Rates & Barrels - New Stolen Base Rules and Stephen Vogt Interview

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

Eno and Al look at the potential impact of some of the new MLB rules on stolen base production. Eno also discusses the new rules and catcher preparation routines with former major league catcher and Mariners bullpen coach and quality control coach Stephen Vogt. Rundown 0:21 Some big Rates & Barrels news 3:20 Summary of the new rules that could impact stolen bases 6:53 How much will the rules really help with steals? 9:23 What are the stolen base ceilings for Oneil Cruz and Trea Turner? 13:12 Will Eno approach drafting steals differently this season? Eno’s interview with Stephen Vogt: 16:11 Stephen discusses his new position with the Mariners 17:30 Stephen talks about his daily preparation routines as a catcher 23:42 Stephen recounts his preparations for containing the running game 28:25 Eno and Stephen theorize about how teams will adapt to the rule changes 32:20 Stephen talks about his efforts to improve his ability to contain baserunners 37:09 Stephen anticipates more stolen base attempts in 2023 38:29 How much stealing should we expect during spring training? 41:07 Does Stephen like the pitch clock? Stolen base expectations for: 42:49 Andrés Giménez 47:55 Xander Bogaerts 50:18 Wander Franco 52:32 Javier Báez 54:52 Jon Berti/Jorge Mateo Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. I'm Al Melchior. I'm here with Eno Saris. And before we get started, here's some very, very big news. Of course, I'm sitting here in the seat normally occupied by Derek Van Ryper. And he is a brand new father, baby boy. So best wishes to the Van Ripers and looking forward to seeing him here again soon. But of course, you know, lots to take care of right now. Get used to Al, though. You're still going to be around even when Derek comes back to help us out on Fridays. We're going to have, I think it's going to be, what's the theme? A little bit more kind of nuts and bolts like Waver Wibery.

It's going to be a little bit like your Wa wire show in the past brought to the rates and barrels feed so that anybody who's sort of thinking about pickups and drops for Sunday fab or that sort of deal. But we're also maybe going to intersperse some interviews. And so we'll get a little taste of that today. Absolutely. So yeah, good sneak preview of some things to come. And we're going to talk about stolen bases, the new environment for stolen bases, the new rules, and how that might affect not only how many bases are being stolen, but how we go about drafting for stolen bases. And related to that, Eno did an excellent interview with Steven Vogt.

So we'll be getting to that in short order here. And before we dig into this topic, just a quick reminder to everybody that the 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit will be launching soon on The Athletic. Make sure you head on over to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. And once you do that, you'll be able to get this deal $2 a month for the first year. That will get you in the door to all of the content on The Athletic. Of course, that includes the draft kit. And, you know, I know you've got a lot of really great content coming up that people are not going to want to miss.

Oh, yeah. I mean, sleepers, sleepers galore. Got 10 breakout young bats, 10 breakout young arms, but also 10 deep sleepers uh 300 and 400 plus adp on those guys plus uh pitching projections powered by stuff plus that performed really well i'm really excited to do that i think it really improved my rankings uh one of one of the reasons why it really improved it is um when i was looking at stuff plus one of the things I had to do was mentally park adjust. And with projections, you don't have to do it mentally. And so unfortunately, Nick Lodolo fell off a little bit because that's just a really tough park.

As excited as we are about him as a pitcher, it's a really tough park and it's a tough bar for him. So it was nice to kind of get that park adjustment in there, get some other regression in there, add some results and get a fuller picture. So that's all coming next week. And if you head over to Rates and Barrels, what is it? The Athletic at Rates and Barrels, athletics slash ratesandbarrels.com,

you can get the deal right now, which is $2 a month for new subscribers. So that's a fun thing. Yeah, yeah. very fun time. So make sure you check into that. So let's dig right in here, Eno, and let's start with the new rules coming into this year, many of which should have an impact on stolen bases,

have had an impact as they've been tried out in the minor leagues on stolen bases there. So just a quick review here. There's going to be the pitch timer now instituted, 30 seconds between batters, 15 seconds between pitches when the bases are empty, 20 seconds between pitches when there's at least one runner on base. And when the pitch timer was instituted in the minors, that resulted in increases in both stolen base attempts per game and in success rates. So in terms of steals attempted per game, that went from 2.23 in 2019 to 2.83 in 2022.

And across those same years, an increase in success rate from 68% to 77%. Yeah. And it's really interesting to think about these things. A lot of these rule changes, the shift and all these other ones, I think are going to have a massive effect on a baseball-wide scale. So we're going to look up and be like, whoa, the batting average went up, and there were all these more hits,

and there are all these more stolen bases. But on the individual player level, I'm not sure how much to buy in. For example, you just cited that stolen bases in the minors went up by over 25%. That's great. That turns a 20 stolen base guy into a 25 stolen base guy.

It's not the kind of thing where we're going to go immediately back to the go-go years of the 70s when, you know, you had multiple Otis Nixons running around and, you know, I guess that was more the 70s when you know you had multiple Otis Nixons running around and and and uh you know I guess that was that was more the 80s but uh you know you had these guys stealing 70 80 90 bases I kind of doubt that we're going to get to a 90 stolen base level um I just you know the the way that stolen bases are done right now are just so scienced out.

You know, I did a piece with Andrew Baggerly about how, you know, the game approaches the stolen base. And it's like you've got the pop time of the catcher. You've got the time to home from the pitcher. And you've got the time to second base from the player. And it's math. And you've got the break-even success rates you need. And so the break-even success rate by the numbers is 67%. And I think you said in the minors it used to be 68%. That lines up pretty perfectly.

In the majors, though, the actual average has gone up to 72, 73, 74% across the league, suggesting that A, they don't want to just break even on stolen bases. They want to win. And B, that maybe they've science this to the point where people only take off when they're going to be successful. And how much will four inches really change that for Trey Turner? Right. And we'll get to Turner and some other, actually quite a few other players

in a little bit here. I also want to add just a couple of other rule changes that could impact this. Your points all well taken, because I don't know how much these other rule changes are really going to move the needle as well, but pitchers are limited to two pickoffs or step-offs, also known as disengagements. So obviously a lot more pressure to keep the runners on first and maybe not be able to do so successfully as successfully in the past. And also the bases are larger, 15 inches square to 18 inches square.

So that could maybe- Yeah, that shortens the base pass by about a little bit under four inches. So the one that's the hardest to model and think about, because Tom Tango came out and said, the four inches is pretty easy to model. You can just look at how fast someone is and how far it is and what that means.

It's four inches, it's 0.15 seconds. What if everybody had 0.15 seconds more? How much more successful would they be? And he did the math and he said, it adds 2% to success rate. So that sounds fine in the sort of abstract. But one thing that is, is that 2% means a lot different. Like Trey Turner is successful, you know, a ton. What about these people who are true talent? And we also don't know their true talents all the time, right? Like we don't know

exactly how everyone's true talent success rate. but let's say your true talent success rate before these rule changes was 70% and the league average is 75%. They're going to say, don't take off. Thank you. You know, only if you notice no one's paying attention, you know, only if it's the poo holes thing where everyone's doesn't think you're going to steal and you can just sort of jog over then you can steal but otherwise uh no thanks well now you're at 72 percent or if you're at 73 now you get to 75 so i think you know there there's a little bit there where in the middle it makes a bigger difference than on the edges there are people that won't steal that that four inches doesn't matter for and people who are already stealing that four inches doesn't matter for and we have to kind of figure out the middle and it's sort of a theory of mine but we'll

a lot of it we're going to see and the other thing is the throws over man how do you do that you know like how do you model that i looked at uh how many people got how many uh players got throws over in in certain situations i found 10 players averaged more than one throw over and that's trade turners number one with like 1.25. So now if you imagine that, that means that the average time that he steps out there, he gets one throw at least. And if he gets the one throw,

you don't want to throw the second time because you can throw a third time, but then you give him second base if you don't get him. So you really don't want to throw that second time. you don't get them so uh so you really don't want to throw that second time and uh and so that game of poker could have could have immense results or none or i don't know um but we we covered that a little bit with with steven vote in terms of uh what that sort of cat and mouse game yeah yeah and you know you mentioned that mentioned that this largely have an impact for kind of the middle range base dealers.

And so we'll talk about some examples of players that fall in there. But before we get to that, before we get to your interview with Steven, let's just talk about the high end for a little bit. You've already mentioned Trey Turner. Also, I just want to bring up a quote that I saw just a little while ago

before we started talking today. This is something that was on Twitter from the athletics, Rob Beer Temple. O'Neill Cruz says he wants to go 30-30 or 40-40 this year. Now, I mean, to me, those are two very different things. But if you look at what he did as a rookie, the stolen bases definitely have to catch up to the power. I could definitely buy into the home run side of that equation. Stolen bases definitely have to catch up to the power. I could definitely buy into the home run side of that equation. But do you think that with these rule changes that let's just be conservative and say 30-30? Is that a more realistic expectation for Cruz now? I think so. I think so. I mean, even if you just even a 25% increase on the top ends, I think that that gets him close to 30 stolen bases. He has the elite speed. He's on that top ends. I think that that gets him close to 30 stolen bases. He has the elite speed.

He's on that top end. He has the desire, which is actually amazingly a big part of it. I do remember, though, it reminds me of something. I was training to be a producer, like an editor for MLB.com. In another lifetime, I don't get that phone call from Fangraphs to offer me a job and I am an editor at MLB.com but I was trained to be an editor there and I edited three stories in three days about how Matt Kemp wanted to go 50-50 he did not narrator, he did not go 50-50

so some of this isn't you file in the best shape of his life uh territory but i do think it's going to be interesting to see what the top end looks like we haven't had uh you know a we haven't had like a 70 stolen base guy since i think jose reyes um and the game has largely gone away from guys where speed is their number one tool, but there still are some really fast guys in the league. Think about Byron Buxton. Does it change the fact that Byron Buxton doesn't want to be injured on the base pass anymore?

I don't know. I think he's still – yes, the bag is bigger, and so maybe he'll take off some but there's an elite base runner that's decided not to not to steal bases anymore yeah let's go back to trey turner what do you think the ceiling is for him yeah i mean i would i just look at the age and i think there's no way he's still uh he's still an elite runner, but he is. He's still in the top 10 in sprint speed. And I don't really know why there was a bit of a drop-off last year in stolen bases.

I would figure that some of it has to do with team effects, that the Dodgers were just so good that, you know, like are you going to take off a lot when Freddie Freeman is batting and potentially run yourself out of an inning? And I wonder if with Bryce Harper out, if the Phillies decide that they want to take advantage of these rules and run a little bit. They aren't, other than Turner, a big, fast, young team.

But Schwarber did show up on one of my lists as potentially adding some stolen bases that people wouldn't suspect. So what if with Harper out, they decide to steal a little bit? We had Turner stealing 46 and 43 and 17 and 18. I think 45 is a reasonable outcome. He's projected for 30, if you add the 25%, you get to the high 30s with the throws over and the cat and mouse and the Harper being out. I think he could get over 40.

But it wouldn't surprise me at all if he just had 25-30 again. All right. Well, given what we've said so far would this change the way that you would approach steals in in drafts this year because i i've always been somebody i shouldn't say always but certainly in recent years have been somebody to kind of hang back and not want to overpay for speed and try to cobble it together uh with with very mixed success but i could see definitely doubling down on that uh that approach this, given that we could expect a little bit more sharing of the wealth in the stolen base category. Is that something you could see yourself doing?

Or do you think it's just do what you've always done because the changes are not really more than marginal? Yeah, it's a tough one. I haven't changed what I've done. You know, one thing that I think is true is that the secondary effects, like, for example, are we going to get more players that are defensive fits in center field

that are also really fast? That's not going to happen in year one. I just don't believe that there's a team that's that aggressive. Like, I just don't think there's a team that's that together that they're like, oh, we saw this rule coming. And we put ourselves like, did the Guardians build this like singles hitting fast team in like thinking this rule was coming? Like, that would be such a risk, you know? Did they sign Myles Straw to like a five-year, $50 million deal knowing that the bases were going to get bigger halfway through it?

Like, I just don't believe that. So, you know, either Myles Straw is going to lose his job because he can't bat enough to keep it or he's going to keep his job because he bats enough to keep it. I don't think that he keeps his job because the bases are bigger and he can see more bases. So I think the secondary effects in baseball take longer. Like we saw, for example, the ball was jumping out in 2015, like the ball was juiced in 2015. And over the next four years, people changed their launch angle on hard hit balls by one degree.

people changed their launch angle on hard hit balls by one degree. So we saw some changes in pull rate and hard hit rates in the air, but it was small and it took a long time. So I don't think secondary effects are going to happen. Now, primary effects are more like, will these certain players take off more often? And I just personally think that the math changes more in the middle than the edges. So my approach of getting a bunch of guys that have good speed that will steal five to 10 bags, I have a hope that that is actually the right approach, that those guys will see

the most increase percentage wise. All right. All right. Well, and again, we're going to talk about a number of those players. But before we do, there's just so much good discussion between you and Stephen Vogt about this and many other things. So we're going to hand it over. I'm going to hand it over to you and Stephen Vogt, and we'll continue this conversation after that. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced only at Tim's. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton bike, bike plus, tread, row, guide or app. And I'm here with Stephen Vogt, now of the Mariners.

Excited to have you on, Stephen. Congrats on the new job. What is it? Yeah, thanks. It's the, I guess I'm the bullpen and slash quality control coach. And so my main, you know, my main job, obviously, in game is going to be in the bullpen, helping the relievers get prepared to come into the game and keeping them up to date on the scouting reports and communicating

and then just being with them and there for them during the game. That's the quality control aspect is the sort of scouting reports? There is like a statistical aspect to that, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think, and that's where the quality control part comes in, where I'm going to be involved with the game planning, um, on the pitching side as well as the hitting side. I'm going to be working with the catchers a little bit, but, um, quality control is just kind of a title that's like, Hey, I'm, I'm kind of working in all areas as well.

It's not just bullpen coach. So I'll kind of have my hand in on a lot of stuff, whatever the coaching staff and the players need in the front office, whatever they hand down. But a majority of my job is going to be with the bullpen guys and obviously the game planning and understanding how we're trying to attack the other team's hitters and have a knowledge of that. Yeah, I have so much respect for catchers. And, you know, it's actually sometimes difficult to interview catchers in the clubhouse because you all have so much to do. I just remember constantly trying to get Buster's attention.

He's like, I got to do this. So could you let me into the process? I mean, it sounds like you're mimicking a little bit in the new job. It's like, what was your day-to-day operations? What was it like being a catcher? Like, you have so much to prepare for. You have to prepare for every aspect of the game where everybody else can kind of just look at the other pitchers,

scouting report, or whatever. How did you prepare as a hitter, prepare as a framer, prepare as a game caller, prepare as a running game stopper? What was your day like when you got to the park on an average day? I mean, it is, it's busy. I always felt like if I sat down at my locker, I was being lazy and I shouldn't be doing that, right? There's always something to be doing.

But a typical day for me would be I was, I'm a big morning person. And so I would wake up maybe a little earlier than normal on the days I'm playing and put my, I would get my final kind of scouting report together. You know, sometimes we'd have the lineup the night before, or, you know, you have a pretty good idea of the matchup and what it's going to look like. And so at the beginning of the series obviously you do your notes on the other team and you go through all 13 hitters and um and have a scouting report generalized right verse right

verse left and as well as getting the information from the organization and the pitching coach and game planning coach whoever um and then i'd look at the pitcher's heat maps if they had their own heat maps. So I'd kind of gather everybody's information and then do my own scouting report and kind of marry them all together. And then knowing who I'm catching and who we're facing, I would get my scouting report for that night. I'd probably do that, you know, 8.30, 9 o'clock in the morning, right before my kids would wake up.

And so I'd have that all ready to go so I knew all right going into the day I already have my game plan it's made out it's ready to go and then I'd get to the ballpark and I would usually re-go over that scouting report maybe look at who's umpiring that night and where their zone tends to go so it's I know which pitches we can maybe try and expand a little bit where they're going to be tight. So that's almost like a framing scouting report. You're sort of, now you're going from game calling into, into the framing aspect a little

bit. Yeah, absolutely. And knowing like, Hey, you know, let's say Ted Barrett doesn't give a whole lot off the inside corner. So we're not going to be able to steal anything in there. So when we do go in, it's more for contact, more for effect, whereas he'll, he might expand a little bit off the inside corner. So we're not going to be able to steal anything in there. So when we do go in, it's more for contact, more for effect, whereas he'll, he might expand a little bit off the outside corner. So understanding those and knowing which pitches I need to be ready to frame, coupling that with who's pitching that night. If we can't command the inside part of the plate to

the, to the right handers, then why we're not going to try and steal anything in there. Right? So putting all that together. And then I would get to the – I'd go to the video room with my scouting report and maybe look at some swings or things like that. And then I would go through my offensive game plan against that starter. So I would look up the starter. So then I'd look up, okay, what's he – has a tendency. Talk to the analytical guys, maybe our video guy,

and just say, hey, what have you seen from this? And then I – so then after that, I'd go to the analytical guys, maybe our video guy and just say, Hey, what have you seen from this? And then I, so then after that, I'd go to the gym and I'd get my warmup out of the, get my warmup done. And that takes us right up until I go to the cage, do my hitting routine. And then I go out for batting practice. And then right after the first group of batting practice, I'd come in and, and I would i would play i would play catch before bp sorry i want to make sure i get that in there um i was always a person that needed to throw a lot i had two shoulder surgeries and an elbow surgery so i found the more i threw it helped my arm stay in shape better after that yeah or just on the line you know i just go on

the line and do that oh this is on the day with the warm-up with the players yeah yeah and i'd play out to about 120 on that day and then after bp we have our starters meeting and so we'd sit down with the whoever wanted to be involved with that the pitching coach game planning coach catcher uh and then the starting starting pitcher and we that's where i would have my report. And typically I would lead the meeting unless the starter himself wanted to lead it, then I'd let him obviously, but you have the, the other coaches and the pitcher, we'd all kind of chime in during that meeting. It wasn't just, this is how we're going to do it. This is my game plan. So I'm going to go about it.

And then after we do that meeting, then you get ready to, for the game. So I would grab something to eat, get changed, shower up, whatever I needed to do. meeting then you get ready to for the game so i would grab something to eat get changed shower up whatever i needed to do and then i'd go out about 15 minutes before the starter wanted to start playing catch uh and that's when i would do my routine to my root to limber up like you know get clean yeah get warm and getting loose but that's when i would do my practice for the day i always had about a 10 minute routine that I would do. Oh, some fielding practice too. And yeah, every day. So I'd do some receiving drills to work on the framing and whoever I was

catching that day. Let's take the A's from last year. If I'm catching, you know, Cole Irvin I'm going to work on getting underneath the ball. Cause he's going to be throwing that change up in the curve ball down in the zone and fastball, he spots up pretty good, but I really wanted to work my arm side because he's going to work that sinker change up down in that tunnel uh to my arm side so I'd really work with our catching coach on you know really the exact pitches I'm going to be

framing that night with the starter is what I would focus on uh then I do a little touch and feel on blocking um and then I and then I'd get into my throwing, my throwing work. And that's where I had a progression on how I do that. And those are kind of like my every, my everyday drills. That's what I'm talking about, man. Like imagine the life of a DH. Oh, I've seen it. I've seen it. Believe me. When I, when I looked over at the position player circle before games i'm like dude you guys are just you're playing obviously they're getting they get their work cards i know

they do their work too but yeah they do their work but it's like man i feel like i've got so much i need to be doing and things like well you didn't mention one thing that's kind of funny because you you talked about you know sort of game planning like for the calling aspect of the game the game calling aspect the bit of framing you talking about blocking what about the running game like when does that come in is it so that just been like going away in baseball so it's just not as much of a thing to think about or a little bit but you know i i neglected to mention that so when we're going through our meeting um going over the lineup we talk about who the runners are

um you know so then i'll be and i you know and that's where the and you'll do that even in the pitchers meeting so when yes because i want the starter to be aware like these three guys these three guys are runners um and then our our game planning coach uh would typically our manager in our meeting uh mark kotze when we'd have our pre-series meeting he would say uh whit merrifield you know obviously he's their number one runner he's big in second pitch he's a big second pitch runner or you know so we have the count breakdown of when everybody's running and so you kind of know in the back of your head the counts where guys really like to go and you know

obviously with the bad bad example because he's all over the map. He's a great base stealer. But a lot of those medium-range guys, they have certain counts where they like to run. And, you know, obviously, a lot of it's off-speed counts or, you know. But also, one of the things that I started to check later in my career, being a guy who really struggled throwing the ball, I was not the best thrower. I had years where I was pretty good, but that was always the weakest part of my game was my throwing. And so I really wanted to know, OK, is our starter high off speed percentage in any counts? So, you know, because the other team has that data, too. team has that data too so if i know we're heavy off speed and in 01 counts for example that might be a time where those medium speed base runners try to go because they have that number and for me i always thought 70 of anything was like 100 right if we're going off of percentages they're

going to they're going to they're going to see that 70 and they're going to lock in on that yeah because i'll take my chances if if 300 is is hall of fame average right like if they're going to lock in on that. Yeah. Because I I'll take my chances. If, if, if 300 is, is hall of fame average, right? Like if we're going to go off percentages, nothing is, nothing is finite, right? So if I'm going to have something that, that triggers out at 70 plus, I'm going to give that as a hundred percent in my mind. And so the other team's going to do that. I'm ready for them to run in those counts. And you, then you can adjust your game calling or, you know, call for a pitch, you know, throw over and stuff. I'm interested also, I got the impression that a lot of the run don't run is very scienced out at this point. So they know your, you know, times your pop times,

they know the pitchers times to home and they know their their runners times to second. And I feel like there's a lot where they're just like, you're just not going to go on this guy. I see that mainly it seems like bases are stolen on the pitcher. I see like Noah Syndergaard has like, you know, 20 stolen bases against, you know, and guys on the same team with the same catchers have nothing like that, you know. So it seems to me like the pitcher's time to home is a real big part of that sort of math is that has that been a big part of you like you know because you didn't have the strongest arm is that something you found too is like it was a little bit maybe a little bit more important how fast the pitcher was to home than you were at

a second oh 100 you know i played on teams where you know especially in the years where i really struggled um throwing the ball i you know our coaches in the years where I really struggled throwing the ball. I, you know, our coaches would talk to our pitchers and they'd be like, look, you got, you got boat catching you today. You know, you got to be a little quicker to the plate than say Manny Pina, right. When I was with the Brewers and, and it's talked about and it's like, Hey, give me a chance. If you give me a chance, I'm going to be able to throw them out. If you don't give me a chance,

I can't make up. I don't have the arm and the quickness that these other guys do. And so it goes into the pitcher's game plan as well, is you got to know who's catching. But for us, as far as the way we always talk about it, you never talk about the catcher, right? It's, hey, the catcher could throw or, or, hey, he struggles a little bit. So we might be able to take some chances. If that guy gets up into a one, three, five, one, four, we might take a shot and hedge on him not making a great throw. But you're never going to run off guys that are one, two, one, two, five. You know, if they're staying under that one, three, five,

it shuts down the non-base dealers, right? You got the guys that are going to run no matter who's pitching, no matter who's catching, they're going to get their bags or they're going to take their shot. But really what you're trying to do with the running games, you're trying to cut down the medium runners, right? Base dealers are going to take their shot. But really what you're trying to do with the running games, you're trying to cut down the medium runners, right? Base stealers are going to get their bases. And if everything goes well and the pitcher gives you a chance and you make a

good throw, you still have a chance to throw them out, but you want to shut the running game down from the other guys. That's really where you want to shut the game down. And that's my theory about the new rules. It's the people that will run the most relative to what they used to run with the new rules are going to be the medium guys because you're we're giving them three to four feet on the base path right and they have a go no go that was very you know that was kind of tight anyway you know and if we give them three or four feet that go no go you know is different trey turner's go no go is every time he wants to go he

can go you know yeah so my theory is that like these guys like luis urias or um you know these guys who have good speed that stole like three or four bags in the past they might steal as much as eight or ten you know and like double their stolen base output because that go no go line is going to change and it and it's more about the base path being shorter and the pitcher than it is necessarily about your throws to second. Yeah, you're exactly right. And now, especially with the only two disengagements and the pitch clock and, you know, the long hold step off, the long hold pitch, the quick go go pitchers are really going to have to learn how to control the game differently. And I know it's, it's going to take care of itself over the next few years, right. Or even the next few months. But I think you're going to see a lot more teams

being, being aggressive on the bases and especially early to take advantage. And now with like the kind of the countdown of the pitch clock you know i think that's something that we're going to see and i think you're also going to see a lot more pitchers using their better pickoff moves more often you're not going to see the little lob over to first because now with only two disengagements you're going to really have to you're going to have to really you're not your intent is not to check on the runner your intent is to pick them off now and so it's going to change a lot, but I do think you're going to see those guys that are in the three to four range. They're

going to, they're going to try a little more. And we all as base runners, I mean, when you say three to four, you're talking about, uh, times the second or just no like stolen bases, those guys that are three to five, you're going to see them up closer to 10. I think, I think you're going to see that, but we all as base runners, no matter, you know, even myself, as I got older, I had a number. And if the first base coach told me a number, now granted, towards the end it was like, hey, he needs to be like a 1-6, 1-7 for me to go. But when I was younger, if the first base coach was like, hey,

he's creeping up over a 1-5, then I was looking. That's the picture to home. Yes. We're never, you know, because you just got to assume he's creeping up over a one five. Then I was looking, that was my home. Yes. We're never, you know, cause you, you just got to assume he's going to throw, he's going to throw a one nine to a two Oh, right. And you got your guys that can get down into the one seven, but that's the catch. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I'm being general here, but the pitcher, if I, if I heard a pitcher's time to the plate was over one five, I knew I had a shot. If I could get it, if I could get a jump and assuming that the catcher is going to be, you know, like I said, between the one nine and the

two Oh, um, then you got to know if he's accurate or not. But the other element of that too, is when a guy like me would take off, it's going to take the catcher by surprise. No one's expecting me to go anywhere. Right. And that's the ones that really get you is the ones that the guys just shock you out of nowhere. When I modeled it, I was like, man, Albert Pujols is so slow. How does he have stolen bases? It's like, nobody's looking. No, you've got, you do not have stolen base in your mind whatsoever. When some of us are over there.

That's a, that's a, Oh crap. He's going. And then you rush your throw and throw it away it's beautiful um so uh so when you when you talk about that throw um yeah i think there is like sort of maybe a line that you have to have i got like a pop time you kind of have to have to be a major league catcher so there's not that much variance i mean yes jt rumuto has a great pop time you know and but there are also, JT Ramuto has a great pop time, you know, but there are also guys that catch that don't have great pop times. The difference is not that much. You know, we're talking about like point two seconds or something.

So it's like not that much. What could you do to improve? Like, could you improve your accuracy? I saw this tweet by Jerry Weinstein where he's talking about spin access for for catchers being important because you know ride from a pitcher to the plate is important but you have even more space so that means if you throw like a sinker to to second base that's not good right that's that's got sideways movement makes it harder to catch it takes away from you want to get it right did you try to like throw four seamers did you look at grip did you did you do certain things to try to get it right. Did you try to like throw four seamers? Did you look at grip? Did you do certain things to try to get the most out of your arm?

All of the above, right? So for me, like being a very average to below average arm strength guy, my quickness and accuracy had to be there. I didn't have the ability. You know, you look at a guy like Martin Maldonado, right? Like if you watch him throw, it almost looks like he's going in slow motion. And then he just throws the ever living crap out of it. And he's one of the best throwers that we've seen, right?

Like he's got one of the best arms and I love watching him throw. I didn't have that skill set. My skill set was I had to be quick and accurate. And how you do that, obviously, I worked a lot on my, you know, first step quickness. I did a lot of agility work. I really worked on quick transfers. And I had to really work on getting a foreseam grip. And that's like real quick.

You have to sort of, you can't be like turning that's like real quick. You have to sort of, you can't be like turning the ball in your hand. You have to sort of get it. It's you have to feel it. And as you're going up your chain, as you know, I do it on screen, but it's like,

as I transfer, I can feel where the ball is and get it to four seams as I'm going up. And that took, I mean, it's still, you know, you don't get it all the time, but how I would do that, how I would do that is whenever I was, it's still, you know, you don't get it all the time, but how I would do

that, how I would do that is whenever I was sitting around at the house, um, I would, I would kind of toss a ball up in the air. I'd catch it and get it to a forcing grip as quick as I could. I just, as I'm sitting there watching TV, I'd toss it up, try to get a forcing grip. You work on arm slot too, like a pitcher almost? Oh, time yeah so i you know for me like i said everything for me had to be super efficient and what i would do in the off season and i would draw a black line around a ball on a four seam grip it's just like this yeah but but we're the same our throw our throw is the most violent difficult throw you have to make in baseball and you don't have

the benefit of the pitcher having the whole wind up and stuff you're just doing it there he goes and you your mechanics and your timing have to be absolutely flawless and that's what helped me survive and throw the runners that i did throw out like i said i'm never going to claim to be this great throwing catcher i would never talk about myself that way but I had to work really really hard on my throwing and it got to the point where we were I was trying to bounce I was trying whatever I could do I had to continually adapt the way I did it but I would draw that line on the ball and every offseason the whole winter my throwing program would be with that ball because i wanted every throw to be able to see that spin where it's self-corrected and i i really helped me prolong my ability to throw and actually had a pretty good year in 21 throwing if i remember right but um

it was on a line it helps accuracy it helps carry so it doesn't go down into the ground you know like keeps keeps it on a line right to the second baseman. Yeah. If you throw a major league ball without four seams, it will move. Yeah. It will. Those balls are designed to move. They're designed to spin to go.

And the other side of that, too, is over the years with experience, I could feel what my grip was. So if I had a two seam grip i knew i had to almost throw a cutter motion to keep it straight or if i got and you can do that like you're like oh got the wrong grip yeah i got the wrong grip you can you can you can kind of feel how you have it and you almost have to over pronate or try and cut or straight pull down but it it's just those little adjustments that you're able to make in game or if you have that two seam grip maybe i'm going to aim a little bit further to my glove side so that it can run back so you start to i

mean like i said that's that comes with experience that comes with feel and i was able to do that at times where i would feel the grip i had so i would adjust my sights on the fly like and like we said this is happening in what 0.4 seconds um but that it's all the work and all the reps I mean oh my goodness like that's my favorite part about being a coach now is I don't like those are the things that I don't have to do anymore. Now I get to help and impart the knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Do you, do you anticipate sort of changing any of that? You've talked about your prep, your game day prep. Do you think there'll be an added emphasis on the, on the running game this year? And do you think, do you think how, how different do you think baseball will look with the,

in terms of regards to the running game this year? I think there's going to be a lot more attempts. I think there's going to be a lot more chances taken on the bases because, as you well know, it's all about statistical odds, right? Well, the odds just went back into the favor of the base runner. As marginal as it is, one of the things that I'm starting to learn is how big 1% difference is over the course of 162. You're talking about that 70, right? Like 70 is on. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, as a, as a player,

or you're talking about the pitcher to home, right? Like if he's 1.55, you're gone. Yeah. If he's a one four five, I've got no shot, but if he's a one five five, I've got a shot. Like that's, that's a 10th of a second we're talking about. Right. And, but that's, those are the things that you got to know and you got to understand. But for me, I think it's, if, if there can be 1% more stolen bases over the course of 162, that's a ton of stolen bases. And that's a lot of, a lot more runners in scoring position, a lot more opportunities to score a run. But you're tasked with preventing that now. So, you know, like you sort of, you're thinking about this, you're thinking about this

and you're thinking about how, you know, how you're going to deal with it in spring. Good, thank God we have spring training, right? Like you're going to have a month to sort of see how it plays out and see how you want to prepare with your catchers. And well, and I do think, you know, typically a lot of the organizations I've been with,

they want everyone to steal in spring. They want you to push. There's a lot more stolen base attempts in spring training per game than regular season because guys want to see how much they can push their limits. So that's something to remember, too, when we're watching is we're watching people test the limits of the new rules in spring. people test the limits of the new rules in spring. You know, I heard, for example, that in the minors, when they did the pitch clock at the beginning, there was, you know, three or four violations per game, you know, and it was really, really high. And I said, oh, my God, this might be too much. They said by I think it was by week five or six, they were down to less than one per game. And that was basically where it was the rest of the season. So, you know, when we were watching in spring,

we're going to be like, oh my God, there's all these like pitch clock violations and everyone's taking off. This game is going to be crazy. And there'll be a little bit of return to normalcy by like the last, the third and fourth week of spring training. And that last week when you're like playing

the showcase games against the other major league teams, like when you go back to San Francisco and do the Giants A's, you know, those games are going to be a little bit more what like baseball will look like in the coming season. Right. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, usually how it works is those last 10 days of spring training, everybody kind of locks it in a little bit more, right?

Like the first two, three weeks of games, you're trying things you're, you're seeing if everything you worked on in the off season paid off and you're like, okay, yeah, I'm feeling that. And then those last 10 days or so, you really start to lock in, okay, I want to find what I want to do come opening day. And you're going to, so I think you're going to see a lot of violations maybe early, but for the majority of pitchers and hittersters it's not going to affect the way things happen it's not going to affect the way they've played the game they're used to it they're close to that well you're lucky you also have a pretty young team so a lot of those guys like probably saw it yeah for sure like your pitchers probably saw the pitch clock at least some most

of them yeah and i and i caught i went down to a triple a last year on a two-week rehab stint and so i got to catch four or five games with the pitch clock and um so i have experienced it a little bit and it's it's a little bit you get sped up just a little bit but by the second or third hitter i was fine you know um but that's that's the easy part by the way my kids really liked it man we We went to San Jose a few times and they were into it. I think I think it'll be good for the game. I know that we haven't had a clock in baseball before, but this isn't like a clock to the end of the game. It's like just more about, you know, sort of speeding up the non action moments or sort of getting rid of some of those and just sort of having play, you know, play. I'm a I'm a old school baseball

purist at heart you didn't like it at first i can't stand the fact that we have a clock anywhere in the ball oh you hate it i do but but but i'm also i'm also not naive and i'm like we're losing fans yeah we're losing fans it's a long game and it is like i people i you know i meet people all the time like oh i don't really watch baseball. I'm like, I don't blame you. You know, like, I don't. Like, it's a long game. There's a lot of time.

If you don't understand the strategy and what's trying to go on, it's a boring game. The kids in the baseball? Yeah. My boys love it. My daughter plays fast pitch, which that's a – I'm telling you what, fast pitch is a great game. That's a great game.

But, no, but I think it is going to help the game. It's going to take a lot of us some time to get used to. Have you talked to your boys about the pitch clock? No, they're a little young. They're eight and six. They don't really understand it yet. So they're starting up literally like my guys. Yeah.

So, I mean, my six-year-old would violate the pitch clock. Let's put it that way. He likes to come set 40 different ways he likes to be johnny cueto and i'm like hey work on the balance dude we'll we'll clean that up when you come into a game but uh keep working on the balance but um no i i do think i do think the pitch clock is going to be good for the game and um once we get used to it it's going to take some time all right well i look forward to uh seeing you when you come to town and good luck with the Mariners this year. And thanks for, thanks for doing this. Yeah, no, thanks. It was great catching up. Thanks.

All right. So, you know, really great stuff there with you and Steven. Thanks to Steven for sitting down with us. Absolutely. Yeah. Just really an insightful guy and so interesting to hear about his new role and how his skills as a catcher inform that and carry over and really grateful that he shared a lot of those insights with us here. So we talked before we went to that interview about the middle range of base dealers. And we talked a little bit about elite guys like Trey Turner, maybe O'Neal Cruz. We'll see. But as you've said a number of times, and as it came up in the interview, it's really in the middle where I think we could see a lot of the

big gains. So I just want to toss out some names. And of course, if there's anybody else you want to riff on or anybody else you think is relevant here, we can absolutely steer in that direction. But one player maybe doesn't really belong in this category, but I do want to talk about him and that's Andres Jimenez. Because while he is, I think, elite or close to elite in terms of sprint speed and stolen base potential, he was sort of a middling guy last season. And the breakout was more with the power. And I'm very suspicious of him maintaining that power.

So this is really, it's a question about stolen base expectations, but also just about draft expectations for Jimenez. Because I think people could maybe go a little bit overboard for seeing a big increase in stolen bases, a maintenance of the power breakout that he had. What are your expectations for Jimenez with everything that's in the environment this year? I'm hoping that more volume cleans up some of the regression in the power department. I am mostly out on him maintaining that power on a rate basis. And I see 3% barrel rates before it jumped to 6% last year. Usually you would even regress that. So I would predict something like a four and a half percent barrel rate for him next year, which is basically below league

average for a starter. And so that's why you see something like the Bad X give him a 147 ISO and 15 homers. That's in 587 plate appearances. He had 557 last year. I don't see why a healthy young Jimenez with the job in hand to start the season, 24 years old, can't have the job all season. I kind of think on a rate basis he steps back, but he still manages 15 to 17 homers. What does excite me is that elite sprint speed.

I did get into it where if you are drafting, you know, this is sort of a little KDS conversation, but, you know, in NFC, you can choose where you draft. If you can choose your draft slot, what I found is if you're at the beginning of the first round, your second round picks are going to be old or starting pitchers. You either got Lindor or Paul Goldschmidt there, or you're going to take a starting pitcher in the second round. And I didn't really want to do that because I think there's a good 10 to 15 starting pitchers I like at the top. So then I switched over to the back end and I ended up starting with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Austin Riley, which I love as a one-two combo. Third base is a bit of a foobar position. Love all that. Didn't have any steals. And so I was a little bit in a panic for steals that I'm

not normally in because I usually try to get 15 to 20 steals out of my first two guys and I didn't get that. So I ended up drafting the middle infield for the the guardians with uh with getting Rosario and um and Jimenez and so I think just generally I would say that I'm not that in on Jimenez, but there's always a use case where it makes sense. And you're right. He has elite sprint speed. He's up there with Miles Straw. He's just a little bit slower than Trey Turner. Trey Turner is 11th in time to first and actually a big tie there. So basically he's ninth. He's in the top 10 for times to first which is a better predictor of of storm bay speed than uh than just flat out sprint speed so andres samanis is right there in the top 15 so um you know he had an 85 success rate last year uh that's good enough to keep stealing i think with the job in hand with the rules making it better. And honestly, Stephen Kwan is right there. Steve Malstra is there.

If the Guardians did do this on purpose, they are really smart because right now they have three of the top 20 in sprint speed. No, Ahmed Rosario is there too. So four of the top 20 in sprint speed on the same team. And they're loving these new rules. So maybe we'll have the go-go Guardians this year. And I'll be happy to have Andres Jimenez in the middle of that. That would be a fun thing to watch.

And another interesting storyline from this offseason is Andrew Bogarts becoming a Padre. And I think this could be a bit of a mixed bag for him because he loses that Fenway-Babbitt bump. I wind up with Bogarts a lot or I had wound up with him a lot in the past because I feel like that was something that people overlooked was the stability of his... Yeah, yeah.

So there's, you know, kind of the safety and stability of the batting average, all the run production possibilities. And so maybe he loses some of that, but yeah, maybe this year in this environment, he gets back to being a double digit stolen base threat. Do you see that for Bogart? Well, team context is huge because he basically has the same time to first as Asturi Ruiz, who is the, probably the new center fielder in Oakland. I could see Oakland trying the go-go

approach in terms of they have Ramon Laureano and the story of Reese out there. Connor Capel can run a little bit. They've got some guys on that team, Nick Allen. They've got some guys who can run maybe, and they don't have really run producers from a power standpoint in the same ways of the teams. So maybe they'll just run. Xander Bogarts is going to be on a San Diego team that is pretty stacked.

So one thing that is really sticky and really predictive is how often teams run in the in spring. However, this year they might just be running to get used to the rules. So, yeah, maybe just track how often they run relative to the league, not relative to themselves or relative to last year, how often they run relative to the league, because maybe everybody would be trying out how to run. Because Xander Bogarts is right there in the middle of, I'd say if you're looking at times to first on Savant, 4-3, 4-4, and even 4-4. half right there, that's the kind of, so for example, Xander Bogarts is 111th best

time to first out of 400, 500 that I've got here. So that's still top 20, you know, top 20%, you know, and so, you know, top 20 to top 30%, I could see all number of different outcomes. Dancy Swanson's in there. There's a whole bunch of interesting names. And so I think you're really going to have to pay some attention to what the teams are doing. All right. Well, let's talk about Wander Franco, who was, of course, a huge topic of conversation this time in 2022. And so maybe not quite as much helium on him this year, but maybe this is something with the rule changes that actually could help him exceed his draft position.

Is that an outcome that you see? Yeah, you know, the Rays are a sneaky team for running on the bases. Last year, they were 12th, which doesn't sound like much, but it's still almost top third, and it's basically in a big bunch there that's top third. There were some progressive teams like the Dodgers and Yankees.

So they've decided that running can be a valuable thing for them. Cleveland there, number three. I kind of expect them now to be number one next year. I think Tampa Bay runs enough where Franco could do it. He's also in the right percentage. He's got a 4-2-8 to first base. Other guys that had a similar time to first that took off a lot more, Ronald Acuna Jr. had the same time to first. He had 28 stolen bases. Ronald Acuna Jr. had the same time to first and had 28 stolen bases.

Randy Orozarena on the same team had the same time and stole 30 bases. John Birdie had the same time to first and stole 34. So that is absolutely the type of speed that can steal 30 bases. I think the question is, is he going to be too valuable to the team? And sort of the Byron Buxton question. are we seeing a guy who gets injured a lot? If he is a guy that gets injured a lot, which I don't think that I think that's still open for debate, then do we want to keep him as safe as possible by not running so much? Because he seems he's so important.

Yes, they have all these mixed parts. But if they want to be a World Series type team this year, all these mixed parts, but if they want to be a World Series type team this year, it needs to be with Wanda Franco kind of taking the next step and being like a five-win player. I think they could be a good team that loses in the first or second round of the playoffs without that, but they need Wanda Franco if they're going to take that next step. So they may just say, hey, we're fine with you, you know, in some spots, but we don't, we don't want 30 stolen bases from you. Well, let's take a look at another player. Who's sort of in that same situation of, of a centerpiece of the team's offense. Maybe

can't really be counted on to you know, be stealing bases because he's, he's needed for thump, but Javier Baez coming off of a really disappointing season on a team that's probably not really going anywhere this year. But what do you see for him? I mean, it's a complicated question, obviously, because there's bounce back potential. There's the team context. But this new environment for stolen bases could at least be seen as a positive for Baez.

Yeah, there's a limit to taking last year's stats and um and and using them like like i just did with tampa because uh there's always change in team personnel and there's also change in who's running the team and i think you you pointed out uh to me that spencer torkelson uh has a decent time to first. Yeah, 4-5 is similar to guys like Ryan McMahon who had seven bases and Kyle Schwarber who had seven stolen bases last year. And I think this is absolutely 4-5 is absolutely right there at the break-even point of should I steal this base or should I not? Do I have enough speed? And so 2% extra success rate could totally help. So now you've got this young team

and a new executive who's in town who has done things a certain way. And they are, I think, making moves that remind me of the Giants. But at the same time, they're a younger team with younger players and obviously want to bank some wins in their first year. You know, you want to arrive and make a good impression.

And then the personal context, it's almost like divination a little bit, this stuff, where you're just trying to figure out, you know, what the motivations are, what the team is. But I think the personal context for Javier Baez is he wants to have a monster season. You know, like he had a terrible first season in a big contract.

He must feel really bad about that. And the team was bad. And he had one of his worst seasons. I would think that he wants to come back next year and at least go 2020. Yeah, and he's just at a stage in his career where I can't quite comprehend falling off the map to the degree that he did for so much of 2022. So I do like him as a bounce back candidate. And I want to go back to a player that you just mentioned in passing, John Birdie.

And I'm going to couple him with Jorge Mateo because these are a couple of players. I think they were actually one and two in stolen bases last year with Birdie not really having a regular position. Mateo, I think, getting a little bit more playing time. But going into this year on the depth charts, it seems like both players could struggle for plate appearances. I mean, these are absolutely the types of players that teams are going away from, right?

Right, exactly. So how do we approach them this year? Because they are both the sort of player that could be very beneficial for stolen bases with just, say, say 250 300 plate appearances kind of like you know draw dyson was a few years back but that sounds like a deep league use case rather than somebody wanting to draft them in 12 and 15 team leagues right well i i think you could make an argument for maybe reserve round late round especially in especially in 15-teamer, maybe even 12-teamer

if you're not happy with your story. They make my spine shiver. They're just not my kind of player. Just not my kind of player. Just not great contact. Birdie at least takes walks. And I think Mateo could have the same sort of utility aspect where you can play him everywhere.

He obviously can play it short, which means that, you know, he could probably play any middle infield position. He's played center in his past. So, you know, Mateo and Birdie could be on, like if I'm running a team, I can have them as my utility guys. And in fact, having a really fast utility guy

is really fun because if you do make the playoffs, then you have that like, I can have them as my utility guys and in fact having a really fast utility guy is Really fun because if you do make the playoffs then you have that bike or if you you have a ghost runner situation You know what I mean? Like you you want a pinch runner like I gets teams. That's why I draw Dyson has like three rings Right. It's like everyone calls you in September So I they would they definitely have a place on my team as utility guys but would they start for my team? I'm not sure that these rule changes change their profile as a player enough to make them start for my team

even though both of them were above two wins last year I accept my biases I accept that I could be wrong but I would rather take a chance on more well-rounded players, I think. Yeah, well, and again, that's generally been my approach. These are both players, at least at current ADPs, that you could take that late round or reserve round flyer on. But I hear everything you say there, you know, about having some second thoughts about doing that.

So with that said, we're going to wrap up here. If you've got any questions for us, we're both on Twitter, of course, you know, you can find him and should follow him if you don't already at Eno Saris. I'm on Twitter at Al Melchior BB. And there's brand new email for the Rates and Barrels show here, ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. So you can also reach us there. And then one final programming note here, we'll be back on Monday

with a pitcher breakdown request line. So with that said, thank you, Eno. Thank you, Stephen Vogt. And thank you all for joining us here. We'll be back next week. Thanks for listening.