you can't pick the entire team as

36:30

guys you don't want to beat you because then

36:32

now you're stressed. Just walking everybody or whatever and

36:34

you're stressed all the time. Yeah, yeah. That's

36:38

when you see guys like not getting ahead

36:40

at all and then it doesn't matter, right?

36:42

So, you have to sometimes say, we're okay

36:44

if Tia has turned out as Bs. It's

36:46

almost like the basketball thing. It's like, okay,

36:49

if that can I hit a bunch of threes

36:51

because we covered everybody else well, then okay. That's

36:54

them literally out playing us. We're getting outplayed

36:56

at this point. And that's kind of, but

36:58

we want to create an ecosystem or we

37:00

want to create an atmosphere or a situation

37:02

where they have to do that to be

37:04

this. And that's your best chance, especially if

37:06

you are a little bit less, like

37:08

you have less manpower than they do. Like you're

37:11

on paper, not as good of a team because

37:13

there are super teams like that. But,

37:15

and you got to like, so sometimes the ball's

37:17

going to be in their court, the opponents ended.

37:20

So it's like, that's what happens. And that's the

37:22

type of team where you're like, dude, and then

37:24

as a starter, it's just exhausting. If

37:26

you, if you have more than three guys

37:28

that, that you don't want to beat you,

37:30

if there's more than three, it's just there,

37:32

it's too much, too much to remember.

37:34

And it's just too much. You're giving them too much

37:37

credit at that point, because at the end of the

37:39

day, pitching does have the advantage and you can

37:41

get everyone out the whole time. Like it is possible

37:43

that you could be dialed in. If you're at

37:45

your best, you will probably beat the

37:47

hitters almost every single time. If you are

37:49

absolutely dialed in, if you're in the zone, the pitcher all

37:51

pretty much always wins. So you have to kind of lean

37:53

on that. It's just harder to do when the, when

37:56

the team's that deep. Crank one more

37:58

name out there. name

38:00

to give Eno a third. Oh.

38:02

His submission to the rundown I think is

38:04

more interesting than mine and I will get

38:06

my guy in on a future episode. Don't

38:09

worry. I got the rundown. I can control

38:11

the rundown. I can make it happen. I'm

38:13

gonna sneak in another name along with this

38:15

name. No. No you will not. No. Like

38:18

Joey Ortiz in Milwaukee, Mike Soroka

38:20

is joining a situation where there's

38:22

all the opportunity where that might

38:24

not have been before. And so

38:27

just one of the things like

38:29

we talk about this in fantasy all the

38:31

time. So the fantasy listeners are like, you know,

38:33

shaking, you know, nodding along. Opportunity

38:35

is often as important as quality.

38:38

I think the A's know this more than anybody. They're

38:40

like, hey, we have opportunity. Anybody

38:44

who's like, you know, between AAA and the majors, come

38:46

on over, check us out. We'll give you

38:48

a year or two and then, and

38:51

then we'll see. So Joey

38:53

Ortiz in Milwaukee now has

38:55

a free opening, free open

38:57

situation and Mike Soroka. The

38:59

nice thing about Mike Soroka

39:01

on top of all this

39:03

is that while he's

39:06

been rehabbing, he's been changing his,

39:09

his pitch shapes. He's been changing what he's

39:11

doing. He's, he's picked up a force

39:13

ember. He's trying to, to, to really emphasize

39:15

the force ember. He was a thinker guy

39:17

before. So I think there's, I'm

39:20

flying a little bit blind because I don't have stack cast

39:22

on him. I don't have any of this yet. I just

39:24

know that that's what he's been trying to do, but

39:26

the numbers are pretty good in the spring

39:28

and the opportunity is there for him. So,

39:31

you know, he's not going to have to

39:33

go back down in the minor leagues. The

39:35

White Sox need him to be a major league starter for

39:37

him. So it's just like, Hey, here you

39:40

go. You got, you got a whole season to show

39:42

us what you got. It's 30 starts

39:44

if he's healthy enough for them. That's a clear, clear

39:46

opportunity to brave. He'd be up and down. I mean,

39:48

maybe we try some Shobber and stem. Maybe try this

39:50

guy. I don't know. Like, I don't know. Go back

39:52

down and work on it. You know, how

39:55

is thought when Soroka first broke in that

39:57

he had kind of this veteran arsenal and

39:59

approach. He didn't have your

40:01

typical prospect over the top

40:03

amazing stuff, but he seemed like he really

40:05

had a plan and he executed it really

40:08

well. And then I saw an interview, I

40:10

think during one of the extended absences,

40:12

he was in the booth for a game. He

40:14

sounded way more polished than a

40:16

guy in his early 20s. Like it just, I

40:19

don't know, I have a lot of confidence

40:21

in him because even without excellent stuff in

40:24

the past, he was able to get some

40:26

great results. It seems like he's finally healthy

40:28

again. And for guys that have multiple years

40:31

lost to injury, I think just having a full

40:33

runway to go into a season can make all

40:35

the difference in the world to get back on

40:38

track. No baggage, no baggage with

40:40

the white socks, which is solid.

40:42

He's not trying to regain his early glory

40:44

either, which is part of it, is

40:47

part of it. So yeah, clean slate. Again, it's one

40:49

of those situations. I bet you one of his goals,

40:51

like if he has a personal goal, it's like 25

40:53

starts, you know, something really simple. It's not

40:56

even like, you know, dominate or whatever. Let

40:58

me just, let me just have a year

41:00

in the marriage. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, exactly.

41:04

Our featured a pitch deep dive today is

41:07

the curve ball. And we're going to look

41:09

first at the stuff plus charts, because I think

41:11

these are really helpful. We

41:14

have here we have first

41:16

horizontal versus vertical movement on

41:18

curve balls. You know, for both of

41:20

these, you have Ryan Presley again, as the, if you

41:22

can see the dot, the black dot on the screen,

41:24

Ryan Presley is the example. For both of these charts.

41:27

And for anybody who's not looking at this, what's interesting

41:29

about this is that there's red in a lot of

41:31

different places. There's a lot of different ways to have

41:33

a good curve ball. You can have

41:35

a good curve ball. That's a two planer like

41:37

Ryan Presley. That's the bottom right hand of this,

41:39

of this graph. You can have a one planer.

41:41

That's basically, I think a sweeper at the top.

41:44

You'll see some big red at the top that

41:46

where it doesn't have drop, but it has big

41:48

sideways. I think those are probably some unclassified

41:50

sweepers or, or sweeper like pitches,

41:52

Chas, Rowie and Frisbees. And

41:54

then you have a place over

41:57

on the left side. That's also

41:59

red. where it's sort

42:01

of a one plane downer. You know, we have

42:03

a nickname for that, the death ball. It's basically

42:05

a pitch that just goes down and

42:08

there's lots of different ways to get there. We'll

42:10

talk about it, but these are, you know, three

42:12

or four different ways to have a good curve

42:14

ball. And I think it all depends on your

42:16

slot, what you're comfortable doing, if you can kind

42:18

of, you know, tweak that so that it's a

42:21

little bit surprising in terms of movement. There's a

42:23

lot of different things going on here, but you

42:25

know, other graphs were cleaner than this. This is

42:27

one of those graphs where it's like, pick

42:30

your pathway forward. What

42:33

matches your fastball? What matches your

42:35

mechanics best? Yeah, and I

42:37

think that was something that kind of stood out

42:39

to me when we were talking a little earlier

42:41

in the week, just about the shape of your

42:43

curve ball. It needs to match everything else really

42:45

well, except what I remember a lot in scouting

42:47

reports, at least like five plus years ago, is

42:50

you'd see Slurv kind of thrown out there. And

42:52

it always felt like it had a negative connotation

42:55

and it doesn't seem like it's always

42:57

bad. Kind of seems like it depends on

42:59

what your other stuff looks like. And then

43:01

there's also the sort of question of, when

43:04

does something stop being a curve

43:06

ball and become a slider? And does that

43:08

line actually matter as much as people think

43:10

it does? I don't think

43:13

it matters as much as people think it

43:15

does because we also talked a lot about

43:17

how like, sometimes things are classified on Savon

43:20

or wherever you're gonna find them based on like what

43:22

the guy calls it. That's just the reason

43:24

they call it that is something

43:26

in their brain that, it's

43:29

attached to a cue or something. So like,

43:31

if they think it's a curve ball, they're

43:33

envisioning a bigger break or something because they

43:35

grew up thinking that that's what a curve

43:37

ball was. But in reality, what they're throwing

43:39

is like some, like a death

43:42

ball that's a slider spin that's kind of

43:44

loose and goes down but it looks like

43:46

it's gonna go left. Like there's all these,

43:48

it's weird, curve balls is probably the widest

43:50

range of differences that you can get. It

43:52

used to be all based on V-Lo. So if you threw like

43:54

86, it's not a curve ball because it's too hard. That's

43:57

not how it is anymore. It's weird.

44:00

Like Knuckle Curb and and we get

44:02

twelve Six twelve six which is like

44:04

the death ball but slower so like

44:06

the ranges that these things can be

44:08

an are so. Wide.

44:10

And they're like it's is arbitrary. A lot A

44:12

lot of it's arbitrary so if you hear a

44:14

guy like a player talking about it it makes

44:17

it even more confusing. So it's it's hard to

44:19

talk about. Kind of like why people are frustrated

44:21

with sweeper been so much is because it's hard

44:23

to tell. Well first of all lot of people

44:25

media people sometimes use it wrong which does not

44:28

help but it's more of a a guy trying

44:30

to do if a guy's designing a pitcher trying

44:32

to make a bit better which everyone is like.

44:34

Everyone has fragment added a know how pissed, everyone

44:36

knows how hard or they throw something, how much

44:39

it moves and how. Fast it spends. like everyone

44:41

knows that valor pitches now and so when you're

44:43

tweaking things making a little bit different though, you've

44:45

you've always sort of slider and you're making something

44:48

a little bit slow and it's breaking a little

44:50

bit differently. You might call it a curveball because

44:52

it's not your slider anymore. It's a different bits

44:54

than you had before you try to make that

44:56

distinction, but it's still just like a different type

44:59

of slider. Technically if you

45:01

compare to other people so that's not gonna

45:03

go away, that's always going to be there.

45:05

I think it would is with waste time.

45:07

We're trying to make those distinctions, but you're

45:09

trying to get the of fact it just

45:11

think about the effects of those of those

45:13

types of bitches. Like a curve ball gets

45:15

a certain type of or you're trying to

45:17

get a certain type of swinger An outcome

45:19

because you're trying to get it and move

45:22

a certain different way and as same thing

45:24

with a slider and same thing with any

45:26

other pets. And if you think in terms

45:28

of that, it's a little bit easier to

45:30

follow. Along with like like you mentioned before,

45:32

like some of those might be miss class

45:34

like sweepers they probably are. or they would

45:36

call it a sweeping curves ten years back

45:38

out because of the below it's seventy miles.

45:41

Our sorts of her bought for the ride

45:43

is that it's it's gonna be that can

45:45

be around and it's gonna get even more

45:47

probably nuanced out. paid more attention if you

45:49

can learn kind of ranges of movements and

45:51

how they're kind of associate with things. you

45:53

have a greater understanding and says make guesses

45:56

based on and it doesn't really matter what

45:58

guys are calling it anymore, just. You

46:00

know, You. Kind of know what they

46:02

mean. If you can get a general understanding of

46:04

at Inglewood it it's it. Makes it a lot.

46:07

Easier. To navigate and snatches abusing.

46:09

There's. Like an intent component. They're almost yeah, as

46:12

live in tennis. Oh shit. You'll never know.

46:14

That is less italia. So. If you're calling

46:16

a game called a breaking ball for know. thou.

46:18

That clover always told me that as

46:20

high as like what is it clover

46:22

What a dollar him on man he

46:24

sees I get the breaking ball. He's

46:26

five variations of every single breaking by

46:28

through which everything broke. So it's like

46:30

in is beneath your fifteen pages Yeah.

46:34

And a lot of started as think

46:36

ballots. ah so they they are tits

46:38

or that's the pitches that we've picked

46:40

today. I think distributor like showed this

46:42

perfectly. we're talking about which is we

46:44

have three different pitches that are all

46:46

quote unquote Curve balls are they are.

46:48

All do it in different ways

46:50

and they're all call different things

46:53

and savant. So here is the

46:55

power curve from Kimbrell. Yeah.

46:57

Else though, that and look

46:59

at South Eighty Six. So

47:01

glad had to fly Movement

47:03

I think more movement than

47:05

a slider. You. Know that's like

47:08

that's that's that's got a lot of movement

47:10

that's classified a novel. Her Because that's because

47:12

that's how he throws. Down. Which

47:14

is a little bit weird because we don't

47:16

classify all our pitches based on sound like

47:18

the grip of them but knuckle curve. We

47:20

decided it matters that they're that they use

47:22

the knuckle A One thing that I will

47:25

say to anybody who has kids or his

47:27

training people I did a deep dive on

47:29

the Naco curve when I found was. a

47:32

there were harder i figured and a curve

47:34

allows you to just kind of throw it

47:36

harder com is a little bit less manipulations

47:39

ah aj burnett call it the f u

47:41

ball as if he actually hold at a

47:43

certain way you see your flicking people off

47:45

and he also said you also just throw

47:47

the f adamant yeah that's where i started

47:49

with my kid ah because i liked that

47:52

it was gonna more fast bali more just

47:54

like throw it throw it hard but what

47:56

like when you start advanced training is in

47:58

again power or it is like 9, 10,

48:01

11, or you're getting up to like high school and

48:03

stuff. If you've got a low slot kid, knuckle

48:06

curves can allow them to get more of a 12

48:08

to 6 shape. So

48:10

Aaron Nola, we didn't get Aaron Nola video on

48:12

this one, but Aaron Nola has a little bit

48:14

more of a 12 to 6 shape than you'd

48:16

expect because he's kind of a two-thirds guy. And

48:19

so that's good because you're playing with

48:21

expectations. You see the two-thirds, you think

48:24

this is gonna be two-plane slurvy and

48:26

then he kind of is a little

48:28

bit more over the top because holding

48:31

it in that knuckle allows the ball

48:33

to sort of by removing this index

48:35

finger like you do in a knuckle, you kind of

48:37

spike it, you know, you get allowing

48:40

that ball to get over easier. Like

48:42

it can spin

48:44

like vertically as opposed to if you're

48:46

using two fingers, you got two points

48:49

of pressure on the ball and you kind of get

48:51

a little bit more two-plane movement. So

48:53

the knuckle curve allows you to get one-plane

48:56

movement. We got another one here. This

48:59

is the Pete Fairbanks. This

49:01

is called a slider. That's the

49:03

death ball. I think that's the death ball. And

49:07

Joe Ryan is throwing this now. And

49:10

the way that I've heard that Joe Ryan

49:13

is achieving this movement is by

49:15

spike gripping his slider. So

49:19

he's taking a hard gyro slider and he's

49:21

doing a spike grip on it and that's

49:23

giving it, it's like the

49:26

gyro slider doesn't have a

49:28

lot of sideways movement. It's kind of like a, it's called

49:30

a bullet slider. We talked about it on the last episode,

49:32

but if you spike it now you're giving it a little

49:34

bit of like this, the 12 to 6. So

49:37

that's why you get this like one plane

49:40

and that one's a great pitch I think

49:42

for people who have rising fastballs who are

49:44

very vertical. You know,

49:46

Shane Bieber was just telling me that he was

49:48

getting too horizontal on his curve ball and and

49:52

hitters could see it because he

49:54

was such a vertical pitcher that here's the,

49:56

oh, here's this one pitcher's coming at me.

49:58

Okay, you know I'm

50:01

gonna give you take on that or whatever it is,

50:03

you know, I'm looking for that or I'm looking to

50:05

not swing on that, you know And

50:08

so the death ball can be really good for

50:10

these vertical pitchers and then just do the last

50:12

video The last

50:14

video is this is the Charlie

50:17

Morton Ryan Presley You

50:19

know huge big two-plane Curveball,

50:22

I think that's a really good one for if you want

50:24

to pitch to your 43, you know I

50:27

don't know this it's just like it's just really hard

50:29

for everybody Adam Wainwright had a

50:31

similar pitch, you know, it's just like a huge

50:33

big old curveball that people

50:36

pound into the ground and they

50:38

just can't really don't usually have a great

50:40

swing that's going to like hit that for

50:42

power, you know, I Kept looking at

50:44

that death ball and thinking it gives me some

50:46

gyro slider vibes with a little more Yes, I

50:48

think it's you know That's probably why I called

50:50

it a slider because it's probably a gyro slider

50:52

with like a slight grip or something I

50:55

noticed on the video I replayed it again because I thought

50:57

I saw something funky You could tell his hand is gripping

50:59

the ball in an unusual way. I don't part of the

51:01

camera angle I'll throw it one more time. You can kind

51:03

of see watch his hand Just

51:06

it's like really up for the top. It's

51:08

hard to see it without slowing it down But I don't

51:10

know I just I saw a gyro

51:12

is what I saw or something very similar to a gyro

51:15

That is how it spins. It's weird to

51:17

add the hitter to they see like classic

51:19

slider spin and It's

51:21

sometimes the spins a little bit looser like we

51:23

talked about last week Which then gives it a

51:26

little bit more depth and a little bit less

51:28

horizontal than you're expecting So and then gravity takes

51:30

it so it's the exact opposite of your ride

51:32

So you're right I think a guy that did

51:34

this for really really well before we knew about

51:37

a moment was Brad Lidge Brad

51:39

Lidge threw a death ball the whole time because

51:41

he had the depth on a slider that no

51:43

one else really had we were like 87

51:45

it was really hard to hard one Yeah,

51:49

when he was throwing really hard But even then later when he

51:51

was like, you know, the below drops like 91 92 and later

51:53

in his career And he was

51:55

battling injuries. It was like 80 you saw that

51:57

depth like oh, he had a lot of

51:59

depth like curveball depth, but it didn't still

52:01

didn't go horizontally. I'm not exact, I wasn't exactly

52:03

like that when I changed from my curveball to

52:05

my slider, but that was one thing they saw

52:07

was the amount of depth I had on a

52:10

slider because that's what I was doing. I was

52:12

throwing like a kind of a looser spinning gyro

52:14

that that had had more depth and it was

52:16

seven, eight miles an hour harder than my curveball

52:19

was. So I was like getting not

52:21

quite as much depth, but close

52:24

a lot harder. Was it mechanically similar

52:26

or was it very different? Do your

52:28

curveball to your slider? It was mechanically

52:31

very similar. Yeah, the grips were completely different,

52:33

but like in terms of how I was

52:35

approaching throwing it and arm slot and everything,

52:37

it was even closer to my to my

52:39

fastball. And so there was no pop. It

52:41

was just a better, a better

52:43

tunneling example before I knew what tunneling was.

52:46

This is like 20, I don't

52:48

know, 16 when I made that. You were somewhere

52:50

between the gyro, the gyro slider and the and

52:52

the depth ball. I mean, you had you had

52:54

some depth on it. I was like trying

52:56

to throw the gyro like I thought that's what I

52:58

was doing, but we didn't really know what was happening.

53:01

And so it had more depth than they expected. Exactly.

53:03

Josh Caulk was the head of analytics at the time.

53:05

He was like, you're doing something that I think a

53:07

lot of people are going to want to do. You're

53:09

doing something that's really unique. So he was really excited.

53:13

They're going to throw it like

53:15

he was way more excited than ever saw

53:17

him and fired Mia. So then I just,

53:20

it literally took me one day. All right.

53:22

I don't, I don't throw that.

53:24

I throw this now. Well, here's

53:26

the relationship just between velocity and drop

53:29

and I mean, harder, generally

53:31

better, but not always better. Right. I

53:33

mean, I look at this and I

53:35

see harder is better. I mean, mostly

53:37

there's some blue spots over there, but

53:39

the fact that the reddest spots on

53:42

this, on this graph are mostly, you

53:44

know, one of the ways that it's

53:46

put in, you know, the halls of

53:48

driveline and tread and places is it's

53:50

really hard to throw an 86 mile

53:52

an hour slider. That's bad. I mean,

53:55

if you just look at that, you know, that

53:57

line there, the black one is Presley at 82.

54:00

The next line is 84 and

54:02

the next line is 86 if you go up and down

54:04

86 there's one blue Spot in

54:06

the graph and I wonder who that is

54:09

Strolling around in there, but it doesn't have much depth So

54:12

yeah, if you can get any sort of depth on it if you

54:14

can get any anywhere under zero and

54:16

over 85 It's

54:18

a it's a good breaking ball I like these

54:20

graphics that you you turn out and they remind me

54:23

of that old game cubit Because

54:25

of the shapes we got to

54:27

get a little cubit just jumping around And

54:29

as a picture like you know This is

54:31

the the core use of stuff is not

54:33

so much evaluative although we use it that

54:35

way. It's often for development

54:38

So you can see where your slider is and

54:40

you can see well What's the

54:42

easiest way for me to get off of blue and on red?

54:45

Can I get a little more horizontal and get over to that

54:47

red one or is it easier for me to get a little

54:49

more? Drop and get on that red moon There was

54:51

one really interesting thing about a graph you want to throw

54:53

it up one more time but

54:55

the the a good rule

54:57

of thumb for the for the listeners and watchers

54:59

at home is The idea of

55:01

a zero zero so if you just go

55:03

to zero on the left here and look

55:05

across There's blue and then there's red then

55:08

there's blue again So that red is like

55:10

78 miles an hour and the blue is that 186

55:12

so that a zero zero is Commonly

55:16

referred to as like that's where the dead zone

55:18

is like that's the overlap for pretty much every

55:20

pitch every breaking ball anyway And so

55:22

the harder Like that puts

55:24

it right in where a hitter sees the V

55:26

low and makes the distinction and it's moving kind

55:28

of what they're predicting But if it's if it's

55:31

not moving that much and it's slower It's weird

55:33

and they're swinging under it But if it's harder

55:35

and moving more than it's weird and

55:37

they're swinging over it So like zero

55:39

zero is kind of the dead zone for

55:41

breaking ball Yeah, generally if you think

55:43

like zero zero is not quite what you're looking for

55:46

So you either need it to be slower than they're

55:48

thinking it That's when below matters the more like a

55:50

frisbee or like yeah something you wouldn't spin so they're

55:52

like Oh, that's gonna break a lot and it doesn't

55:54

break at all. That was that's like the

55:56

dice K like And

55:58

they're just under it. It's weird It

56:00

leaves your Hernandez had a weird thing that like it

56:03

went like 78 and it moved like

56:05

a cutter and it was like What

56:08

happening? Like they'll come in hitters

56:10

will literally come and be like, what is that? I

56:14

don't know. And then you've got them at that point you got him there

56:18

That's usually a question hitters don't like to ask

56:20

Someone goes in saying what was that everyone else

56:23

in the lineups like great. Here we go Yeah,

56:25

you've done your job as a pitcher if that's

56:27

the reaction that you're getting from hitters And

56:29

Hernandez by the way in the bullpen I think

56:32

for the Dodgers right now Kind of curious to

56:34

see what kind of tweaks they might make with

56:36

him given the probably just throw that weird ass

56:38

thing a bunch Of times in the sixth inning and get

56:40

us through this inning. Yeah, yeah 80%

56:44

of the time. Yeah, I never think we'll work itself out

56:47

I got a few questions here from our listeners

56:49

and viewers. This one came from discord from on

56:51

you see which spring training

56:53

stat Do you pay attention to

56:55

the most and why thought to

56:57

you first, you know? I

56:59

think probably a similar one on both sides is

57:01

strikeout rate in terms of results. It's the easiest

57:04

It's the thing that matters in a month. You've

57:06

got a month you got six weeks so in

57:08

a month you can actually say something about a

57:10

hitter strikeout rate and a pitcher strikeout rate and

57:13

In terms of results, that's the number one thing.

57:15

There's some process stuff But it's really hard to

57:18

like look at Vilo right now because some of

57:20

those guys are pitching two innings and they got

57:22

a pitch Five innings next time out. I

57:24

thought Jack Flaherty was throwing like 95 96 in

57:27

his first outing That

57:29

was like an inning or two in

57:31

his next outing. He sat 93 But

57:35

actually it was interesting He had 96 when

57:37

it was two strikes and when it was you know

57:39

when he wanted to finish the at bat off He's

57:41

still he was kind of doing the verlander where he's

57:43

trying to keep 96 in his back pocket, but it's

57:46

just hard to know Right

57:48

now what a pitcher is gonna sit at because

57:50

there's they're still in that sort of two to

57:52

three innings stint And it's maybe they're just airing

57:54

it out now and you don't know what they're

57:56

gonna do later I like strikeout rate

57:58

as well. I'll throw another one I just like like

58:00

played appearances I just want to know who's playing because

58:02

what I'm trying to figure out is just what's

58:05

happening in job battle such a Huge

58:07

part of our fantasy analysis trying to figure out

58:09

where playing time shifts might be happening It is

58:11

not easy to decode who does the manager believe

58:13

in and also who are you playing with which

58:15

obviously isn't a stat? But that's just one of

58:17

those things if I see a number that surprises

58:20

me in either direction I start looking at some

58:22

lineups kind of figure out like okay. What

58:24

are they doing with? A lot of these are leaving

58:26

in the sixth inning or not Taking

58:28

the hour ride in Florida or or

58:31

not. There's these things. Oh, that's true,

58:33

too Who yeah, who's taking who's on

58:35

the visiting squad? I noticed that

58:37

one Yeah, cuz we went to the Padres Angels

58:39

and the Padres are visiting and they did not

58:41

take a single regular I apologize

58:43

to my son Yeah,

58:47

I'll parrot that I'd say how many home

58:49

games is playing them That's

58:51

how you know how seriously that team or

58:53

like how seriously you can take that guy

58:55

making the team guys Don't go on the

58:57

road unless if they're locked in frankly, I

58:59

I said no to go on the road Way

59:03

more than I wanted to last year But

59:06

yeah, that's that's that's an

59:08

indicator And then for me just from

59:10

a like a process and but for like looking at yourself

59:13

I was always just like seeing if we mentioned

59:15

below for me. It was like just making sure

59:18

that it was slowly

59:20

Increasing or that I was close to kind of where

59:23

I wanted to be in general You

59:25

know, I'll be down a couple because it's gonna

59:27

be a for wherever we go anyway So it's

59:29

gonna be cold probably and it's gonna be down

59:31

But just seeing making sure health wise that like

59:33

everything's moving Close and that

59:35

that progression is happening over over time So

59:37

from where I started to where I began

59:40

there was a positive progression That was just

59:42

just generally knowing that stuff and that's also

59:44

during the season So just getting getting rolling

59:46

there and then in terms of like

59:49

and also strikeout rate was was big for me

59:51

and for looking at our team too because you

59:53

can show what type of Stuff

59:55

you have at the moment, but also like that.

59:57

It's another indicator of everything. I just said so like yeah and

1:00:00

it's working. And things are working no

1:00:02

matter who I'm facing, even if it's young kids who've never

1:00:04

seen me before and I've never seen them and I'm not

1:00:06

really following a plan, you can just go stuff on stuff.

1:00:09

That's usually a good thing

1:00:11

I would pay attention to. Am I getting the kids

1:00:13

out? Am I getting the guys out that I don't

1:00:15

know anything about? That's a good indicator of how my

1:00:18

things are working. Oh, there's one more that

1:00:20

I actually wanna throw out there too. Stolen bases

1:00:22

and stolen base attempts. Our friend Jason Collett took

1:00:24

a really good look at that from

1:00:26

last year with the new rule changes and it

1:00:28

actually lined up really well. The stolen base rates

1:00:30

from spring training kind of poured it over to

1:00:32

the regular season so you can get a sense

1:00:34

of who is going to be

1:00:36

more aggressive, maybe on a player and a

1:00:38

team sort of level, at least some signal

1:00:40

there. I think the Nationals are running pretty

1:00:42

wild. Lane Thomas has like six or seven

1:00:44

stolen bases already. Have fun. They could.

1:00:47

Enjoy that. Might as well. It's gonna be

1:00:49

something to watch for in Washington. Have

1:00:52

fun, Audavino. And

1:00:55

Audavino, by the way, tons of clips

1:00:57

of him working on his throw and

1:01:00

he said he was gonna do anything. I'm gonna figure

1:01:02

it out. I'm gonna, this is the year finally. 38

1:01:04

years old. I'm gonna figure out how old runners. Thanks

1:01:08

a lot for my questions. Those Lester

1:01:11

years or... Oh. It

1:01:13

was a Tommy Pham with like eight steps off

1:01:15

the bag. It was

1:01:17

like watching Rookie of the Year but with

1:01:19

grownups doing stuff on

1:01:21

the base paths. Incredible. One

1:01:24

more here from Andy D. Toy. This is a

1:01:26

question for Trevor. When you were making a plan

1:01:28

to face a new lineup, do you tend to

1:01:30

put more weight on hitters' weaknesses or your pitching

1:01:33

strengths? It always came down to how

1:01:35

much information was it what I looked at. There

1:01:38

was a lot of times where we'd face like, the

1:01:41

Pirates in recent years, like there'd be like five

1:01:43

guys. So it was very little data on because

1:01:45

you don't really trust Triple A stuff that much

1:01:48

because of the way we, everything we mentioned before

1:01:50

with development stuff. So I would stay, try to

1:01:52

stay strengths most often there. Try to keep it

1:01:54

as simple as possible. I think I talked about

1:01:56

this when we talked about the catcher targeting and

1:01:58

stuff. So this came into play. play much more

1:02:00

last year but it was already pretty simple even when

1:02:02

I knew a lot about a guy so it became

1:02:05

even easier to get ready for these guys. Sometimes

1:02:07

I revert to generalizations about righty

1:02:09

hitters generally can't hit this thing,

1:02:13

lefty hitters generally hit down and in

1:02:15

well like all of them for some

1:02:17

reason and righties generally hit up and

1:02:19

out over, up and away better

1:02:21

and it was just the way it was.

1:02:24

I would just revert to my generalizations, try to keep

1:02:26

it simple and then build off that and then on

1:02:28

top of all of that I just

1:02:30

wanted to make sure I knew the guys I didn't

1:02:32

want to beat me in that lineup and that those

1:02:34

guys were taken care of and it kind of made

1:02:36

it like a specific scouting report. Yeah so if I

1:02:38

only had a couple guys in the lineup that I

1:02:41

knew a lot about I would just make sure I

1:02:43

had that locked in and then just reverted to my

1:02:45

strengths for the rest of the lineup because that's pretty

1:02:47

much the best you can do but you

1:02:49

try to look for specifics first and then

1:02:51

you go to strengths when you don't

1:02:53

have as much information. I like the one

1:02:55

thing that Pedro Marcina said that has always stuck out

1:02:57

for me is that if you watch a player when

1:03:00

they stand up at the plate when they're doing their

1:03:02

practice swing you can actually tell what

1:03:04

kind of a hitter they are. So Wilmer Flores

1:03:06

when he comes to the plate it's all this

1:03:08

high, it's like this high flat swing

1:03:11

you're like oh that's a high ball hitter right

1:03:13

there you know and these guys come up here

1:03:15

and practice a little low swing right when they

1:03:17

get in there. I mean a hitter could manipulate

1:03:19

that and play with that but Pedro said if

1:03:21

I didn't know who the guy was I just

1:03:23

watched him practice swing and I knew something about him. You

1:03:26

can do it with Soto too. The

1:03:28

shuffling and the head shaking and stuff you can pay attention

1:03:30

to it and you can tell what he was expecting, what

1:03:32

he was thinking, if he's mad at himself

1:03:34

or not getting the thing that he was looking for or

1:03:36

if you actually like surprise him a little bit he shows

1:03:38

you and I think guys picked up on

1:03:40

a little bit more the longer he's

1:03:42

playing and I think he's doing a little bit less

1:03:45

but yeah there's stuff like that if you

1:03:47

can get it. It's like

1:03:49

some people will like hit their back

1:03:52

leg like their back hip after.

1:03:54

Stay back, stay back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're

1:03:56

like stay in there, stay in there. Go eat her.

1:03:59

Yeah. Last

1:04:02

one here before we go, this one's from

1:04:04

Saul. How much do you guys pay attention

1:04:06

to O-Swing percentage on breaking balls? I remember

1:04:08

reading on Prospects Live that chase rate is

1:04:10

the best proxy we have for deception and

1:04:12

tunneling. Hmm, this is sort of

1:04:14

what we were thinking about the biggest miss

1:04:16

rate. It is a big indicator. Actually that

1:04:18

article that we've actually talked about quite a

1:04:20

few times, actually

1:04:22

my co-host on SiriusXM, Danny Westman, sent this same

1:04:24

article to me. It's like, have you read this?

1:04:27

I'm like, I actually made a YouTube video about

1:04:29

this. The art of pitch

1:04:31

tunneling, that is the proposition they

1:04:33

make, is that the better the tunnel,

1:04:35

the more often the chase rate is

1:04:38

effective and it goes up. And

1:04:40

I actually changed grips to chase that because

1:04:42

I was like, no one changed it effectively.

1:04:44

Was that effective? Did it work? I

1:04:46

think there's a direct correlation there, 100%. Did it work for you? Yeah. It

1:04:50

did work. Actually the first slider, I hadn't gotten a swing miss on

1:04:52

a slider in literally like two months. A

1:04:54

lot of ground balls and stuff and a lot of takes. Changeup

1:04:57

was good at the time and I was getting a lot of

1:04:59

fastballs, swing misses, but my slider was like not a swing miss

1:05:01

pitch. First one I threw back, strikeout.

1:05:03

And this is the switch to the gyro? Yeah, this is

1:05:05

the switch to the harder gyro because I'm like- And then

1:05:08

you were saying it didn't have a hump, so it didn't

1:05:10

have a hump. It was 88 instead of 82. It

1:05:13

was honestly like a little elevated and a little, not

1:05:15

a great like pit, but he swung over it like

1:05:17

emergency swing. And I was like, I

1:05:19

must have tunneled my fastball that I had just

1:05:21

thrown him much, much better than it has in

1:05:23

the past. So they're onto something. I don't know

1:05:25

if the ranges that they proposed are a little

1:05:27

bit different. They probably have been adjusted a little

1:05:29

bit, but like there is some veracity to that,

1:05:32

yes. I wonder if that's also something you

1:05:34

could look at. If you were looking at pitchers who

1:05:36

wind in the shadow zone, we were talking about the

1:05:38

swings versus takes in the shadow zone. The pitchers that

1:05:41

do well in that maybe have

1:05:43

effective tunnels. Like that might be

1:05:45

something- That's what we were saying, that's like it's

1:05:47

really hard to analyze the shadow zone without breaking

1:05:49

down my pitch type because a fastball in the

1:05:51

shadow zone is something you still kind of want

1:05:53

and a breaking ball in the shadow zone is

1:05:55

like absolutely as a hitter, you do not want

1:05:57

to swing at that. The pairing. of

1:06:00

it if you thought it was a fastball and you

1:06:02

got a fighter in the shadows on you really wish

1:06:04

you didn't swing at that. Well,

1:06:06

a lot to chew on here and we'll take

1:06:09

some requests I think in our discord be sure

1:06:11

to join that if you haven't done so already

1:06:13

the links in there. We'll have Trevor and you

1:06:15

know kind of break down how they would game

1:06:17

plan to pitch to some hitters. We'll

1:06:19

try to do that over the course these next few shows because there's

1:06:21

a infinite list of possibilities with something

1:06:23

like that. So if we get some popular requests I

1:06:26

think we can make it sort of a buy request

1:06:28

segment that we plan for. If you

1:06:30

got questions for a future episode you can also

1:06:32

send them to us rates and barrels@gmail.com. Find us

1:06:34

on twitter. Trevor is at IMTrevorMay. Eno is at

1:06:36

EnoSaris. I'm at Derek Riper. The

1:06:39

pod is at rates and barrels. Thanks

1:06:41

to our producer Brian for doing all the hard work behind

1:06:43

the scenes. If you enjoyed the show be sure to like

1:06:45

this video on YouTube. Leave us a nice rating and review.

1:06:47

Thanks again to the Live Hive for hanging out with us

1:06:49

today. Friday

1:06:52

is one o'clock eastern. Next Friday no

1:06:54

live stream because we have two live

1:06:56

shows at other half Domino Park location

1:06:59

Wednesday and Thursday next week.

1:07:01

Doors three o'clock pod six

1:07:03

thirty apparently. So six

1:07:06

thirty it's not a moving target anymore. Six thirty start

1:07:08

time for both of those shows. Thanks

1:07:11

for listening to RACING BARRELS. We'll back with you next week.

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