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

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss the latest news on Gerrit Cole’s elbow injury, the Astros’ interest in Blake Snell, the best rotations in baseball, and several new faces in new places, before digging into curveballs, and taking a few viewer/listener questions.  Rundown 0:55 Gerrit Cole: No UCL Tear Detected 7:20 Blake Snell: Astros Interested? 8:45 Best Rotations in Baseball Right Now New Faces in New Places 14:50 Chris Sale’s Fit in Atlanta 21:00 Josh Hader: Adding to the Astros’ Strength 24:59 DL Hall’s Starting Opportunity in Milwaukee 31:16 Jorge Polanco’s Fit in New-Look Seattle Lineup 34:43 Teoscar Hernández: Getting Into a Better Fit for a Home Park 39:15 Michael Soroka: A Fresh Opportunity for Rebuilding White Sox 42:05 Pitch Deep Dive: Curveballs 59:41 Q&A: Which Spring Stats Do We Pay Attention To? 1:03:32 Q&A: Game Planning for Opponents’ Weaknesses, or Your Own Strengths? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes w/Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, grates and barrels, it is Friday, March 15th. It is a live one. Derek the Riper, Enosarich, Trevor May, all here on this Friday. On this episode We got some news on Derek Cole. We have rumors about Blake Snell We have some new faces in new places that have intrigued us that we're going to discuss in some detail I'm gonna take a deep dive into curveballs and we got some Q&A coming up a little later in the show as well Listener leagues are blowing up. We're up to five listener leagues.

We may actually have to cut it off soon. So yeah, just a heads up there. Get in if you haven't done so already. The link is inside the Discord, so be sure to jump in there. Let's just get right to it. We have some news on Garrett Cole. No UCL tear detected.

He's still expected to miss one to two months. It just feels like we're in this holding pattern. I saw some analysis from a few different physicians out there that they weren't the ones that read the MRI or anything like that. But it still kind of feels like this is a possible like long term problem lurking until we hit some kind of prolonged stretch where Garrett Cole is healthy and pitching effectively again. Right. So, Trevor, do you have a point in your career

where you were waiting for something like this, where you didn't have a clear tear or something that was known to be a major problem, but you had to work through this sort of window of uncertainty? Yeah, actually all of 2016 had a back issue and that we couldn't, the diagnosis didn't seem quite right and it just seemed like it was like,

okay, just do this rehab program and then strengthen everything around it and it'll be, you know, you'll feel better at some point. That uncertainty, it sucks. I'm honestly, my Tommy John surgery, my tear was so clean that it was just like, I just knew what needed, I knew what the next 16 months

were gonna look like immediately, which was really nice at least. If you're gonna be hurt, you wanna know what's going on and then how to fix it right away. Yeah, hearing that about Cole is not great. It has that feeling like we're in a holding pattern and let's see if he feels better. That's just never anything you wanna hear

because I feel like this could be recency bias, but it's usually a lot longer than they're anticipating. Have we heard any details? Like this is the first I'm seeing no UCL tear. Like have you seen any other details? Haven't seen anything like a PRP injection or anything. Haven't even seen like a diagnosis. They said his elbow hurt and then they said-

They're probably like there's inflammation in the area. I guarantee you that's what they like. Oh yes. That's what happens when things hurt. That's usually what it is. When there's inflammation in the area, you, have you seen your own MRIs? Have I? Yes.

Have you been like walked through like what you're looking at and like, you knew you, so you've like, when you an MRI, if there's inflammation around the area, does that make it hard to see if there's a tear? Like, does inflammation block what you might see? Yes. So the best way to find out if there is a tear in your elbow is like with an arthrogram, which I won't get. It's a little bit awful, but it's like you put dye in the area and then that dye can

travel within a muscle. And then if there's a like tendons block. You'll see a bright, you'll see the no color somewhere. Yeah, so like color will go somewhere it's not supposed to be and that means there's a tear. Like for mine it was just like the color's yellow and they just pulled up the image and before it even start, like before the whole thing was yellow.

So he's like, yeah, it's everywhere. So it's gone, it's not even leaking, it's gone. So it was, I knew immediately, he just said, we're gonna see if it's yellow or not. And he opened it, he was like, whoa. I was like, whoa, okay, I guess. But again, if there's lots of inflammation or swelling, that might close that up and that might not even work.

So it is kind of a guess and check a lot of times. You gotta wait for things to calm down before you can see what's going on. So basically they're gonna take another MRI in like four weeks or something and like the swelling will be down and then they might get, they might be like, oh, well it was a tear.

That happens very often, yeah, that's common. There's the land of uncertainty we're living in with Garrett Cole and if you're in the position of Brian Cashman, you have to decide, do I take advantage of the fact that Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still out there as free agents? Do I go ahead and throw money at the problem? Because in a world where Garrett Cole is not available you've got Rodin, you've got Stroman,

you've got Nestor Cortez, you've got Clark Schmidt, you kind of have the open competition with a lot of younger guys, maybe Luis Hill stepping up into that number five spot. I mean, you know, do you think there's a pressing need for the Yankees to go out and make an addition or do you trust the depth enough for them to weather the storm, even if this does turn into a longer term absence for Cole? You know, I kind of like the idea of Snell because Snell, when he's in, can pitch like an ace and the question is only when is he in? And so you kind of just like line up the when is he in with the

other guys? You're like, okay, so now he'll be healthy to begin the season. And then if he's not later on, then hopefully Cole will be back, you know? And I don't think that throwing, you know, like Jordan Montgomery, I like, but they decided at some point, the Yankees decide, he's not that much different from when they decided this, that he's not a playoff rotation guy. You know, they traded them way because they had their three or four playoff rotation guys and they traded him for Harrison Bader. I don't think he's actually improved since then. I think he's just been in a good situation and pitched well.

I don't see any sort of like, oh, he did this or he pitched this way or he didn't. No, he's like, same guy. So I think Snell represents more like, hey, we lost our number one and here's a guy who can pitch like a number one. The only question is innings. And I think, you know, to some extent, maybe they would like what the rumor is that Snell is looking for right now, which is kind of the pitcher version of the Matt Chapman deal, which is something with a high AV and some opt outs. I think that might be okay for the Yankees. You know, they don't get, They don't get locked into something long-term and maybe they can set their eyes on some sort of cap reset two

or three years in the future. But Brian Cashman, this is one of the first years I think that he really has fire under his ass. I mean, last year was the first time they missed the playoffs in like, I don't know, 12 years or something, I mean, something ridiculous. And he hasn't won it all in a while. And I think there's a little bit of pressure on him. I think that's fair. And I think the concern you would have is that even if Cole misses two months and ends up being fine,

which does seem like the less likely outcome based on where things stand today, you still have a group of guys that have a lot of injury problems in their recent history between Rodin and Cortez and Clark Schmidt. So you really don't trust that all three of those guys stay healthy start to finish. So your trust level in the likes of Heal and Will Warren

and Beter has to be really, really high if you don't go out and do something. Interesting thing too is that we're seeing some reports. This one's from Chandler Rome, the athletic, that the Astros remain engaged in the starting pitching market. Specifically Blake Snell could be a fit in Houston, which I mean that would bump them from probably like a top 10 rotation to clearly inside the top five, wouldn't it Trevor? Yeah, that's, that would be really good for them.

And they have already done one kind of out of nowhere move with Hayter. So now I'm not putting anything past them and letting them swoop in to really try to lock in that eight straight ALCS. If I'm another team, I just, now I'm like, if I'm the Yankees, I'm like, we, not only can we, do we need him, we can't let them have him.

Yeah, cause they've always been meeting in the ALCS and they can they keep getting beat. So That's just another that would be another thing. Just wow, I can't believe this happened again But yeah, he would fit really really well in that rotation and they have the bullpen even the innings thing like it's just a good fit because they have such a quality bullpen to get to that if you were throwing the five five plus Regularly and they had a you know, two nothing lead. They're in a good shape. Yeah, it'd be the kind of lift I think that we just saw the Padres get with the addition of Dylan Cease in terms of taking a good rotation and making it A great one, you know, you wrote about that a little bit before the athletic today the best rotations in baseball

I think having a top five rotation just off the cuff makes you a playoff contender. That alone is good enough, unless your offense is just horrific. You're going to be a team that's in contention all season long. So as you went through that process, were there any teams that popped a little higher than you expected? I mean, I know we're talking and thinking about pitching all the time on this show, but was there any any group of pitchers that just by the projections were above where you thought they'd be? You know, the Phillies by Fangrass had the second best and it's just one of those sneaky rotations.

I think the park covers up a lot of things where you're just like, you know, like look at their ERAs and like they're not those aren't the greatest ERAs. They, you know, they haven't had great defenses behind them in the past too. So like, you know, they have these't the greatest ERAs. They haven't had great defenses behind them in the past, too. So they have these high three ZRAs. And so you're like, eh, they're good. But then when you look at how many they strike out, how many they walk, and how deep they are and what they've got, you're like, oh, that could be one of the best rotations in ball. So I think the Phillies were kind of a surprise.

They show up top three, if you look by fan graphs. When I did it by stuff plus, like it was a little bit more what I expected. The Mariners were like second I think, and the Astros were like third or fourth, and the Padres made the list and made the top five. So, the Stuff Plus list, I'm so deep in that that I'm always working in that.

Like I wasn't too surprised, but the Astros gained and the Padres gained when you looked at it, but just by stuff plus. Because Cis, for all his flaws, did represent a huge stuff upgrade for the back end of that Padres rotation. Do you guys have a favorite for their number five spot now? I mean, they got Johnny Brito, Randy Vasquez,

Mel Waldron, Pedro Avila, Robbie Snelling. A lot of options now that they've made another addition. Anyone pop? I Mel Waldron, Pedro Avila, Robbie Snelling, a lot of options now that they've made another addition. Anyone pop? I want Waldron. You want Waldron? You want a knuckleball in the league. I want the knuckleball.

Just from a, yay, we got another one. A new guy to check in on, and every once in a while he's gonna have some of the grossest swings and misses and those just nails outings. Yeah, that's just fun, I think, but that's just where I'm coming from there. Yeah, I think that would be fun. I did sit in on a Johnny Brito start with my eldest

and we actually, because spring training is so cheap, we got like eighth row, ninth row seats behind home plate and we were sitting among the Scouts. My my mom was laughing that all the Scouts were wearing the same brand of clothing. Yeah. Like tailor made hats. That's it. I think it was Travis Matthews. No, that's that's the one. It's the Matthews. What's that? You shirts. Yeah. It's a T something T something Matthews, right?

It's Travis Matthew. I think Travis Matthew. That's what they're wearing. Oh, I know. They were Travis Matthew. I think a while ago used that's what they're wearing. Oh, I know. They were Travis Matthew. I think a while ago, it used to be like, Lulu Lemon was the big thing. But I guess Travis Matthew's the big one. So we had literally like four guys in a row, Travis Matthew on the back of their shirt,

like right in front of us. And I was playing with my son being like, imagine standing in, like what pitch was that? What pitch was that? And the thing that really kind of stood out for me was that Burrito, he did get a little bit like nervous against Mike Trout. I think he had like a pitch clock violation and a guy stole a base on him and he was really trying to get Mike Trout out. But the good news was he got Mike Trout out twice. I saw him have a plan with

his sinker and I think it was a new cutter against lefties. I think his sinker is actually good enough that he can do stuff with it against lefties, which is a tough thing for a lot of sinker ballers. I think it's a really good sinker. I think it's good enough to to to get by. I think his sinker and his breaking ball are two pitches that are better than anything Randy Vasquez has. And so my favorite is Johnny Burrito for the number five there. My youngest kept calling him Johnny Burrito.

I said, no, that's not his name. I would call myself Johnny Burrito if it was acceptable, but... I mean, after 10 days in Phoenix, I was Eno Taco. You were, you absolutely were. I'm with the Umbrito. We talked about just the major shift in park factors, leaving Yankee Stadium, going to Petco, the problems he had at home last year with the long ball,

that gets cut down considerably, so I think that gives him a really nice floor. Kind of one of those guys that's a big winner from the off season that people don't talk a lot about. I like him as a favorite for that spot as well, but they have a couple of young prospects that will probably get a chance in that rotation before the end of the season.

Snelling makes the most sense, I think, of that group. Oh, by the way, Snelling has quads. You know, I think it's after Strider, I've been like, oh yeah, quads. I mean, like with the,'s that the kinetic chain, right? Trevor, like kind of everything comes like kind of up out of the ground and like towards your shoulder and out to the arms is like that's the kinetic chain. I mean, like you can have a guy like Chris Hale. Obviously, it works. But, you know, when I see a guy now with quads, I'm like, I notice it and Snelling has those like I'm a work I notice it. And Snelling has those like, I'm a workhorse quads.

You know, it's just like, I'm a solid dude. I can do 180. That's funny. But that's what we're, that's our standard now. Just like, what kind of quads he got? Oh, that guy got 200 and he's easy. How much did he squat? Just ask him, how much is he squatting?

That's a big one. The breaking news scrolling by here from the Live H hive, shout out to James, a regular listener of the show. Robert Stevenson still feeling some shoulder discomfort, kind of a frustrating spring for him so far. Might leave our guy Carlos Estevez, even though his pants were bothering him at the beginning of spring training, he still may be the closer there if that injury lingers for Robert Stevenson. So we'll keep tabs on that. But again, shout out to the live hive.

Love those comments. Keep them coming. We'll take some questions at the end of the show. Let's get to some new faces in new places. You know, you've just kind of brought one up in passing that you want to talk about. Chris Sale, a big addition to the Atlanta rotation, and they also extended him to how are things going to be different for Chris sale in Atlanta? Is it just a clean bill of health and a fresh start outside of Boston or is there more to it than that?

I think one is psychological, which is just like, you know, the last three, I think it's the last four seasons. He has like 160 innings and probably not the best feeling with like the Boston staff and like, you know, just like I think there's, you know, if he was honest about it, he would say that it was getting to be a slog there, you know, where, you know, always the questions about innings, I'm sure, you know, every time a reliever, a journalist is talking to him or he goes on a show or something, they're talking about his health, you know, it's like, you know, and you or you turn on a show or something, they're talking about his health. Or you turn on the local talk radio, like how many days we're gonna get out of this? He's gonna start starting for us.

Whatever, that was never the Boston accent. That was a Boston accent? Crushed it. That was more just like a talking head voice. So I think a fresh psychological start is a big deal. You get on a team that has aspirations for making the World Series. It's an LFG moment. You know what I mean? I feel

like he was probably pretty happy to hear that phone call. But another thing that's interesting and we're going to get less and less of this over time because we're we have a new schedule that's like more and more balanced and you have to face everybody else in the league at least once, you know, and so, you know, we're trying to sort of balance the schedule out. We didn't have that for a lot of the last four or five years. And so I looked at his starts in the last four years. He had 99 starts in the last four years.

11 of them were against National League opponents. And of those 11, only I think six were against National League East opponents. And so if you are in the National League East, you have not seen much Chris Sale. And I, and I, and I will point out that no matter what Stuff Plus says, no matter what anybody says, Chris Sale has a fairly unique set of stuff and pitches and arm angles and body type. And just, I think you want to get comfortable with Chris Sale. You want to like have faced him a lot of times. I think the first time that was, yeah, that was Mad Dog. 100% nailed it.

Definitely Mad Dog. But, uh, yeah. So I just think that, you know, I think for the national league East batters, it's going to be an uncomfortable situation for them this year. They're going to see, yeah, exactly sliders from first base. And for the lefties going to be something they haven't seen in a long time. And for righties, they're just still going to have to see all these elbows and all those, you know, knees coming at them.

So I think I think it'll just be one of those things. And from stuff research, we have seen that people do get comfortable with shapes over time. So you know, the people who haven't seen Chris Sale are going to have a harder time with them than people have. What do you think about that fit, Trevor? I agree wholeheartedly. I think he fits into that. Also, like the looks from their rotation, you know, now they got they got Freed, who is funky in his own right. They got Morton, who's funky in his own right. They got Strider who's a little bit more of a classical right at you guy. So like they got all of these different looks

and you slot him in there. It's just not a, there's no comfort, there's no day where you're like, okay, here's our Joe random, you know, creative player, right? Where we're gonna see the guy I always use. And I know this person, but I always say the Dylan G, if you remember him. He was very straightforward.

You could have, you know, you could see his mechanics on any street corner, but like they don't have one. So you add him in there, it's gonna be really tough for a team to get used to him. You know, I know that from experience too, guys talking about him. Like that was like Torrey Hunter's big thing, was like trying to give guys that hadn't faced him before

like as much information before as possible because he was just a unique guy to face. You know, that was in his prime too, so you gotta add that in. But he's that type of guy. He's always gonna be like that. Even as his stuff kinda gets older and his stuff diminishes a little bit,

he's still gonna be funky. And so he's still gonna be able to get guys out in different ways and he's really smart and knows how to pitch. So it's just a great fit. And then like I like the take on the Boston, there's some baggage. Sometimes you just need a clean slate. You need to kind of not have the the stigma that you feel like you might have. And then, you know, it's nice to know another team wants you too. So like there's a lot of that. And

he doesn't need to be the ace either. So like there's a lot of pressure off there that just sometimes you need to get kind of going again. So it's just a really great I think situation for him and surprise, braves, great move. Got the extension done with Chris Sale as well. I think that's the thing I look at from kind of like a fantasy perspective and say hey this is a team that makes good decisions. They still believe there are a lot of productive years left. I thought that previously it seemed like around the injuries, the biggest issue would be occasional lapses in command, which probably was the result of rust more than anything else. So I could see that being a really good fit.

One little interesting side story there is that they, they acquire Chris sale and extend him before Max Fried. So, you know, Max Freed has the forearm strain. Is it because they've seen something where they're like, we were worried about that? I mean, but to say we're worried about Max Freed and then to extend Chris Sale, it's like a little funny. So maybe they'd done some early engagement with Max's agent

and we're like, oh, like those numbers are not, we're not close. Like maybe something like that. But it is kind of interesting. I think if I was Max Freed, I'd be a little bit like, what? I think if you're Max Freed and he's 30 years old already, he's got one really great shot at the mega deal.

If he goes through this season completely healthy, he's gonna get a ton of money this winter. So I think that's part of the appeal for him waiting it out. Ever try to break a bad habit and feel like you're climbing Everest in flip-flops? We've all been there. But here's a breath of fresh air. Fume. It's not about giving up.

It's about switching up. Fume takes your habit and simply makes it better, healthier, and a whole lot more enjoyable. Fume is an innovative award-winning flavored air device that does just that. Instead of vapor, fume uses flavored air. Instead of electronics, fume is completely natural. And instead of harmful chemicals, fume uses delicious flavors. You get it. Instead of bad, fume is good. It's a habit you're free to enjoy and makes replacing your bad habit easy. Start the year off right with the good habit by going to tryfume.com slash barrels, getting the journey pack today.

Fume is giving listeners of the show 10% off when they use our code barrels to help make starting the good habit that much easier. Start the good habit at tryfume.com slash barrels to save 10% off the journey pack today. Another guy with funk came up a little earlier in the show, Josh Hader, gets added to a real strength. Houston's bullpen, at least their A bullpen, I think their whole bullpen was already good and they're the team that went out and got Josh Hader. And Trevor, if you gave me five guesses as to where Hader was gonna sign,

the Astros wouldn't have been any one of those five. So how do you like this move from Houston's perspective? It's Josh Hader, right? So he's, you know, I think he's been the most consistently dominant closer for the last five years, easy. And you know, a lot of people are like, well, what about Edwin Diaz?

Edwin's had a couple years where he wasn't that guy. Josh, outside of a one-month stretch, has been a one-five ERA guy, never giving up any runs and never blowing anything. So he's as automatic as you could possibly get. And you add him to Ryan Presley, who maybe was second most automatic. And then you add Brian Abreu in the seven eight.

So nasty. He, so let's just put it this way. Ryan Pressey is the record from a scoreless innings or appearances in a row for a reliever. And I'm pretty sure Abreu is like third. Second. Second. So they both have three month plus stretches

where they've not given up a run. And then you add that to Hader, who's probably been even more consistent over the last five years than them. So like the game's over if you're winning going into seventh inning, it's just, it is. And I keep saying, well, it's going to stop at some point. It just hasn't yet. I just don't understand.

Like I don't, I can't see a world where it would have to be injuries. Like they have to not be pitching for some reason. And that you just don't see one, three guys like that. Everyone's got like, some guys have two, some teams have two, and then you got like two guys that are, will, will, will be like matchups in the seventh or whatever, it doesn't matter left, right, left or right. He's coming up, whatever those three guys are going to face whoever it is coming

up and it's going to be every single time they're in that position. And that is something that you can just literally check that box and not have to worry about it anymore. That is a luxury that nobody else will have the way they have it. So that is, I mean, you can maybe make the case for maybe the Yankees or the Twins. Not quite the same thing.

The track record, not there yet. Griffin Jackson could be there. He could be a Brian Abreu, like, put together one of those runs, he just hasn't done it yet. So it's like, those guys are doing it and doing it now. So I think he adds, he just fits so perfectly and the games, when the game's over and you can just count on that,

now you're starting pitchers like, only have to throw six innings and you're good. I think they're pretty different looks. I mean, Hayter's way out there with the side army, weird riseball thing. Brian Abreu is your traditional power dude, like just power at you, like high 90s with a mid, like low 90s breaking ball. Just like, it's just, ah, you know, at you. And then Ryan Pressley comes out there almost like an internet char- I mean, not internet, a reliever Charlie Morton, like just a guy who throws like an 85 mile an hour to plane breaking ball. And we'll

talk a little bit more about curve balls in this episode. But and Ryan Pressley's features highly there, but it's just like, it's such a tough curve ball. It's just like, you know, everything kind of comes off of that, you know, and he's got two, two really good breaking balls. So you've got your spin guy, you know, you've got your power guy and then you've got your funk guy and the funk guy. Oh, well, he also throws ninety five. Nice six. Oh, yeah. He touches he touches a hundred even.

It's amazing to be able to just end the game, maybe even at the sixth inning. You get Rafael Montero there, too. He's really good. He'd be probably an eighth inning guy in a lot of other bullpens. So really nice addition, of course, with Hayter joining the fray in Houston. I'll throw my first name out there. I'm gonna go a little deeper. Not a surprise, being a Brewers guy,

but DL Hall, like, they're gonna use him as a starter. You can tell by how he's being stretched out this spring. They also need him to be a starter this year because their rotation is a bit of a mess. They're gonna cobble it together, maybe do some raise like stuff. Makes sense with Matt Arnold having originally come from there when he was the assistant GM a few years ago. But DL Hall has a deep arsenal of with multiple plus pitches.

It's just a question of command. And we were seeing it just for a little while at AAA last year. He was working as a starter, had a really nice stretch. they needed him in the bullpen, they decided to make the move there instead. Am I out of my mind for thinking that DL Hall could actually be a really good starter already in year one with Milwaukee? Not necessarily be a guy that fully replaces Corbin Burns or Brandon Woodruff or anything like that, but could he actually be more of a stabilizing presence for them than people are giving him credit for?

I'm a fan. I mean, one of the reasons that I'm a fan is that I think that once you get to the major leagues, there is an opportunity actually to cut your walk rate a little bit. And that's because you're working with the best framer in your organization, probably. Like I doubt there's not many organizations

that have a better framer in AAA or in AA than they have in the big leagues. So you're working with the best framer, you're working with your best coaches, your best like sort of game prep coaches. Maybe you were game prepping pretty well in the minors, there's gonna be a little step up. And then you're working like, you know,

all of the analysis, the R&D, everything is just a little bit crisper on the Major League level because they're just, that's where the focus is. That's where you, that's where you need to win games. You're going to stop with some developmental stuff too. Like let's say you have one pitch, you really can't command that well, but they're in double and triple. They're like, yeah, yeah, keep doing that thing until you get a good feel for it.

Then you get to big leagues. Now we got to win today. Uh, sorry, you're not throwing that change up very much. You know, like it's you just can't command it So there's all these sort of like win-win down things that happen when you get to the major leagues that can actually help a walk rate and I think You know, he's got enough stuff where he could actually stop throwing one of those pitches if he can't command it and still be a good Pitcher if he was just a two-pitch pitcher and like can't command it and still be a good pitcher. If he was just a two pitch pitcher, and like couldn't command either of them, I might be more, you know, I

don't know what's gonna happen here. But if he has pitches where he could lose one and still be good. You nailed it, by the way, that is something that is very real. And I actually did it too. I had a much higher walk rate in the minors than I did in the big leagues. And that is because there's just a lot of like your developmental, you're doing developmental stuff. You're kind of like failing.

I don't wanna say on purpose, but like the organization doesn't mind as much too. So you're more willing to go show how nasty you are to get to the big leagues and take shots like that. And you also like the incentive to like be really dominant. Like you're taking more shots again. And guys are like swinging at more bad pitches. And the umpires are worse.

And the umpires are worse. So like you add all those things in, like you can get swings and stuff, you're not gonna get swings in the big leagues. It forces you to kind of remove that from the back of your head. Like this is okay if I throw this here. You get a little, you feel a little bit better

about throwing the ball in the box. And then also you're like, it's the big leagues. I'm gonna give it more hits probably. Like I'm just not gonna be more dominant here. It's an acceptance thing. And the confidence is, you look at it differently. And that has, especially for me, I'm very much in my head at all times, as you can tell.

So like it just made it like simpler, if anything. So you could commit to not, to like throwing the ball over the plate more often. And he's disgusting I've seen him on the on the stuff plus top list already to up there and he hasn't really Got there so like it's it's it's gonna be really fun to watch and and I think they got somebody who's potentially a big factor than Brewer success this year And they may have to be careful with how they manage his innings

He might be the kind of guy that gets skipped a couple of times around the all-star break. If they're contending, then of course, they'll do some things to make sure he's available later in the year. So the shape of his season might be a little bit different if everything's going well for him. He's gotten pretty close to 100, like a few times.

You know, not necessarily last year because there was some injury, but if you look back, like he's gotten to like 95. Yeah, you're probably thinking like a 130, 140. He's also, I mean, he's 25. They'll probably push him a little harder than if he was like 22. I think that's kind of a factor and the team sort of making these things up as they go along at least really feels like that.

And based on a lot of the conversations you've had with front office people, it still seems like they're, this seems about right. Just kind of making chili instead of having a science to something that should probably be really detailed. I asked somebody about Paul Scenes in particular and was like, would you think about this in terms of innings or are you like, well, we just track the things and the things

and we do the workload and we see, oh, if the thing drops, then we take them out. And he's like, no, you have to talk about things in innings on some level because you have to plan your season, you have to be like, oh, if the thing drops, then we take them out. And he's like, no, you have to talk about things in innings on some level, because you have to plan your season. You have to be like, where is he gonna be at what time? And like, you know, and if we have aspirations for making the postseason,

how many innings do we keep in the bag, you know, for October, you know? And how do we do that? How do we manage the shape of the season? So to some extent, you know, there's a number for Paul Skeens hanging around in that front office somewhere. They've decided what it is.

They may push past it if, hey, they're making the playoffs and he looks good, but they still talk about things in this weirdest number, which is innings. It's just a weird number to think of if you think about it, cause it's like innings are so different. There's like the inning where you had, you know, 10 guys on and gave a bunch of runs,

or there's like the inning where you threw four pitches and like got out of the inning. Like there's the same thing, we're just, those were innings, that's it. You know, so, but so there's still some, it's a little bit retrograde, but there's still some like, you know, we've got a number of innings in our head for DL Hall.

We're gonna manage him around that and hope to leave a couple, a couple of starts in the holster in case we make the postseason. Let's get to another one. I actually liked this move when the Mariners made it because we talked about their second base situation and described it as weird before they made this trade. Trevor, you like Jorge Polanco going to Seattle. Why do you like that fit so much? Few reasons. I know Jorge very well. So that's one. I have a little bit of inside knowledge there. I know what type of player he is and how he goes about his work. Second base has just been an enigma for the Mariners over the last few years. They're just like, wow, can we get somebody to like, basically since Cano left, they're just like, ah. Yeah, they like, you know, since basically since Cano left,

they're just like, ah. Yeah, they've gone through guys, Adam Frazier, Wong. Yeah, well let's just rotate guys through. And then those, pretty much every one of those guys have been tried in another position at some point. So, so Jorge, he is very much a, I think middle of the road type of defender, but they have an elite defender at short.

So like, I think that they'll work together. I don't think they necessarily need, you know, a gold glove at second, but he has a career OPS plus of 115, which is very, very good, very solid. I would even say in 2019, he was probably our best all around hitter on that twins team that hit 307 homers. I don't think that a lot of people think of him

when they think of that team. He's a very good natural hitter. Yes, his swing and miss has been up a little bit more recently, but he's also a switch hitter. So like one thing that the Mariners did, and I don't think that, I talk to a lot of Mariners fans these days

because I'm surrounded by them. And what thing they don't realize, because they're like, ah, it's the same team again. I'm like, it actually isn't at all. You have a lot more versatility in terms of righty, lefty, platoons, switch hitters, the way to kind of mix up your lineup in order to get it very, very off and on, off and on.

So matching up with the bullpens, very hard to do now. Things that you couldn't do before, you were like Suarez and then Hernandez back to back. Putting your best righty striking both out. Right, big strike out righties right's striking both out. And right. Big strikeout right, he's right in a row. Yeah, they might hit a homer, but like if it's, you know, if they're facing your best guy,

if a Braves going in there, they're not going to take him deep. So, or even maybe even touch it. So he's going to strike them out probably. And that's just not the case anymore. And I think that Julio is going to be helped by Polanco. Cause I think he's going to hit either before or after him most often. I think that that's going to even helped by Polanco because I think he's gonna hit either before or after him most often.

I think that that's gonna even open up more pitches for him to hit because he's more of a contact guy than those other two guys were too. So I just think he just generally makes this team better in so many different ways. But again, health has been a concern the last couple years. It's been lower extremity stuff a little bit. So it's kinda hard to tell with those things, but if he can stay healthy

and he's in that lineup, and even if he's just like the basic version of himself, he's gonna make that team like a lot better. He's changed over time. He's become this guy that gets to a lot more power. He used to be a good hit tool with kind of ample power, a little bit of speed, but double digit barrel rates, three straight seasons.

I mean, the K rate going up might be a little bit of function of how he's approaching hitting now, but it's a trade off that you'll make. He's turned himself into a guy that can hit 25 or 30 homers, which is not something I would have thought about him at the beginning of his career. You guys both mentioned his hit tool ability. And there's been something that's been kind of a common thread for Mariners acquisitions, I think has been guys who don't strike out too much.

Teoscar aside, they've had a lot of guys that they brought in there that can make contact. And that is a bit of a segue to my guy who left Seattle. One of the reasons I want to bring up the park factor there, Seattle increases strikeouts by more than almost any other park in baseball. I don't know exactly why, but Teoscar's talked about it in terms of not being able to see the ball. Getting guys with good hit tools and bringing them to Seattle, maybe they think you are more likely to be able to handle this park.

Like you are going to put some balls in play and whatever the strikeout park factor, whatever it is about our park that increases strikeouts, like you're gonna be able to handle it because you have a good natural hit tool. To Oscar, I think one of the reasons I'm kind of excited about him in LA is just like, also, it's a little bit like the sale thing. We're like, it's no longer on him. He might be hitting six or whatever.

It's just a superstar lineup. They're just like, hey, you do your thing. Hit us a homer every two games, three games like, you know, we're, you know, that's all we're asking out of you. But there's this quiet thing about him, which is he just left the place that augments strikeouts by, you know, second most of the big leagues to a place that's further down that list. I think Dodger Stadium is like sixth or seventh on on that list.

So, you know, he could just with this settling in factor with the, you know, like I'm not one of the main guys, you know, and then also think about other teams preparing for the Dodgers. So you're going to be like, what do we do about Otani? What do we do about Betts? What do we do about Freeman? And you're going to, and like, if you're in the pitcher meeting, like you're the starter with the catcher and you're in the pitcher meeting, you're gonna spend a lot of time on O'Betz and Otani and Freeman, you know, because you're gonna be like, how, what are we doing the first half? What are we doing the second half? You're gonna be thinking about all of it. When you get to tasker, just be like, okay, if he doesn't like this, he doesn't like this. Good enough. Let's go. Yeah. Like you only have limited time to talk about these guys. So, you know, there's some point where you make a lineup so deep that, like, the last guy, you're just like, hey, slider's in the dirt and, you know, and fastball's up high. Let's go.

That happens? Like, the extra focus on the top hitters in a loaded lineup like that, where the kind of the bottom half guys, even though they're still really good and dangerous too, you're not as prepared for them as you are for the big hitters. The best way to approach a team is, you can't pick the entire team as guys you don't want to beat you because then now you're stressed the whole time.

You're just walking everybody or whatever and you're stressed all the time. Yeah, yeah. That's when you see guys not getting ahead at all and then it doesn't matter. So you have to sometimes say, we're okay if Teazca Hernandez beats us. Almost like the basketball thing.

It's like, okay, if that guy hits a bunch of threes because we covered everybody else well, then okay. That's them literally outplaying us. We're getting outplayed at this point. And that's kind of, but we want to create an eco, we want to create an atmosphere or a situation where they have to do that to beat us. And that's your best chance,

especially if you are a little bit less, like you have less manpower than they do. Like you're on paper, not as good of a team, because there are super teams like that. But, and you gotta like, so sometimes the ball is just gonna be in their court, pun intended. So it's like, that's what happens.

And that's the type of team where you're like, dude. And then as a starter, it's like that's what happens and that's the type of team where you're like, dude, and then as a starter It's just exhausting if you if you have more than three guys that that you don't want to beat you if there's more than three It's just there. It's too much. It's too much Remember and it's just too much You're giving them too much credit at that point because at the end of the day pitching does have the advantage and you can get everyone Out the whole time like it is possible that you could be dialed in. If you're at your best, you will probably beat the hitters almost every single time.

If you are absolutely dialed in, if you're in the zone, the pitcher pretty much always wins. So you have to kind of lean on that. It's just harder to do when the team's that deep. Let's crank one more name out there. I'm gonna give up my second name to give Eno a third because his submission to the rundown, I think is more interesting than mine. And I will get my guy in on a future episode. Don't worry his submission to the rundown I think is more interesting than mine

and I will get my guy in on a future episode, don't worry. I got the rundown, I can control the rundown. I can make it happen. I'm gonna sneak in another name along with this name. No, no you will not, no. Like Joey Ortiz in Milwaukee, Mike Soroka is joining a situation where there's all the opportunity where that might not have been before.

And so just one of the things, we talk about this in fantasy all the time, so the fantasy listeners are like, you know, shaking, you know, nodding along. Opportunity is often as important as quality. I think the A's know this more than anybody. They're like, hey, we have opportunity. Anybody who's like, you know,

between AAA and the majors, come on over, check us out. We'll give you a year or two and then we'll see. So Joey Ortiz in Milwaukee now has a free open situation and Mike Soroka, the nice thing about Mike Soroka on top of all this is that while he's been rehabbing, he's been changing his pitch shapes. He's been changing what he's doing. He's picked up a four seamer.

He's trying to really emphasize the four seamer. He was a sinker guy before. So I think there's, I'm flying a little bit blind because I don't have stack casts on him. I don't have any of this yet. I just know that that's what he's been trying to do. But the numbers are pretty good in the spring, and the opportunity is there for him.

So he's not going to have to go back down to the minor leagues. The White Sox need him to be a major league starter for him. So it's just like, hey, here you go. You got a whole season to show us what you got. It's 30 starts if he's healthy enough for them That's clear clear opportunity the Braves. He'd be up and down. Maybe we try Smith Schaver instead. Maybe try this guy I don't know like I don't know go back down and work on it You know

How is thought when Soroka first broke in that he had kind of this veteran arsenal and approach he didn't have your typical prospect over the top, amazing stuff. But he seemed like he really had a plan and he executed it really well. And then I saw an interview, I think, during one of the extended absences. He was in the booth for a game. He sounded way more polished than a guy in his early 20s. Like it just I don't know. I have a lot of confidence in him because even without excellent stuff in the past, he was able to get some great results.

It seems like he's finally healthy again. And for guys that have multiple years lost to injury, I think just having a full runway to go into a season can make all the difference in the world to get back on track. No baggage, no baggage with the White Sox, which is solid. He's not trying to regain his early glory either, which is part of it.

Is part of it. So, uh, yeah, clean slate again. It's one of those situations. I bet you one of his goals, like if he has a personal goal, it's like 25 starts. Something really simple. It's not even like, you know, dominate or whatever. It's like, let me just, let me just have a year in the major. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Our feature to pitch deep dive today is the curveball. And we're going to look first at the stuff plus charts, because I think these are really helpful. Here we have first, horizontal versus vertical movement on curveballs. You know, for both of these, you have Ryan Presley again. If you can see the black dot on the screen,

Ryan Presley is the example for both of these charts. And for anybody who's not looking at this, what's interesting about this is that there's red in a lot of different places. There's a lot of different ways to have a good curve ball. You can have a good curve ball that's a two planer like Ryan Presley, that's the bottom right hand of this graph. You can have a one planer that's basically I think a sweeper at the top. You'll see some big red at the top where it doesn't have drop but it has big sideways.

I think those are probably some unclassified sweepers or sweeper like pitches, Chas, Rowey and Frisbees. And then you have a place over on the left side that's also red where it's sort of a one plane downer. You know, we have a nickname for that, the death ball. It's basically a pitch that just goes down. And there's lots of different ways to get there. We'll talk about it.

But these are three or four different ways to have a good curve ball. And I think it all depends on your slot, what you're comfortable doing, if you can kind of tweak that so that it's a little bit surprising in terms of movement. There's a lot of different things going on here, but other graphs were cleaner than this. This is one of those graphs where it's a little bit surprising in terms of movement. There's a lot of different things going on here. But, you know, other graphs were cleaner than this.

This is one of those graphs where it's like, you know, pick your pathway forward. What what what matches your fastball? What matches your mechanics best? Yeah, and I think that was something that kind of stood out to me when we were talking a little earlier in the week just about the shape of your curveball. It needs to match everything else really well. Because what I remember a lot in scouting reports, at least like five plus years ago,

is you'd see Slurv kind of thrown out there. And it always felt like it had a negative connotation. And it doesn't seem like it's always bad. It kind of seems like it depends on what your other stuff looks like. And then there's also the sort of question of when does something stop being a curve ball and become a slider?

And does that line actually matter as much as people think it does? I don't think it matters as much as people think it does because we also talked a lot about how like sometimes things are classified on Savant or wherever you're gonna find them based on like what the guy calls it. That's just the reason they call it that,

is something in their brain that, it's attached to a cue or something. So if they think it's a curve ball, they're envisioning a bigger break or something, because they grew up thinking that that's what a curve ball was. But in reality, what they're throwing is some, like a death ball that's a slider spin

that's kind of loose and goes down, but it looks like it's gonna go left. Like there's all these, it's weird, curve ball is probably the widest range of differences that you can get. It used to be all based on VLO. So if you threw like 86, it's not a curve ball because it's too hard.

That's not how it is anymore. It's weird. And then we have like knuckle curve and then we got 12.6, which is like the death ball, but it's slower. So like the ranges that these things can be in are so wide and it's just arbitrary a lot. A lot of it's arbitrary.

So if you hear like a player talking about it, it makes it even more confusing. So it's hard to talk about kind of like why people are frustrated with sweeper being used so much is because it's hard to tell. Well, first of all, a a lot of people media people sometimes use it wrong, which does not help But it's more of a guy trying to do if a guy's designing a picture trying to make a pitch better Which everyone is like everyone has trackman data They know how everyone knows how hard hard they throw something how much it moves and how fast it spins

Like everyone knows that about all their pitches now And so when you're tweaking things and making it a little bit different, like if you've always thrown a slider and you're making something a little bit slower and it's breaking a little bit differently, you might call it a curve ball because it's not your slider anymore. It's a different pitch than you had before.

So you're trying to make that distinction, but it's still just like a different type of slider, technically, if you compare it to other people. So that's not gonna go away. That's always gonna be there. I think we just waste time when we're trying to make those distinctions. But you're trying to get the effect.

Just think about the effects of those types of pitches. Like a curve ball gets a certain type of, you're trying to get a certain type of swing or an outcome because you're trying to get it to move a certain different way. And same thing with a slider and same thing with any other pitch. And if you're thinking in terms of that,

it's a little bit easier to fall along with like, like you mentioned before, like some of those might be misclassified sweepers. They probably are, or they would call it a sweeping curve, you know, 10 years ago, because of the VLO, it's 78 miles an hour. So it's a curve ball because it's in the 70s. That's just gonna be, that's gonna be around and it's 78 miles an hour. So it's a curve ball, because it's in the 70s. That's just gonna be around

and it's gonna get even more probably nuanced. I would pay more attention. If you can learn kind of ranges of movements and how they're kind of associated with things, you can have a greater understanding and just make guesses based on it. And it doesn't really matter what guys are calling it anymore.

Just now you know, you kind of know what they mean. If you can get a general understanding of that, I think it would, it makes it a lot easier to navigate and not so confusing. There's like an intent component there almost. Yeah, there's a lot of intent associated. You'll never know what that is unless they tell you. So if you're calling a game,

you call it a breaking ball if you don't know. That was what Kluber always told me. Every time I was like, what is it Kluber? What is the Kluber ball? Oh him too, man. He's like, it's a breaking ball. He had five variations of every single breaking ball he threw, which everything broke.

So it's like, in his opinion, he threw 15 pitches. Yeah, but I have a lot of starters think that way. So the pitches that we've picked today, I think showed this perfectly what you're talking about, which is we have three different pitches that are all Quote-unquote curveballs. They are all do it in different ways and they're all called different things in savant So here is the power curve from Kimbrough. Yeah, let's start with that and look at that. Ciao 86 so good that had That had two plane movement.

I think more movement than a slider. You know, that's like, that's got a lot of movement. That's classified a knuckle curve because that's how he throws it. Now, which is a little bit weird because we don't classify all our pitches based on how, like the grip, you know? But knuckle curve, we decided it matters

that they use the knuckle. One thing that I will say to anybody who has kids or is training people, I did a deep dive on the knuckle curve. What I found was, A, they were harder. I think the knuckle curve allows you to just kind of throw it harder. It's a little bit less manipulation. AJ Burnett called it the F-U ball

because if you actually hold it a certain way, you see you're flicking people off And he also said you also just throw the F out of it Yeah, that's where I started with my kid because I liked that it was kind of more fastball Lee more Just like throw it throw it hard But what like when you start advanced training and you're getting past sort of like nine ten eleven You're getting up to like high school and stuff, if you've got a low slot kid, knuckle curves can allow them to get more of a 12 to 6 shape.

So, Aaronola, we didn't get Aaronola video on this one, but Aaronola has a little bit more of a 12 to 6 shape than you'd expect because he's kind of a two-thirds guy. And so that's good because you're playing with expectations. You see the two-thirds, you think this is gonna be too plain slurvy and then he kind of is a little bit more over the top because Holding it in that knuckle allows the ball to sort of by removing this pink Moving this index finger like you do in a knuckle you kind of spike it You know you get allowing that ball to get over easier like it

It's it can spin like vertically as opposed to if you're using two fingers you got two points of pressure on the ball and you kind of get a little bit more two plane movement. So the knuckle curve allows you to get one plane movement. We got another one here. This is the Pete Fairbanks. This is called a slider. That's the death ball. I think that's the death ball. And Joe Ryan is throwing this now. And the way that I've heard that Joe Ryan is achieving this movement is by spike gripping his slider.

So he's taking a hard gyro slider and he's doing a spike grip on it. And that's giving it, it's like the gyro slider doesn't's doing a spike grip on it and that's giving it it's like the gyro slider doesn't have a lot of sideways movement it's kind of like a it's called a bullet slider we talked about on last episode but if you spike it now you're giving it a little bit of like this the 12 to 6 so that's why you get this like one plane and that one's a great pitch I think for people who have rising fastballs, who are very vertical.

You know, Shane Bieber was just telling me that he was getting too horizontal on his curveball. And hitters could see it because he was such a vertical pitcher that here's, oh, here's this one pitcher's coming at me. Okay, you know, I might give you a take on that or whatever it is. You know, I'm looking for that or I'm looking to not swing on that. And so the death ball can be really good for these vertical pitchers. And then just to do the last video, the last video is this is the Charlie Morton Ryan Presley,

huge, big, two-plane curve ball. I think that's a really good one for if you wanna pitch to your 43. I think that's a really good one for if you want to pitch to your 43, you know, I don't know. It's just like, it's just really hard for everybody. Adam Wainwright had a similar pitch, you know, it's just like a huge big old curveball that people pound into the ground and they just can't really,

don't usually have a great swing that's going to like hit that for power, you know. I kept looking at that death ball and thinking it gives me some gyro slider vibes with a little more drop. It really is. That's probably why he calls it a slider, because it's probably a gyro slider with a spike grip

or something. I noticed on the video, I replayed it again because I thought I saw something funky. You could tell his hand is gripping the ball in an unusual way. Part of it's the camera angle. I'll throw it one more time. You can kind of see.

Watch his hand. It's really up at the top. It's hard part of it's a camera angle. I'll throw it one more time. You can kind of see, watch his hand. Just, it's like really, I don't know for the top, it's hard to see it without slowing it down, but I don't know. I just, I saw a gyro is what I saw or something very similar to a gyro. That is how it spins. It's weird too, as a hit or two,

they see like classic slider spin and it's sometimes the spins a little bit looser like we talked about last week, which then gives it a little bit more depth and a little bit less horizontal than you're expecting. So, and then gravity takes it. So it's the exact opposite of your ride. So you're right.

I think a guy that did this for really, really well before we knew about the movement was Brad Lidge. Brad Lidge threw a death ball the whole time because he had the depth on a slider that no one else really had. We were like- That's interesting. He was also 87. Yeah, it was really hard depth on a slider that no one else really had. We were like. That's interesting. He was also 87.

Yeah, it was really hard too. 87, 88, it was a hard one, yeah. Yeah, when he was throwing really hard. But even then later, when he was like, the V-Lo dropped to like 91, 92 later in his career and he was battling injuries, it was like 80. You saw that depth like, he had a lot of depth, like curve ball depth,

but it still didn't go horizontally. I'm not exact, I wasn't exactly like that when I changed from my curve ball to my slider, but that was one thing they saw was the amount of depth I had on a slider, because that's what I was doing. I was throwing like a kind of a looser spinning gyro that had more depth, and it was seven, eight miles an hour harder than my curve ball was.

So I was like getting not quite as much depth, but close, a lot harder. Was it mechanically similar or was it very different? Your curveball to your slider? It was mechanically very similar, yeah. The grips were completely different, but in terms of how I was approaching throwing it and arm slot and everything,

it was even closer to my fastball. And so there was no pop. It was just a better tunneling example. Before I knew what tunneling was, this was like 2016 when I made this. You were somewhere between the gyro slider and the death ball. I mean, you had some depth on it.

I was like trying to throw the gyro. Like I thought that's what I was doing, but we didn't really know what was happening. And so it was like a- But it had more depth than they expected. Exactly, Josh Caulk was the head of analytics at the time. He was like, you're doing something that I think a lot of people are gonna want to do.

You're doing something that's really unique. So he was really excited first time I threw it. Like he was way more excited than I ever saw him and that fired Mia. So then I just, it literally took me one day. I was like, all right, I don't throw that and I throw this now, let's go. Well, here's the relationship just between velocity and drop

and, I mean, harder, generally better, but not always better, right? I mean, I look at this and I see harder is better. I mean. Mostly. There's some blue spots over there, but the fact that the reddest spots on this graph are mostly, you know know one of the ways

that it's put in you know the halls of driveline and tread and places is it's really hard to throw an 86 mile an hour slider that's bad i mean if you just look at that you know that line there uh the black one is presley at 82 the next line is 84 and the next line is 86. If you go up and down at 86, there's one blue spot in the graph. And I wonder who that is. Who's throwing around in there, but it doesn't have much depth. So yeah, if you can get any sort of depth on it, if you can get anywhere under zero and over 85,

it's a good breaking ball. I like these graphics that you turn out and they remind me of that old game, Qbert, because of the shapes. So we've got to get a little Qbert just jumping around. And as a picture, the core use of stuff is not so much evaluative, although we use it that way. It's often for development.

So you can see where your slider is, and you can see, well, what's the easiest way for me to get off of blue and on red? Can I get a little more horizontal and get over to that red one? Or is it easier for me to get a little more drop and get on that red one? There was one really interesting thing about that graph, if you want to throw it up one more time, but the good rule of thumb for the listeners and watchers at home is the idea of a zero zero. So if you just go to zero on the left here and look across,

there's blue and then there's red, then there's blue again. So that red is like 78 miles an hour and the blue is that 186. So that a zero zero is commonly referred to as like, that's where the dead zone is. Like that's the overlap for pretty much every pitch, every breaking ball anyway. And so the harder, like that puts it right in

where a hitter sees the VELO and makes the distinction and it's moving kind of what they're predicting. But if it's not moving that much and it's slower, it's weird and they're swinging under it. But if it's harder and moving more, then it's weird and they're swinging over it. So like zero, zero is kind of the dead zone for breaking balls.

Yeah, it's just generally if you think like zero, zero is not quite what you're looking for, so you either need it to be slower than they're thinking, that's when Velo matters the most. Or like a frisbee or like yeah, something. You want it to spin so they're like, oh, that's gonna break a lot and it doesn't break at all? That's like the dice-kay.

Like, oh, and they're just under it and it's weird. It's not something that's happening. Alicia Hernandez had a weird thing that like it went like 78 and it moved like a cutter and it was like, what is happening? What is this thing? They'll come in, hitters will literally come in and be like, what is that?

And then everyone will look like, I don't know. And then you got them. At that point you got them, they're done. That's usually a question hitters don't like to ask. Someone comes in saying, what was that? Everyone else in the lineup is like, great, here we go. Yeah, you've done your job as a pitcher, if that's the reaction that you're getting from hitters.

Hernandez, by the way, in the bullpen, I think for the Dodgers right now, kind of curious to see what kind of tweaks they might make with him, given the unusual stuff he has already. Probably just throw that weird-ass thing a bunch of times in the sixth inning and get us through this inning. Yeah, yeah.

Throw the creature 80% of the time. Yeah. And everything will work itself out. I got a few questions here from our listeners and viewers. This one came from discord from Anya C. Which spring training stat do you pay attention to the most and why? Thought to you first, you know. I think probably a similar one on both sides is strikeout rate.

In terms of results, it's the easiest. It's the thing that matters in a month. You've got a month, you've got six weeks. So in a month, you can actually say something about a hitter strikeout rate and a pitcher strikeout rate. And in terms of results, that's the number one thing. There's some process stuff, but it's really hard to like look at VELO right now because some of those guys are pitching two innings and they got to pitch five innings next time out. I saw Jack Flaherty was throwing like 95, 96 in his first outing. That was like an inning or two. Uh, in his next outing, he sat 93, but actually it was interesting.

He had 96 when it was two strikes. And when it was, you know, when he wanted to finish the at bat off, he's still, he was kind of doing the verlander where he's trying to keep 96 in his back pocket. But it's just hard to know right now what a pitcher is going to sit at because they're still in that sort of two to three inning stint and it's maybe they're just airing it out now and you don't know what they're going to do later.

I like strikeout rate as well. I'll throw another one out there. I just like, like plate appearances. I just want to know who's playing because what I'm trying to figure out is just what's happening in job battles such a Huge part of our fantasy analysis trying to figure out where playing time shifts might be happening It is not easy to decode who does the manager believe in and also who are you playing with which obviously isn't a stat But that's just one of those things if I see a number that surprises me in either direction

I start looking at some lineups kind of figure out like okay What are they doing with this guy? A squad or B squad? Is he leaving in the sixth inning or not? Is he taking the three hour ride in Florida or not? Or is he staying? Oh, that's true too. Yeah, who's on the visiting squad?

I noticed that one. Yeah, cause we went to the Padres Angels and the Padres are visiting and they did not take a single regular. I apologize to my son. Yeah, I'll parrot that. I'd say how many home games is playing them? That's how you know how seriously that team,

or like how seriously you can take that guy making the team. Guys don't go on the road unless if they're locked in. Frankly, I said no to going on the road. I actually went on the road way more than I wanted to last year. But yeah, that's that's that's an indicator. And then for me, just from a like a process standpoint for like looking at yourself, I was always just like seeing if you mentioned Velo for me, it was like just making sure that it was slowly increasing or that I was close to kind of where I wanted to be in general, you

know, I'll be down a couple because it's gonna be April wherever we go anyway so it's gonna be cold probably and it's gonna be down but just seeing making sure health-wise that like everything's moving close and that that progression is happening over over time so from where I started to where I began there was a positive progression that was just just generally knowing that stuff and that's also during the season. So just getting rolling there. And then in terms of like,

and also strikeout rate was big for me and for looking at our team too, because you can show what type of stuff you have at the moment, but also like, it's another indicator of everything I just said. So like, yeah, and it's working. And things are working no matter who I'm facing, even if it's young kids who've never seen me before

and I've never seen them and I'm not really following a plan, you can just go stuff on stuff. That's usually a good thing I would pay attention to. Like, am I getting the kids out? Am I getting the guys out that I don't know anything about? That's a good indicator of how my things are working. Oh, there is one more that I actually wanna throw out there too.

Stolen bases and stolen base attempts. Our friend Jason Collette took a really good look at that from last year with the new rule changes and it actually lined up really well. The stolen base rates from spring training kind of poured it over to the regular season. So you can get a sense of who is going to be more aggressive maybe on a player and a team sort of level,

at least some signal there. So I think the nationals are running pretty wild. Lane Thomas has like six or seven stolen bases already have fun They should enjoy that might as well Could be something to watch for in Washington have fun out of you know Yeah, and out of you know by the way tons of clips of him working on his throat at first Yeah, he said he was gonna do it. He's like I'm gonna figure it out out. I'm gonna. This is the year finally. 38 years old, I'm gonna figure out how old runners. Thanks a lot for that question, Agnes.

Those Lester years, or it was a Tommy Fam was like eight steps off the bat. It was like watching Rookie of the Year, but with grownups doing this stuff on the base paths. Incredible. One more here from Andy D. Toy. This is a question for Trevor. When you were making a plan to face a new lineup,

do you tend to put more weight on hitters weaknesses or your pitching strengths? It always came down to how much information wasn't what I looked at. There was a lot of times where we'd face like, the pirates in recent years, like there'd be like five guys, so it was very little data on,

cause you don't really trust AAA stuff that much because of the way we, everything we mentioned before with development stuff. So I would try to stay, strengths most often there. Try to keep it as simple as possible. I think I talked about this when we talked about the catcher targeting and stuff. So this came into play much more last year,

but it was already pretty simple, even when I knew a lot about a guy. So it became even easier to get ready for these guys. Sometimes I revert to generalizations about righty hitters generally can't hit this thing, lefty hitters generally hit down and in well, like all of them, for some reason. And righties generally hit up and out over,

up and away better. And it was just the way it was. I would just revert to my generalizations, try to keep it simple and then build off that. And then on top of all of that, I just wanted to make sure I knew the guys I didn't want to beat me in that lineup and that those guys were taken care of.

And it kind of made it- Like a specific scouting report on this guy. Yeah, so if I only had a couple guys in the lineup that I knew a lot about, I would just make sure I had that locked in and then just reverted to my strengths for the rest of the lineup, because that's pretty much the best you can do.

But you try to look for specifics first, and then you go to strengths when you don't have as much information. I like the one thing that Pedro Martinez said that has always stuck out for me is that, if you watch a player when they stand up at the plate, when they're doing their practice swing, you can actually tell what kind of a hitter they are. So Wilmer Flores, when he comes at the plate, when they're doing their practice swing, you can actually tell what kind of a hitter they are.

So Wilmer Flores, when he comes to the plate, it's all this high, it's like this high, high flat swing. You're like, oh, that's a high ball hitter right there. And these guys come up here and practice a little low swing right when they get in there. I mean, a hitter could manipulate that and play with that. But Pedro said, if I didn't know who the guy was, I just watched him practice swing

and I knew something about. You can do it with Soto too. The shuffling and the head shaking and stuff. You can pay attention to it. You can tell what he was expecting, what he's thinking. If he's mad at himself for not getting the thing that he was looking for, or if you actually like surprise him a little bit,

he shows you. And I think guys picked up on a little bit more the longer he's playing. And I think he's doing it a little bit less. But yeah, there's there's stuff like that. If you can get it, there's like some people will like hit their back leg, like their back hip after. Stay back. Stay back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're like, stay in there, stay in there. Yeah. Last one here before we go, this one's from Saul. How much do you guys pay attention to O swing percentage on breaking balls? I remember reading on Prospects Live that chase rate is the best proxy we have

for deception and tunneling. This is sort of what we were thinking about the biggest miss rate. It is a big indicator. Actually that article that we've actually talked about quite a few times, actually my co-host on SiriusXM, Danny Wexman, sent the same article to me. It's like, have you read this?

And I'm like, I actually made a YouTube video about this. The art of pitch tunneling, that is the proposition they make, is that the better the tunnel, the more often the chase rate is effective and it goes up. And I actually changed grips to chase that because I was like, no one's chasing this pitch.

Was it effective, did it work? I think there's a direct correlation there, 100%. Did it work for you, yeah. It did work, actually. The first slider, I hadn't gotten a swing and miss on the slider in literally like two months. Oh man. A lot of ground balls and stuff and a lot of takes.

Changeup was good at the time and I was getting a lot of fastball swing and misses. But my slider was like not a swing and miss pitch. First one I threw back, strike out. And this is the switch to the gyro? Yeah, this is the switch to the harder gyro. And then you were saying it didn't have a hump. So it didn't have a hump.

It was 88 instead of 82. It was honestly like a little elevated and a little, not a great like bit, but he swung over it like a emergency swing. And I was like, I must have tunneled my fastball that I had just thrown him much, much better than it has in the past. So they're onto something.

I don't know if the ranges that they proposed are a little bit different. They probably have been adjusted a little bit, but like there is some peracy to that, yes. I wonder if that's also something you could look at if you were looking at pitchers who win in the shadow zone. We were talking about swings versus takes in the shadow zone. The pitchers that do well in that maybe have effective tunnels. Like that might be something. That's what we were saying, that it's really hard to analyze the shadow zone without breaking it down by pitch type,

because a fastball in the shadow zone is something you still kind of want, and a breaking ball in the shadow zone is like absolutely as a hitter, you do not want to swing at that. You know, the pairing of it, if you thought it was a fastball and you got a slider in the shadow zone, you really wish you didn't swing at that. Well, a lot to chew on here and we'll take some requests I think in our Discord. Be sure to join that if you haven't done so already.

The link's in there. We'll have Trevor and Eno kind of break down how they would game plan to pitch to some hitters. We'll try to do that over the course of these next few shows because there's an infinite list of possibilities with something like that. So if we get some popular requests, I think we can make it sort of a by request segment that we plan for.

If you've got questions for a future episode, you can also send them to us, ratesandbarrels.gmail.com. Find us on Twitter, Trevor is at, I am Trevor May, Eno is at EnoSatyrs, I'm at Derek Riper, the pod is at Rates and Barrels. Thanks to our producer, Brian, for doing all the hard work behind the scenes.

If you enjoyed the show, be sure to like this video on YouTube, leave us a nice rating and review. Thanks again to the Live High for hanging out with us today. Friday is 1 o'clock eastern. Next Friday no live stream because we have two live shows at Other Half, Domino Park location Wednesday and Thursday next week. Doors 3 o'clock, pod 630 apparently. So 630, it's not a moving

target anymore. 630 start time for both of those shows. Thanks for listening to Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.