Rates & Barrels - 2024 Predictions Check-In, The Rangers & Reds Reach a Fork in the Road, and Pitching to Steven Kwan

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Eno, DVR and Trevor discuss Eno's story examining the long-term pitch velocity ceiling, how a few of their 2024 predictions are looking as the first half of the season comes to close, the Trade Deadline outlook for the Rangers and Reds, plus a game plan for pitching to Steven Kwan. Rundown 1:04 Where Was Trevor on the Night of August 5th, 2019? 4:45 The Human Limit for Pitching Velocity ($) https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5571107 13:00 Bold Predictions: Midseason Check-In 24:58 How Well Is Information Being Communicated to Players? 34:37 The Rangers at the Fork -- What Will Texas Do at the Trade Deadline? 44:11 The Reds at the Fork -- Is a 2024 Playoff Berth Still In the Works? 54:47 The Game Plan: How To Pitch to Steven Kwan Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us at 1p ET/10a PT on Wednesday, July 3rd for our next livestream! https://www.youtube.com/c/ratesbarrels Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. it's Friday, June 28th. Derek VanRyde, Brino, Sarah, Trevor May, all here with you. Special shout out to the Live High for joining us on our YouTube page. On this episode, we dig into a story that Eno wrote. How fast could a human being throw a baseball? 106, 110, 125? There's no limit. 125. 125 is insane.

We'll dig into that. We're going to take a look back at some of our bold predictions from, you know, three months ago and see how those have aged. Some better than others. We got a couple of teams at the fork. We'll look at the Rangers and Reds, talk about what they are likely to do as the trade deadline approaches about one month from now. And we got a game plan segment.

We're going to break down Stephen Kwan. How would you try to pitch to Stephen Kwan? It seems like it's getting more difficult with the new power that he is showing. Gentlemen, I want to start today. I got a question for Trevor, a very specific question. Trevor, where were you on the night of August 5th, 2019? Presumably playing baseball. Good safe guess.

Yeah. Yes. Who were we playing on August? I have no idea. There's no way. If you off the cuff knew who you were playing that day, that would have been absolutely ridiculous. You had a home game.

You're playing for the twins playing against Atlanta and we're in the eighth inning, so I got a clip here. We're playing for the twins, playing against Atlanta. And we're in the eighth inning. So I got a clip here. We're gonna take a trip down memory lane. Trevor enters the game to start the eighth inning. And we're gonna look at a situation. There's one out and a runner on first base. And then this happens. Port second, out at second.

Double play and May by innings and faces, just three men. Two unicorns, a double play and a hundred. And a hundred. Were you like, were you like, what did I throw a hundred? I looked, Oh, I saw it was double zeros too. There was no one. I wondered if you were looking at the board after that, because there's a shot of you looking back and you're walking up. So yeah, if you're watching the game on TV, Trevor throws a hundred there,

Staccats had it at 99.8, and that was the fastest pitch you threw in a game in your career. And do you remember throwing that pitch now that you've seen it again? Like, does it kind of bring you back? Like when you did it, did you know that was the fastest pitch you'd ever thrown? I was like, check it. Was it actually a hundred or did we round up here? Cause it was technically 90. Uh, they had it according to like the, in, in the system in the, at the field, it was 99.8, nine, the like decimal round down, but that's so that's 99.9.

And then I, but I'd said a hundred on TV. So I'm going to count it. I think I said 100 on TV, so I'm gonna count it Yeah, I think I said after the game was like I hit 100. I can't wait to get my plaque for throwing 100 It's made up an award you get That's like a dream for anyone who throws hard or like as soon as I hit like seven or hit like 97 or 98 in 2015 after going to the bullpen, that's the hardest I ever thrown. I was like, is there a hundred in here? So it took me a while. But I felt, I was feeling really good that day. I believe I had, I went back out and had to pitch another,

the ninth, cause we were tied. Yeah. But I threw two innings and then I got Freddie Freeman on like a 98, six above the zone too. So it was a good day. It was a good day. Yeah. You got the win that day. So good things all around.

Can you imagine adding six, seven more ticks or 10, 12 more ticks or almost 25 more ticks? Like that seems impossible today, doesn't it? Doesn't that seem like even the lower threshold, even just adding six more ticks to your fastball, where would it come from? I don't know if you can do it off the mound. I don't know if you can do it without the, you know,

the crow hopping for 45 feet before you throw it. Cause there's guys who throw like 112, 113 that way. I just saw a video of the guy from Tread, the strength coordinator throwing 106. And everyone was like, what the, but obviously he's the next player. But it was also like a pull down where he's like running to the mound. Oh, it was a pull down, yeah. It was just like, what the? But obviously he's the next player. But it was also like a pull down where he's like running to the mound.

Oh, it was a pull down, yeah. It was just like, do whatever you need to do to get it to the hardest. And to be honest, it was impressive. So, you know, off the mound, I don't know. I feel like it's intent though. If you're up there and you're like, I don't care where this goes at all,

and there's like no catcher maybe off a mound, and you're just throwing it in at normal. I think 105, 106 a few times is like maybe more than once, but like, I don't know how you go higher than that. Like, I just don't understand. A 125, like what? Yeah, you know, you wrote about this. You talked to a lot of different people.

I want people to read the piece, but there's a couple of different approaches. One was like sort of a purely theoretical one that was about just treating the body as different masses and then using an equation to like be like, if you were 85% efficient and taking all of the energy out of your legs, up through your body, and then 85%, it's the idea of the physics problem

with the big ball and the small ball like how much how much energy can go from the big ball to the small ball and then just having like basically treating the body as a bunch of balls that are like transferring energy all the way to the arm like and he did this yeah yeah i kind of like just trying to be like what if we like the perfect pitch what if we had a huge dude that like know, put a ton of force into the ground and, uh, turn that force and was very efficient and turning that force into arm, arm speed and so on. And he said, this is Jimmy Buffy, who's a respected, um, uh, biomechanist. Uh, he used to work for the Dodgers. Now he has this place

called reboot. Um, and so he did this physics model. Uh, it's funny, this is, this is actually from the cutting room floor. So he did this physics model. It's funny, this is actually from The Cutting Foon 4, so it's not on the piece actually when I was reading it today. I was like, oh, they took that out. So what I was telling Mason Miller about this guy, Jimmy Bobby, he came up with this number 125, Mason Miller's like, oh, I don't know about that. And then a picture next to Mason Miller goes, that sounds like someone who's never played in the game before.

And then he looks at me and goes, no offense. You know, before the no offense, I wasn't really offended. But, uh, uh, you know, there was a lot of, a lot, there was a lot of a lot. There was a lot of people and a lot of the hearts. We talked a lot of the heart story players and they were like 125. I don't know. I mean, this is you're talking to John Duran and, you know, and Ben Joyce, them being like, you know, Ben Joyce is throwing a one oh five five. He's the he's the closest to Chapman that there is probably.

And so I kind of think that's maybe impossible. But there was a lot of different stuff that came up. One thing that was really interesting from Kyle Bodhi was, you know, we tend to think of like optimizing mechanics right now as like taking the best of the mechanics as we know it and be like, oh this is the way the shoulder should work and this is the way the the trunk should work and this is the way the front foot should work. And if we put all this together and optimize it correctly, what could we do? Probably like 106, which is what Aroldis Chapman is throwing. I mean, that's a big dude who's fairly, I mean,

it looks to me like it's pretty good mechanics and he's putting a lot of force into the ground and I mean, it looks to me like it's pretty good mechanics and he's putting a lot of force into the ground and it looks pretty good to me. That's 106. But Kaboti brought up, like, what if we use AI to kind of look at all these different movements and maybe come up with movement patterns that we haven't thought of?

And there's like two reactions I have to that. One is like, okay, we're gonna ask the machines how we should move as people. Yeah. Have you seen a machine try to move like a person? It can't. Yeah. Even the ones that like take the jump shots and make the jump shots look kind of like, you know. So part of me is like, I don't know about that. Also, I think that, you know, some of the results will be like, you should do this thing with your body that's not possible.

Like, you know, with Trevor, we've had this long discussion of like the nerds coming and be like, you should throw your curve ball high and tight. You're like, I can't. I like physically can't throw my curve ball in that location that you asked me to. So the AI will come up with some stuff that's like, no, sorry, bodies don't work like that. But maybe it would come up with some small differences and be like, oh, what if you did this instead of this?

Or at least it would come up with ideas to think about and then try to try to to work it out. So anyway, just to just to sort of going through the history of hard throwing and then where we are now. And I tend to I think I tend to agree with Glenn Fleissig, who brought up the fact that, you know, the injuries might be telling us that we're at maximum if you look at runners and stuff, you know, you know, all the kind of sprinting, you know, if you look at mile times, you know, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Uh, what John's saying, like,

that's what I was talking about with John Duran and some other guys. I was like, what if Giannis, you know, was good at baseball because we've all seen the clip of John is trying to play baseball. Yeah. I mean, it's it's not natural to him. What did John has grew up like playing baseball and, you know, and he could probably put more force in the ground maybe even than an oldest Chapman. So there, you know, there's at least the raw material there. And so I wonder, I don't know if we'll get that though, because, um, if you're Giannis in America, if you don't play basketball, you probably play

football. Yeah. It's so interesting to me because it's like, uh, what I'm hearing too is I think within the, within the context of the game now, maybe we're at the max, if you bred, like literally bred a guy to go and the only goal of his entire life was to see how hard of a pitch he could throw.

That's kind of Ben Joyce, by the way. I mean, he's not bread. If this person is bigger like pitching a game or to a hitter. Right. We're just seeing how hard he can throw a baseball. It might be possible over tons and tons of ideation

and figuring things out. But in the context of like going out and pitching, stay healthy, like actually having to pitch you a hitter, all that kind of stuff. Command, yeah, like throwing things around. You have to think about other things, but if you get rid of all of that stuff and your training is solely for what's the hardest throw

I have to throw, you know, I honestly, I'm in a good position to do this. Like, I don't have to, I mean, I would like to not get hurt, but if I don't, it's not like I'm missing out on my season or something, you know, so like. Yeah, recently retired player. But like that's, it's just kind of, it's just kind of interesting.

It's an interesting thing to think about. All right, so the ways to get to the ceiling are a Truman Show type scenario, where we create a pitcher and control his or her life to the point of just saying, all of it. This is your whole life. And this is the end of the TV show is you blowing out your shoulder in fantastic fashion, but throwing 125 so we can all cheer.

I like this, though. The one thing that that brings true about this is that Ben Joyce has and has a has a twin. And his twin tops out at 98. And I asked Ben Joyce, like, what is the difference between you and your twin? Are you like way bigger than him? He's like, no, like we're twins. And I was like, did you like lift more than him?

He's like, no, we're, we look the same. And I was like, what about your mechanics? He's like, no, they're about the same. I was like, dude, why do you throw 104 and he tops out at 98? Like, what's the difference? same. I was like, dude, why do you throw 104 and he tops out at 98? Like, what's the difference? He goes, all my life, all I've wanted to do is throw as hard as possible. All I've thought about my whole life is just throw as hard as possible. All I want to do is throw harder than everybody.

And here I am throwing harder than almost everybody in the world. Speaking of Ben Joyce, Ryan in the live if I wants to know is Ben Joyce, the post deadline closer for the angels. We didn't talk about that with Sam Blum earlier in the week, but there's a few relievers that other teams might want in that pen that could get traded and why not? Like what, why not let Ben Joyce spend two months closing out some games and just letting him get that experience?

Yeah, I would, I would let him try it. I don't, I don't even need to look at any numbers. I was like, you've got a young guy that you've got control for a long time. He throws super hard, like, you know, let him figure it out. Yeah, so I'm here for it. I got to make that move in a week or two if you want to try and stash him, because I think he's on a lot of people's lists as a second half closer, given what we know about the angels and what we know already about Ben Joyce.

But science experiments aside, at least for now, I think it's a good time to start looking at some of our bold predictions for this season. I feel like Eno is doing really well in the season-long predictions department, and Trevor and I are not doing as well in the season-long predictions department. I probably didn't push myself too hard. I mean, a lot of mine are like, oh yeah, that's more reasonable than bold. Yeah, but okay, so even reasonable predictions are hard to hit on. I think your boldest prediction that is coming true to this point would be that the young

royals bats fuel a wild card run, and the royals are exceeding a lot of people's expectations right now. So I think that's one where, you know, you could look at that and say you went on a bit of a limb and so far it looks like you're exactly right. So as we look at things on June 28th, do you feel even better about that prediction or do you see the warts and have concerns that the Royals might not be able to make the necessary adjustments to sustain what they've done to the first half, to the second half of the season and actually make good on your prediction.

What's interesting is that, you know, some of the bats that I highlighted haven't done that well. MJ Melendez is one of them. Michael Massey has been hurt. But and Michael Garcia, like, has been doing OK, but not quite reached that next level. But what is really surprised has been their pitching. So I guess I would be nervous if all of my bats had hit and they were pitching like this, then I would say, oh gosh, it's only downhill from here. But I think that maybe any sort of recovery from Melendez, you know, any sort of health

from, from Massey, any sort of, you know, next level from Mikel Garcia might be able to cover up a little bit of regression from somebody like a Seth Lugo or Brady Singer, where they score a little bit more and allow, you know, allow more runs. But generally, their strategy of supplementing some of their young pitching that was cheap with decently priced veterans like Lugo and Waka has been successful. They have found a little bit of a bullpen that works. And if they continue to play like this, they might actually supplement that bullpen at the trade deadline and increase their talent level. So I actually, I think they, I don't know if they're like, I don't know if I want to put the word favorite on there, but like they're in the mix for the

wild card and like even they can survive some aggression because not everyone has done exactly what you'd hoped. Yeah, I could see Vinnie Pasquentino doing a bit more going forward to further remove that injury. To me, the fact that he's holding his own, being close to a league average player coming off that, that's a good start to the season in the appropriate context. You can get more from him as one of your bats

that hits like a middle of the order guy the rest of the way. Massey has been good around the IL time, so I think that's probably shaping up to be a hit as well. Who I have a fun little stat, Pascantino is one of the top 15 gainers in bat speed over the last month. So that could be a sort of a proxy for health or feeling good or feeling froggy.

Yeah, that's a really good poll. Trevor, we were looking at the AL Central at the beginning of the season. I think a lot of people thought the Tigers were the team that would be in this position and you were among them. But like, what's gone wrong? Like what specifically, what were the big things that have not turned out the way you thought they would

as far as propelling the Tigers up into the place where the Royals are right now? I thought Mize and Torkelson were gonna have a bigger impact. Specifically Torkelson, he was kind of the the anchor for me in terms of the the power in the middle lineup. You know, he threw 30 plus homers last year and not a great, not a super easy park to hit 30 plus homers in and he was producing more and more and more towards the end. You know, we had Kerry Carpenter had a great year last year and things.

But I just thought that like he Torkelson's the guy, especially if like young Parker Meadows takes another step forward to. Right. So Ferguson kind of just not only is he struggled, he's seems to be out of whack in a way that's borderline yips. And that's concerning. And I think that's been a big reason they haven't gotten that continuity there and like the three four hole so but they have a lot of talent still I mean they're still hanging around everybody is but for me

that's just the biggest thing because I like Jack Flaherty has done really really well and Tariq Schubel is the you know the the guy or Tarik Skubul, sorry, leading for the Cy Young right now. So like those two guys, those two predictions were actually right. It's just that the runs, I thought they were gonna be a little bit more heavily carried by their bats.

And then I also thought that maybe with a little bit of a positive trend for the Tigers, like on the up and up, that having played with Javi Bias for two, two months, he is an emote plays off emotion a lot and being in that kind of situation makes him better. So I thought that would see a little bit more out of him too, but it hasn't really panned out that way. It's unreal. He has hit a new low, which is just, I feel actually bad for him at this point. It's a 26 WRC plus through 53 games. It's a 183 209 247 line.

It used to be even if the average and the OVP were light, the power was there. He's at one homer in 53 games this year. It just seems like a player that had a very flimsy approach, even when he was really good, now has even lost the core skills that made him exciting despite those flaws in the past. That's a rough outcome. I thought they'd get more from Colt Keith right away, but things are gradually trending the right way.

I think we're seeing for a lot of rookie hitters, the adjustments are just taking longer. It's not a month and you're settled in. It's more like a half season or more before you start to get really comfortable. If you're one of those teams relying on first time big leaguers, that might be part of the problem too. If your offense was built around a couple of guys like that, you're probably lagging a little bit. We're seeing that from the Rangers,

we'll get to a little bit later on in the show as well. That's one of the predictions you hit on, Trevor. You thought the Rangers might be a little bit of a regression candidate coming off a World Series win last year. And we'll talk about them as one of our at the fork teams today. As far as the other hits that I thought

were kind of interesting, the Mariners having the best rotation in baseball. That was one of Eno's predictions. And I think they look like they're either going to be there or in contention for that honor. The bigger leap was the Red Sox being a top five rotation in the American League. And that was one that I think at the time people said, come on, they traded away Chris Sale.

They've got a lot of non prospects getting opportunities. The fans thought the rotation was awful. Right. Did you make that after G Alito got hurt? Yeah. That's even crazier. Okay. Yeah.

But at that point, we're like, they have nobody. Yeah. And then at the beginning of the season, we looked at their schedule about a month in, right? This is going pretty well. And we thought they had a really easy schedule, relatively speaking, in the first month of the season, maybe things would start to crumble on them a little bit in May and June, but they've held up.

They've looked really good. And even having to test their depth even more than expected, the Red Sox are getting quality innings from a lot of places people didn't expect them to. Yeah. I mean, if you use ERA or FIP or war, almost any metric, they're in that top five. And I think that they have a comfortable enough lead and I think there have been enough actual changes that I kind of believe it. One thing that I thought was just a, you know, I like some of the talent here better than other people do. I like Tanner Hauck. I think

he can figure something out. I like Cutter Crawford. He has a lot of different is great feel for spin and a good fastball I like Nick Pavette is always been a stuff plus king. I like Brian Bayes change up so it was a little bit of liking those things then you know is knowing that you know they were changing their pitching philosophy in terms of hiring a GM from the cubs that had been the director of pitching over there in Craig Breslow. You know hiring Andrew Bailey away from the the Giants and what I knew from Andrew Bailey was he was a throw your best pitches more often kind of guy and he early on he said the thing that we've talked about a little bit about fastballs are jabs and you have to like you have to jab correctly.

They're not knockout punches. They aren't something that you want to do over and over again. You want to think about when you use them. And so I'm not saying that I knew before they announced it or before they did this thing where they reduced this fastball thing. I knew that they would change their pitch mixes But I knew that they would change their pitch mixes. I knew that they would change their approach. And I knew that they would change some of the ways that they work in the pitching side. So all of that together has proved to have been pretty prescient. They're also last in fastball usage in the big leagues now and throwing their best pitches more often and thriving.

Some of it seems like its communication to the organization has changed too. In addition to the philosophy, I thought there was an interesting story Jen McCaffrey wrote for the Athletic maybe a month or so ago now that really broke that down. I think that's one of the harder things to understand outside looking in, is who within the organization when those new hires are made can have those types of impacts. And I think Sean Doolittle, as far as the Nationals go, has been kind of credited for being a really important link from the analytic side to the actual on-field coaching staff. And the way Mike Rizzo described that situation was they had info, they had the things they needed, but they weren't getting it

to their pitchers effectively. And we talked, I think, briefly last week about them being one of those teams that has had a lot of guys exceeding expectations this year. And Doolittle seems to be a big part of that. What's different? Why is this happening now as far as trying to drill into how the same group of pitchers effectively are all shaving a half run or a run off their year eight this season? I mean, the number one complaint from analysts that I know in the game is, you know, the number one reason they leave the game and the number one reason they are upset is,

I'm not sure what I'm doing is getting to the field. And I think there's a lot of that energy in Houston right now. And so you've seen an exodus from that R&D department. And you've seen complaints like that in places like Anaheim and in the past in Washington. We'd definitely heard in St. Louis, we've heard like, yeah, they're doing quality work here, but are they implementing it?

Is anybody listening? Is it going to the right people? Are the difference makers hearing it? So that was one of the reasons why we thought Is it going to the right people are the difference makers hearing it you know so. You know that was one of the reasons why we thought maybe it's possible if you just took publicly available information and ran a team. To like do an okay job with it because if you thought really heavily about how you communicated. And if you thought heavily about how you made decisions and you just made those decisions well and you communicated well using publicly available the best of publicly available research. I think you'd be able to, you know, sink. I mean, not sink. I think you'd be able to swim with, with people. I think you'd be a, you know,

a wild card team. You're describing a coaching problem, I think. Yeah. Where you have coaches that just don't, don't understand or don't want to understand or don't know how to effectively communicate things they've recently learned to players in a way that makes players better. Yes. All those things.

Trevor's nodding. Yeah. Each iteration of that, seen it. This is the most important thing in professional baseball organization setup right now. It's by far. And I don't think it's talked about the most. It's how well do you communicate the information

that the people who are finding it to the people who can use it? And where are the breakdowns in like trust? Where are the, because I was there the whole time the twins did this, like changed. To go from the Terry Ryan, you know, Ron Garden, Garden Hauer old school twins in the Metrodome way to the current Falvey, that era. Like it's, and the Josh Caulk time.

There was a year where they had Josh wear, put on a uniform for a while and go into the dugout. Didn't work. He just didn't. And you love Josh. I love Josh, but like, the uni is not his, his thing. You know, he's, his sweatshirt was a little too big

and it just kind of, it did the opposite. It did the opposite of the thing. He, we, we wanted people to like look at him and be like, we're all on the same page here and not have the jock, you know, dork or geek thing going on, which is, you know, it was, and there's no other really way to say it. But that Jeremy Hefner was the one who bridged that gap. And then that's when it started to go.

The ex-player who was also in there in the analytics department, and then that I followed him to New York because he was my guy. And so it's like, how well you do, like the A's are, have their own, they're trying to get, figure this out a little bit too.

And not just on the pitching side, everywhere. Like every organization is trying to, to find what this sweet spot is. Cause you have to have a philosophy first, and then you have to communicate that philosophy. And this is how we win games. And this is how we prevent runs. And certain teams do that better than others.

But at the end of the day, if the player, if you have a great philosophy but the player doesn't buy in, it doesn't matter. So you have to have that kind of, that's an intangible skill. And it's something that I've always paid attention to. I always knew who I trusted and who I liked the most to sit there and talk to.

And then I would just go to those people because it just was the easiest way to get what I needed and then put it into the game. And frankly, I used vast majority of public information to make my decisions. It was all like, I used Savant more than I used internal platforms a lot because it was just, I knew I was looking for it,

and I couldn't find that stuff as easily because it was just like a little bit of a different thing. So it's, I've always been, I've been that way too. It was also helpful that I I go home and I didn't need to be like, hey guys, what's the password to the thing with the like, I just go to a website and look it up. So it's entirely possible. You're completely right. Someone could definitely, a lot of teams do use a lot of the public information. They do. So yeah, the user interface of the stuff that is in the organization might need some work because maybe those groups

are understaffed. So yeah, the UI is not the focus. It's just getting all the information, having it available. It's not making it fun and easy to use. Easy, important and fun. With the Red Sox, one of the things I'd also heard is I think Heim Blum deserves some credit for this. I mean, he's obviously if you come in and in one year you you kind of turn things around, there was some raw clay there. You know, there was some like good players and and what I'd heard was that that time had like hired a lot of good people, but there was a lot of sort of confusion about. Or chart stuff and like who reports to who and who's who's in charge and who's talking to whom and like, you know think bringing Breslau and Bailey on was like okay you know they're going to be paying attention to pitching and they're going to figure out you know who reports to who and who who's doing what and. That's the big thing with do a little too is like who you know you have to have someone you trust that's in that's obviously in the org chart you know who he reports you know So you know who he is. You know what his role is. I mean, that kind of a thing.

Like if there's a nerd walking around the clubhouse, you know, people are like, who's that dude? It's every day. There's someone that guy here. Who is that? Cause there's a lot of players are like, is he a spy? Is he like, yeah, I have the front office, five new staff every year. They add five people. So, so we had, we had a guy, we are like a spy for the front office? There's like five new staff every year. They add five people.

So we had a guy, our biomechanist with the A's because that was a new role. Like they didn't have it before. His name's Ethan, great dude. I talked to him all the time. He gave me all kinds of great stuff. And nobody else talked to him because they didn't know who he was. But at the beginning,

like it took four or five months of me being like, hey, by the way, Ethan knows this stuff. Oh really? And frankly, Ethan's like, oh, it's Ethan knows this stuff though Oh really and and frankly Ethan's like well It's a little bit of a new job and we're figuring out like what How much do they want me to talk directly to people? Yeah, and it also doesn't make sense if you were in new in the monkey sphere to come back Hey guys, hey guys. Hey guys. Hey guys. Yeah, you know and you don't want to come on strong Cuz then people just like then now you're out. Yeah

Okay, like I need a problem talking about I've done that guy. I got to be a pro. He's talking about his bio-mechanist. I just. Yeah. You're too much. I start avoiding you. Oh, I train a room. Monkey's fear mentions on the pod this week up to two. So that's a pay the over.

Was that one and a half was the line. Question from Philip in the live high. What's the turnaround time of a player comes to an analyst with a question one day, one week? Does the email just die somewhere? It probably changed over time, didn't it? Well, yeah, it's not usually, you usually do it in person, you just walk into the room.

It was like, hey, who's in here? Like, and you know, the Mets, I had two people that were usually who I went to and they were who I met when I first went there. And I was just like, hey, what do you think of this? And then we'd like, look it up. They usually have a good idea, good way to like identify if that's true or not based on how do we search?

Like they're usually pretty good at that. So like mine would be instant, especially if they had time, they're like, Oh, you know, I'm doing something in an hour. Would you come back? Like you come back after BP or something. So most of the time it's just that day. Um, or you just go to your pigeon coach, be like, Hey, I'm wondering about this thing and then he'll find it for you.

Um, if like, half was always a guy who, who like liked to do that. Like he liked looking at stuff up. I wonder if it took a little bit more time, you know, early on, right. When like you're talking about that transition time and the twins took, it took a longer time and you might have been a little bit more green and like you didn't necessarily want to ask a lot of questions that would maybe take a lot of time to answer whatever right exactly exactly you want to kind of keep it bite size um if you will so but then as you learn more then it usually start pulling on threads and you can go forever but uh the great teams do it immediately like the Dod Dodgers go in there, you're gonna get like a report that day.

I would be super happy if I was running an organization and pitchers were asking us questions. I would feel like that's a good sign of health. Yeah. Yeah, that's what you want. Because that means they trust you. They think they wanna know your answer. They think you know something.

They also feel like they can ask something that maybe even is wrong or sounds stupid and they feel safe enough to ask it and then be like, Oh, I guess I was wrong. Or I guess that, you know, the numbers don't support it. I've had times where I walked in and be like, yeah, that's stupid. I'm leaving. See it. Like, there's nothing there. That's complete BS. You know, you're like, fine. Okay. Well, at least they didn't make you feel stupid for asking. Yeah. And then I looked over and I'm like, all right,

we'll have a good day. And they're like, all right, see you. And then we'd laugh about it and I leave. You need to create the no dumb questions environment though. I think if you want to really just eliminate those barriers as an organization internally, Zach writes, this is a frustrating listen as a white socks fan. I wish some socks brass would listen in. They changed things up in the organization

with a lot of hires. The hire that bothered everybody was promoting Chris Getz because the minor league system under his watch was not good. So promoting him to GM ends up being a move that as a fan you're like, this is awful. And at the time it happened, I said, yeah, it probably is awful, but it's a different role and if he were to put the right people in place, it's possible that they could get better despite that hire, despite the possibility

of going outside the org and getting someone better, maybe they are still going to be better off than they were in the Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn, you know, last 15 year window. But you bet on the prove it side, because it is more of the same in terms of making the internal hire. I think you've seen some good out of JJ Piccolo, even though it's kind of the same situation

where he was part of the same organization. He got elevated. He doesn't seem to kind of run things the same way as the guy that he that he replaced. So you know, gets kind of goes in there and hires banister, which is, I think, not something that his predecessors would have done, maybe. Although, you know, his predecessors did try to hire Sam Mondry-Cole, who is now with the Marlins, and he was a director of R&D that they actually put in the dugout. He had been a director of R&D. They put him in the dugout as like a sort of QA coach, you know, data liaison. I don't know how well it worked. There's a lot of like, I call it an organizational inertia where it's like, you know, if they just see him as the nerd, then like, you know, it's going to be hard for him to do his work.

Yeah, I think there's a longer path in a place like Chicago when you're trying to put someone like that in place. You have even more walls, more barriers to knock down on the way to getting everybody on the same page. Because the owner has his own sort of aura that he's bringing to the table. It's another organization where you can kind of tell the problem is at the actual top, right? Much like we talked about in Anaheim earlier this week.

Once you have a change at the top, you'll probably see more change throughout the organization for the better in the long run. Let's talk about the Rangers at the fork. Where is this team headed at the trade deadline? 37 and 44 entering play on Friday. It's eight games behind the Mariners in the AL West. A lot of people think that the Mariners are gettable because the Mariners aren't putting enough runs on the board. It's seven games back the Mariners in the AL West. A lot of people think that the Mariners are gettable because the Mariners aren't putting enough runs on the board.

It's seven games back of a wild card spot. Only an 8% chance of making the playoffs according to FanGraph. 17.7% though if you look at baseball perspectives as Pocota. So if you're a Rangers fan, use Pocota. It'll make you feel a little better about things right now. I look at this team and I think the big difference is they're just not hitting like they did last year, right? They're 22nd in barrel rate, 23rd in WRC plus. They don't strike

out a lot, so that's a good thing. But last year, the Rangers were tied for third in homers league wide. Only the Braves and Dodgers hit more, so they were crushing the ball last year. They have had some injuries. Josh Young's only played four games. Corey Seager wasn't himself to start the year. He had that spring injury. He's kind of looking more like Corey Seager in the last six, eight weeks or so. Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter, both have had stints on the I.L. of more than 20 days. A couple of things have gone right, most notably Josh Smith. He's been awesome on paper.

He's basically hit like Carlos Correa this year. I don't think anybody had that as a bold prediction coming into the season. So the lineup you could look at and say, OK, with health, this year. I don't think anybody had that as a bold prediction coming into the season. The lineup you could look at and say, okay, with health, they're at least going to be closer to league average without making any changes. The pitching is probably better than expected by result. 19th in war among starters, 18th in the bullpen, that's probably a little better than I would have expected coming in despite the highest walk rate in the league. And the thing about the Rangers that we talked about back in March was, hey, Max Schurz is going to come back eventually. Jacob deGrom should come back in the second half. He's throwing some bullpen sessions now and Tyler Malley should come back too, right? So they,

if they stay afloat in the first half, they could be a lot better in the second half just with the pitching, getting some return from injury sorts of upgrades along the way based on that sort of Context have they still underperformed as the defending World Series champs? Relative to what we all thought they would do in this first half for me They're going exactly like I thought they would honestly if the if the season ended today The AL West shakes out exactly how I predicted. So that's the one thing I have going good, but there just wasn't any news about them in the off season.

I was like, why is there not more excitement? Because usually there is. Usually I'm used to seeing fan base be like, let's go, we're gonna repeat and this, that, and the other. And it just seemed like Chris Young and the family over there just were like, we're good. It just felt like a we're gonna we're gonna repeat and this that and the other and it just seemed like Chris and Chris young and the family Over there like just were like we're good. It just felt like a we're good situation We're just gonna run it back out there run it back and see see what we get out of our guys and you know

Like you said, of course he is Corey started slower Simeon though he saw like he always is he had a great year last year him and him and see a seeker together were like great years top hitters in the league and they needed to both do that in order to be the team that were last year, him and him and a Seager together were like great years, top hitters in the league. And they needed to both do that in order to be the team they were last year. And they're still good. It's just not, they're not great. And Seager is trending that way, but you know, and then, and then, uh, the

starting pitching has been about what I'm, I thought they would in the bullpen has been shaky, uh, walking lots of guys. Um, Leo Tavares isn't doing what he did last year. They just had a lot of guys kind of peak at the same time. And that's what you need. And it hasn't shaken out that way. And then losing young early was a blow that they couldn't really afford.

So there was just a lot riding on a lot of guys doing the same thing again. And when you go into a season like that, it pretty much never happens. And that's kind of why I saw them. I mean, they're so talented and they have so many good players that they weren't gonna be like terrible and they're gonna hang around.

But I just, I don't know if they're a buyer or just judging by like the way that they've been going about building the team this year, all year, I would not be surprised if they do like one little like lateral move or something and grab a reliever or just don't do anything at the deadline because it's just not, they could still sneak in. Like you can sneak in 8181

and they're probably like, we're still good enough to do that. And if we don't, then, you know, the guys get an extra month rest so that we can get going next year. And that's a terrible thing to think as a fan of a team. But like, that's not surprising at all. Like it's baseball. It's you know, you can waste a lot of resources trying to go for a second one when that's

not it's so hard to do. I think probably the local TV thing was a complicating factor for spending money. So I think there was sort of like, hey, we're going to ride a ride, our, our, our coattails here and just sort of, you know, be happy. We got that championship. We have, you know, sell people on the returning the returning pitchers and, you know, for, for that's worth it's it's what's amazing to me is that their run scored and the runs against to date match up almost exactly with their run scored, their projected run scored and their runs against today match up almost exactly with their run scored their

projected run scored and the projected runs allowed. And that's so weird for me because I see young coming back. I think Langford is about to go off. I mean Langford you starting to see the power now. I think he's coming into it. He's healthy again. I think Evan Carter is going to be better going forward. I think Marcus Simeon and Corey Seager are going to be better going forward. I think Marcus Simeon and Corey Seager are

going to be better going forward. I even think Adolis Garcia, who I don't really love his approach. I think he, you know, I don't think he's a below average bat with all that power he's got. So I see so many bats under reforming. I think they're going to, they're all going to get it going. And then you've got the aforementioned pitchers coming back. How could they have the same runs allowed going forward but maybe have de Grom and Scherzer and Malley on the same roster like that something doesn't line up for me with those projections so I think this is a totally a stand pat team I can't imagine that the year after and that's another thing about optics a year after winning the world series you're gonna trade away.

Somebody that especially not somebody that you have for years and years like maybe some rentals if they if they don't get it going some rentals read the deadline some expiring contracts maybe scherzer. Because you could get a you could get maybe a pretty decent prospect for a month or two for two months of scherzer but and also don't know that the fan base is like you know like values Scherzer is like a foundational piece like I don't he wasn't necessarily healthy for for a lot of their run so you know I don't think that they're they would be like oh my god you traded away Scherzer it's not like bum garner remember when bum garner at the end of the Giants tenure it was like you should trade away bum garner and it's not like Bumgarner. Remember when Bumgarner at the end of the Giants tenure, it was like, you should trade away Bumgarner. And it's like, I want to be the guy who trades away Bumgarner at the trade deadline. You know, like I think that people will remember me badly.

I don't think that's going to happen Scherzer. So I hope, I think they'll hold and then at the very last moment, maybe sell Scherzer. Right. If they're sitting as far back as they are today, the chances of them getting a little closer are decent though, for the reasons that you mentioned. I think if you try to figure out what they would do at the deadline, clearly as Trevor mentioned, Leodi Tavares hasn't been good, so that's the spot you'd like to upgrade. I don't know if I see them going out and giving up the young talent to go get Luis Robber. I don't think they're a team that would go get Jas Chizom. You could trade for a corner outfielder and play Evan Carter in center, I think.

I think that's at least in the realm of possibility in terms of his athleticism. I don't think you'd be pushing him into a spot where he's going to fail if you went that route. So maybe it's an inexpensive corner option to upgrade the outfield as a whole, to play it to Varus less and then a reliever or two. But I almost wonder too,

if part of it with the RSN money being what it is and the opening day payroll being nearly 225 million, because they've been so aggressive and free agency in recent years, if they have to try and find a team that's willing to eat a lot of money left on contracts, like maybe the ownership group saying,

hey, look, we got our title, the TV money's a mess, so we're not going any higher than this. We can add, we can tweak and play for now, we just can't spend more money than we're spending currently. They'd lose a fair amount of money. I'm sorry if I made it sound like it's just Scherzer. They'd lose a fair amount of money off the payroll after this year. They lose 43 million from Scherzer, 13 million from Haney, a possible 10 million from Robertson,

six from Leclerc, four from Yates, four from Lorenzen. I mean, I'm just trying to add this up here really quickly in my head. That's 20, 30, 70. They lose like, you know, like 80, 90 million off of their payroll. So I think, you know, I think they're good with paying DeGrom, Seeger and Simeon long term money and then trying to just assemble around it. That seems to be their plan there. We'll see what the next couple of weeks bring, but that middle area where they're not hard

sellers but they're not aggressive buyers seems the most likely just based on all these different factors. Let's take a look at a team in the NL that is in a bit of a different situation. The Reds, they're probably ahead of schedule relative to expectations 14 months ago. I mean, things were really bad at the beginning of last season in Cincinnati. They are better now, but maybe not quite where everybody was hoping coming into the year. 38 and 43 entering play today. Ten games behind the Brewers in the NL Central, only three and a half games out of a wild card spot in the NL. That's a 9. half games out of a wild card spot in the NL.

That's a 9.9% chance of making the playoffs according to Fangraph, 7.9% according to Pocota. So Pocota popular in Texas, less popular in Ohio right now. What do we think about this Reds team, Trevor? I mean, you had them, I think, winning the division at the beginning of the season. I think it's still possible. It's more likely they'd fall into that wild card bin just based on the distance they are behind the Brewers, but a playoff team nonetheless,

do you still think that's got a shot happening despite how things have started off in the first half for them? Absolutely, for a few reasons. They've underperformed at the plate, which is something that I think they have a lot of room to improve in and they have opportunities to do so.

You know, McLean going down was not helpful. I had him having a really good year. And this was more of a the maybe the hot take of the of the predictions just because that's fun and I like having hot takes. But Ladolo's Ben is just if he can stay healthy, he is filthy. They're getting a good year out of Abbott. I mean, like I would take one LaDolo and, and, and Hunter green and a one, two and a wild card series. I take, I like the YIV just as good as a chance of anybody. Um, the bullpen is, has been pretty good. Uh, you know,

Sam Molls thrown well, I think he's a guy who every single year is throwing really well. No one really is talking about. And I'm a little biased there because he's a friend of mine, but they're right there. All they need to do is start scoring some more runs and maybe, and they're in one of the most

home run friendly parks in the league and they're not hitting as many home runs as they should. So, you know, they could get hot, the weather warms up, you know, they could get hot, the weather warms up, you know, Marte's coming back, say he provides a little bit of a spark, you know, and maybe they add a guy. And one interesting thing now, I don't know,

I feel like the Reds have a lot of young guys that they can move, you know, whether it's on their team now or or or a little bit out. For a guy like I think like a guy like Brent Rooker goes there and he just does great. Obviously he's controllable and he's been controllable. But Brent Rooker and and and Cincinnati is really interesting to me because of the way he he can hit or another guy was thinking of and no one's talking about Colorado much, but they rake. You go get Ryan McMahon somehow, move and have Canalee DeLario playing first or D.H. in. Right now it's like Bartini's D.H. in and like, they have a D.H. spot they can use.

He could be a big boost, especially because he comes from a hitters friendly park to another really hitters friendly park. So there's no reason to think that he won't do what he's doing there and he's a wizard at third. So like he's great defensively, that would probably cost a lot to go get him, but they did, that could be a huge difference for them in the middle of the lineup.

So those two were just interesting for me. I don't know how you get those done, but if they did swap hands, you know, full disclosure, I don't, I'm not fully aware of everyone's top 30 prospect lists. So I don't know exactly, you know, I'm still learning a lot of that stuff, but that it's just a food for thought for those two guys.

I think they would help a lot. So the one thing I noticed about the Reds is that they've got this group of prospects that are all at high A together that they're kind of in that sweet spot at high A together that they're in that sweet spot where they have value, they have ceiling, they're not close enough to helping your team. So you can pretty easily talk yourself into trading some combination of Sal Stewart, Kam Collier, Hector Rodriguez, because they're not helping you this year and they're probably

not helping you until late next year at the absolute earliest. So I think it's always easier to trade those kinds of prospects away as opposed to current clear cut top 50 guys that have already reached double A. So maybe there's something there with one or a combination of those guys that gets them something back. It's weird to think about this team needing a bat, but I agree with you. Even with Novy Marte coming off that suspension, the core is basically Ellie, Novy Marte, and Jonathan India. The core is basically Ellie Novy Marte and Jonathan India, but as they are right now, the outfield is a weakness. So, yeah, whether it's Rooker or someone that could be there and another option to be there for multiple years, I think something like that makes

a lot of sense. They have had TJ Friedle on the IELTS twice. Eventually, you know, if he's back in the fold, he's a kind of key part of their lineup as well. But Jake Fraley and Will Benson are playing probably a lot more than expected, at least combined Benson, especially. And they've both been below average with the bat and with the glove. So it seems like an easy position to target. Question here is always the ownership group podcast.

The Lini, is he going to spend money? They do fluctuate kind of in the 15 to 17 range league wide in payroll when they're spending, even though they dip down to that bottom five, bottom six range when they're rebuilding. So they have room. They could actually take on some money, which gives them a little more flexibility

if Bob Castellini is willing to do it at the trade deadline. There's plenty of teams that want to shed money this time of year. Yeah, I'm going to make the case for them not doing those big things and not spending any money, because that seems to be kind of what they've done in the past. At least when they sold, they sold big, but I don't know that they've, I remember them buying big at the trade deadline. So my case is this, the outfield has been the idea idea I think for them has just been we're just going to get so

crowded in the infield that we'll make outfielders out of infielders. And I think it's been fairly successful with Spencer Steer. And I think you know, Jonathan India in a corner, you know, could work. And, you know, I think that Noel V. Marte and Matt McLean are the trade deadline acquisitions. Oh no, we're playing that game again. I know, I know. It's very red. It's the lamest, it's the lamest thing, but you could, you can already hear the GM saying

the words. Um, and if you take Noel V. Marte, and I know he didn't have a great post-PED suspension minorly extint, but let's say he finds it, and I know Matt McClain will be coming off a shoulder injury and sometimes that really affects her power, so that's a big question mark. But I'll also point out, and this was from the same list that I pointed out earlier, our listener Dominique, who his, what is his handle? D-O-M-I-N-I-K-K-E-U-L. Dominique did the biggest bat swing, bat speed gainers. India is second and Fraley is tenth. speed gainers. India is second and Fraley is tenth. And Fraley with a little more power becomes excited again. Friedel, a healthy Friedel becomes excited again. So basically what I'm saying is the spaghetti is there. You throw it against the wall and somebody

emerges as your outfielders. I don't think it's gonna be Benson. He strikes out too much. So I think it could be any one of Fraley, Friedle, McLean, and Noel Di Marte. I'm not saying that any of those guys are gonna play in the alphabet. They could push India to the outfield, so on and so forth. I think there's enough bats here. On the pitching side, I'm really surprised by how well they've done. And I think one of the things you can do is be like, oh, we've been good so far, so we're going to continue being good. And I'm not like I've also said, I've said many times, I don't understand Andrew Rabbit.

I do think Graham Ashcraft can be better. It's a decent, it's a decent group. I think I would still add a reliever. And we've talked about the Edwin Diaz idea, but you know, the thing that comes to mind is Joe Boyle for Sam Mull. At the time, I liked a little bit better for the A's because I thought they might be getting a starting pitcher. I think the process was good for both

sides. The A's needed a starting pitcher more than the reliever and Joe Boyle offers the upside of that. And so I'm circling maybe Connor Phillips as a possible trade guy because he has the same problem as Joe Boyle in terms of really bad command and so maybe you move Connor Phillips to the pen and find that that solves his his some of his command issues slim down his repertoire you know ask him to do less or you trade Connor Phillips for for a reliever that you have on the team for more years because that's how the Reds think. A reliever I I mean, I didn't realize how bad Connor Phillips season is going. 15 homers allowed in 57 innings at AAA working as a starter. 53 Ks, 50 walks.

ERA 10. Whips over two. If you probably talk to a Reds fan, they'll probably say the same things they said about boy, he's not going to work. But if you talk to somebody else, they'll say, well, his stuff plus grades are great. If he ends up being a reliever, then I traded a reliever for a reliever. Like if I trade Lucas Erceg for Connor Phillips,

it'll be the same thing we did last year and it won't necessarily be a bad idea. Lucas Erceg is 29 years old. Yes, you have him for a bunch of years, but I'm gonna try and make a starter out of Connor Phillips. A rebuilding team can afford that. The Reds are moving fast enough where they probably can't wait on that.

They have to change the role if they want to try and use Connor Phillips at some point sooner. And Carson Spires has come up and he's the opposite of Connor Phillips where he doesn't really have the stuff, but he has command, he has big mix, and he seems like a capable 5'6", somebody that can push Graham Ashcroft Somebody that can that could work the back of that rotation. So alright So we're saying mid level buyer for the Reds Like they will actually push a few chips in given the state of the NL central and the NL as a whole

I mean, they need a win streak. Yeah, they do they can't afford to drop a few more games and then Go into the deadline like six back of a drop a few more games and then go into the deadline, like six back of a wild card spot or something and then go aggressive. I don't think they'd get the buy-in they need for that to happen, especially if it ends up adding to the payroll. All right. So we're a little bit optimistic about the Reds and what they might do. Throw the chili on the spaghetti and see what you got, you know? How do you feel about Cincinnati chili, by the way? Do you like it?

I do. I think it's good. I haven't had I do. I do. I got into it, but I grew up eating baloney sandwiches. Yeah, I think we grew up eating a lot of the same foods, but I've never had skyline. I actually made Cincinnati chili at home, even though I'm not from Ohio. I think all I can see is heartburn, dude.

Yeah, there's heartburn, but it takes. Yeah, it's worth worth it. Worth the pain.. Yeah, it's worth it, worth the pain. All right, let's get to our game plan segment. How should we pitch to Steven Kwan? He's got a 182 WRC plus in 53 games this season. Ever since showing up in the big leagues, he's been great at putting the ball in play. This year, 7.1% K rate, only Luis Arias is better,

so he's in that territory. And now he's got seven homers. He's getting for power. A career high, seven homers already playing a third of the season. So what the heck is the idea here? Like, what do you try to do to not get beat by Steven Kwan, especially now that he's adding this power to his profile? Who wants to go first? You had a, you had a, we both have a similar first slide.

So why don't you show yours real quick. It's. Yeah. Yeah. So this is against my fastball and my slider, zero swings and misses all year. So not great. Not, not specifically yours, like ones like yours. Well, yeah. One's that profile. Yeah. Yeah. That break the same way and that are the same below. And, and I believe there's

like, so you'd be screwed. Vertical. Yes. You can't get them out. At least two. So yeah, like, oh, I'm not getting into swing and miss. That's probably, but not many people are. And actually that 7.1% K rate is actually 6.7 because I just checked it. So maybe you got yours a couple of days ago. It's even lower. So he doesn't swing and miss.

But he has eight home runs. One caveat to that, every single homer he's hit is in the exact same spot in the zone when he hits it. That's middle end to end, like mid thigh. And he's pulling, he's pulled every single one. And five of them are at home. And we know about the park factors in Cleveland. So take that with a grain of salt a little bit,

but he's juicing balls that he can pull. Um, and his, his red, his hard hit ball, if you drew a line from the up and in corner of the zone to the down in the way corner of the zone, everything is below the line that he's hit hard. Um, he has only one extra base hit that's into a gap. Um, every double is down the line and every home run is pulled. So on both sides. So that leads me to believe the types of things

he's trying to do. So it depends on where he, what, who, is there people on base or is he leading off an inning or whatever. The only thing he misses is change up and it's change ups that look like they're gonna go down and into them and then go below the zone. Those are the ones he chases.

Yeah. So I can throw that. I can tell the the zone. Those are the ones he chases. Yeah. So, and I can throw that. I can tell the same story. Look at this. Yeah, there we go. So the first one is fastballs. Those are all hundreds. If you're looking on YouTube right now,

he does not miss fastballs. There's one spot that's below 97% contact rate. It's like you gotta hit a penny on the outer half. And you can't even go high outer half. You just gotta go mid-level outer half and you gotta hit one little spot and that's it. Otherwise he's got hundreds and 98s and 99s of contact. Then if you look over, and the next one, sliders, hundreds everywhere unless you basically hit his back foot.

So you can try the back foot, but don't miss it all. And then you're right. Change-up is the only thing where he's got a little bit of weakness. You can even throw some in the zone, as long as you dot that bottom line. You know, you gotta kind of dot the black. And it can't be necessarily a change-up,

like a typical change-up that a righty would hit, the throw a lefty that's out over the outside corner. I think he must be able to just sort of serve those. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just, just flay them into the outfield. So it has to be almost like a front door change up. You're almost throwing the change up to his inside that kind of, that, that falls over the, the, the bottom middle of the plate.

Otherwise getting into swinging misses is swing and miss is folly. I mean, you gotta dot that fastball away, back foot the slider, and then front door the change up. Good luck finding a pitcher that can do all three of those things. And then just flip to the power. It tells the same story you were saying. The power is middle in.

And so I would basically just you know sort of pitch him up and away as much as possible and of course give up some opposite field singles in that process. If he came up with the bases loaded that's my plan is to hit that penny high and away and then back foot them with the slider or front door with the change up. At least I'd hope that I could do one of those two things with my secondaries. You know, either have a slider where I can back foot them or a change up where I kind of throw it middle. That's the plan and you can tell why it's really hard to execute. He also freezes too.

He's a guy who you, his strikeouts are actually a good number of freezes. So if you can throw a backdoor slider or something, if you have like a 10 or how, cause he's throwing his arms side constantly down in the way. Like if you can do that late, like a ball to strike, then you might be able to get him there. I would start him like up and in with a fastball or something, just like early in the count with maybe nobody on base or guy on first or or something just to get him like, oh, I might be able to juice and then just get away from that.

So like get him thinking. Cause if you just live away, he's going to start giving you that opposite field. He's going to, oh, I know you want him to think big because he's had some juices here. He's like, I can juice the ball. So you want him to think that he might get that pitch and then maybe he'll like pop up or just like freeze them for strikes. Like maybe an up and in fastball, a back foot slider. So he's like, Oh, this guy's living on an insider first pitch. Cause he's not a big swing first pitch guy anyways. So like he'll be,

Oh, do that again. And like, I'm not going to do that again. That was actually the thing you make you think that thought right there. If you're lucky, you get like a, a back foot, a swing and miss, you get a foul ball on, you know, made up and away fastball. And then you try to freeze them with a backdoor breaking ball. Yeah. And he looks at strike three. I'm a bit, this is the pitcher that's pulling this off has stones. And really good command. It's really hitting 370.

It's a heck of a little command. No one's doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So how come no one's doing this? I think that the challenge with Quan, and I think it's a similar challenge to Luis Araya's is when you look at what they do, okay, so you're willing to give up the opposite field single, because you know you're very unlikely to strike them out. Can you have your outfield defense play a lot more shallow

for hitters like Kwon going the opposite way? How far in, how much can you cheat in to try and take those opposite field hits away? Basically dare him to try and beat your left fielder, even beat your center fielder over the top. Cause when you look at where he hits the ball hard, like you guys said, it's all to the pole side. So I just wonder if that's one area where a player like Kwan or a player like a

Wyatt, a Raya's, maybe they start to lose in the long run. If outfield defenses continue to be more aggressive in how they play this type of player, it doesn't seem like we've seen it as much yet with them as we've seen it with other player types. That's a good point. He, a lot of thought he does is drop it right on the line though. So if you come in, you better be playing in line hard because you don't want that to trickle by you

because then now you're in trouble, trouble. But he has very, he's honestly, he has like nothing like at least against guys that have my pitch profile which are a lot of guys, nothing like literally nothing that's even being really dropped in front of the left fielder for like a play single. It's all like really close to the line and possibly a double, like he's dunking it in,

not like just hitting a nice single. Arai is a little different. He can do that both sides too. He can pull the ball like that. So he's a little bit more like playing ping pong. He actually said that to me once. It's like I'm playing ping pong, which is just an outrageous thing to say

as a professional leader, but he can flake. I think Kwan's more It's like I'm playing ping pong, which is just an outrageous thing to say as a professional leader. But he can flake. I think Kwan's more of a, I'm gonna flay here and then I'm gonna try to hit the ball hard here because Dark Park's doing well here too. So like his a little bit different. But yeah, you could incentivize him like having to think about that,

like not being so comfortable doing that, which might get him off his game a little bit anyway. So I'm sure there's, and there are teams doing that, but I'll be honest, there's not a ton of left fielders that are like the best athlete on their team. They're out there cause they can hit. So it's like, you know, I'm trying to think like if Rutgers out there or like Alvarez is out there, like, like, you know, it's not, it doesn't matter really. He's going to do it. Um, so it, you gotta pick and choose who your guy is, right?

And just give it to them. And, uh, they're already doing it. Um, so it, you got to pick and choose who your guy is, right. And just give it to them. And, uh, they're already doing it. They are moving in there. Up a lot of average start distance for the left fielder, starting with the closest that the left fielder is playing Nikki Lopez. Yep. Okay. One, Stephen Kwan two,. Luis Arias, three.

Jeff McNeil, four. Those are the correct out. Those are the correct choices. Yes. And they're starting at 277. And the average, the sort of median outfielder is at like 290. So that's. That's 12 feet in, 12, 13 feet in. This guy's already playing. So yeah, they're already playing him

and he's still finding a way to dunk those hits in. Well. There's one fun fact on him too, by the way. Stephen Kwan is what we call in the game, sneaky slow. It turns out he's 48 48 percentile on sprint speed, which is a mile an hour slower than Shea Langley. Whoa. So why? How?

This guy could steal 20 bases even before the rules change. He had 19 back in 2022. I don't know. He's 21 to 27, 27.1 miles an hour top speed, and Shay's 28. But Shay's 72nd percentile, so he's actually way faster than people think he is. I love using this stat because Shay's like the second fastest guy behind Ruiz on the A's, which is hilarious.

Does this go back to the limitations of sprint speed, though, and when it's on and when it's not, right? Shay's always sprinting out, too. He loves this. He loves that he's up there. So he's always spread it out to I, he loves this. He loves that he's up there. So he's like trying to actively get his speed up, which is great. And that's what I've heard complaints from some guys who are older, who still have good speed.

And I've got some in my text in my inbox that are like, you know, that's that ain't crap. He's like, they tested, they tested me on the Mets and I was the fastest. It gets like, guess who? Hints there. Can is like, there's I'm what I'm faster than starling Marte. Okay. I just run harder. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Is that type where he just, he runs hard all the time. There's other guys, you know, you've seen Manny low fit to first, you know, but sometimes he's playing hurt and he's, you know, I'm out, you know? Yeah. He looks so hurt right now. By the way, Manny Machado just doesn't look right. I was watching the Padres last Friday. I texted you guys because Dylan sees through a couple changeups that actually made me angry.

And it's because it's just because everything else he throws is good. Right. Like, why would you do that when you can do other stuff that he could have a power seems to change up easy and it would be disgusting. And Nick Pollock is yelling about him having a cutter, you know, because he sometimes the force seems not there for him. So he should, he should have a cutter. So I, yeah, it is a little bit weird, but then again, if you have shaky command, maybe, um, you know, playing around with it, you don't want to, you know, the change up is just so weird.

It's probably not affecting his other stuff. He says he like flicks it and he like he aims like in front of the plate. It's it's basically an EFIS. It pops out of his hands in a way that I feel like hitters would just be able to recognize it. It just doesn't most of them. No, I don't want that. And they weren't, they were all like pretty non-competitive too. Afterwards looks like, whoa. Yeah.

I mean, he's got his reasons, but I disagree with those reasons. He's got a reason, but they're stupid. Yeah. They seem pretty dumb to me, but Hey, that's just, just my opinion. We're going to go on our way out the door. Just a reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic, it's a dollar a month for the first year, you can read Eno's great story from today,

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Special shout out again to the Live High for joining us on this Friday. We go live most Fridays at 1 o'clock on You can join the discord the link is in the show description if you got a question for a future episode drop them in there Special shout out again to the live high for joining us on this Friday We go live most Fridays at 1 o'clock Eastern next week We'll go live on Wednesday at 1 o'clock Easter because the 4th of July is in the end of the week. So Adjust your calendars accordingly if you enjoyed the show be sure to hit the like button for this video on YouTube lose a nice rating And review that is gonna do it for this episode of of rates and barrels we're back with you on Monday thanks for listening