Rates & Barrels - Rethinking Reliever Evaluations & Measuring Bullpen Quality

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss spring injury updates and a new potential closer entering the mix in Texas, before digging into how the conversation and analysis of relief pitchers should change with a greater emphasis on leverage index and win probability added, and other existing metrics. Plus, they look at teams effectively building bullpens in different ways, and wonder if there is a better way to measure the overall quality of a bullpen based on the different looks and pitches a group offers. Rundown 2:57 Spring Training News & Notes 13:40 A Sleeper for Saves in Texas? 19:33 Increasing the Conversation Around Leverage Index 25:25 Shutdowns & Meltdowns 31:55 Finding Ways to Appropriately Value Cade Smith Relative to Emmanuel Clase 41:11 Building a Bullpen with Varying Looks 50:19 Would a Smaller Strike Zone Reduce Pitcher Injuries? 58:20 How Much Pain Are Pitchers Throwing Through Day-to-Day? 1:05:42 Name! That! Dude! (Season Series entering 3.6.25: Trevor 1, Eno 0) Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social Follow Trevor on Bluesky: @[e-mail] e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Bonus: A closer video mentioned during this episode: https://www.startribune.com/volume-up-lights-down-it-s-fernando-rodney-s-awesome-entry-video/479161213 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R get the Rack-A-Ten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking.

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easy dishes for busy weeknights. You can find more at NYTCooking.com. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday, March 6th, Derek Van Ryn, Brino, Seris, Trevor May all here with you on this episode. We've got some spring news and notes, we've got Gunnar Henderson in danger of missing opening day, we've got an update on Louise Heal, possible early season innings caps for Sandy Alcantara. We'll talk about that as well as a sleeper candidate for some saves in Texas, a name we've never mentioned on this podcast before, which is going to launch us into a conversation about how we analyze relievers and how teams build bullpens. A lot of reliever talk on this show.

We have a Name That Dude, we got some mailbag questions at the back end of the show as well. So a ton of ground to cover and one very important housekeeping note off the top. A reminder, two live episodes of Rates and Barrels going down at the end of this month, March 27th and March 28th. Bare Bottle Brewing Company, the Bernal Heights location, 430 start. Opening day is the 27th of course, the Giants play away so the game will be on before we start. We'll record once that game is over. Really looking forward to doing that and trying the beer that Eno made last week. Can Art is out, it's kind of, it's cool looking.

Can Art rules man, like can you imagine that being your main job? That'd be awesome. It's like stadium rendering, can art stadium renderings. Just make you excited. Ooh, the possibilities. Do you have any other random art that you really enjoy? Stadium renderings, beer cans, anything else?

Logos? Look, I like the minor league spin-off logos. Those are great. Those are always great. I like cereal boxes. I don't know why. I think cereal boxes are fun. I like packaging in general.

Things with good packaging. They get me, they get me. Apple did it. Apple got us too. Apple got us and then everyone's on it. Oh, Apple's so classy. Everyone keeps the Apple opening for no reason I could put my children here Wait, you guys keep those two Yeah, I just thought I was the only one that had seven iPhone boxes for the last 15 years

I'm necessarily heavy boxes. They're just like they make parts of it heavy just to feel like oh, yeah, there's heft here Yeah boxes they're just like they make parts of it heavy just to feel like oh yeah there's heft here yeah money on that just you feel better about yourself because of how nice the box looks and how the box feels I think that's very true I'm just glad I'm not the only one join the discord confess your own sins of holding way too many old phone boxes at your home and if you have a fun use for them hey look we we clearly have the need to use those for something. Some news though, as we get started,

Gunnar Henderson, his status for opening day, now in question. I find this happens every year, you know, when I drop a set of rankings, the injuries follow immediately. Actionable injuries, things that would cause you to re-rack tops of the list. And I think at the very least,

if you Ted Gunnar Henderson in your top five your top seven overall you're probably nudging him down a handful of spots Maybe to that your Don Alvarez spot right around there because your Don was talking about his knees bugging him throughout the winter And anytime you have something that could bother you even just for the first couple of weeks of the season or maybe have a short I else then you do have to account for that. Once we move into that part of the news, when it's not just resting through meaningless spring games, then you have to tweak the top of your board.

So I feel like this is the first of many tweaks that will come to the top 300 hitters and the various rankings we have on the athletic right now. Yeah, I don't know. I do the pitcher rankings mostly. So, you know, with pitchers, I don't know, I will knock them down. I don't know how much I'm knocking down, Connor.

It's a handful of spots, man. You have to do it because why would you choose someone who's dealing with, in this case, it's a mild intercostal strain. We know that's one of those softer tissue kinds of problems that if you don't handle it right, it either saps your power and you try to play through it, or you have that longer IL stint later.

It's like how they always say, back injuries are tricky. How many times have you heard that one? Back injuries are tricky. I think intercostals are tricky. Yeah, I guess so. So we'll keep an eye on this one, but it doesn't look great for opening day for Gunner at this point. Here's one for you, Trevor.

Sandy Alcantara We've seen a couple different reports come out about how the Marlins are going to manage his innings Craig Mish last week I think it was had a report saying there was no Workload cap on him in terms of number of innings We got a follow-up from Jeff Passon of ESPN saying that the Marlins are going to manage his innings carefully in season and that I Think is under this idea that they will probably shop Sandy Alcantara midseason at the trade deadline and they want to leave some innings carefully in season and that I think is under this idea that they will probably shop Sandy Alcantara mid-season at the trade deadline and they want to leave some innings there for the team that acquires him to be able to pitch him into October right so what do you think the

adjustments really going to look like is it just saying hey we're gonna let him go five let him go six we're not pushing him deep deep into start because when Sandy Alcantara was right pre-injury, he was a workhorse. He would be the kind of guy that actually get into the seventh or eighth inning a little more often. So is that the threshold? Is this actually just a slight adjustment, or is it actually a pretty significant one for how you think they're gonna use Sandy,

at least to begin the season? You know, I would assume that it's probably gonna be how he pitched pre-surgery was, you know, pedaled the medal, like he was gonna get to his 100, 105 pitches and he was, you were gonna have to pull him at that point, like he wasn't gonna come out before then. Win or lose, frankly, because they didn't really

have a lot of options in the bullpen either. So I think that it might just be not pushing, like not putting the foot on the gas, not pushing it farther than you need to, as opposed to like a hard, like they're not gonna be like, you have 80 pitches today. I think they'll play it by ear because he is a veteran at this point.

He knows his body pretty well and he is a guy who wants to throw innings. So, you know, if he goes out there and it's like, it's opening day and he throws six kind of not too stressful innings, then yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets to throw six straight out of the gate. I don't think it's gonna be like a five, five, five, six, six, six, seven. Like I think it'll probably be, then yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets to throw six straight out of the game. I don't think it's gonna be like a five, five, five,

six, six, six, seven. Like I think it'll probably be, you know, inning by inning, figuring out what he's doing or how he's feeling for the first month or two. And then after that, if for all, if ever all the lights are green, then he's just back to normal. That's probably what what it is. And that also would do serve the purpose that you just mentioned with getting him ready to pitch in October for a competitor if they want to trade him at the deadline. I also wonder though, you don't usually see guys

get close to what their season max pitch is thrown in the start. You don't see that usually before late May at the earliest and even then it's like, oh, he was working on a no hitter or the bullpen was completely cooked so he's a veteran, we'll let him go longer. So I don't know if it's even that different than how the majority of teams handle frontline starters.

It's the kind of thing that you see in a headline, you see in a story and people react to it maybe even more than they should. So you know, pitching rankings, next update coming up, where does Sandy Alcantara go? Because this spring, the stuff seems like it's all the way back. Is this just a report on something we assumed all along

as far as how you rank him and value him? I have a slightly different worry, like sort of take and worry on this is that they wanna do maybe the reverse Garrett crochet and keep a lot of innings in the bucket for September and October for a different team and if that's the case then they may do the three four five like basically an extended string training he's gone three times this spring and only had five and two-thirds innings. So they basically made like with other pitchers, you basically have like your one inning start,

your three inning start. It looks to some extent like they're already starting something where it's like he has three one-inning starts and he has three three-inning starts. And so he starts spring, he starts in April on the like four-inning start level. And we're going to do four do four inning starts for most of April to keep as many innings as possible for the end. So I think that that is at least possible. But in the end, I do think that a guy

that was such a workhorse as he was before, there is some sort of start to startness to it. Zips has him for 157. I'm tempted to go where a couple other projection systems have him around 170. I definitely don't think he's going to get up to 185, 200 again. If you've got 170 innings and you use 16 of them or 20 of them in April, I think you can shop him as a full-time starter, the rest to everybody else after that. Yeah, I mean, I think you need some kind of window,

roughly two months long before the deadline, where he's working with very few restrictions, and I think then teams say, all right, he's back. Stuff holds up into the late innings. Right. He's the guy that he was pre-injured. There's a tension there. You have to get back to what he was before.

Keep the innings in the back, but you had to get him all the way back. Yeah. Why do we live in this space? There's such a frustrating thing. It's like, no, man, it'd be better if you could just go. That'd be so much more fun. You could say, yeah, just air it out, man.

You'll be all right. The other big injury follow-up, Louis Heel, it's expected to be a three-month absence for Brian Cashman. So the depth question there, it's Marcus Stroman versus Will Warren for the last spot, right? That's kind of the, it's not even really a job battle, and now it just sort of moves Will Warren to that next chair where if anybody else gets hurt, Warren probably becomes the fist starter

because of Stroman's contract and experience. Like right now, you would choose Marcus Stroman over Warren for the number five spot if it was your call to make, right Trevor? Yeah, I mean just from an experience standpoint, it's kind of going, you know, rank and file, with the way the depth chart is kind of just guys are slotting in and one guy moves out

and then everyone moves up one. That's very much how their kind of depth is set up right now. So I would say, you know, Marcus will get the opportunity to start in that spot, but his leash probably isn't super long and we know kind of what's been happening behind the scenes there and he should play for camp but he's not super happy about the rumblings going in and I you

know that is what it is but it tends to make your leash a little shorter so everyone knew he was being shopped right? Yeah he's being yeah everyone knew he was being shopped and and so if they get the opportunity, and Warren is the better pitcher, it wouldn't surprise me if they were just like, hopped him. But they have no reason to do that, because I think that they're still just depending on the guys at the front end of that rotation, kind of taking the reins anyway.

So yeah, I think that it would be Stroh's job to lose, even if it's a catastrophic spring, it would have to be crazy different in terms of performance worn over him in order for him to jump on my think. Yeah, and Warren's coming off of a down year last year too. You get to keep Warren, you know, he has options. You get to keep him, you know, he'd be there. Plus the average IL percentage for a starter is 40%.

So what's all likelihood is Warren's gonna pitch. And the last thing is the Yankees have really traded away their depth in starting pitching. They traded away Vasquez and Brito and a bunch of Thorpe and a bunch of guys. They're a little bit empty behind Warren. So I think you keep Warren down there and you hope that it's only Warren you need and not

You know what's behind door three one thing I did want to say about Warren is I think he looks pretty good this spring I just saw a piece on down on the farm about the number of pitches you have a number of different pitch types you Can throw and how good that's for you, and I was watching Warren pitch, and he's really throwing five pitches That's a pretty healthy size arsenal and that's going to help him go deeper into games. He just looked better. He out-dueled Zach Wheeler. I know that's spring, but he was facing Harper and Schwab. And he found ways to get those lefties out, which is good for a sinker slider guy that, you know,

he just needs that fast ball and change up to be just good enough to get through those lefties. And it looked pretty good. So I think Warren's going to matter. I think he's going to get them 75 lefties and it looked pretty good so I think Warren's gonna matter I think he's gonna get them 75 to 100 innings he may out inning Luis Heal at this point which is sad. Yeah and if you're in a league that doesn't have IL spots I think Heal is basically undraftable for a three-month absence you've got the wait till it comes back if you got limited IL it's borderline. I think it might be worse than that Yeah, I think you need unlimited IL spots to be in a situation where you draft them,

stash them away for later, because it's gonna be a long rehab assignment once he's able to resume throwing. It was a six week shutdown period when they first announced it for Louise Heal. One more name to get to in the news segment. Bruce Bochy coming out and mentioning Mark Church's name as a sleeper for saves in Texas. The longer I I played fantasy baseball, though, it seems like the less I have

really figured out about what teams individually care about when trying to figure out who is going to get saves. It's a big part of what's going to drive us into our conversation about how we analyze relievers and how teams build bullpens today. But Church improved his walk rate last year at AAA, almost cut it in half. He was at a 14.2% the previous year at AA and AAA in 2023, got down to 7.5% last year. He did miss some time with a shoulder injury, but this is a kind of wide open bullpen. There are some veterans here that will probably get the first opportunity.

So I'm just curious, you know, how interested are you in Mark Church as someone that could maybe take the job over the course of the season. I think that Chris Martin is a credible reliable veteran that probably gets the first shot but he doesn't really have the stuff of other closers. Now Robert Garcia is expected to make his Cactus League but he is a lefty and they don't have a lot of lefties in that pen so they may want him as a setup guy so that does leave the window of daylight there for church to jump in The one thing that is weird about him is that his fastballs not great. It's okay Velo sits 96 97 but the shape isn't good

And so he's really pushed his slider usage to where in the big leagues last year he was throwing at 53 percent of the time even even in the minor leagues, 44% of the time. And I've noticed that teams in the past, now Bochi's interesting because he had the last guy who did this, Romo, was one of the first guys to go just like 50-50 slider fastball, right? And Romo is kind of an interesting cop

because Romo, it was all about his slider and Bochi didn't give him the role. I think maybe he gave him the role a little bit at the very end, but he went through everybody else before he got to Romo. Romo was there forever. And I also think of a guy named Luke Gregerson who used to pitch for the Padres and every year I was like, Luke Gregerson's going to get it. And Luke Gregerson was a 50-50 guy.

And I think he got it at the very end and then he was shipped out. So that's not something I've studied in the numbers. But it's, I wonder if Trevor, if a guy who starts pushing 60% sliders or someone who's like pitching backwards in the pen, do you have an opinion on that? Or like, have you noticed anything about that? Like, you know, it seems like a fastball

is like super important if you're a reliever. You gotta have it and it's gotta be something you can go to if the slider isn't working. Yeah, sometimes the slider's not working. If you got two pitches and you throw the slider 60% of the time, uh oh. So like, prime example is 2022 Edwin Diaz. He threw over 50% sliders.

And his slider by all accounts is not, it's not a great slider. It's not as good as his fastball. Yeah, it's not. His fastball's good. They work really well together. Neither one are like great moving pitches, but he throws 100.

So it's like, I have this in the pocket and this is gonna make this better. So if he's using a slider in that way, and I think you hit it right in the head that Boche's pretty good at distinguishing, I think intuitively, whether or not a guy is leaning on the pitch and can't do the other thing or isn't confident in it and he's throwing a slider

because he's not confident in his fastball and getting people out. Or it's used as a weapon that then makes the fastball better so the confidence is in both pitches. The usage, you could look at percentages and those two guys could be using this pitch as the exact same amount of times, percentage wise. But there's definitely a watching them pitch

and how they approach guys. Do they get tight and just go straight to slider, slider, slider? And that explains Sergio, Realmo a little bit. Realmo was a little bit more like that, yeah. I mean, his most iconic moment was the, yeah. When he threw a fastball, when everyone thought he was gonna throw a slider, yes.

Yeah, his biggest moment was when he threw a fastball to Miguel Cabrera to end the World Series, when everyone thought it was gonna throw a slider, yes. Yeah, this biggest moment was when he threw a fastball to Miguel Cabrera to end the World Series, when everyone thought it was gonna be a slider. But most of the time, yes, it was slider, slider, slider. And you're right, Mark Church throws 97. It's a little bit different. Yeah, so we'll see, I guess, how he uses that fastball going into this year.

Might be worth watching an outing, you know? Seeing, trying to look for what Trevor's saying about, like, if he gets to like a 2-0 count, is it just always slider? Do you guys think Camilo Deval sort of has that problem, or he loses command and just suddenly it's just, it's slider, slider, slider? Cause I feel like he commands his slider

better than his fastball. He also doesn't attack the middle of the zone as much as you think he should. He has nasty stuff, I think he should be in the zone more. Yeah, I think that was something, we've talked about that before with Deval, like just trust it, just let it get in there. You're not gonna get punished as badly as you think

because you still have to be in the league. Right now I'm like, throw it in the zone. First try! I heard that before. Yeah. I try not to yell that, but I'm like, I'm like, take a breather, walk around the mound, reset, come on, get it in there. Take a breather, reset.

There's no pitch clock in Little League, so. I watched an inning last night that was like eight walks. One inning. Yeah. Like just take them out there. Don't let that creep too much into like what you want pictures to do at the big league level. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics and definitely a holiday trip.

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It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Let's talk about some things that can change the way we look at relievers though, because I do think manager expectations might be part of it. What should a closer look like? What should they have in their arsenal?

What kind of velocity, what kind of secondary pitch do they use? Have they done it before? Those things matter to varying degrees. There's a lot of other factors to consider, but I do think there's a way to quantify this. How much a team trusts a player. I think leverage index does that pretty well. Like what is the challenge? What is the difficulty of the situation when you come in?

Tom Tango made leverage index, I think almost 20 years ago now. It's designed to measure the importance of a particular event by quantifying the extent to which win probability can change. So if you look at a leverage index leaderboard, you see a one, a 1 is a neutral situation, this leaderboard is tiny, you should look at fan graphs on

your own computer and not look at the tiny little spreadsheet that I put onto our YouTube page. But you can find on those leaderboards a group of mostly closers, but it's not exclusively closers. You're definitely gonna see 7th and 8th inning guys pop. They entered the game in tough situations, Sometimes the runners on base, that's the other kind of hack to make the situation more difficult. And generally, the guys that aren't closers that appear on this list probably are not valued correctly or even analyzed correctly for the value that they're bringing to the game. Right.

So do you feel like leverage index is the maybe the best available underutilized stat that's available on baseball reference on fan graphs that people should be talking about more when they're looking at relievers, Trevor? I think it's a good starting point definitely needs to be in the conversation. I can also say this for relievers negotiating in arbitration and free agency, this is becoming a popular stat that is being used by agents to make the case that there, we can't use war for relievers, because it's just, you know,

if you get a guy with a two wars reliever, he's the greatest ever or whatever. So like, it just can't work that way. So you gotta go and say, hey, these are the ways this guy performs in the situations that you wanted to pitch in. And also here, based on leverage index,

we can make a case for, he can throw, as a setup guy, he can get saves when you need to, and he can throw, like if you can do all three things, or a fireman, those are kind of the three roles at this point. Fireman slash bridge, you know, it's used a lot now, and it's becoming part of the natural conversation around those things.

And another one I like a lot that I layer on top of leverage index is clutch, and how do you perform in the situations where the leverage index is higher, more or less? Right, because clutch is actually, has some results aspect to it. Whereas leverage index is kind of interesting to use as a stat because that is just when

they were put in. Which is a decision made by the team. So it has nothing to do with how good they were. If you keep getting put in in a good situation, you're probably pretty good because your manager trusts you. That's what I like about it. But it's interesting because there's no aspect of results in leverage index. There's also other leverage index, like what's leverage index when you come out of the game,

which could mean you gave up a run, made the game closer. So it's high, there's a bunch of different ways. So I usually use the average, because it just tells you when you're usually in the game. Using a predictive or a predictive stat that's outside of, not necessarily predictive, but a stat that's outside of the control of the player, and then layer on the one that is performance-based,

and then compare them together, I think that is generally how you would like to do these things. So I always look at Clutch as well. It's gonna come up in my examples later in this conversation. It's not exactly what you're talking about, but to some extent, win probability added

is what you're talking about, which is sort of, you know, what was the win, you know, using leverage index, what was leverage index, what was the game situation, what was the win probability when you entered the game? What was it when you left and then assigning that to that pitcher? So you can get things like last year in number one in when probably added was Emmanuel class a and two was Yates and it's mostly closers

That's another thing that people maybe not understand is that there's a lot of talk that oh the new Another thing that people may not understand is that there's a lot of talk that, oh, the new, the new way of running a bullpen is that your best guy is your fireman. And then your second best guy is your closer. The problem is the highest leverage of the game is usually the ninth inning. It's in close games. It's the ninth inning. And so then you actually want your best guy back there. So if you look at win probability added, it's all closers.

The top non-closers Tyler Holton, who is somebody that defies characterization and was actually used for saves at times because he's a lefty, just the best fireman. But even he comes up as eighth last year among a bunch of closers. Kate Smith is 12th. He's kind of a fireman, but he's behind

Klaasay, who's number one. So Detroit aside, they have a very interesting pen that's gonna come up a bunch of times here where they don't really have defined roles. They have moved guys around from starting rotations into the bullpen. Tyler Holton opened games, I think, and closed games, and so he's all over the place. Most of the time, it actually makes sense to put your best closer, your best pitcher in at closer and in the biggest leverage index moment. So you can, to some extent, you can look at saves.

You'll still get something very close to leverage index. There's a middle ground here that I think is, I'd never really looked at this stat before. It's there on the win probability leaderboards over at Fangrass. There are shutdowns and meltdowns and a shutdown is when a reliever accumulates more or equal to 0.06 win probability added in any individual game. A meltdown is the opposite. It's minus 0.06. And I think it's good as a counting stat because win probability added as a ratio is one of those numbers that I think is just, it's not intuitive unless you're immersed in it.

What I think you get with shutdowns and meltdowns, in shutdowns you basically get a saves plus holds sort of statistic that is a little bit better than saves plus holds. That's my sort of takeaway looking at that leaderboard where you have Emmanuel classé was number one with 44 Brian Abreu with 43 Griffin Jackson 41 Ryan Walker with 40 David Robertson Kirby Yates at 39 Jastatum 37, right? So you get names that are not closers, but there are trusted relievers that did a lot to help their teams win I think that's a pretty good Stat that maybe combines a few things and at least gives us a number that looks more like a save total on the back of a baseball card so at least if we're trying to nudge people in this direction that might be a pretty good place to

start. The meltdowns I think are kind of interesting right alongside it because you could just look at the difference how many shutdowns do you have how many meltdowns do you have Klaasai only had four meltdowns so 44 shutdowns four meltdowns that's phenomenal kind of oh yeah he had great meltdowns. So 44 shutdowns, four meltdowns, that's phenomenal, kind of. Oh yeah, he had great ratios. He was electric throughout the regular season. That all tracks. But you can see, like some of the other guys

that work a ton had more meltdowns. Brian Abreu, 12 meltdowns against the 43 shutdowns. I have to point out, he's my boy and I love him, but Clay Holmes was consternation in New York about him. And he did have 29 shutdowns, and 25 Holmes, you know, was consternation in New York about him. And he did have 29 shutdowns and 25th on this list, but he had 14 meltdowns, the most in the top 30. So, you know, for shutdowns. So his ratio wasn't great and maybe starting will be a better fit for him.

Also, I just want to point out Andrew Kittredge here, eighth in shutdowns and only 10 meltdowns, and there's no other real number that would suggest that the Baltimore Orioles, or was it the Orioles? Yes. Orioles should give him nearly $10 million is $10 million. They gave him. It's not stuff. His stuff plus is below average. His locations are good. Maybe they believe in his locations, but you know, we're talking about valuing pictures here And it's not necessarily his war. It's not his war.

I don't even know if his leverage index. It definitely wasn't top 30 in leverage index. I mean, he was used decently in games. But it was a 1.6, 7 leverage index. That's not top 10 or anything. Not top 10, but it's not bad. It's just outside the top 10, though. Or nah. OK. No, he's like, bad. It's just outside the top 10 though. Or nah.

Okay. No, he's like, yeah, he's like top 30. Top 30, $10 million is a pretty big outlay for somebody who doesn't have a great fastball, doesn't have great stuff numbers, and doesn't pop at anything other than really shutdowns minus meltdowns, maybe leverage an X a little bit.

So maybe we're onto something here a little bit because this is a team that is supposedly progressive, has a front office that's trying to think about things differently. Maybe there's also aspect to it that the way he fits into the rest of the bullpen, we'll get to some pieces on that. But maybe there's something here with shutdowns and meltdowns where they're like, hey, he's really reliable. And we've got other guys here. We got Felix Bautista coming back from injury. We've got Kano. I wonder if he had meltdowns because Kano lets balls and play, you know, and sometimes the balls and play, you know, even with like being extreme grounders can turn to meltdowns. So yeah,

Kano is a little bit more like Clay Holmes who has a sort of ball and play kind of arsenal as well? Kanoa, 27 shutdowns, 14 meltdowns. So maybe now you have Kitcheridge where maybe Kanoa is melting down, you get them out of there faster because you have Kitcheridge. And so they're thinking this is worth $10 million. I mean, this is not a team that spends a lot of money and they go out and spend $10 million on Andrew Kitcheridge. So there's something maybe here

with shutdowns and meltdowns. And I just, one more thought on that too, I looked at the three year leaderboard just to see who's been consistently good at this over multiple years. Class A, 114 shutdowns. Still classic. David Robertson, 100 with 31 meltdowns. Devin Williams, 98 shutdowns tied for third, 13 meltdowns,

which is remarkably low. The other guys that are on this leaderboard are all above 20, and he's got 13. So it's like the exact opposite of Clay Holmes because Devin Williams comes in with a near 40% K rate and just gets it done, right? So it's kind of a- Very rarely melts down.

It's an interesting, like, hey, they sought out that guy via trade and that flips the ninth inning completely just based on who was in that role for most of last season. I think a meltdown is also just, it's one of those things that the manager, you almost feel like the manager's never gonna trust you again. I'm speaking for something that Trevor knows better.

But like, I mean, what is the characteristic for, what is the criteria for a meltdown? It's just the minus 0.06 win probability. I want to check this leaderboard too. And of course I can't find it because I am still learning how to use fan graphs effectively. Another interesting one that I didn't mention either, which kind of takes it back to something we said

probably five minutes ago. They also do a combined stat with wins WPA and leverage index with situational wins, which is another interesting one that combines those two numbers together. And like Cade Smith and for example, Cade Smith and Klausse moved closer together in that, even though he had three situational wins,

Klausse did and which is still, I think, top three of everybody. He's top three in everything, except for strikeouts. So that's win probably added divided by leverage index. That's exactly what I was looking for. It's like, yeah, yeah. And it's called, I guess, it's called situation wins even though it doesn't have its own little,

it's just WPA divided by leverage index. But it's on there. It's right next to all these same stats in the leaderboards if you're looking. I think the Emmanuel Classe, Cade Smith gap in leverage index surprised both of us when we were getting ready for this show. I mean, we know Klaus A was high in that metric,

but I think based on how good he is and how he was used at the end of the season, the expectation was, well, Kate Smith's probably top 40 or top 50 in leverage index too. He's not, he was 115th last year. I think he was kind of breaking in and earning that trust though. When the season started, you'd see a lot of Kate Smith

probably in like the sixth inning. And even in in the playoffs sometimes you'd see him in that spot I think it was more obvious with the stakes in the playoffs that if there was a runner on if they needed four or five Or six outs to bridge the gap from a short start to their other relievers They trusted Kate Smith as much as they trust anybody other than class a in a tight spot I think that became very clear watching Cleveland, especially in the playoffs. Yeah, this is the interesting conversation that I was hoping to have here is like,

I went and looked at both Klasay and Cade Smith and was like, which one was actually more valuable? We all know Klasay had this historic season. So he's gonna be more valuable overall to the team. But if we're talking about specific situations like firemen versus not, Manuel Klasay doesn't strike out, he strikes out less than one per inning. Like if the guy on first and second

would have won out in the sixth inning, I would rather have Cade Smith in the game because he strikes out a lot of guys. And that's the best way to keep those guys in scoring. He might give up a blue jam shot to a lefty with a 101 cutter inside, but they're not gonna miss it. They're gonna hit it. Kate Smith might get a swing and miss.

Like these are things you have to think about. And the interesting thing also is, I wanted to touch on, was inherited runners. And I've talked to them on the show about how much that means to me and how important it is to show. It shows mindset for me. Like, people who take inherited runners very seriously

tend to be really good at it. And some guys who aren't, aren't. We always joke around and say, you're a bad teammate, because you let everyone else's run score all the time. And not to throw any shade, but right. Or maybe they're, like, sometimes they're closers, right? Like, Clausay may not be that great on the United Runners

because he's like, hey, I'm supposed to come out here with clean slate. Clean slate, there's a big difference, even though Clausse inherited zero runners last year. Yeah, so he's always clean slate. But how many did Cade Smith inherit? 36, and he stranded 34 of 36. So for me.

That's good teammate. That's a good teammate, and that's probably the best. There was a couple that gave up zero. Tanner Scott was 0 for 19, which is really good. Actually, to be honest, overall, and everything I looked at, with leverage index and war overall and everything, Tanner Scott was, might be the most valuable guy with the Inherited Runners added in,

because he was top five in everything Who was the best pitcher who was bad at this at least by reputation or best by other results like it just didn't burn them Like Josh runners. They allowed to score went theirs was hater 7 for 11 He gave him 7 for 11, which I'm sure he would not be happy. I think there was a grand slam in there I remember seeing last year. It was early in the year to he gave up three like right away I could see him being more like, hey, I'm a blank slate guy, dude. He is too, and it's a trap they fall into too,

they'll tell you, they get really used to it. And sometimes they don't throw, starting to inning with guys on base for five months, and then they're just like, oh, we need you to do this in the playoffs, right? You want to talk about the mindset of a class A or a Diaz, right? To some extent Diaz is like, uh, it's three-oh. Okay, whatever.

I'm not, I'm not going to go middle here. So I'm going to punch the next guy out. So that, Hader's a little bit like that because Hader doesn't have great command and he does not, he knows he's going to maybe put a guy or two on of his own accord, you know, in the, in the getting out of this inning. So he really doesn't want there to be already traffic out there. You know, cause then he has to try and be more fine,

which he's not, that's not his best strength. And sometimes they tailor the way they pitch because they don't ever have to be in that situation. They don't have to worry about it. I think they would if they were in that situation more often, but they're just not. So it's like, it's hard to do if you haven't done it in a long while.

I think that's how you optimize the elite strikeout relievers that also walk guys, like Diaz, like Haters. You bring them in with a clean inning because the little mess they make is something they can clean up themselves. They enter with a little mess and they make more mess than that's when the disaster hits, right?

So the thing that crossed my mind just a second ago is like thinking about the usage of Klausay in the regular season and then flipping the switch and bringing him in with runners on for the first time all year when the stakes are the highest they could possibly be. Oh, yeah, he did let some inherited runners score in the playoffs.

And I wonder if that's something the Guardians and other teams notice and say, you know, most the time, 90% of the time, we want him to enter with a clean inning. 95% but we want two or three appearances in the regular the time, we want him to enter with a clean ending. 95, but we want two or three appearances in the regular season. We do want him to come in to clean up a mess. Just to get used to it. Just to get the feel for it.

I remember this cheesy story from the Olympics several years ago about Michael Phelps having a coach that would break his goggles at practice once in a while because it's like swim practice with broken goggles. Like, hey, what if this happens in a situation that matters You're used to swimming with broken goggles. You can actually do it So it's a little bit of that like hey be uncomfortable be in the situation more than once So that way when you're in it later you handle it better. There's something to that. I mean, it's hard to plan Hard to plan but you just have this in the back of your head to say we're looking for a situation in this series

Or next couple of series. When it comes up, we're going to get you up a little early. You can give them warning, give them notice, some notice. But if you're going to do that in the most important situation of all, you should rehearse it. You should simulate it as best you can. Yeah, and I'm also interested sometimes in, what are the underlying skills?

You're talking about mindset to some extent, but what are the underlying skills that are inherent, you're talking about mindset to some extent, but what are the underlying skills that are inherent to not letting an inherent run of score? And so one of the things I'm thinking about is like, I would think you could do it two ways. One is I just come in and strike everybody out. So like basically a mini closer, like just a guy who's really good at striking guys out, doesn't walk guys, just comes in just really good.

Who's going to eventually be a closer, but you happen to have two of them. Like that's sort of more Kate Smith. What about also Gineer Cano and Tyler Rodgers? Now that's a slightly different situation where it's like, well they do allow contact, but when they do it's usually soft. It's usually on the ground. Do you have numbers in front of you for those two in terms of inherited running scores? Because we know, do you have numbers Trevor? I don't have it right now, but I can grab it real quick. With Kano, he actually doesn't have that good shutdown meltdown ratio and he doesn't have a good strikeout rate. And what I've noticed from watching Tyler Rogers is sometimes when they give him a clean

inning, he makes his own problems, you know, and it can be a dink, a dunk, a little, I feel like the Dodgers for some reason, they must use that Traject machine somehow. I don't even think the Traject can do Tyler Rogers because the arm's not so low, but maybe they have some pitching coach or something who's out there that can actually throw like Tyler Rogers. Cause I feel like the Dodgers have some sort of approach where they can inside out,

maybe they all inside out swing him or something and just try to do little dinks and dunks. But sometimes Tyler Rogers makes his own problems. I got those numbers for you. We have, Yannier Knoe was 17 scored out of 45 for like 30%, which is like average. It's a big number of inherited runners scored though. Yeah, I mean that's 17 runs is a lot,

but he also- They gave him 45, but they also gave him 45 chances. He came out there a lot. It's almost like he's fine, but he wouldn't be your go-to guy in that situation. Tyler Rogers, on the other hand, was nine for 34, which is better. And it's slightly above average.

But again, strikeouts are, I think, I would say the highest value by a lot. A guy needs to be able to strike a guy. Because there's a couple things. It's also there's a momentum factor going on. Like they get stuff going. There's generally the vibe of the teams are changing and a guy comes in and just punches two dudes out and it's over. You just deflated it. It's gone. Like everyone is like, that was our shot. Plus there's just always a chance on a ball and play. Like Tyler Rogers, the craziest looking balls, you're like, that's an out.

And you're like, how is that not an out? Because it's, it has a spin like this and it's going, you know, it's going 20 miles an hour in the wrong direction. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I do think the importance of seeing what happens with inherited runners, that needs to be a big part

of the conversation. I'm glad that's come back up today too, because it came up for the first time, I think think on the show last spring, around this time probably. You know there's other stuff we were thinking about in terms of how you put a whole bullpen together. I think the first time you and I talked about it was coming out of a Raze playoff series where there was the image of all the Raze relievers over numbers of a clock. And it was just like, they had everything covered. They had just about the entire face. They had a different look they could give you.

So how important is that in sort of like maximizing the effectiveness of everybody involved? Like you also just don't want three or four guys that look exactly the same or multiple guys back to back that look exactly the same and throw the same stuff when you're trying to get hitters out. Yeah, I think it does matter. We do have proof, quote unquote, proof

from the analyst side that, you know, seeing the same shape over and over again makes the hitters better. And so if you do have relievers that look very similar, then it makes sense to be like, oh, that's kind of like seeing the same shape over and over again, you know? Like if everyone had the same arm slot and had the same slider, you could, it makes sense to be like, oh, that's kind of like seeing the same shape over and over again, you know? Like if everyone had the same arm slot and had the same slider, you know,

theoretically it could be good by stuff plus, but hitters be like, yo, yo, I know this guy and then this guy and then this guy, it's all the same guy. And so I did this thing where I said, I did the standard deviation of arm angles. So that's what you're looking at is on the X axis, standard deviation of arm angles

where further along the X axis is a wider variety of arm angles. And then ERA on the Y axis. And the three teams, or the four teams, obviously the Giants are out there. I wanted to put fastball velocity and color just to see that aspect of it too. The Giants did pretty well by fastball velocity, Deval helps, Ryan Walker helps. But the Giants are way out there with this angle variety. But then the Rays, Yankees, and Brewers,

and the Brewers in particular are really interesting because look at the Brewers with a three zero-ish ERA and poor fastball velocity for pens. I mean, that's a light blue versus dark blue for the Giants. The Yankees and Rays are more average. So those three teams being out there tells me there's something here

because Milwaukee often does a lot with a little when it comes to pitching side. The Rays have been very progressive and the Yankees try to develop a lot of this on their own, but they also acquire interesting. Like right now they're really into right on right changeups, getting Williams and Weaver and Mark Leiter Jr. They get into things and they go out and get those things and they develop them internally. So they're a team that has ideas and executes them. So having the Yankees raise in Milwaukee with the Giants out there, also all four of those teams that have excellent,

like excellent wide variety have above average ERAs or better than average ERAs. So that's interesting to me. Arizona being kind of on the forefront of this a little bit is interesting to me. And then I just looked at Kichrig's arm angle and guess what? You know, Felix Bautista is way over the top

and Yannir Ko is way around the side and Andrew Kitchridge is basically right in between. I mean, it's like a 60 degree arm angle for Bautista, it's an 18 for Cano and it's a 39 for Kitchridge. So to some extent, maybe they're trying to fill out the arms of that clock as well with someone that they find super reliable. Yeah, there's a couple of things that I think

would be factors in a chart like that too. I mean, the Brewers, kind of like the Dodgers, are very good at suppressing damage on balls and play. Defense has been consistently good for a few years. And then the other part is that while they are embracing funk, they're also embracing guys that have multiple fastballs. So, you know, one way to hide less velocity,

have multiple fastballs. So, you know, one way to hide less velocity, have multiple fastballs. So I think those things work in concert to kind of explain, hey, how'd the Brewers get there with such a light blue dot? It was so little velocity relative to some other teams that were in that cluster. Yeah, and I think, you know, to some extent, and here's stuff in locations for bullpens,

and here green is, you know, RA9 war, so like just how valuable were they? And so the gray bullpens. And here green is, you know, RA9 war, so like just how valuable were they? And so the gray bullpens were not as good and the green bullpens were good. What you will see is that most of the green is to the right of 100 on stuff. You can look where 100 on stuff is and most of the green is to the right.

You can look at 100 for locations and most of what's above that is green as well. However, if you look at what's below average stuff and above average locations, there's not that many teams like that. Mostly teams look for stuff in the bullpen. And to some extent, that's because release point is important and velocity is important that we've seen from these other things and that's captured by stuff. But if you go back to that old chart of deviation arm angle,

Stuff Plus can still say, oh, these are great arms. Like look at Detroit, they're all the same arm. Seattle has a really good Stuff Plus number for the bullpen. We know that Seattle's Stuff Plus number is similar to the public Stuff Plus number. I know this personally. Yet they don't care as much about a variety of it. They're fine with saying, hey, these guys are nasty. Our model says they're nasty

and we don't care as much about it. It hasn't hurt them, but it is interesting to see that like Seattle for some reason has a higher bullpen ERA than Milwaukee, even though they throw really hard, they have better stuff plus, and they are in a great park. You know, so there might be something to, you know, kind of variety of shapes. You want to go for stuff though, is what this chart tells me. I was toggling back to the commanded stuff because I was wondering, I noticed the Tigers at least in 2023 were very good by location plus. So maybe that's where they make up a little bit of ground, locating really well.

And I wondered if the Mariners were average or below average in location plus. Maybe that's why they don't pop as much as you'd think for the level of the stuff. They were last year, I see 2024 Seattle right there. It's actually a kind of a one of the grayest dots for how good the stuff was. I want the future to be when Eno pointed his screen

that we can actually see exactly what he's pointing at. What's actually pointing at it there. I can't see the dot he's pointing at. I don't know which one it is, I still can't see it. I'm old, the dots are small. We'll share the charts, we'll share the graphs on Discord for sure. I'll get my magnifying glass ready once it's on Discord.

I tried to make them bigger. I made all the dots bigger. It's not you, man, it's my eyes. My eyes are deceiving me. So you think about all these things in concert and there's definitely a way to maybe come up with something like a team bullpen score right and that would improve upon bullpen war. I feel like every year at the end of the year we get to our playoff shows and we're like okay how good was the bullpen? Where's the bullpen ranked war or will grade the top four or top five by stuff?

It's like FIP war, so it doesn't even include balls and play and these guys have shapes and stuff that stops balls and play, you know? Like, I don't know, it's bullpen FIP based war is I think one of the worst ways to consider the quality of a bullpen. So please, if it's not, you know, hopefully it's producer Brian,

hopefully it's Trevor, it's someone. If I put that on the rundown on October again this year, stop me, immediately stop me. Do not let me use that on the graphic. Don't let me bring it up as a measure of quality for a bullpen. We should have, by then, I'm gonna promise something I'm not gonna make, a new metric.

I'll work on it. Trevor's doing it, yes, yes. I don't know where Inherited Runners is, so that's why I was asking Trevor for his numbers. So, but I think you can find it somewhere. That's where it is. All this stuff is out there. If anybody wants to do, to kind of work on it and throw it out to the discord, I think that that'd be cool to have a bullpen score that had arm angle variety, you know, had something for shutdowns versus meltdowns or

reliability. I mean, that's a reliability score, a kind of variety score. You know, there's different ways to kind of think about these things. Yeah, and just all help. Maybe combine. Just let me help. I actually do wanna help. I wanna get my name on one of these things, guys. So anyone out there that messes around with this stuff,

I'm in. I'm even interested in, like I talked about the three buckets, like the kind of the fireman role and then the setup guy role and the closer guys. Oh, sorting guys, that way, yeah. And giving them scores, like how good could this guy be as a fireman or how good could this guy role and the closer guy. Oh, sorting guys, that way, yeah. And giving him scores like how good could this guy be as a fireman or how good could this guy be as a closer who isn't a closer and.

Right, because getting Arconneau's number for closer versus fireman is very different probably. Yeah, he's probably a better, he's a better closer option than a fireman. You think so. But he's not gonna close there. The strikeouts are just really, really valuable for firemen, it's just really important that you're going to close there. The strikeouts are just really, really valuable for firemen.

It's just really important that you're able to do that. So for many reasons, but it's stranding guys. You're coming in middle innings. Like the role is just different. I'm excited to see where this goes. Yeah, jump in the Discord. Link is in the show description if you're not in there already. You can start the thread on the episode discussions channel.

We'll go from there. Got a few mailbag questions from the Discord. First one comes from BB10. and the question is inspired by the discussion of the automated balls and strike system we discussed last week. The question boils down to this, would a smaller zone incentivize pitchers enough to potentially take a little bit off the VLO to hit the smaller zone and avoid walks? Would that thereby maybe help the injury problem around baseball?

So if we were to shrink the strike zone, Trevor, do you think we would get the possible benefit of reduced VELO and then reduced injuries? Slightly, it'd be nominal probably. It's just the idea of de-incentivizing stuff, like and then therefore effort because they're connected. It's so deeply ingrained now that going the other way, there's gonna have to be a lot of things changing.

But I think that one way to do it is de-incentivizing that for the teams. And Louis Paulus made that point in his article we discussed last week, that if we're able to quantify the idea that leaving a starter in a little bit longer is actually better for winning games, then maybe that incentive will, it'll trickle down to the players

and what they're trying to, the type of player they're trying to be, because how they're being used is different. So I think that's the way you have to do it. I don't know if moving the strike zone is just gonna frustrate a bunch of guys, but in reality guys with stuff, you're trying to get swings and misses anyways,

like you're trying to throw strikes, but mostly the top priority is when they swing, I want them to miss. And that in its essence is not irrelevant with the strike zone, but the strike zone matters a lot less for that situation. And that's still gonna be there. And I worry that you'd also just try to throw harder.

You'd try to throw nasty sliders. Yes, now I have to throw in this little postage-tipped zone and it better be my best stuff. So you'd push everything. You'd push Velo and spin even harder. You might actually do the opposite. So that would be the way it probably would. One thing that has to be really hard that this brings up

is that modeling what happens when you change the strike zone is not easy. You think you know it's gonna happen and then it doesn't always happen. And another way of saying this is, look over the history of walk rates in baseball. They're remarkably similar. Do you know what has not been similar

over the history of baseball? The strike zone. So there's like this weird equilibrium where like baseball's like, okay, eight and a half percent walk rate. That's about all we can handle. If you're much worse than that, you better be striking everybody else out. Like there's like this weird equilibrium.

If you're much better than that, you could strike out fewer guys, but eight and a half is like what we just decided is normal. Like in the history of baseball, it's been eight and a half is what we just decided is normal. Like in the history of baseball, it's been eight and a half or nine percent. Sometimes down to eight percent.

That's not a big variation. And yet the strike zone has gone, done bonkers things. Even when the pitch clock came in, it only went up to nine and a half for three months, then dropped right back down to eight point nine. And then it can't went back down. Yeah, we figured it out. It's just the way it is.

The strike zone's really hard to mount. We also, we put in ABS and we thought, the hitters thought, oh, we'll finally get a regular zone. Oh, this will be great. And their strikeout rate goes up. And the pitchers are like, well, we'll finally get a regular zone. This will be great.

And the walk rate went up. How does this walk rate and the strikeout rate go up when you go to computers? This is like, figure that one out. It's just a different zone. It's not the zone everybody thought it would be. walk rate and the strikeout rate go up when you go to computers. This is like, figure that one out. It's not, it's not the zone everybody thought it would be. Yeah. So when I think about the injury problem, I think one thing that needs to happen is that baseball, instead of just doing like a, Hey, why do you think injuries

happened and doing like an interview session where they interview a bunch of people, they need to put money on the table. There needs to be some sort of money on the table. They need to, like, let's say they put funding on the table that anybody wants to start a pitching lab that's dedicated just to injuries can get money from that funding pool. Privately funded scientific research. Okay.

Yeah. Or just doesn't happen very often. Research. Yeah. Just be like, Oh, you can come to us for funding. And that might be interesting right now. We're funding for projects in the national levels under attack. And to some extent you could say as baseball be interesting right now, we're funding for projects at the national levels under attack and to some extent, you could say as baseball be like, Hey, you

want to do research on injuries, we have a we have a fund for that. So I think money, you know, money talks, I think that, you know, in terms of incentivizing things, I think you're right. Louis polis is our article is good. The article that I just read today on down on the farm saying that multiple pitches is good, that actually is important for stuff because what that means is don't always throw your best stuff pitch, you need to have five pitches. You can't have five pitches that are 110 stuff plus.

There's two guys like that in the world. Yeah, see, because there are two, yeah. I think we are seeing a shift. But you have to, yeah, you have, I need the Mets are doing it, like the different teams doing it. Skeen's adds two fastballs because he wants to go deeper into games, he doesn't want to strike everybody out, he set it.

Did it right away, yeah. For a guy who throws 100 who could strike everybody out, he's like, I know that's not long term the best thing for me. I'm like, thank you. Now young guys are like, oh cool. You have to have the research to say that because we're in that kind of society,

we're in that kind, like the DM needs to be like, I'm not in the business of like teaching everybody a sinker because the meds are doing it. Why are they doing it? You know, R and D, tell me something. And R and D comes back and says, oh, well it's actually because of shapes and you know, shape fatigue.

You say something like that and you're like, here's my study on shape fatigue, Mr. GM, sir. And then they're like, oh, all right, All right. Teach everybody's thinkers. I like it. Sometimes we'll read the paper and don't come away with the right conclusion. That is, well, you can't help a dumb GM, but there's also the last thing is you can change your rules. And this is one I want to talk to you about Trevor. I like this idea, but I hadn't thought about it from a player until last night. I was thinking about this a little bit.

I like the idea of maybe no 60 man I.O. At least no extra roster spot for a 60 man I.O. So basically you have your 40 man roster, but this could be bad for players, right? You get TJ, you get out right off the roster. Yeah, that could be, that's tough. That'll be for players, right? You get TJ, you get outrided off the roster. Yeah, that could be, that's tough. That'll be what happens, right? Yeah, go rehab on your own,

you're not on the roster anymore. Yeah, go get the highly specialized rehab for this injury. Go follow the packet in your house, like, that stinks. It still happens, there's still ways to do that. It still happens though, and it wouldn't happen if you were like Jake DeGrom or something, because we're not outriding you off the roster, we still want you. But you have to maintain your value

while not pitching for a very long time in their eyes, and lots of stuff changes. There's nothing you can do about it, so yeah, that's tough. It would overall be bad for players. It would happen more often than it does now. It already happens a little bit now, where somebody's a marginal guy. Like it happened to Ad Albert Alzolay.

Yeah, you're going to move that threshold too far though, if you change that rule, if you, if you nuke the- It'll happen to more, I thought it was too much for Albert Alzolay. Somebody even signed him right away to do his rehab because he was still cheap and he was closing for the Cubs at some point. And he just had TJ at the wrong moment where it was like coming close to his free agency. So the Cubs just let him go, seemed I thought the wrong decision but also mean and then somebody signed him So anyway, it would happen that line would push further It would be it'd be better players than you'd expect or you'd be like, whoa, they let that guy go

You know just because he had TJ I do think that the other side Teams would be incentivized to do something about health. Speaking of health, we got another mailbag question. This one's from Lou. It's really specifically for Trevor. How much pain are pitchers throwing through on a game by game basis? How good are they at understanding or calibrating

or diagnosing that pain in the moment? How often do guys have injuries because they pushed too hard through the pain? And how common or uncommon is it for a pitcher to have a serious injury with no prior reason for concern? Okay, there's many pieces to this. A lot of questions here. Let me start with how much pain a pitcher's throwing through.

That varies, but everyone has some level of it. Starters less than relievers for the most part. Relievers are never at 100%. We come back maybe from the All-Star break and then you play catch that first day and you never felt worse. Maybe after you played catch and that first game back, you were as close to 100% as you've been all year.

But I would say, let's just, in context from relievers, here's the way I thought about it. Everyone has a percentage in their head, whether or not they're conscious of it or not, where they, a threshold that if they drop below, that they're hurt, that they're like, this is no longer, I can't compete anymore. It's like when the doctor asks you the pain one to 10,

like tell me the pain that you're feeling one to 10. Like you have a sort of, As soon as you go over five, not manageable. Like, and if you're at a five, but you think it might be just something that's short term, it's like, you got, like, I don't know, there's a bruise or something you hit, I can throw once or twice, but I don't know how there's a bruise or something, you hit, you're like, I can throw once or twice.

But I don't know how long this is gonna take. Are you telling somebody about that? No, oh, we're never telling anybody about it until we're hurt. That's one thing. Relievers, it depends, you have to have a rapport with your training staff too. I had a rapport where I could go and be like,

hey, I'm getting close to my threshold, can we work through it? And they know the deal and they're not gonna go tell people yet, because they trust you. But young guys, they're terrified of the training room because you don't want to go on the IL and lose your spot. So in my head, I was always 65 to 85% when I was pitching. And 90 was like, I was dialed.

Like I was probably gonna throw, I would get close to immaculate, I think. But if I'm up to 85, I'm like, hell yeah, it's only kind of sore a little bit. 65, I'm like, bleh, hope this is a quick one. Let's hope they hit it at people. And then if you drop down below that, I gotta think about saying something because I can't,

this isn't going away. And I had an injury in 2022 with a stress reaction in my arm where we kept managing and getting me like to 70%, then I dropped down on 60 again, to the point where I was like, hey guys, I can't do this anymore. We got a bone scan. They're like, hey, if you had pitched for two more weeks,

you might've fractured your arm. So I was like, well, maybe. And that's not something you feel, by the way. I just kind of slowly have, it's just achy. And that wasn't even the worst you'd felt? Or that was near the worst you felt? No, no, I felt much worse than that. I blew out my Tommy John

and then pitched two thirds more innings. You got outs after your album was torn? Andrew McCutcheon punched out. No, I blew it out, actually, on an O2 pitch to McCutcheon. But I struck out a Renato with no UCL, I remember. And it was one of those things where in my head, I was like, I either blew out or this is a little thing, and I'm, because I was going for a spot,

and my adrenaline allowed me to get there. Next morning, I woke up in my mar. I'm like, I can't touch anything. This is thing and I'm, because I was going for a spot and my adrenaline allowed me to get there. Next morning I woke up in my mar, I'm like, I can't touch anything. This is awful. I'm hurt. So you basically find where those lines are and then you just try to balance them with what's going on with the team,

with like what you need, like and you gotta just try to make decisions the best you can. You think the line is very different for starters though? Where like starters are like, as soon as they get to a two out of 10, they're like, mm, I need to tell somebody. I don't mean to throw a name out.

This is a guy I played with, but there are certain, we call these guys arm shaking guys, guys who shake their arms. So they warm up and they're like, they shake, and you're like, so like everyone, the long guys like, am I gonna have to start today? And we're all just like waiting. Everyone's butt clenches.

And a guy kind of famous, Marco Estrada, would do this sometimes, be like I don't know guys, I'm not feeling great today. And he'd just like say that and then guys would be like, come on man, don't do that to me. And he was fine every time. But like you have some of those guys and then you have guys who will never say anything

no matter what. And they'll just go out there and be bad. Until it's blown. Until it's blown. And it usually comes like, how did you come up through baseball? Who were your coaches? What did they value?

Like, really. And it varies wildly. From team to team, organization to organization, training staff to training staff, how everyone reacts to injuries. And then you try to find your way through it and navigate your way through it. That I think has more to do it than any person.

But trust me, this is a conversation that is in your mind pretty much 10 to 30 times a day. You're like, am I hurt or am I sore? Am I hurt or am I sore? You wake up in the morning, you're like, all right, what are we doing? How are we at, where are we at? What does replace that in your brain?

Because that's a lot of energy that you don't have to spend on that anyway. Well now I'm just waking up, I'm like, can I get ready for all the podcast today? Yeah, right do I have enough ideas for my podcast? That's basically it so like yeah a lot of guys push too hard, and then they they hurt themselves long-term So you balance it then they're starters who they miss two to four weeks a year every year They just find that spot where they're kind of run out of gas

They go on the IL for a little bit, and they make 28 starts maximum every year, but they need that. That's just the way that they are. But you can count on it happening every year, and everyone's different. So it does vary wildly, but yes, this is conversations that are happening all of the time, most everybody. It just varies wildly, got it, guy.

I went to one of the first memories, I went to ask them, everybody, that I knew, like, what was the first thing you learned? What's the most surprising thing you learned once you got behind, you got a job in baseball? And one of the answers was that every pitcher was hurt all the time, just to crest no degree. So I'll throw this to you real quick,

like May 1st, percentage of guys who are at zero pain in baseball, across all of baseball. Across all, let's just all the major leagues, I'll say the number of guys who are just pain free on May 1st is probably 30%. Yeah, it's the arms. Probably 30%, not dealing with anything. And that could be like your hip or your back or something.

Like something is not great. And the guys who win Cy Youngs, they're the ones who feel the best most often. They feel good all year. They do. They have, they didn't have to worry about anything but pitching. That is a prerequisite for winning a Cy Young and being consistent. Now I'm just thinking about who could actually win

the Cy Young, I don't know. So it's in my head. We should do a show about that. Yeah, I think we probably will in the next couple of weeks. Aaron Nola's at 90.4 miles an hour today. You did this to yourself once before I'm telling me about this yeah He's a little he's a little sore. Yeah, it's a little brown. What did I do this to myself before so earlier this week? I heard about the time that Aaron Nolas Velo dipped a few years ago

And you put them in a dynasty league and it was a bad idea you got like Josh Donaldson Pre-rated right at the Josh Donaldson crash. That's right. Yeah, that happens sometimes so just You know sometimes it's okay. Sometimes one day is not the end of the world. Sometimes we'll throw 90 today and be fine tomorrow Yep, that's right. Good time for one more segment. It is the game sweeping the entire world Name that dude. The over under by the way on scores by you know on for this season this year is gonna be one and a half oh come on yes we're gonna play I'm so happy that last year I'm so happy that last year I got one thank you maybe two you got more than one yeah you did pretty well last year so the game's

pretty simple I give a series of clues. After each clue, Trevor and Eno get a chance to guess who the mystery player is for today. So we begin with a player. I was born on March 18th, 1977 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. No guesses. I just had to get. Pedro Martinez.

Not Pedro, I leave it open. I leave it open because it's gonna be amazing. The day someone gets it off of just an absolutely basic biographical clue is gonna be a great day. We're gonna go nuts that day. I made my major league debut May 4th, 2002 and my final major league game was September 28th 2019 against Cleveland. 17 years.

Mm-hmm. Long career. 17 years. Any guesses? Not yet. Alright, next clue. I made three All-Star teams, including one in my age 39 season in 2016. Still no guesses?

Javier Vazquez? No. No. Trevor? Last game against Cl- I- okay. Keep going, okay. So Edo got the math right on this already. My big league career lasted 17 seasons.

I made appearances for the Tigers, Rays, Mariners, Angels, A's, Diamondbacks, Twins, Marlins, Nationals, Padres and Cubs. It's a three time All-Star that made appearances for 11 different major league teams. I got a random name. So now I'm just gonna be embarrassed because like, I don't know. Is it Raul Abanez? It's not Raul Abanez. Octavio Doetel?

That's the right type, yeah, you're honing in I finished fifth in the AL Cy Young award voting in 2012 the pitcher you us your beena Not not incarcerated What? Not in San Volquez oh, that's a good one What uh wait what year they win the Sion? They were fifth in the AL Sion award voting in 2012. Here's the clue that I think is going to bring it all home.

In that 2012 season, I had a.60 ERA and a.77 whip with 48 saves. Fernando Rodney? Fernando Rodney Fernando Rodney I think about to say guardado I think Brian Smith our producer I think had that in the background a little sooner but yeah man Fernando Rodney I believe a teammate of Trevor at the time that he had one of the best entrance videos in the big I would have I would have gotten it if you said, I once wandered around the trees in the Seattle. Was that Rodney?

Like took a seat out in the trees? Was it not Seattle? It was in Anaheim. Or Colorado. No, no, no, Colorado. You'd go sit, a lot of guys do that now, but they go put their seats like in centerfield Like he made people angry with the hat thing

But it was like his father was like a fisherman and wore his hat that way because the Sun was coming from that direction When he went out you turn you turn your hat with the Sun Which is it is a common thing I looked it up it is and there's actually a few guys who've done it in the minors And in Pro Ball before that thing, like the same reason. Yeah, he was a character, dude. I liked him. Oh my God. That last year too, he took the bullpen card in every time. His hat was like this.

Going in for a close, going in for a safe. I only did it once and it did not go well and would never do it again. The entrance video is phenomenal. I will put it in the links in the show description because I'll be too hyped to end the show if I watch it before taking the show out. So definitely watch that entrance video that Fernando Rodney had with the twins. So, you know, now down 2-0 in the season series of Name That Dude.

I figured because they were teammates that Trevor was going to sneak in there and probably get that one. When you said Clea ended the career, I know he wasn't actually with the twins that year. He was with, who was he with this last year? Not twins, he got traded in 18. Nationals or something? Nationals. Nationals.

Against Cleveland though, I was like, it's central, it might be a teammate of mine. I was on the right track. That didn't actually tell me the right thing. But I was- Did you have any funny stories from him? Like in front of the pole pen? Was he a funny guy?

He's a hilarious guy, he's kind of reserved. By the way, just the strongest dude I've ever seen, he used to play long toss without crow hopping or leg kicking, so he'd just do his little like, catch the front A. By the way, he gets sniper'd constantly when he tapped his foot, when he'd go into the, like he'd just like, catch his front cleat and fall over.

It happened three or four times a year. But he'd do it in PFPs all the time. He'd catch all the time. But he did what he called his white guy voice. And he'd make his voice really loud. And be like, hi guys, I threw a fastball. And it was just hilarious. So he'd do everyone's, all the American guys,

he would do all of our voices the same. And it was and it was It's really funny. Gordano would always get him going big Fernando. I got anything to say and he's like guys I think we could do this thing today That's great man, I think it's difficult to be in the big leagues that long if you're not liked as a teammate That would be more challenging I think to stick around as long as Fernando Rodney did. On our way out the door, a few reminders. You can join our Discord with the link in the show description.

You can watch the Fernando Rodney closer video with the link in the show description as well. You can find us on Blue Sky. You can find the charts. You'll be on Discord. Yeah. You're going to get them there? All right. Good.

I won't do it. Eno's going to do it. Will you put them in the show description, though? Is there not really a space for it? No, they don't them there. All right, good. I won't do it. You know, it's gonna do it Will you put them in the in the show description though? It's not really I don't go there. No, I Don't I don't link to him that they'll be in the discord though. You can find you know I'm blue sky, you know, Sarah's got be scott and socially you can find Trevor there And I am Trevor made up be scott and social and DVR dot be scott and social Thanks to Brian Smith our producer for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode rating barrels We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.