Rates & Barrels - New Pitches & Triple-A Standouts with Lance Brozdowski

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Lance Brozdowski joins Eno and DVR to discuss new pitches that should make a big long-term difference including changes to Max Fried's sinker and a larger change to Max Meyer's overall arsenal, before looking at a few Triple-A standouts and explaining why it's so difficult to analyze pitching with different baseballs in play until pitchers reach Triple-A. Rundown 2:00 Max Fried's Adjusted Two-Seamer 7:05 Dylan Cease's New Changeup (and Sinker) 14:59 Projecting the Long-Term Outlook & Free Agent Contract for Cease 19:31 Max Meyer's Big Changes 27:35 Joe Boyle's Chances as a Long-Term Starter 32:52 The Value Added From New Pitches 38:22 Running Models with Missing Pieces 40:35 Intriguing Pitchers at Triple-A Right Now 52:09 Different Baseballs Prior to Triple-A 59:07 How Long Does an Edge Last at the Major League Level? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social Follow Lance on Bluesky: @lancebroz.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Lance Brozdowski Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cashback, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Uniqlo, Best Buy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Rakuten.ca. I'm Dane Brugler. I cover the NFL Draft for the Athletic. Our draft guide picked up the name The Beast

because of the crazy amount of information that's included. I'm looking at thousands of players putting together hundreds of scouting reports. I've been covering this year's draft since last year's draft. There is a lot in the beast that you simply can't find anywhere else. You can get the beast and all the great coverage my colleagues do by subscribing to The Athletic. You can do that at theathletic.com subscribe. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, April 15th. Derek Van Rijfurt, Enos Saris,

and a special guest, Lance Brazdowski joins the show today. You've seen Lance on Marquee Sports. He's the player development analyst there You've probably read his sub stack Lance bras dot sub stack comm or you've seen him on YouTube If not all three of those places Lance, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me guys I listen to this podcast pretty religiously So it's really cool to be on it in a more featured sense I think you guys had me on as a winter meetings kind of how did you get into baseball person? But this is this is an honor to be on the mantle here with you guys.

Yeah, thanks for coming back around. Thanks for joining us the first time. It was kind of an experimental thing we did at the winter meetings, just talking to people about their paths into the game. You can check that out on our YouTube channel. Lots of interesting interviews from folks in a variety of different roles. And Lance, you're at the forefront of new pitches. You write about them extensively, break a lot of interesting things down on YouTube.

And one thing we wanna talk about with you today are new pitches that are gonna have a long-term impact. Sometimes pitches show up and they disappear and we never hear from them again. Or they show up and they don't make that much of an impact. So we're gonna try to cut through a lot of the noise. We're gonna look at the AAA level, talk about a few pitchers that are standing out

in a good way there, and answer some bigger questions like, how long does an edge last at the MLB level in 2025? You figure something out as an organization, is it a good thing tactically for a year? Is it a good thing for a month? How long does it take for the rest of the league to catch up? So all those topics coming up over the course of this show. Let's dig into some of the new pitches this year, though. We're just going to leave this as kind of an open book sort of question for you, Lance. So among the new pitches you've seen, there's tons of them that you've written about. What has stood out to you as something that's going to be a good long term

addition to an arsenal? Yeah, I'll start with Max Fried. I think the Yankees are one of the teams that's on the forefront of some of the same effects stuff and being able to optimize orientation to pick up shapes that guys hadn't normally been able to capture and Max Fried is is doing some fun stuff with his sinker You know stuff plus has a jumping from a 104 to 114 year-over-year Which is a pretty substantial jump on a pitch that he doesn't throw a ton to right-handed hitters But I mean this is like an optimal approach here from like a how do you make a pitch better standpoint, he's throwing out the same V lo and he cut five inches of induced

vert off it. So it's dropping more that's like the lower induced vertical break number means more drop. And that's pretty considerable, you know, like his command of it still looks good. He's zoning the pitch a ton. The overall stuff plus, you know, in your model looks like the same for him. But the Yankees have done some interesting things in terms of just redistributing parts of his mix. I don't know if you noticed but he's throwing like a true four seamer with arm side now. It's actually in there and then the cutter is the four seam that he was

throwing last year so they played around some weird stuff here. I would say maybe some of the guys I get into here are almost more like wholesale I'm doing this differently versus a specific handedness as opposed to like one new pitch. those guys I just think are more interesting from like a wow you changed a lot standpoint but I mean early going swinging strike rates up you know strike doesn't walks are in alignment looking really good I wonder if they can access like a higher level of Max Fried where he's still that random number generator throwing five pitches ten percent plus it's a one handedness but these like subtle adjustments

where we now have a true forcing the sinkers there, it seems like they cut out the in-between slider and only throw in the sweeper, kind of make him a really deadly weapon for them from the left side needed given Coles after the rest of the season. I'm really excited about this because I do think it showcases how good they are and how smart they are.

Some of these things are a little bit counterintuitive. Like you just mentioned the going more towards the sweeper shape. He's a left-hander. I thought that was weird. So he's throwing like a 19 inch horizontal break sweeper, lefty on righty, and it's working. And it's definitely not like the Chris Sale arm slot or anything. So I'm a little surprised that that's the move, but they must like what they're doing. I mean,

what I have noticed sometimes in the stuff models, the stuff models really still like sweepers a lot. And I wonder if they overvalue them. That's part of a conversation we'll have later when we talk about edge. But what I'll find is that like, for example, Tanner Hauck, the only pitch that he has that's above average, righty on lefty is the sweeper because it's so good overall that even though it has a big split, it's still above average. So maybe they just thought, hey, your sweeper is just better than your slider. And even when we look at the splits, because they they'll have platoon

split stuff plus just like we do. And, you know know they'll say even with it being worse it's better than your other slider so that must be the kind of math that they're doing also the change is good and maybe the feel is better on the sweeper whatever it is the sinker being better is another thing it's like okay you've done two things now that you would tell you'd lefty to do against lefties. And you're swinging strike 30s through the roof and you finally have the strikeout rate. Yeah, that's another thing with Max Friede is I've always liked him, but, you know, not loved him because he's been doing all this at sort of a 23% strikeout rate for his career. You kind of like, you know, can he really keep up an ERA in the twos and low threes with a 23% strikeout rate?

And he's just managed to do it so far if he if he can keep the home run rate where it's been and the batting original balls and play where it's been and just add Strikeouts like this could be a Cy Young type season for him Yeah I think the other interesting thing too with freed as I was looking at the the movement profile charts at savant the sinker used to Do what sinkers often do, and now it doesn't, right? So you see that kind of shadowy,

the circles with the lines through them on that chart. Yeah, the expectation. He's outside of that range now too. Yeah, that expected movement has changed for him as well. And I think the way that pitch interacts with this change up, it's probably just a better combo now, working with those two pitches as the sinker has been redesigned.

It's one of those things. It's pretty subtle, though. If I didn't have you talking about it, I don't think I would have looked and noticed it. So I think that's a big deal as far as Fried trying to survive Yankee Stadium for half the starts, too. That's the other challenge. Leaving Atlanta, going there, it's much more difficult place to pitch. They changed its curveball, too, really. You know, two more inches of drop and it's got more horizontal, it's more two-plane, I don't know. They change a lot.

Sometimes when you talk to guys when they change a lot like this, it's actually something mechanical. But I would think that with that, that sinker's a new grip. Let's talk about Dylan Cease for a bit. We didn't love the old Dylan Cease change-up, which if you're watching on YouTube will have on there Come on it looks like he's just babying it. It's like look at his body language. Yeah, if I saw that as a hitter

He's just doing it to get a laugh There's a bet hey, we bet you a thousand bucks, you won't actually throw that change up in a game. And he's like, okay, I'll do it. I mean, there has to be some backstory like that. I did ask him about it. He said it was an amuse-bouche. He said it was a, which is actually a misuse,

because that's like a, that's sort of muse your mouth at the beginning of a meal. It's supposed to be kind of like a pre-appetizer. Then he said it's a change of pace, you know. So he just thought it was just to shake things up. Just to throw off timing for the rest of the sequence because it's nothing like the pitches. Because they're laughing at you, Dillon.

It's probably hard to hit when you're laughing. I guess if you do make the hitter laugh, that might work. Yeah, all right, so he's changed the change. Let's see the new one just as a comparison. Yeah, arm speed there immediately, right? If you're watching on YouTube, you see it's like immediate. Yeah, he's not babying that pitch quite as much. That's not the only adjustment

that Dylan Cease made. He's also changed the sinker. Again, I wonder how important it is to keep those pitches working in a way where they play off of each other as efficiently as possible sort of to just maximize the benefits of having both of them in your arsenal. Yeah, I think it's a great point. I think like if you look at like maps, heat maps for him and just see like where he's locating things, like I often feel like him, the glass now types that are very like

vertical cut, you know, like we're cut writing, we're throwing a slider off that there's a big curve on that. It's like they they're kind of like very north, I mean, they're north south guys. So yeah, it's pretty intuitive based on the slot, right? So I've always like, I've been very attracted to the guys who are able to get some kind of arm side separation or at least a little bit of depth separation

from that vertical plane, such that like you think about his approach to right, he's it's like, okay, if I start throwing the sinker now, I have something that maybe runs a little more inside, such that if my force seam is kind of like cutting up away and then I have the slider down away like I'm now just pitching to a different half of the plate that I never threw to and it's the same idea with the change up right like let me take a look at his plots for his lefties but like I think it's the same idea like he's up with the fore seam and then he's trying

to go down with everything else yeah it lines up right like kind of up away with the fore seam and then everything else is roughly down in the zone. Whereas if you could throw a change up now, you have something arm side away. As much as like we dig into stuff and locations and stuff like that, I think sometimes one of the things I do a ton of my sub stack is just look at like, where are you covering in the zone? This was like the old skeins thing in spring training. Like I was trying to think of why he would add a cutter in his runner two seam. And then you just look at his plots and it's like, oh,

those two pitches if centered would move towards the parts that he wasn't throwing to versus lefties and righties so I get this evolution for cease of like wanting the concept of getting a sinker and getting a change up help versus lefties help versus righties I'll say like I don't love the shape on either like I would think like the change of one we're laughing at here it's a troll pitch and the idea I'm wondering whether every year of one we're laughing at here, it's a troll pitch and the I'm wondering whether every year he adds like eight ticks to it. So it's the next year it'll be like mid 80s and then finally it's like oh he's throwing a hard change and finally it looks amazing. It just took him four years but the sinker too like we were just talking about Fried he cuts the ball

and Rodin is another guy on the Yankees who they adjusted the sinker on he doesn't cut the ball he's very efficient but yeah the Yankees were still able to get a ton of vertical separation on their sinker relative to their fastball with Rodin and Fried. I think Neal was a great pitching coach. I just wonder like, how is he not able to get a little more depth? You know, this is something that's probably out of my realm of like, you got to ask a pitching coach or someone. But I look at his spin efficiency on the fore seam and the cut that he has.

And I look at the concept that a round seam, the more gyro you have on these more fastball shapes, the more you usually can create separation from that expectation DVR was talking about. So I almost wonder whether like, I like the concept of these two things, and I think they could really evolve him as a pitcher, but you know, is he like bad in the execution of them such that we're waiting for those shapes to be better and be more effective? Because neither of them are kind of world beaters right now, but conceptually they make sense to me. I'm baffled that that stuff plus likes the shape of this change up because his his change up has like one inch more drop than his foreseam and only four inches more vertical of horizontal brake. You know what it is though?

It's a rare straight change, you know? And then with the straight change, you're actually supposed to have movement that's kind of close to your fast ball and have a large VELO gap. So with a 20 mile an hour VELO gap, I guess he's throwing the Marco Estrada straight change out there.

I remain skeptical and part of why I remain skeptical is because of what you said about actually putting these into place. Because if you look at the change up heat map on Savant, I'd say more than half of these are in the top half of the zone. Like he's not burying it. It looks like he's aiming for the top of the zone and sometimes it just goes to the top of the zone. And I mean that's what people say about hanging changeups. Maybe the below differential will just get a lot of takes, you know, because that's something that baseball prospectus found when they when they looked at their actually it was the driveline found that when they did mix and match,

they found that the things that deviate the most in terms of velocity or shape create called strikes because the hitter will see the huge curveball, you know, that looks totally different. And they'll probably see this change up, even though the arm speed's a little better, they'll probably see that's coming out 77, you know, and not 97 pretty quickly. And I think their instinct as a hitter will be to not swing. Your point about the change up being up is one that I think is intuitive based on the shape too, because he's like way behind it.

Like on that right side of your screen, you see those green dots. Like there's no separation from the four seam. So I think a lot of times we think about how like movement, like the actual measure movement can change slightly based on location, which is likely just a byproduct of how the guy's moving into release there. I think, you know, you've mentioned this in the past about like Hunter Brown and stuff, but it makes sense. Like if he has a ton of backspin on his change up,

I don't really see how he's gonna get it down in the zone unless he aims at the plate maybe. Like you think of that intuitively from a targeting standpoint, if like if he's going middle setup and his change up has a ton of vert, like it's gonna end up middle to up in the zone. So that gets back to my point of like,

is there something here that can kill more spin to get them down in the zone or down away running arm side? Or maybe the sinker is the more important one, because what we need from him is something that works in the zone. Like obviously, you know, we need something that works in the zone. Maybe the change up can be at if he's getting called strikes, you know, and he's just dumping those in like EFI, basically just throwing some EFIS's EFI, whatever it is. There's a plural in EFIS. I like EFI, I think we should go out there, thumbs up.

Or he's dumping sinkers in there because he just needs something. He gets two fastball slider and sometimes he loses command of the four seam and when he loses command of the four seam, he has to go to the slider. The hitter knows it's two-oh, he has to go to the slider

because he can't command his four seam, you know, those days like that. And that's when Cease has the bad day. So if Cease could be like, hey, it's 2-0, but here's a sinker, and it's in the zone. So basically, I want to gift him a pitch he can command no matter what it is. And I don't think necessarily either of these is it. Maybe the sinker. What's the long term outcome for Dylan Cease, right? I mean, I think that's the other part of this. Like clearly he's trying to tinker, trying to do different things

and having varying levels of success. I mean, I'm surprised he's got a 108 in the location plus model. Because I never think of him as a guy that has anything more than average at best command. Like I always feel like Dylan Cease is a liability for free passes. And it's not quite to me the same as Blake Snell. I've made comparisons in the past,

whereas like Snell has elite hit suppression and is almost choosing not to throw strikes and willing to give up the walk. I don't feel like Cease is quite as extreme in that regard. So you know, think about him as a guy that he's a free agent at the end of this season. What does his offseason deal look like? How many years are you giving Dylan Cease? How much money are you giving Dylan Cease given the flaws, even though he's had a lot of success despite those flaws at various points? I bet you it's the Yankees or Dodgers and they have that's That's the sneaky one, right? Where it's like, oh, he only got that much

and then like, whoa, look at these improvements. He was worth so much more. So that gets back to our point here. Like maybe prior in the Guinness with the Dodgers are staring at this and going, yep, I know exactly what to do. Like he's not tried this orientation or grip or cue. And like, we're pretty sure we could get him

into like a nasty change or sink right off the top and do it in two weeks. Like that's, yeah, I would be intimidated if I was the NL West. The worst case scenario I think is he takes more money from a organization that doesn't have a plan. And then, you know, let's say I like picking on them. So the angels, I like picking on the angels too. Just I think that they don't value player development. So,

and I do so, you know, they deserve it, I think, to some extent. And so what you see is a future where he signs with the angels. They don't really have a plan other than they're like, Hey, let's just get back to who you are at your core. You're a fastball slider guy. You know, let's just do that. And then what happens is I believe you're right, Derek, in that the location plus can get, can overvalue being in the zone, you know, because being in the zone is good and location plus that's better than not being in the zone, right?

And you know, what you look back at is prospects report Dylan C's had a 40 present command from Fangrass and a 45 future. So I kind of believe that more than almost location plus. And so what I think would happen if he goes to a team that doesn't have a great plan for him is that just the home runs come back up. You know, the stuff that he was dealing with early in his career comes back

and he starts having a home run rate 1.2, 1.3 starts going up, the walk rate starts going up because he's too locked into two pitches and he hasn't diversified beyond that in a way that he can harness and command. So as that VLO drops to the home run rate will increase unless he can really diversify his portfolio in a way that like he can actually execute and command. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. The wheels are spinning in my head,

just thinking about being able to command the entire strike zone. Like, yeah, you can get in the zone. Maybe you can control two thirds of the zone. But if there's a third that you're missing, that could be a problem. Yeah, I think as soon as I can keyhole you, I mean, especially for these vertical guys, right?

If it's high, let it fly. Like, you know, that's the knuckleball thing, but you could be like, oh, if it's high, it's a fastball. If it's low, it's a slider. Like, then you've got Dylan Sees figured out. Blake Snow last year got what, five for, I'm looking at right now, five for 182. It's like the third largest contract

in last year's pitching market. You think he gets that, Dylan Sees? He's gonna be 30 next year. Yeah, he doesn't have the same injury history. Yeah, right, so maybe he'll live it over that. He has the same strikeout, strikeout rate, stuff combo, like people are buying that. Does he go to Burns six for 210?

Right in that window, feels good, right? I think he's under that. I think he's under 210. He might get six years, but I think he's under 210. That's what we're talking, I think, in there. People thought that the Burns didn't sign for as much as he could have. Yeah that's true because he wanted to be in Arizona right? Yeah.

Let's talk about Max Meyer. I think this kind of falls more into the wholesale changes. The guy that looks like a completely different pitcher now Lance. What were the adjustments from Max Meyer and why do you believe this is all going to work for him as he kind of carves out his role in that Marlins rotation? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think especially early in the off season and draft season, what I was looking at, I mean, projections are doing such a good job of nailing break-up picks, you know?

Cause you're looking at the guys like, oh, he didn't walk a lot, he's got a high strike array, and like, maybe the barrels could come down with better location, and oh, well look, he's projected for two and a half wars. So like, he's probably gonna be drafted in the first 10 rounds, and it doesn't matter I can't call him a sleeper but I think one thing's projections don't do a great job

of capturing is like this like Max Meyer like regime change like they brought in they wiped their entire pitching department and brought in a bunch of new people a lot of those being very analytically inclined so for me I was just looking at all those arms and I was like yep like checks the box I'm gonna take these guys everywhere, you know, cause it's like, especially at the cost you're giving me, I thought at the time was one of the few who was believing in what they would do from a philosophical standpoint, pulling down, forcing usage on certain guys,

spotting obvious usage increases. Edward Cabrera with a slider already throwing that more than things nasty. Meyer was a great example, just like throwing a fastball right over the middle of the plate. That wasn't good. And it was like, my God just like throwing a fastball right over the middle of the plate that wasn't good. And it was like, my God, like, what are you doing? You know what I mean? And it's like, the second you turn the page and look at his spring stats, it was like,

okay, four scenes down versus righties from 45% last year to 15% this year. That is a massive adjustment. They made the sinker better. He's throwing that as almost his primary now in tandem with the slider. They gave him a bigger sweeper. They optimized the sinker better. He's throwing that as almost his primary now in tandem with the slider. They gave him a bigger sweeper. They optimized the change up. I didn't actually spot a grip difference here from what I was looking at, but that thing's got like six inches more drop again at same V lo.

We were talking about that in relation to freed where it's like, that's kind of a very high level thing on the pitch design side is just like, are you throwing the same V lo does it have more movement in the slots the same? It's like, good. That checks a lot of boxes. We'll move forward. we'd like that more. He jumped his- I mean, look at all these changes.

Yeah, he's jumped his righty swinging strike from 11% up to 18% right now. I always thought this slider was good. It was good out of the draft when he was at Minnesota. It's this hard bullet. I know the model doesn't love it a ton. I'm curious whether you think the model doesn't love these bullet sliders.

The sweeper, we were talking about with Hoke is like, okay, big lateral shape works versus righties. It's still average versus lefties. I wonder whether this shape in your model is just like, ooh, we really don't like that for righties, but we like it for lefties. My litmus on these is like that yellow right in the center of the plot there. Are you throwing it above 86, which I think they say like 85 is the slider standard, but I've talked to some people in different orgs

who say that's now 86. It's like, are you throwing it above, let's say 87, 88, and he's throwing his 90, you know? It's like, I love that shape, especially with his inherent command of the offering. I know he's got good location plus right now as well. I mean, to your point, yes, I've seen reverse platoon splits on gyro sliders

in Stuff Plus, where the Stuff Plus platoon splits on gyro sliders in, in stuff plus where the stuff plus will be higher on opposite handards. And so I think you might be right that, you know, I don't overvalue undervalue. I don't know. But uh, there are people who throw things like this that don't get many whiffs from righties like right on right, you know. And so Meyer, I think to some extent just has touch on the pitch beyond just the stuff of the pitch. And one, the way that I can sort of demonstrate that is the location

plus on a slider for his career is almost one 10. So location plus is something that doesn't really work in small samples, but when you see somebody that, you know, has this reputation over multiple years, you can start to believe it. And, and being able to locate the slider, I think is almost as important as the shape of it itself. And that gives him now he like, it's back to our mind, the sort of two O count thing is like he, he doesn't have to be predictable in two O counts. He doesn't have to throw predictable in two O counts. He doesn't have to throw the fastball over the plate.

He can throw that slider over the plate and increasingly now he has other options. So I agree with you that, you know, when you see wholesale change like that, it's, it's pretty impressive to pull it off in one year. I mean, he changed his arm, arm angle, you know, all these things that he did. It's funny that he's not come out the other end as he doesn't, he still doesn't necessarily look like a, a one-one pick all the way, but, but a 26, um, I mean, I don't know if he's one one, maybe he's one three or something.

One three, yeah, one three, but 26% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate, like maybe, maybe this is, you know, him finally just coming through on his promise. And I think it, it also speaks to just how difficult it is to make it as a starting pitcher in the big leagues. It just takes a while to, you know, put it all together. You can have a pitch that, like the slider from Max Meyer, that's been great, you know, through college, it got you drafted one three. And then you get to the big leagues and you're like, yes, so what? You got one good pitch.

What else you got going? Yeah. And it just takes it a while. But having one good pitch, you know, if you are looking for by low, like we were just having this discussion about Tomiuki Sugano on yesterday's podcast, which is, you know, the difference between Seth Lugo and Tomiuki Sugano is that Seth Lugo has an outpitch. And I think, I'm not sure that Sugano has a single outpitch, at least in the major leagues here.

So if you were looking for somebody that could be a future starter, it's a by-law, we can do an episode on this. But if you're looking Max Meyer, future Max Myers, what did Max Meyer have? He had an outpitch. He had one pitch, he had one golden pitch. And then they finally rearranged the pieces around it. And I think that's a key in almost every breakout I've seen. You know, even if we're talking about like Cease or who are the taz we've talked about so far? Cease and... Fried.

Goldfish brain. Fried. I mean, Fried came up, his one golden pitch was the curve. Remember that? All the stuff that has happened since has just been, oh, well, he can spin it. Look at how good his curve ball is. And, you know, he's figured everything else out around it. So, Meyer, yes, I agree. I think Meyer, you know, all these guys need to be owned in all leagues. I think Cease is actually a by-law just based on it's this year and like he's, he's still got the stuff you know he's gonna strike guys out he's gonna have better days for going forward well and I got the sense you know thinking about the way you were

talking about it a smart team seeing things in Dylan sees wanting to pursue him in for agency like the long-term value outlook might be better it might be more consistent in the future he doesn't have that durability track record he's at that age and keeper in dynasty leagues where a non-contending team is going to say, I'm going to get off this train now just because I'd rather cash out while I can. So there could be a real long-term buying opportunity

there. And the protections haven't necessarily caught up yet. Jordan hasn't run. I don't think that you're updating these things as quickly as we can. So I don't think that there's, you're updating these things as quickly as we can. So I don't wanna speak for Jordan, but if the best prediction rest of season is 410 ERA right now, I'm taking the under on that for Max Meyer.

Right, with Max Meyer, I think the only multi-year concern is building up innings. I think he topped out at 111 his first professional year with the Marlins. So you're probably looking at 150 or so this year But the next year you're pretty close to every other starter in the league if he holds it physically So I think there's an opportunity to get in on Max Meyer as well Lance, you know, we've talked about Joe Boyle a lot on this show over the years

It has been An ongoing could he just locate well enough to make the stuff work? And look, he's in an organization. Worst location plus among starting pitchers with five innings so far this year. Yeah. Not a big surprise. We know the Rays have had some success with the one target approach, guys that don't have great command, but this is probably their biggest test yet, I would say,

of trying to find something that will work. So What are we seeing in the the changes they've made so far with Joe Boyle? And do you think this is actually going to work? Will Joe Boyle? Starting pitcher be a thing for the Rays for even a full big league season at some point Yeah This is like the can you get to the lowest? Tolerable level of command for a starting pitcher and the name I come up with always last year was

I believe Lewis Heal had pretty poor command but he survived and he pitched pretty well. I think the big thing here to me is like again we're talking about like good player development orders like they had an approach here he's not throwing the curve anymore they cut out the sweeper they were like stop on your bigger shapes. Yeah you can't you can't command yeah make it all tighter. You know, You know, you throw so hard, just stuff so good, like we could probably figure out other things that maybe you have some semblance of command of. So they cut those two pitches out. His strike rate is still low.

The location plus is terrible. I get it. But the sinker, you know, your model loves it. It was like a 129. You know, I think I threw up on my Twitter, like the grip, it's it to me looks more like a standard split. Like some of the splinkers we're seeing are, you know, like the skeins one is like in between the horseshoe and Soriano and Joao Andoran.

Like those guys all throw them in a similar way. His is literally just like a split and he's like his ring finger is way up on it. It's a nasty pitch like it from his arm angle, which he dropped year over year, so they made some mechanical changes there from what I could tell. He's picking up a ton of drop, it's hard. There are not a lot of comps for the shape, whether you look at sinkers or splitters.

The closest one is a guy I know Ino likes, so it's a Soriano. It's in that realm, it's just a really good pitch. Now, is it gonna be in zone? Probably not. But I think that this is a guy where you can get some of these, what did he have, five innings, one base turn or seven Ks the other day, and then he went back down to triple A. But yeah, I think that this is a guy where you can get some of these What do you have five innings one base runner seven K's the other day and then he went back down to triple A

But yeah, I mean I think he's fascinating like I again I'm terrified on the location and maybe as we pump him up here He becomes probably a little bit over owned in leagues where it's like, oh, I'm just hunting this, you know Good matchup like is he a guy that's gonna be matchup independent where it's like it doesn't actually matter who he's facing it more matters Like what is his Yeah, what how do you wake up this morning? Yeah, or like lined up with teams that chase more maybe is the way as opposed as opposed to wholesale like is this offense good? Because he's gonna run and he's probably gonna crush your whip but I'm intrigued here enough because I think this sinker shape splinker thing is really cool and

This is like a classic new pitch. Maybe it's a little less impact than we think, but it's so cool and it's unique that I had to highlight it. So I know you guys have talked about him a ton. I don't know if there's anything to add. You know, I do think that the splinker is, is important right now. He's got a real triangle going where he's got the force aimed at slider and the, and the splinker, if you're looking at a savant. And the Splinker has way more drop than a Sinker.

It's being classified as such. As a splitter, it might be average-ish, but it's a little bit like the Hunter Green situation where you've got not great command, really strong fastball in terms of V-Low, and a shape that should be pretty platoon safe. A slider that's pretty platoon safe and 90 miles an hour. It's kind of a 90 mile an hour, zero zero jar slider. So you know, he's got a lot of ways to avoid platoon issues. So and theoretically a tight force seam and a tight slider like that should be easy to

command. So they're really just, they're simplifying the playbook and you know, his extension is down, his arm slot is down. Maybe in the past, I'd been suggesting that maybe in the past, he was chasing extension and trying to get on top of the ball to get more ride. And they were just like, no, like, let's find the most natural way for you to throw because we want you to kind of get it in this box, dude. So don't reach out there and try to get seven feet of extension if that's going to make it harder for you to throw it in this box. So I will say in the minor leagues, seven walks per nine in AAA this year. So it could have just been one shining start that made us

that made us all into it. But, you know, like if you're on a 15 team keeper league and he's out on the on the wire and, you know, you've got some old veteran that you're just helping along and you're more closer to rebuilding. Like, yeah, I'd pick him up as a speculative ad. I'm I'm into it. I went and looked in Devil's Rejects, our 20 team league, and he's owned. So, of course, everyone's roster. No one's available in that league, ever. Lance, a broader question for you, though. New pitches are fun. We love new pitches. They're giffable. They're fun to write about. They're fun to talk about.

Are you finding that the value they add comes more from the big picture and less from just the nastiness or the actual characteristics of the individual new pitches themselves. 100%. I agree. And I think that one of the things that I've almost become more interested in, it's interesting to see like my sub-stacks evolution, it started where I was like very stuff focused. I was literally doing like VLOOKUP differentials on stuff between like day to last month to prior year

and just like noting who changed what and then trying to figure out why, which gave me a really good understanding of like what goes into those more two, three years ago stuff models, which are very more like basic, Magnus movement, et cetera. So that like really helped me understand

like shapes and everything. And then it evolved into more like, I actually think locations and usage are like super important relative to some of the shape changes and everything. And then it evolved into more like, I actually think locations and usage are like super important relative to some of the shape changes and stuff. And that's kind of where I've landed. It's like, I think a lot of the time what we're into is like, like location change or usage change usage in particular is

a really good way to like see a guy doing something different. Now there's always the cases where a guy changes location or usage and the results look identical. You know, like I think of like Zach Wheeler is a good example of this where he's made like you look at his last four years, he's changed a lot from a new pitch standpoint, but the line is like exactly the same. So it's like, okay, it's like a chicken or the egg. Like did he change in order to say, yeah, right.

Is he staving off regression? Exactly. So I think like the usage stuff is really what I've started to lock onto. And I think it's really important. I got to say like, this is a proposal for maybe Jordan, your model or, you know, I thought that like, I'm always like in draft season, I'm always thinking like, where's my edge? And I think again, I mentioned it earlier, but projections are so good that like the edges are kind of gone. I've wondered whether the edge now is predicting usage changes. I wonder if there's a way for you to build like a model or

like a like a tool where you know you have the guy's usage from prior year and you have it aligned with his stuff you make the assumption the stuff stays the same and then you play around with usage and see what the ultimate stuff outcome is. Like I saw this with Mackenzie Gore where like I kind of had some info in the offseason that like he might pull down his fastball usage finally. So I was like cool like how do I capture the value of this? You know what I mean? Into a projection as opposed to me just saying I'm going to draft them around above value because I know he's not gonna use as much fastball. And I generally think that's huge, but it'd be cool to like put almost like an

objective number to it where it's like, okay, I think this will come down and therefore now we think the strikeout rate will jump. Maybe if the walks jump, that's okay. But the net result here is, you know, point two points off his or 20 points off off his ERA and then we could be a little more aggressive in driving. Yeah, I mean, Jordan just takes, you know, the stuff outputs and puts them into his model. So this is really a question for, you know, the stuff plus model. And, you know, there's a couple of real answers to this is one is, I mean, it is hard to model the effects, but there are a couple of places where we can put the finger on the on the weight.

And so the real example that I'm thinking of is let's say somebody goes to the Mets and you're like, I know he's going to add a fastball. He's going to go to the Mets and he's going to add a sinker. He's going to add a cutter or whatever. And so his fastball mix is going to be different. Now one of the features in our model right now is previous fastball mix. And the reason we do this is the example has been Adam Ottavino because Adam Ottavino throws a sinker and he also throws a four seam.

He throws a four seam a little bit at the time and people see the arm slot. They know he throws a sinker and so they expect the sinker. And so it is a philosophical question. Like what is the true stuff of the four seam? Is it the true stuff of the four seam just by itself in the air? Then it's a philosophical question, like what is the true stuff of the fore seam? Is it the true stuff of the fore seam just by itself in the air? Then it's a bad fore seam. But that's just not how pitching works.

Everyone sees Adam Ottavino and they know, you know, sinker and they can even see the slot and say sinker, you know? So we put previous fastball mix in as a marker to be like, oh, Adam Ottavino's fore team is actually pretty good at 10%. You know, 10% it's a 104 plus stuff, plus a force gamer because they expect 0% of that. They expect, they expect sinker.

And so it's sort of about expectation and stuff. Well, since that is a feature in the model, I think we could just change the number. Which I'd be curious to see, because like the Red Sox are another one, right? Like how many guys there in the last two calendar years with Breslow and Bailey coming in have just shaved their fastball and forcing usage, you know?

You can pretty confidently expect, like I kind of knew Crochet would not throw as forcing as much. I wasn't sure exactly what would take over and it seems like it's the cutter, you know? But like there's certain orgs I think you go to and it's very clear they prefer certain philosophies. And I just wonder whether we can like better capture results on guys or projections. Yeah, I mean, because I was talking about this with on a Vino, like, we could just we

could like, could we run the model where you throw the foreseam 30% of the time and see what this stuff plus is? I think it would drop. So yeah, I think it might be as simple as that. It's more of a question from the guys that work on the models. We have Owen McGratton and Matt Denowitz on the ones and twos over there. And right now, though, and this is important for our next segment, right now we are obsessed with the minor leagues

and trying to figure out minor league data. Because I mean, one thing is arm angle is important to our model. You don't get arm angle from minor league data. And then there's other pieces of missing data. And so we were trying to figure out what we do and you can run a model with missing pieces. But if the missing piece is high enough

in your feature ranking, then it's a big deal. So for us, arm angle is pretty high up because the stuff model is talking about like, oh, you have big deal. So for us, arm angle is pretty high up because, you know, the stuff model is talking about like, oh, you have this kind of an arm angle. We expect this kind of movement. So it's about expected movement, dead zone movement, you know, all that sort of stuff.

So arm angle is important for our model. We don't get in the minor leagues. We made a mini model that now takes available information and guesses what your arm angle is based on height extension, release X, release Y. And so now we have the ability to run the major league model on the minor leagues. Matt Denowitz did the heavy lifting on that. And so we in the future hope to be able to do some fun stuff

where it's not just single A and triple A even, and because we now have a way to kind of guess the missing data and give you as robust a stuff model as we can, given the data that is actually available. So the first run right now, this is we've been looking, we sent you a file for AAA and single A with the arm angle imputed, not actually observed. That is a caveat whenever you're looking at Miley data, if you want to look at the Miley data and you say this guy looks weird, his stuff less is really high, but his results are really bad,

go watch some video. Because if he has a strange arm angle or a really obvious arm angle, whatever, if there's something strange about him, you might see it with your eyes. We sent the file over to you and asked you, who were some names that sort of jumped off the page when you were looking at that file? Yeah, for sure.

It lined up good. I think it passed the sniff test overall, which is good. I have four names. I could just rip them off. Or do you want me to walk through them one by one? Or what do you want me to do? Yeah, let's just rip them all off and we'll kind of pick at them.

All right, cool. So, Cade Horton is one top pitching prospect in the Cubs org, close to home for me, given I cover the Cubs for marquee. He jumped in your model. He looks pretty good. We'll talk about him a little bit more. Blade Tidwell, I called him Blake Tidwell

for about two years before I realized it was Blade. Another guy with the Mets, I don't necessarily know if he's going to get the next shot. It seems like they're going to bring up Sprout. But he jumped in your model. He's basically 110 stuff plus or north on all of his pitches. He's weird too. We can talk about him a little more from what I've seen, like the shapes.

Emiliano, I believe it is Tiodo, is a ranger reliever, which is a fun like late season save speculation angle. He popped in your model. He does some weird stuff with his body. So I think you guys are doing a good job of like capturing height extension arm angle, which is what you're just saying. But I think that's a, he's a bit of a proof of concept there. And then Bubba Chandler, who everybody knows is another one that pops through miles. So those are like kind of the four guys. I'd say Kate is, I can give a little more details because I was looking at year over year for him. I don't know if you guys reram us on 2024. But I would speculate he would be one guy that jumps a ton. He's up about taking a half two ticks.

He's sitting 96. He was 94 last year. He added three and a half inches to his four seamer avert. So he was he's like an extreme cut guy. He was like 13 and zero. He's trying to go like that lingo. Yeah, he is. He's a cut right? He's extreme cut. He's got like zero lateral on his he's in that glass. Now he angle, but he's weird because he doesn't like get to the side or around the ball well. So his shapes are lateral, you know, so he's got like this sweeper, which added a bunch of sweep this, uh, with this change to he's got like a tweener death ball down her curve. And then he's, he's got a change up that has like a bunch of sweep this with this change to he's got like a tweener death ball down her curve

And then he's he's got a change up that has like a bunch of horizontal separation and coming out of college He basically had no arm side pitch and that was a big concern It was like well It just it'll just be a three breaking ball guy like you're cloning Drew Rasmussen And then he ended up doing what Tanner by B does where it's like, okay I have horizontal separations opposed to vertical separation, but he looks great And the problem here is just he only threw 34 innings last year He had like a subscap strain and that shut him down. So like the innings totals really light but with steel going down

He becomes like kind of an interesting how many bolts do you want to waste a triple a? They're probably gonna backfill with like a sod and wicks and Ray But I mean it from my angle like his stuff's good enough right now to compete and your model backs that up. And he made some pretty dramatic changes talking to people in the org, like it seems like it was some postural things in spring. They had like a bit of a mechanical intervention and change some things and whatever they did looks fantastic to me in the shapes, especially if you compare 24 to 25.

That's huge too, because Cade Horton's prospect stock, at least where he's ranked on a lot of lists, has fallen because of the lost time and the results last year too. That's huge too because Cade Horton's prospect stock, at least where he's ranked on a lot of lists, has fallen because of the lost time in the results last year too. That's exactly right. Yeah, so this is a big rebound for him and a company pitching. I think overall, I remember you guys talking on the preview of that team that they only had like steel and shoulderwear projected as above average pitchers and nobody else. So I think people are bullish on him in Oregon. I think outside people should definitely recalibrate to what he was in 2023 as opposed to last year. We took a downtick. But again, the injuries are big here. Like on the fantasy side, I'm not entirely sure if he's like a stash.

He's like, don't know when he'll be up. And I don't even know if he comes up. It's more reliever because they want to like tamp down the innings. Do the crochet thing where he throws a hundred in total. But like it's a bunch of two innings late in the year for the final two months, which doesn't really become valuable for fantasy. You know, his ultimate use that they're probably debating this internally right now is that it could be in a trade for somebody like San Alcontra or, you know, is he better used as that, you know, where we get two years of three years of a known commodity in San Alcontra

or six years of like, maybe this maybe this is good. And sometimes you get this organizational fatigue where like, man, he's been hurt and he comes to spring and he's looking all crazy and we gotta change the stuff again. But you know there's people pounding the table in the org, they're like, no, this guy's awesome. And like, we need to keep him.

So one thing that sticks out for me, and again, it's 22 sliders so location plus is not online but it's a really bad location plus on the slider so far and I just wonder what your idea of his command is naturally because you know the Fangrass prospect guy's 40 present 50 future command and you look at his walk rates and they're all over the place. I mean they're not all bad and they're definitely not. We're not talking Edward Cabrera, you know, but he has struggled with command from time to time. It looks like. Yeah. That slider you're looking at, I didn't, I don't remember in the sheet you sent me, but do you split it slider sweeper? Cause I believe his

downer curves tagged as a slider and then he has a sweeper. Yeah I don't know which we have a slider and a curve in here so I don't know which is which. Okay so the slider is probably the bigger sweeper than my guess. And that might be hard for him as a commander. He's just added it too and he's been so north-south before. It's weird because he's had that pitch for that was actually the pitch he got drafted on was this this nasty slider thing so he had good like sublime feel for it I thought But the thing that I'm trying to reconcile is like, you know, if you if we were pulling up plots on Savant, right, like he was very grouped around the center last year. And now everything is like, because of this mechanical change, like he's getting more movement everywhere, you know, and it's like kind of odd to me. So I don't know if like this new sweeper foundation he has that is picking up seven inches more lateral from what I see year over year. That's a lot on a sweeper. And I don't think he changed that grip

because that was a grip that he came up with in college. He was really hot. It's gonna take him some time maybe to get the feel back on everything. Yeah, totally. That's my thinking. It's kind of like the hitting version of Christian Campbell. I was talking to people in the Red Sox org,

but he added so much bat speed and increased his attack angle so much that it literally took him like five months to recalibrate last year. So if you look at his like zone contact month over month last year it's like it's like this ladder which keeps going up but initially everyone was like what do they do you know he's swinging so hard he's swinging up shoes and now he's like he looks great now but it's the same idea like I wonder if that applies to Horton in this case where it's like you know he's two years removed from having these shapes back which were his 23 shapes for the same idea. I wonder if that applies to Horton in this case, where it's like, he's two years removed from having these shapes back, which were his 23 shapes for the most part.

So I wonder if it's just like, hey, man, we got to like rein you in a little bit here. It's going to be a little wacky, but in the long term, this is going to make you a better pitcher. I'm glad Blade Tidwell popped here for you because the Mets as an organization, we know with David Sterns at the helm there, they're basically gonna replicate the brewers pitching philosophy, the lab, they're gonna have all of that, right? So you can err on the side of buying into guys that you like

and also just tell yourself the story, they're probably going to get the most out of their pitching for the first time in a long time. And Tidwell, like Horton, had more prospect value just like a year, two years ago and now has kind of dipped on the radar because last year was a rough year for him. ERA close to five between AA and AAA combined. He was good at AA, just struggled with the move to AAA. For a guy that's always had high walk rates, I'm not that surprised you get to ABS and as you talked about on your YouTube channel, it's a new ball.

You're using the Major League ball for the first time when you reach the triple A level. So considering all the variables and what we know about Tidwell and the organization as a whole, even if it takes time, this seems like a profile that we might want to be patient with. Yeah, I think the Mets are doing a great job on the pitching side. They're probably one of the more year over year, let's say since 2023, one of the teams that's definitely stocked up for me in terms of what they're doing. I think, you know, kind of alluded to them being like a multi-fastball approach team,

which makes a lot of sense. But I think they're doing a great job of like optimizing sliders, throwing them hard. And they've had a lot of these guys kind of trickle up. Tidwell is weird to me. I was trying to find a way to pull up a plot, but everything he throws, you know, is like above the zero line But he's not like usually when you see that it's like the low sock guys, right? I think I like Rogers I was Taylor Tyler I remember which one from the Giants but like everything he throws his lift cuz he's like under the ball

But Tidwell is like a big dude high release and he's like kind of over the top and yet he doesn't really create depth So like he doesn't like his slider like, I don't know if it's tagged as a curve but I see more as a slider. It's a little bit of depth, I think it has like, his lowest vert pitch is negative 1.5. Everything else he's throwing is like lift. Like his sweeper's got lift, it's got seven inches of vertical break with 11 inches of speed.

So he has a gyro slider, a sweeper, a sinker that's probably more of like a rider, a riding sinker. Yeah, exactly. And he's got a change too. But the change doesn't get that much depth on. No, he's got seven inches of vertical break on average changes somewhere around. But you kind of have to adjust for slot here. So maybe he's doing a good job.

He's a little bit of a higher slot guy. So it's probably seven off of 18 or something. Yeah. So I wonder whether your model is like picking up on some of the oddities with him, which I think one of the things like, maybe we'll have a model conversation in the future, but I think your model's doing a great job of like highlighting weird dudes,

because I'll often look at a guy and like look at a traditional stuff model and be like, ah, they're missing like the body traits here. Like he's big, he's got low slots, so the release is artificially high. And then I look at your model and it's like, oh, we love that. Like, Ali Jacobs is a great example.

I think we're the only model that, weird, Audrey Reliever. We're the only model I think that has arm angle in it. Yeah, we're like, oh, I think we're the only model that we're the only model. I think that has arm angle in it. Yeah, yeah. Like Jacob is his results are not great. All guy. No, no, he walks a lot. This is the fun part, right? It's like, oh, the shapes look so good.

And then it's like, oh, he's running like a is. And that's too bad because I was just looking at Sprout. And I think I have Sprout figured out. Sprout is in the Will Warren, Clark Schmidt, Michael King tree. He's a, he's a sinker sweeper guy that is trying to push the other stuff to the point where it's, it's competitive. Agreed. Get on. I've come up occasionally to, to Brandon Fott, who's a little bit different, but because they both have that similar like lip sweeper and they also look similar, they have like flowing brown hair. So that's what I was looking for to say. But

sometimes the aesthetic chop is what sticks in my head. I guess I'm a little bit higher on Tidwell than the market because no one's really talking about him and maybe a little bit lower on Sprote than the market. Because I just those sinker sweeper guys, you know, we quoted from Keith Law, where he's like, he said something about like, well, Will Warren is a future reliever, no matter what your model says. I was like, I like the war. But I, but if you think about these types of players, some of them work out. And was Nenske is looking all right. And, you know, and King is like amazing, you know, 99 percentile.

Yeah. And even well, Warren's doing all right. But I do tend to think that sometimes it takes a while. You're asking them to figure out something that's lefties, basically. You're a sink or sweeper guy. And what are you doing against the lefties? And you're just stressing about that. And you probably don't even see the highest quality lefty at bats batters until you get to the major leagues, because there's not as many lefty bats in general, as there are already bats. And, you know, you're going not as many lefty bats in general as there are righty bats.

And you're gonna see poor lefty bats in the minors. So it's not until you're like, what am I gonna do against Juan Soto? You know, or I guess he doesn't have to worry about that, but like, what am I gonna do against Jazz Chisholm? What am I gonna do against all these lefties that can take me yard? I can't throw them sinkers and sweepers.

What do I do? Sprout's a great example too of like recalibration in the minors. So last year he threw like 52% force hammer. And I think he jumped it to like 70% when he was behind in the count. Like in the minors, he was just like, these guys can't hit my forcing fastball. But the Mets are a student enough to be like, this is not going to work in the majors because your shapes actually. He was a guy speaking to the ball DVR. Yeah, like his shape, I don't know if I could pull up his shape in AA,

but his shape in AA was like, whoa, he's low slot ride. And then like, because he's so efficient when he picked up the AAA ball, it was like, you're now like 13 and eight. Oh, this is exactly what you're talking about with the ball. Yeah, so let me see. I could try to pull up what his AA shape was, but. Yeah, 88 stuff plus on the force here

So I have met 15 and 15 and 11 at 96 and a half Okay, and that's like awesome like oh, this is fantastic. I'm so excited about this guy just to give Like what is Warren or let me see. What is King have King King throws his four-seam fastball? he's a singer sweeper guy at heart and he has on his four-seam he got up to 17-6 but last year he had 15. So basically Sprote in double A had King's four-seam fastball from last year. Yeah and he's got a bad average release but this year you see a triple A he's 13 and 10 basically. So like the vert cut off that pitch which really kills these guys who are like super efficient. So eventually like we cut off that pitch, which really kills these guys who are like

super efficient. So eventually like we're going to tease it, but like I eventually think we're going to try to come up with a double A and high A model based off some data I have at those levels. And like one of the things I think we're going to have to do is make a ball adjustment, you know, which is maybe is a part of the like your A ball data. One of the reasons I said, like I just don't want to touch it too much is because of that. Because I think like all those stuff numbers are probably inflated. So you got to make adjustments. I've talked to some other orgs about this.

A lot of them like do get on this early. I've heard too like the seam effects on the ball are different. So like it just because of the leather, like the minor league balls are made in China, the major league ones are made in Costa Rica. So there's a difference in literally how the ball interacts with the air and that messes seam effects up.

So there's certain orgs that separate movement out between like the Magnus side and the seam effect side. So I was talking to one org that was like, yeah, we've seen pitches, especially on changeups and sinkers that are like getting drop and getting arm side from seam effects. And then what happens with the major league ball is they pick up a ton more drop and lose that arm side. So they have to kind of recalibrate the orientation and the movement. That is so exhausting to think about being a director of pitching. I can't even imagine. Yeah. And it's a funny thing too,

is like some teams don't even, it's one of those things, like I talked to some teams that don't even have a model for, don't even care. And it's like, I don't know, like, and some of those teams are actually, I thought kind of sharp where they're's like, I don't know. Like, and some of those teams are actually, I thought kind of sharp or they're just like, we're just gonna figure out when the guy gets the AAA. But I do think there's an edge like to a team like the Mets who under, I think understand this stuff and can tackle it ahead of time.

And, you know, just create softer landings for pitchers. I wonder if I was a major league team, what about sending a bunch of Major League balls to my minor league complexes so that at least when they're doing bullpens and they're in spring and stuff, that they're all using Major League balls and then your pitching coach can say, hey, listen, when we were doing this in spring, it had this movement profile and maybe it's not working for you right now, but the model says that what you're doing right now once you get to that use that major league ball. It's gonna work Yeah, so but that's like a really hard thing to tell a kid to like throw this pitch

That's getting you know shoved in your face, especially if the kids like am I gonna get Am I gonna get promoted if I do this and have a 5-5? You know what I mean? So is the model gonna know that this is supposed to move better and so that you're gonna promote me? Or is it just gonna say, no, you still got your space shoved in? So. Lance did a great job breaking this down in detail on his YouTube channel, so you should definitely check out

the full video explaining the differences between the ball. And I think the frustrating part of it for me is that it comes down to money. This comes down to saving money. Could they make more major league baseballs and use them throughout the minor leagues? Of course, they could it's major league baseball. They just increase manufacturing, right? It's it's possible You know, this is on the order of millions of dollars, but it's not a hundred million dollars It's they're saving maybe two three million dollars a year, which is sounds a lot. I could but you know, it was a guesstimation. But it's it sounds like a lot. But is it a lot? You know? I don't know. I very much am a voice I think for a

lot of people in pitching departments who I enjoy talking to. I'm sure you're the same way you know, and such. And it's like, so I'm a champion for them. Like if I people complain to me about this, then I become interested in wanting to do something about it in video form or whatever. I wonder how many people who actually deal with like the manufacturing of the balls even know about this you know I mean like do they even care like you know like anyone who's on the operation side of like making this decision because actually from my understanding I didn't mention the video but I do believe that there was a proposal to at least start using the major league balls at double a so it was a kind of an in-betweener right where it's like, okay now if I have a college guy

I don't want to expose him to the minor league ball and I think he's good enough He's just right to double A. It doesn't need to go to class A doesn't need to go to high A whatever So he skirts over all these ball adjustments and such. My understanding is that I got shot down I don't entirely know why but that's the point It's like I don't know if like you get sit down the-makers in the room and you're showing them the sort of Major League Baseball providing balls to to teams, you know, for the minor leagues and then who's paying whom and like who cares about what, you know what I mean? Like and so is this like a service that MLB gives the owners and the owners are like yeah save me the two million thank you, you know, right? As I said in my video, that's a whole mic. Right. Or do you go or is it is the does the general manager in on any of these

meetings? General manager. I I would pay two million dollars to know what all my guys pitches would do in the major leagues. Yeah, yeah. Because you know, there's like definitely like in in New York, the guys, Steve Cohen's like, Yo, yeah, I would rather know, you know I'd rather know you can convince Cohen. I'm not sure you can convince like Yeah, that might be the challenge getting nutting and Dick Monfort on board with the Expense good luck. That could be a challenge One more question we had for you Lance

With any edge that a team comes into, how long does an edge last in today's game given how sharp the league is? That's a great question. I'm glad we're bearing this at the end of this podcast because I don't think I have a great answer for you because I thought about this all night. Like I saw that message from Eno and I was like thinking about it at work and then I woke up this morning I was thinking about this tells you how much of a psychopath I am.

But it's a great point, you know, I almost wanted to zig here and say that I think edges last a little longer than we think because of how hard it is for if we're talking macro level, for teams to recalibrate. Like a lot of that recalibration is done through acquisitions in the offseason, draft, etc. And like the draft happens middle of the year, most of the time from my understanding, those guys aren't making big adjustments when they get into an award So it's usually that offseason so my initial impression was like I actually think you can get like a calendar year out of an edge and then it's in that offseason recalibration of like like the Cubs turned over a ton of 40-man guys this offseason and stuff

So that's when you start to see maybe okay. We did this in the past, but we're churning a bunch of these pictures Let's see what the new philosophy is that's implemented. Then you see aggregated next year data and it's to see maybe, okay, we did this in the past, but we're churning a bunch of these pitchers. Let's see what the new philosophy is. That's implemented. Then you see aggregated next year data and it's like, oh, okay, cool. They're, you know, the Mariners have the lowest four seam rate in the miners, the lowest slots, the biggest sweepers, etc. Like clearly that team is doing something very specific in terms of the slots they want. But my gut was that I think that some of these edges on the very zoomed out level last a year or so. But I don't know on an individual pitcher level, like what we're talking about the usage and new pitch and shape change. My gut was that I think that some of these edges on the very zoomed out level last a year or so. But I don't know on an individual picture level, like what we're talking about the usage

and new pitch and shape change and like that stuff seems to be maybe more like the month to two month window. So I think they're very different beasts in that respect. Everything we've just talked about, like they're all over it, you know, they've got people watching it. They've got advanced scout analysts now that are just doing a lot of what you do. We were talking about running stuffed inferentials. Advanced scout analysts will just run that and are there any big movement changes and then

and see if anybody they're facing soon is popping on the list and be like, oh wow, Dylan sees a change up plus eight miles an hour plus the minus this like got to get that down to the pitching the hitting coach and you know, so I think you're right Smith's work on, on Seamshifted Awake. And one thing that I had realized from his work was it wasn't all about sinkers and changes. They were actually breaking balls that benefited from Seamshifted Awake. And that there was one he called, I think, a looper. And the looper, you know, was like, I was like looking at the Dodgers like Evan Phillips throws a looper. And so I started to look at low fastball spin efficiency guys that the Dodgers had picked up that they were giving these horizontal sliders to.

And I was like, Urias had had a little bit more of a downer, 12-6 curveball, and his over time became a sweeper. And I just broke it down. I was like, I think the Dodgers are doing something with sliders. Their sliders are all horizontal and it looks a little bit like the seamstress way looper. That's October 2021. And I just checked with Corey Schwartz for another story because I was doing about the kick change. You know, this is why I was asking like these edges, how long they last for the kick change. I asked Statcast about when they made a decision to make a sweeper designation and that was in 2023

So October 21 is the end of the 21 season by a year later Statcast is already making a new pitch type Designation for that pitch. So by the time Statcast is announcing. Hey, there's a sweeper and this is exactly how many people were throwing it, I feel like that edge is gone. There's kind of, we always have a use case there. So kick change, first heard about it from Hayden Birdsong last August. I was wondering if like maybe things are getting faster

though, because like I wrote about it last August and this spring we had like 20 guys throwing kick changes. I think the key is that off season though, like Lance was saying, I think the off season is when all of the ideas that were gathered or new things that happened over the course of the season, they get put into action. People start trying things in various environments.

Because during the season it's just like, we need to win tomorrow. It's much more survival. And sticking to the things you believe in right you don't want to Abandon your identity as a player or like every month on the fly that would be pretty Changes guys Some words did that with this yes, they did I'm sure you know right there's definitely a couple teams that were like Oh my god

You tell me that you can cue curveball with this grip. And it's like you're taking all these efficient guys and just like throw a sweeper in this shape was terrible. It doesn't work. It's her. And it's like, all right, we're really. Yeah, you don't want to live that way. It's not a good way to live. I wonder if there's some more is like, you know, hey, everyone,

check out the kick change. Try it. Just like your finger. You're changing. I think I think they were doing that in the offseason I think that's why we have that influx of kick changes here to begin the 2025 season Lance before we let you go let our listeners again know where they can find all your great work Yeah, YouTube and sub stacker two things. I'm grinding this year both Lance BRO Z Yeah, those sub stacks usually daily six days a week or so. Usually my thoughts on pitching. YouTube's a little more in depth weekly.

Dive into topics that are fun and give them my thoughts on pitchers. And then markeysportsnetwork.com, Marqueesportsnetwork app. I do a lot of stuff as well if you're a Cubs fan. I know DVR will not be downloading that and looking, but that's okay. So yeah.

I will not have the Marquee app. I love your work, Lance, but that is, that's my limit. That's where I stop. Can't do that. If you want the simplest, low techiest way to like identify if a pitcher's changed something, mix is the thing. Like you just look at there because that's all I'm paying grass everywhere. It's like how many did I through last year? How many did I through this? If it's really different then maybe you can believe the change and your substack is who's throwing new pitches is almost the most basic like every day. It's really important to stay on top of that.

And that is a great way to be like, oh, this player's, you know, did this player just get hot or like, you know, is there something really different about what they're doing? And so I'm a reader and I appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much. Yeah, it's an essential tool. We appreciate your time and your insight, Lance. You're also on Blue Sky as well. All the socials, like you said, Lance Braz, you can find Eno,

enoceras.bsky.social, mdvr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.