Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - New Pitch Alert! Clay Holmes, Jackson Jobe & More! (2/22 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 New pitch alert, new pitch alert. Let's discuss on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome to FBT Express on Saturday, February 22nd. I am Frank Stamfield, joined by Chris Towers. Spring training, you know what time it is. Pitchers have new pitches that they are working on. So let's talk about those. In groups of five, I'll mention these.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Kevin Gosman apparently is working on a cutter, Clay Holmes, a change-up, a four-seam and a slider, Jackson Job, a sinker and a curve. Max Meyer, a sweeper and a sinker. Paul Skeens, a running two seam and a cutter. Chris, so some pretty interesting names here and interesting pitches. Your thoughts? Yeah, you might hear the battery on my smoke detector going off.

Starting point is 00:00:42 Let's just pretend that's the new pitch alert for the next six or so minutes. This is a fairly interesting group, and I think we'll start with Clay Holmes adding that change up. This was like the most obvious thing that a pitcher needed to work. on this offseason because Clay Holmes transitioning from a high leverage relief role where you can pick and choose who he gets to face, how many lefties are up, stuff like that. And he just had a four seamer, a slider and a sweeper, which is a really good combination to get right-handed batters out if you're a right-handed pitcher. But his OPS for his career allowed is about 170 points higher to left-handed batters. And you would expect that's only going to go up in a starting role. So he needed

Starting point is 00:01:24 something to try to compensate for the issues he's going to have versus lefties in the change up and a four seamer are the main ways you do that you can throw the four seamer up and into lefties but the change is really the one that's going to neutralize that platoon advantage if it's a good pitch clay holmes gets a lot of ground balls gets a lot of whiffs with those slider and sweeper but you expect the velocity is going to be a couple miles per hour down transitioning to the starting rotation. You expect the quality of contact he gives up. It's going to be a little louder. So it's just, I think the margin for error here is pretty slim unless that change up can be a very good pitch. So I'm excited to see what that looks like this spring. Jackson Job, the sinker and the

Starting point is 00:02:07 curveball, I think the curveball is the more interesting one because this is a pitch that he threw coming up in high school. It was his best secondary pitch. Then he got to the majors and it just wasn't the swing and miss pitch he needed it to be. Headers were able to lay off of it. They They recognized it well despite really good movement profiles, really good spin rates. So we'll see if he can make that a weapon to help him put guys out because his strikeout rate, surprisingly low last year, only about 25% at the minor league level. And then Max Meyer, he just, I think we need to see a little more velocity from him. He was down to like 94 with the fastball coming back from Tommy John surgery.

Starting point is 00:02:42 It's never had great shape. So I want to see it at 95, but the sweeper is an interesting wrinkle because his slider was his best pitch, last year, did a good job of limiting hard contact, not a great swing and miss pitch. If that sweeper can be a little better at generating swings and misses, the slider can act more like a cutter, uses against lefties, gets weak contact, the sweeper can be the putaway pitch. I think that's the approach you're looking for from Max Meyer. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this.

Starting point is 00:03:12 Welcome back in, FBT Express. We're taking a look at new pitches for pitchers this spring training. And moving on, we have Casey Myers. apparently he's working on two different sliders, AJ Puck with a change-up. Grayson Rodriguez is bringing his old sweeper back. He's bringing sweeper back. Jake Irvin with a slider and Bryce Miller with a cutter.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Grayson Rodriguez stands out here, Chris. I know this is something that you were actually pining for in our starting pitcher preview. Yeah, I'm glad to know Grayson Rodriguez listens to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. That's a nice endorsement. No, this was a pitch he threw as a rookie. Remember, he struggled a lot as a rookie,

Starting point is 00:03:50 The sweeper was his best pitch. It was really good results on balls and play, a lot of swings and misses. He shelved it last year through a slider that was more like a cutter last year. It didn't really have a big movement profile. It wasn't a great pitch for him, especially as a swing and miss pitch. So I think getting the sweeper back could be what Grayson Rodriguez needs to take another step forward, raise that strikeout rate into like the 28, 29% range. He's got good command.

Starting point is 00:04:18 He goes deep into games. he's got a lot to like. It's just we need that strikeout rate to just take another step forward. And I think Grayson Rodriguez can emerge as the ace we hoped he would be as a prospect. All right, this next group includes

Starting point is 00:04:31 George Kirby with a cutter, Jared Jones with a sinker, AJ Smith-Shawver, also with a cutter, Kyle Harrison with a cutter slash slider, and Tyler McGill with a tighter curveball. Jared Jones is the one that stands out for me, Chris, because last year he was mostly four seam and slider. And I think having a viable,

Starting point is 00:04:49 third pitch, even if it's a sinker and that's pitching the contact, it could potentially be helpful for him. Yeah, it's weird because at Jones, with his approach, you would think what he really needs is, is like we talked about with Clay Holmes, something to neutralize the platoon advantage. So I also want to see if he's, you know, going to throw the change up more, maybe the curveball more often. It was like 85% fastball and slider. So look, a sinker's a different look. It can help. Generally speaking, those sinkers play better. against same-handed batters. And so that's where I'm not sure

Starting point is 00:05:24 it's going to fix the issue for Jared Jones, but we'll see what it looks like. We'll see what the change-up and curveball look like this spring. I still think he's an incredibly talented pitcher. The one I want to keep an eye on is Kyle Harrison. Less for the cutter slash slider. He's got this like bigger slurvier breaking ball, but he's been very fastball heavy at the major league level.

Starting point is 00:05:43 And it hasn't really worked because he's sitting like 92 with his four seamers. So what I really want to see here, look, cutter, slider, that'd be great. Give him a couple more options. But I really need to see Kyle Harrison sitting 94. If he can be sitting 93 or preferably 94, fastball's got good shape. And there could be a lot to like about it. But the approach is going to work a lot better at 94.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And then the last group is Hurston Waldrop is working on bringing back an old curveball, Graham Ashcraft with a cutter, Griffin Canning with a sinker, and Christopher Sanchez, with a cutter. Christopher Sanchez is kind of interesting here, Chris, because he's got this amazing change-up, and usually that's helpful to neutralize opposing batters. But I think a cutter would do the same thing. So that's kind of interesting.

Starting point is 00:06:32 Yeah, cutters are usually kind of like a bridge pitch, right? Like halfway between the slider and the fastball, you use it to neutralize platoon advantage occasionally. You can use it to, you know, steal a strike in an early count. It's usually not a great putaway pitch. And, you know, when you look at Sanchez, he's a great pitch to contact guy. He's got a lot of like Framber Valdez in him, but the fast, the strikeout rate's not great. And I'm not sure the cutter is going to do that.

Starting point is 00:06:59 But, you know, leaning into your strengths may not be a bad idea either. So if he can continue to generate a little more weak contact, that might not be a bad thing. I like Christopher Sanchez overall. We'll see what the cutter looks like and whether it can, it can make him a little better. Yeah, these other ones here, you know, Hurst, and Waldrop dealt with some injuries last year. We'll see if he can actually work his way back into the Braves rotation this season.

Starting point is 00:07:23 And then Griffin Canning all of a sudden might be needed for the Mets. He might be in the Mets rotation. Frankie Montas is dealing with that lad injury. So he'll be a name to watch this spring as well. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or anywhere else podcasts are found.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we will be back again. next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - New Pitch Alert! Clay Holmes, Jackson Jobe & More! (2/22 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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