Rates & Barrels - The Pitching Injury Problem, Catching Targets, Altering Pitch Shapes & Slider/Sweeper Deep-Dive

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss Eno's co-authored story with Ken Rosenthal about the ongoing concern regarding pitcher injuries as velocity and breaking ball usage continues to increase. Plus, they examine the Rays' use of a relatively simple approach to maximize the effectiveness of their pitchers, and how some pitchers like the Cubs' Justin Steele alter the shape of a smaller arsenal to keep hitters off-balance. Finally, they wrap up the show with the deep dive into the slider and sweeper and a few listener/viewer questions. Rundown 0:58 The Neverending Quest to Reduce Pitcher Injuries (Related reading -- Eno's story with Ken Rosenthal ($) https://theathletic.com/5325032/) 17:24 Catcher Targets & How the Rays Simplify Their Pitching Plans (Related reading -- Chad Jennings' story on the Rays' pitching development ($) https://theathletic.com/5318763/) 28:22 Altering Pitch Shapes to Increase a Small Arsenal (Related reading -- Sahadev Sharma on Justin Steele's ability to change the shape of his 'two' main pitches ($) https://theathletic.com/5311112) 41:43 Deep Dive: Sliders & Sweepers 53:32 Viewer + Listener Q&A 58:01 Joey Votto Signs with the Blue Jays Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Please fill out a quick survey to share your podcast habits with us by going to theathletic.com/survey24. Three lucky entries will win $100 worth of Amazon vouchers! Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Raids and Barrels, it's a live one, it's Friday, March 8th. Derek Van Rijper, Enosaurus, Trevor May, all here with you on this episode. We are going to dig into a bunch of recent stories that were written on the athletic including one that breaks down some of the secret sauce in the Rays organization with catching targets. We've got pitches that have multiple shapes as a way of expanding an arsenal, something that Sahadev Sharma wrote about, focusing on Justin Steele. We're going to expand on that a bit. We've got our deep dive focusing on sliders and sweepers and Eno had a collaboration piece

that just went out today with Ken Rosenthal looking at the possible links between sweepers and arm injuries, which is a great place to start. So Eno, you had this collaboration piece that just went up and the million dollar, maybe billion dollar question people have been racking their brains about doing research on for years is how do you keep pitchers healthy? Like that is the main question. And I feel like a lot of people try to work backwards. They try to find a thing that's causing guys to get hurt and reduce that or eliminate that.

But what do you think is really going on with the sweeper and some of the things you were looking at in this story? It's really difficult to talk about a pitcher injury. There are like camps that are like, we have the perfect mechanics. And like, if you pitched like we pitched, you would never get hurt. They're definitely those acolytes that are out there, they don't usually throw 102. And so that to me is the actual source of injury. It's Velo. If you look at it,

driveline has a piece about, if you just put the modus sleeve on the elbow and you test which ones stress your elbow the most, it's fastballs, it's the Velo. If you look at different studies, you know, Jeff Zimmerman's injury ratings on my pitching ranks, those are one of the biggest things in there is fastball Velo, you know, also previous injury, but fastball Velo. It's because there's been research from Glenn Fleisig at ASMI about how Velo itself is a big stressor sitting closer to your maximum Velo

is a big stressor. So, you know, there is a little bit of a thing where we're breaking ball Velo itself is a big stressor sitting closer to your maximum Velo is a big stressor. So, you know, there is a little bit of a thing where we're breaking ball Velo is maybe slightly more stressful per sort of mile per hour. But nobody's only Jake DeGrom and like Justin Verlander are throwing 90 mile an hour of sliders. I guess there's Hunter Brown. There's very few people who are doing that. And so I think it really is, the answer is it's Velo. Now, sweepers, there was the beginning thing was we need to chase this movement profile, but you will notice like I talked to Griffin Jax and he's like, why is my sleeper sweeper one of the best in the business? I throw it 88.

It still has like the same movement profile as these big sweepers and I throw mine 88. So that's why it's basically one of the top three sweepers in the game. So if you are going to do your hand and now like chase Velo on these big moving pitches, I think it's just as risky as sort of throwing a power curve at 85 and we've seen some people, Lance McCullers threw a power curve at 85. And we've seen some people, you know, Lance McCullers through a power curve at 85, he was hurt. Then he threw a sweeper at 84 and he was hurt. Which one hurt him more? I don't know. Craig Kimbrel has thrown the 85 mile an hour power curve forever. And he's actually been really healthy. I mean, he also throws really hard. So I think it's, I was saying to you off air, I think it's really frustrating to discuss injuries and pitching because A,

there's a matter of expertise that's really hard to achieve. Like I've read a lot of peer reviewed research and I don't consider myself an expert on pitching injury. And you know, the people who do know, speak in such a language that it's almost hard to keep up with them. And then we have it generally right now in our society, I think, a little bit of a distrust of experts.

And so, and then the experts themselves don't all necessarily agree on every bit about what injury is. And the last part we have is like an explosion of information and data and tech right now, where biomechanics is something that people are researching most of the time, they're using biomechanics is something that people are researching most of the time, they're using biomechanics to get more Velo

because that's where the money is. But we are also trying to use biomechanical research to keep pictures healthy. I mean, that is definitely part of arm care, part of simplifying people's deliveries, getting people to go get more of their energy toward home plate. There are different things in the biomechanical book

that are trying to keep pitchers healthier. They do care about that, but I would just say they care about Velo more and Velo's the big stressor. That's, I think, the math that's really going underlying everything. People want an answer, right? Like, should I throw this pitch or should I not throw this pitch? And unfortunately, it's just like most things in life, and it's pretty contextual. An answer right like should I throw this pitch or should I not throw this pitch and unfortunately

it's just like most things in life and it's pretty contextual and the really the things you can I think we're never gonna get past the point where there's like it's More specific than like a general like Velo will increase your stress in your arms. So therefore Probably logically injury now. That's not exactly true for everybody. There's guys who throw, who technically throw their breaking balls harder with more effort because they never threw really hard. So they use their fastball as something

to set up their breaking ball. Those guys in the big leagues like that, they're where the breaking ball is the most stressful because they actually put more effort. I'm just trying to throw hard at it. It's already very hard. Now those are outliers, but they exist. So, you know, it comes down and it comes out of that and I know that I know

Dr. Meister too is like he's always interested in something new in the game that a bitters doing and then how that affects like knowing what the effects of that could be is like because he does you know orthopedic surgeon does old Tom and John surgery So he like you need knowing that would, it will inform possible adjustments to surgeries later or where guys might be getting hurt in the same place or something. So like it is, like that's something that he's, he's just a really curious guy. If you ever met him, he loves surgery. That's what he sees. Like he sees the car crashes every day, you know? So he's like, he doesn't see necessarily all the people throwing sweepers that don't

see him. They don't get hurt or don't ever get hurt. Yeah. So he just sort of sees things through this. Like everybody's getting hurt. I mean, so he's thinking like, you know, sweepers are rampant and they're causing all these injuries. He's seeing some people with sweepers that are getting surgery, but last year

sweepers were 3% of all pitches thrown in baseball. I just don't think like that's what's causing like a rampant thing. However, there was something I really want your opinion on Trevor is that, you know, I had a pitching coach be like, I don't think the sweeper is that big a deal. It's just a it's like a curveball. It's just another curveball grip. You had a slightly different opinion just from having thrown a sweeper and you've thrown a curveball and you've thrown a sweeper. What was like, what was the difference sort of mechanically and for you like, you know, in that process?

A lot of it comes down to like, how a pitcher is thinking about the pitch. And so there's kind of two ways to kind of go about learning a new pitch. One is, and this is the one that I like to start with, is figuring out like how you naturally put pressure on the ball with your fastball and then like design a grip based on that. So you're not doing anything differently to achieve. You're

doing as little differently as possible to achieve the greatest effect you possibly can. But when it comes to a sweeper, most people don't throw a pitch that's similar because the spin axis is more of a sideways spin as opposed to a tumbling spin for a curveball. So you can think, I used to think like fastball, curveball were like opposites of each other or you're trying to think that they're not technically that because it's really hard to throw a perfect 12, 6, unless you're straight over the top. But whatever your arm angle is, you want your, the axis to be opposite of that angle, if that makes sense.

So that would be like, they're connected in that way, meaning like if this feels like it's associated with how your fastball feels. Now the sweeper, I've realized, it just felt different. So when you're feeling something different, that usually means something's moving in a different way than normal. Maybe you're not built up in that way. Maybe your arms are built up in the way.

And you might not be built up that way. That's the thing, like who knows if that's, if you're actually hitting a place in your arm that actually is fine to handle this and you'll be okay, you'll just get sore and then you'll get through it or if it's too weak. So then you're now we're getting into like guy by guy by guy, it's different for everybody. And but you are technically kind of throwing a pitch outside of that realm. So it's slightly different than a curveball and some guys think of it way differently. Some guys think of it very similarly. And that could, those small adjustments

could adjust how you're throwing it in the game, which might affect your, your getting hurt. So it's like, a lot of it has to do with that, just so you can repeat it. Because if you, if it feels weird every time and it feels differently weird every time, if you keep doing that, you're probably going to get hurt. Because that's, that's, that's what I look at. I go, how weird does this feel? Yeah, I do think there is some risk with like fads, you know, gonna get hurt. Cause that's what I look at. I go, how weird does this feel? Yeah, I do think there is some risk with like fads, you know, like, oh, we declare this the year of the cutter,

the year of the splitter, the year of the sweeper. And so then you have people who shouldn't necessarily be throwing it. Like there are over the top guys who are throwing sweepers and I'm like, I don't know that your biomechanics are set up very well. Your slot is set up very well for this. Like to me, a sweeper goes really well with a sinker

for almost the same reasons that you're talking about with the four seam fastball and a regular curveball is that the sinker and the sweeper are both kind of pitches you wanna be on the side of that kind of you are better for a certain slot, not over the top. There's kind of two thirds-ish kind of stuff. So if you are out there, you have a low spin efficiency

fastball, that's when I would talk to you about a sweeper, because I think it would fit your slot. It would fit your mechanics. It wouldn't feel that weird. So I did just talk to Brady Singer, and he's trying to do two new things this year. He's a sinker slider guy. He's got a power slider, and we talked about a sinker. Well, he's trying to throw a four He's a sinker slider guy. He's got a power slider. We talked about a sinker.

Well, he's trying to throw a four seam and a sweeper. And maybe that's actually a pretty good, at least the sinker and the sweeper part, you think is a pretty good combo. And since he has a power slider that can theoretically work against lefties, you know, the sweeper can get righties out and the four seam can give him a fastball option against lefties where he's not, we sort of showed that he's kind of throwing the sweeper can get righties out and the four seem can give him a fast ball option against lefties where he's not we sort of showed that he's kind of Throwing the sinker in places where lefties don't mind seeing it. So

Um, you know, he said he's getting 17 IVBs on that thing, uh, which I surprised me Um, and I think I offended him with my surprise I would have loved to be, do you like fall back a little bit? Like I was like, what? No, he saw the eyebrows move even behind the sunglasses and that was, I gave it away.

I got a text from PR, so. That's funny. That's really funny. We'll work it out. We'll work it out. I apologize. I was not trying to say anything was crappy. I was just, I was just like-

That surprises me too though, to be honest. I'm pretty surprised you can throw that kind of ride just based on his motion. That's what I was saying. I was like, oh, I was prepared to be, I was like, you don't need to get the big 17s and 18s because you're just trying to differentiate off your sinker, right?

And he's like, well, I'm getting 17s. I was like, oh. Well, well, well. And you look awesome. Is there something even if it's not a sweeper, off your sinker right and he's like, well, I'm getting 17s. I was like, oh, well, I'm a little there. I'm doing it. Awesome. Is there something, even if it's not a sweeper, like if you're just throwing a new pitch, does it usually feel a little weird?

And then is there an adjustment period that you're kind of okay with before you start to worry about causing a physical problem with something that you're doing differently? Yeah, when it comes down to it, like especially for me, I could not get anywhere near, uh, like, uh, game speed, not in a game.

So there's guys who can just throw 98 in the bullpen. I, I could not even touch like 92 in a bullpen. And then I go out in the game and be like, 96 first game. I need that. That's where I am. So I wouldn't know until I threw it in the games. And that's why I tended just to run and gun with it and just go out there with it. Cause it just, uh, that's how I needed to practice it. And I learned that with the games. And that's why I tended just to run and gun with it and just go out there with it because it just

That's how I needed to practice it and I learned that with the splitter It just never felt normal. Frankly Uh, it didn't I didn't get it didn't have enough time to get it there And I just kind of half baked it and then tried to run with it And this is not a pitch you do that with and so it actually ruined I tried to change everything else to get it closer to the splitter so the splitter felt normal and then I ruined everything else And then that also hurt too to change everything else to get it closer to the splitter. So the splitter felt normal and then I ruined everything else. And then that also hurt too, to change.

So there is a amount of time you want to like start to feel comfortable with it. Um, my mind was always like, how, how comfortable can I be the first day? And like how is, how through, through a catch play session of 40 throws, 50 throws, how close do I get to comfort in that one day? That'll tell me how quickly I'm going to pick this pitch up. If it's feeling okay, and I just don't know how it's moving yet, and it doesn't matter where I'm throwing it or command or anything, but if it feels okay, and I feel like, oh, I could get this quick, you kind of know intuitively quickly if it's going to be something that you're going to adjust to faster, if you're going to need more time, and if you need more time, that's

generally a higher injury risk. Another thing that Keith Meister said that was, and really a higher injury risk. Another thing that Keith Meister said that was, I would say that like just I'm less sure than him. Like I've just, I would rather, if he wanted me to say one thing, I'd say like, I think it's Velo, I don't know about anything beyond that. But one thing he was saying was that these, the power change up and the sweeper

require holding the ball harder because you're trying to get more spin and turn that spin into movement and that holding the ball harder is also part of this. We've done some research in, I've read some peer reviewed research, most of it says there's no relationship between grip strength and spin rates, but not all of it. And I just wondered, like,

what do you think when you think about holding the ball hard? Yeah, that also is like kind of, it's very interesting because of how the crazy range of grip strength is, like I actually sit there where everyone's doing the grip strength thing, like guys you think are like super strong, aren't team. Some guys who are like not, you wouldn't pay a super grip strength. They're like have super strong grip. Um, at the end of the day, you're trying to create a certain amount of friction on the ball to get it spin, but you also don't want it to stick in your hand.

So there, it's like a, there's a range of groups of, of, so has to leave your hands. Yeah. It doesn't leave your hands. If you're gripping it too tightly, like you're going to slow down the spin. It's like a bell. has to leave your hands. Yeah, to leave your hands if you're gripping it too tightly, like you're going to slow down the spin. It's like a bell. So, uh, if you think about it that way, like that's an adjustment in pitches you can make as well.

But like generally, if you're holding the ball tighter, like generally, obviously your, your, your muscles are more active, get fatigued faster. And then you could lead to, you know, more injury. That makes sense. And then you attach that to usually that's attached to Velo and trying to throw something harder or spin it faster, which then produces more Velo on generally. Did you like have pitching coaches that increase in the overtime? We're telling you to hold the ball harder.

They would say, have you tried gripping it tighter? Or have you tried? Okay. So that's something you've heard. That's an old, not old school because it's still a thing, but like, that was one of the adjustments you could have made when you're trying to pick something. I've also heard the other way,

like barely hold it, like it's a cloud, like for your change up. Like I never even knew that I was comfortable. Like I was trying to help guys throw their change ups because they would just rip the crap out of them because it didn't feel comfortable. And they couldn't, it didn't feel like it was slipping out of their hand

all the time. But that was never a problem for me. It just sat in there like a pickleball scoop. Like I could just, you know, like a chuck it. I could just throw a change up. It was just like of their hand all the time, but that was never a problem for me. It just sat in there like a pickleball scoop. Like I could just, you know, like a chuck it. I could just throw a change up. It was just like natural for me. So all of that stuff goes in, goes together as well. But yeah, I think the grip strength generally,

like that's a pretty, I feel like that's a, again, it's a very general thing. We're like, if you're gripping the ball harder, like class now said it's about the sticky stuff thing. Yeah, I did. Gripping the ball way tighter because I can't throw them because I'm just worried about my curve ball sucking now. And I'm like, I mean, that was kind of an admission,

but at the same time, like, Yeah. But at the same time, like, if you don't think every single, anyone was trying to somehow get the ball prepped in some way that it feels comfortable every single time because the balls are different every time, then you're crazy.

Everyone had something. There's very few guys who were like, that is right out there and grab whatever. He could just grab a high school ball and just rip a curve ball. Like, but that was just his. But that was also something interesting coming out of the minors, how different the ball was in the minors. You see, they're trying to like make it more normal now.

But like, it used to be the scenes were totally different. I had some pitcher tell me like I got to the majors and I tried to my normal arm path and the ball just like I just lost it. It went straight up But that said it is it is actually I noticed this last year the standardization of the balls was better They really was it wasn't could have been being in California. I mean that's helpful But that was a whole thing too. So yeah, all that stuff's kind of correlated for sure Ever try to break a bad habit and feel like you're climbing Everest in flip flops

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Let's move on to another story that came out this week. This was about catcher targets and the rays, really simplifying things for a lot of pitchers they acquire, basically getting guys to trust their stuff in the zone by giving them one target. And we talked about this during our meeting a couple days ago, Trevor, you said you were kind of like onto this because of, I think, a Shane McClanahan start where he threw something like 60 pitches with the same target and was just still dominant anyway.

I was so excited when you're like, did you see the article written about a raised catchers? And then I'm like, let me guess what it was about. And it wasn't about them all having one target? And he's like, yeah. So, you know, I try not to tell stories, but like this needs to be told. This is just perfect for this example. Last year I'm on the aisle, the anxiety aisle, and I'm trying to figure out the,

the pitch clock and how to smooth, speed things up for myself and just simplify it. Like my process of deciding what to throw because I realized how complicated it was and that it was really, like I had to keep an eye on the clock to make sure I had time. And that wasn't a way, I just realized that wasn't a way I was gonna be able to pitch or anybody can pitch. So I was like, what's a simple way to do it?

And I've always, I had to comp because I was starting to throw sweepers more too. I started, I comp myself to Jason Adams. So that's where this started. I was like, I was watching Jason Adams starts or not starts outings. I'm like, okay, so what are they doing? He's moving. He moves really quick too. And he's got three pitches. And he knows, like, what's he doing? Because we throw kind of the same arsenal a little bit. And, you know, he's got a crazy sweeper. But like that we were doing the same type things. I'm like, if I did that, like, I could, you know,

turn things around a little bit here. So I just watched him. And then I noticed, like, I could, you know, turn things around a little bit here. So I just watched him and then I noticed like, uh, it's catcher and move ever. And then I got, I'm like, okay, well, let's bring up the ace then. Let's bring up a clan. I had, what are they doing for him? So he's the guy who would like all, he throws all the pitches and he's like, they're ace and maybe he has more freedom move guy around. I go, look, and they're sure enough, six straight pitches up and into righties,

up and into righties and big, big target up like bottom of the mask, both Mahia and Bethancourt were doing it too. So I'm like, this isn't just a guy. We're realizing how they keep getting the pitching like this because they're simplifying it and they're saying this is what you do best. Just throw everything. They love tunneling except for we talked about Eflin. He's the only guy who's an INT tunneler. He's not, he wasn't tunneling everybody else. But they aim for this target and just throw all your pitches off it. And then these are the way your shapes move. So like you're going to, you're going to get good results if you constantly throwing out of this tunnel. So I did the thing, did that same thing.

I templated it out my own. I go, okay, I'm going to do this. I told Shay Langley, we're going up and into Therides with a big target. Cause my slider would be a strike. My sweepers still be a strike. My changeable fade down and in and we'll get the swings that I want. And the fast will go open in. That's my swing of myths.

I'm like, like this is is gonna be great to pretty much everybody And we don't have to fiddle around for the clock stuff. You don't have to fiddle around with no I just know it's three options every time it's one target So I don't have to tell you what side I don't have anything you just you just go slider and then put it right in the same place And then we adjusted because umpires were just calling strikes for strikes They were even better this year than where you're before so it's like they're getting better at it and They're not getting fooled as much and then we could so let's just take advantage Of this and frankly Shay's like I'm not trying to grab strikes all the time anyways like let's stay in the zone

Let's actually throw real strikes. I don't need to Steal everything. I remember doing that. I talked to Shay. She's like, yeah Let's just say he's awesome and he's just like that's awesome It's a great idea and we did it and then I came back and then kind of was Jason Adam for the rest of year But another guy I had a conversation with so of was Jason Adam for the rest of here. But another guy I had a conversation with, so I was super excited about this. I talked to Fuji Nami about it. I said, hey, where's your main target?

Where's your one fastball you can throw? He said down middle. I think I mentioned that. Don't throw it there. Just never throw your fastball down the middle or throw it low. Never. Throw up. And I was like, just have you set up middle and let your splitter work off of it and your

slider work off of it and your fastball. And he started doing that. His walk rate dropped to a three instead of, you know, 12 for nine. And, you know, he, he, it took a little bit, but he, he revert back into like getting fine a little bit, but just let your stuff play. And then he took that to Baltimore. I talked to, I talked to James McCann, we got traded. I said, Hey, he wants to do everything, get him on his best pitches and have him just give him one target and you'll be all right. And he did it. And then I actually, frankly, I talked to Hefner this off season about it.

I'm like, hey, because he knows we've had that conversation, something adjacent to that. So like, so expect big things out of Fuji Nami again, in my opinion, I think it's going to be, he's going to keep getting better. But like, yeah, if something I noticed, just looking at a guy from the team was like, why is he so good? And Trevor, that is so hilarious. I came up to Shay at some point and was like, have you thought about one target for Fuji?

I talked to him about that in like, because I've been aware of this race thing for a while and I was just like, Fuji's all over the place. And so I brought it up to Shay in May. She doesn't. I told him June, so that's. But he doesn't know me from anybody. So like, he was kind of like, okay, you know.

But like, maybe I primed him for it. Then he was like, oh, okay, this is the second time I'm hearing him. Maybe I should listen. Yeah, I love it. So I mean, I think it's a little bit, I think it's a little bit, it goes a little bit against like,

what the catchers want to think they do. You know, it's like, it's a little bit goes a little bit against like What the catchers want to think they do you know, it's like it's almost too simple It's like no, I'm a catcher man Like I like I provide good targets and like I and I steal you know I steal strikes and it's nice for shade to be like hey like that's cool Yeah, do you want to make my job easier and it's better for you like we don't have to I don't have to give you eight targets Yeah, well, I mean I I feel like receiving one is too. The race catchers generally are pretty well rated. Not always before they get them.

It's one of the things that they get better at when they go somehow. Like, the A's didn't think Bencourt was a catcher. Yeah. And they go over there and like, no, one target. We're going to simplify things. And he wasn't the greatest receiver with a cannon arm, but he wasn't the greatest receiver. That's usually kind of the thing.

And then you make it simple where you're just getting the, you're, you're never giving away anything and you're grabbing a couple extra ones. That's the difference between being a really good receiver and being a bad receiver. Plus you've got a peaker at bat. If you've just got one target every time and they're peaking, you're like, peek away, dude. Same target as last time. Every handful of pitches, there'd be like a late move or something because they're trying to get it way enough to play.

They're trying to get it off, right? They're trying to frame. Sometimes they might might want to have your glove in a slightly different place. Well, for the most part, it was just boom. And then as soon as you started to deliver, you looked away or whatever, they would like creep towards where they're like going to get their comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. But you have the you have that target in your head and it's only that target ever.

So it's easy if it moves to stay there. It's just way more simple that way. Seems really logical, but yeah, everyone wants to make things. You're in the big leagues, you want to be complicated, but sometimes it's not. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. It's just come back to cleaning up mechanics, being more consistent to get everything to work

more effectively. Is that the big part of it from the pitching side? It's up here, I think, being aggressive in the zone. So you play where you're trying to throw the ball, like you're like, okay, this is my intent. But if you went by like one, here's a standard I always have within two inches. So like if the ball is two and a quarter inches across,

what is it? So whatever it is, that plus two inches on either side of the ball and that becomes a spot and that's a hit spot. Like guys hit those, hit their spots. Even the best guys with the best command hit their spots like 30% and like it's like in that close as good, but like people aren't as pinpointed as they,

as they, I think they are. Most guys aren't, there's a couple are, but they're most guys aren't. So you play your misses too. So you're like, if I throw it here, it's going to be great. But if I miss, where am I going to miss? And you try to think about that, like, am I going to get hurt or is that still going to be in the strike zone? And I'm still not going to get hurt. Will this be a strike and I won't give up a homer? Then I'm in. But now you have this confidence, like, it's a kind of win-win in your head.

And the more of those you can create in your head, the more you're in the zone, the more you're getting ahead, which is the gent, because hitting is harder than pitching generally. It just kind of is. So you're letting guys get themselves out more often, not and you're going to get beat a couple of times. But if it's only because you're missing spots, then that's something you can work on, as opposed to getting beat because you're making bad decisions. So they're just kind of taking the decision parts out of it, make good decisions every time. And then let's go from it, kind of like a poker player. Play the hands right. Don't get all excited. Just play the hands right. I know it's boring sometimes, it's simple, but if you really want to win and you do this more often than not, you're going to be okay. It's very similar. That could be hard though as a pitcher, especially like a reliever where it's one bad outing.

It's boring. And yeah, and also just like one bad outing and you're just like, damn, my ERA is going to be bad for three months. Yep. You know, and you, like someone's like, hey, hey, this new idea, let's do that. And then you even go out in a spring game and you get blasted and you're like, well, there goes that idea.

Well, that's gone. I've never done that again. We can afford to. Yeah, it sucks to make adjustments in games as early or in season. It really sucks. Games are bullpen. We gotta be ready every day.

Yeah, Chad's piece had a few examples of that. Like Pete Fairbanks getting smashed coming off the IL and being upset and Kyle Snyder, the pitching coach, saying, no, just trust that it's gonna work. And it did. He reeled off a amazing stretch after that. And it's just sort of like getting the situation constantly in your favor.

Like the thing that Chad pointed out is every raised pitcher seems to cite the 95% statistic of a first pitch quality strike They say yields a positive result 95 times out of 100 So ideally it's a quick out but every take swing and miss or follow ball puts the pitcher in control that at bat Yes, 5% of the time that first pitch gets hammered But the raise loved those odds and will live with the outliers right? Yeah I think that more swinging on first pitching is something they should do because the difference in OPS between one one is so big that pitchers are always going to be in

the strike zone for the first pitch that that's that they're going to always want to be in the strike zone for the first pitch. And if you know they're always going to want to be in the strike zone, then it's only a question of which pitch it is. And you don't have to actually think about location as much because it's probably going to be in pitch it is. And you don't have to actually think about location as much because it's probably gonna be in the strike zone. So how many other accounts are there? There are other accounts, but how many other accounts are there

where you can be like, they're gonna be in the zone. The best one is zero, zero. You don't even know you'll ever get to three, zero. Yes, three, zero, they're probably gonna be in the zone. I've think about it more from like, if you're expecting a strike, you can a-swing off you can just guess and Be rewarded for it because you're narrowing down the possibilities of what's going to show up in the zone By just saying okay, I think in this instance this picture is probably going here with this take a hack at it

It's oh one if you're wrong not the end of the world, so it's a pretty interesting thing to to think about Let's move on to our next topic, which I think is something we've wrestled with for a long time on this show. So Hatt of Sharma wrote a story about Justin Steele and Eno and I have wondered how does Justin Steele do it seemingly with two pitches, right? Fastball slider, that's what you see and he gets guys to take uncomfortable swings, he gets guys kind of given that look as they walk back to the dugout like, what the heck? Why didn't I hit that?

And there's a bunch of guys in the league like this, but I think Steel's a really good recent example of someone who's reached a level that very few people would have projected or expected. And Sahadev's story focuses on how Justin Steele uses multiple shapes of those pitches. So you might look at baseball savant and see something like this. It's fast, but it's four seamer slider. It's almost entirely four seamer slider, but it's not that simple. It's not just a four seamer that looks the same every time or a slider that looks the same every time.

There are these wrinkles. So Trevor, how common is it for guys to have multiple variations of a small arsenal that might look like a two-pitch arsenal on paper, but play more like four or five pitches in the minds of hitters? It's definitely rare. He is, uh, he's actually, Justin Seales, like, become a favorite amongst pitchers because they just, he just makes it look so easy. And it feels like, again, like we look up, there is a two-pitch pitcher. He's not, but like everyone's like, oh, he's, he just does it look so easy. And again, we look up, he's a two-pitch pitcher.

He's not, but everyone's like, oh, he just does it with two pitches. He's doing this well, but it's very clear he manipulates the ball in different ways, which is very, very interesting. But not many guys can do it. I mentioned in our prep meeting for this, Sergio Aromo was a guy,

whoever was like, oh, it's just a slider guy. He threw three different sliders. He could throw a sweeping one. He could throw a both two plain one. He could throw a depth one. So it was like, it was a curveball kind of the whole time, but it just, he could change the direction in which it was, uh, he can manipulate it towards the end of there. He was like, he was, he roll out of bed and do it. So the guys like this exist. So you see on, on this graphic too, we talked about this, the circles like that slider circle right there, that is really big. And the

bigger that is, it's the wider range of different kinds of movements and VELOS attached to that pitch. I actually went and found a few, I put an overlay in, I don't know if it's usable, but it's of three different pitches that are all classified as sliders for Justin Steele. And here's the three different movement profiles on those three. So all three of them are between 82 and 84 miles an hour. So I don't have the exacts here, but I know that for sure. These range from 23.1 inches of horizontal, negative 25 vert, that was a big one.

That could be a curve ball, but it's also a lot of horizontal. That's kind of a sweeper. That was a big one. That could be a curveball, but it's also a lot of horizontal. That's kind of a sweeper That was at 82 And then he has one at 18 and 0 for so that's up three inches of vert Which is and this one was 84 so it was harder and moved a little bit more to plane and then he has one at 85 So you can see the little L that's making right there Then he is or 86 that one up that was up right there

was 8.5 horizontal 4.6. So that's a cutter. And those are all classified as sliders on Savant. That's what he's doing. He's trying to get things he thinks I bet you he knows whether or not guys hit the harder ones worse or they hit the softer ones worse or if he wants more of a backdoor situation for like,

you know, he's doing it. He's doing that in real time, but it's like very similar grips for him. It's very natural. So we can like play that game. And then I bet the catcher just goes, Slider me could mean any of those things. Towards the end, like I only had one grip. For example, we only had one. We'd Slider as our sweeper and Slider pitch call last year.

I was throwing a Slider 86 and a sweeper at 80. Like those are different. Those are very different. But shake got figured it out. He's like, I know when it's probably gonna be sweeper and when it's probably gonna be slider. I just like, I'm going with you. I can't even know what you're doing.

You have my hand in this and count. Yeah, a lot of times. Yeah, yeah. And then towards the end, I'm throwing a sweeper earlier and counts. He's like, okay, I'll be ready for it at all times. And then it was fine. I never had to tell him.

So like, I guarantee you they have that situation of going over there too. But that's why he's been so good because how do you game plan for that when you look? And it says there's only two pitches. And you go face and you're like, I just got three different sliders. Like it would help me out.

And they're like, I don't know. I don't know what he's doing. And then he beats you lose. Now, when everyone hears that conversation happening, they're like, well, I guess go get him tomorrow. And that's kind of what happened all year. Yeah, that's that look of confusion though. I was like, well, I guess go get them tomorrow. And that's kind of happening. Yeah. That's that look of confusion, though.

I was like, wait a minute, that wasn't supposed to be there. The report said this. And I think part of this is also how steel keeps a pretty low home run rate too. Like I think everyone, everyone in a lot of the circles for fantasy baseball think, oh, home run rates, like it's pretty noisy and it is. But I think there is some skill to maintaining a lower home run rates, like it's pretty noisy and it is, but I think there is some skill to maintaining a lower home run rate that goes beyond just getting the ball on the ground, right?

It's not just ground ball rate. And I think these types of wrinkles, to me, are a satisfactory sort of explanation for how you would sustain a better than average home run rate year over year without having guys just pounding the ball on the ground. And if they think it's a slider, but they got the cutter version of the slider then that's going to be slightly off the barrel. And it might be contact but it might not be good contact. And so yeah, I tend to think that any successful guy that we think is a two-pitch pitcher has

been doing something like this because that seems to be when I kind of talk to people that I'm sort of surprised about. Like they're like, oh yeah, there's kind of, you know, my first example is Shane Green who, you know, had like four breaking balls. And I do think the thing that becomes difficult about it is keeping some sort of differentiation in your mind, being able to actually replicate the shapes that you're trying to replicate. It takes a lot of touch and feel, I think, to be able to throw three breaking balls or four breaking balls. Max Scherzer told me that one of the big things he does between starts is try to find all the

breaking balls because he now, you know, it doesn't show up in the, in the, in every book, but like he now throws like a power slider. He throws a cutter, a power slider, a regular slider, a slow slider and a curve. And I don't know, you know, I don't think any of them are actually a sweeper, but some of them are more horizontal and some of them are more vertical, some of them are more speedy, some are slower.

And when you have that many breaking balls, it craves a lot of touch, tries a lot of work in between. And like when you, like just imagine like you think you're throwing one, you throw the other, that could go right into the hitting zone. So I think it's, I think what I'm trying to say is I think it's still somewhat risky to have quote unquote two pitches as Justin Steele does because there's so much touch required in keeping those different breaking balls separated,

you know, that what he could just easily lose that touch or, you know, it's really kind of small movements. He may have the same grip on all of them, you know, and it's just a little bit of finger pressure in a different place or just intent. He's like, I'm gonna throw this one harder and it does this. When I throw this one over there, it intent. I'm gonna throw this one harder and it does this. When I throw this one over there, it does this. When I throw this one softer, it does this.

That might be all it is. And so I feel like there's still some risks that can blend together. I don't know, maybe Trevor has a different idea, but like, I do think that if you are getting super fine with it, like there is some risks that you do the wrong thing with it. They're all attached to each other. So that's a good point. So if you lose a feeling one, the chance you you feel loose feel on all of them are as high because they're all

kind of related. And so if that grip, if you use the same grip for everything, you lose kind of the feel of that grip, you're probably going to lose some feel for the for all the other places. So if they're not distinguished, it's not something you can be okay, plan B, this is feels like a difference. So maybe I'll feel, I'll get myself going here. Sometimes I did that with my, I had no fast, I could not throw a fast ball for a strike, so I need to throw some straight changeups in the zone because that would get me better around the zone.

What's the saying, different day, different arm? Yeah, exactly. So like, You get out there and you're just like, whoa, today, this slider's no good. What do you do if you're just still? You might get two pitch-pitcher with four pitches, but then it's very easy for you

to turn into one pitch-pitcher. So it goes like either you have four or one. Yeah, right. That can give you like, yeah, your parachute isn't very good in this, your backup. You don't really have a backup. So having a change-up or a split or something, that even if it's not good, that you can just go to for, I mean, he does, technically, but it was a 1% usage. And that curveball, the curveballs he threw,

those were sliders, they were bigger. But I talked to Dave Regetti about Sergio Arromo, it's funny you brought him up. And I was like, why is this home run rate high? He strikes out a lot of people, and is it just that he's a fastball slider guy and lefties are taking him deep? And Regetti thought, no, when you throw that many sliders,

some days you just lose the feel. And it's sort of what you're talking about. You know, it's like, it's just, it's slider after slider after slider. And I feel like, you know, that can happen with the fastball. Yes. You can have a day where your fastball command is off and it's totally not there. Right. But at least when your fastball command is off, at least it's 95 still.

You know what I mean? If your slider command is off, at least it's 95 still. You know what I mean? If your slider command is off, it's 85. And it's not moving. You know? It's 80. When the command tends to leave too, you can't, it's not very good either. So it's also not sharp. They go together, which, which that's.

Now these cement mixers at 80, which one's easier to hard? A misplay, easier to hit, like a misplaced 95 on our fastball or like a misplaced cement mixer 80 mile an hour slider thing And you're right on Sergio by the way his came in his came guys who have him come in bunches It's usually and he'd give up like two in an outing and then two in the next outing And I just would not give a run for two months That's like that's how Sergio was but like overall his home run would be because he would just lose it for a couple days It'd be tired or sore or whatever and he'd give a bunch of homers That exactly that's exactly what happened, but it would never happen consistently

It's always like little isolated like one week. Just lost the slider for a couple days There were two questions from discord about this It was alerts on the server that was asking and even the first question I was for you Is this an area where stuff plus may be missing out having multiple shapes within the same pitch would that kind of spit out a strange result? Theoretically, no, not among secondaries because every pitch is looked at separately. Pitch type doesn't mean as much among secondaries. Now, like if he was doing this in the fastballs, maybe. I think guys that have multiple fastballs and have great feel for all of them may actually

Be tough for stuff plus because stuff plus wants to find your primary pitch and build everything off of that So if you have three fastballs stuff plus is theoretically being like oh, which one do we define it off of I don't know You know and that's the hitters doing the same thing if you got three fastballs the hitters like oh if it's hard It's crap. One of the three things. You know, that's why Lance Lynn was so good for so long. It was hard, yes, but you didn't know which one it was. But what, among sliders, Stuff Plus is looking at each pitch separately. So it might like the sweepy one more and one of the other ones less, but it's evaluating each of them separately. The other question that came in

I thought was kind of interesting was for Trevor specifically, is it beneficial for a pitcher to throw maybe their nastiest slider, someone like Romo? If you got three different sliders, do you throw the nastiest one first or maybe throw the least amount of break first earlier in the count, kind of steal the strike

and then throw the filthiest one later? Like how do you set up a hitter using the variations? Is that something that you would always want to do if you had that in your toolbag? I think especially with a guy like Sergio, you know, didn't throw super hard and kind of had the, it was just known for the slider. He did throw a lot more changeups, the guys that people think. But, uh, it was just a very, very high usage of that pitch. You might, that has to be part of your sequencing.

And so you're choosing, you might just randomly jumble them up and pick one that you wanna throw first or depending on the guy, cause he was pretty smart and you had faced a lot of guys and knew them all pretty intuitively on like what type of, if they're trying to jump you earlier, if they're trying to jump you late, if it was one of those guys,

and those are patterns that have actually really, really become clearer and clearer with scouting reports on hitters, like they are looking, they have counts that they know are their most advantageous for them, and that's when they take their big swings or take their shots or throw your nasty one man and just kind of save it. You can know that now a little bit more. It's the same thing kind of like, I try to make decisions with the gyro and the sweeper last year. The sweeper was trying to get the miss and the, because no one was swinging the miss in my gyro,

but guys were hitting on the ground and hitting it earlier. So I would try to go earlier with the harder one and later with the softer one. And then you even said, you told Shay, I'm out, we're gonna switch it up. Yeah. Cause people started to notice that, like they would be like, okay, now I have two strikes

and I'm probably gonna be a sweeper here. And then I would, I was getting guys frozen with the gyro. Because I was gonna break more and it was harder. And that's the big Sergio Aromo moment with Miguel Cabrera to win the world series. To the heater. Yeah. Because he thought a hundred percent of the slider. And he said it.

Like, I thought that was a slider. You have to just say slider. Like you have like in that situation, I just guess wrong. It froze me. As it turns out, sliders and sweepers are the deep dive. We keep talking about. Which seems like everything's falling into place perfectly. I mean Trevor you were just talking about the gyro versus the sweeper I mean those are kind of the two ends right if you think of sliders being on a spectrum of just

One and one and we have this we had the other end We have that what are the key differences here like how help people of understand, like they used to be classified as the same. They got split out as separate pitches. So what are we looking at here? The reason they got split out as different pitches is because of the idea of pitch design. So people are like, I want to make this pitch do something specific.

And then so their movement profiles being pretty different became more and more important for pitchers to distinguish when they were making the pitch. So like that's why it became a word that was being used by pitchers a lot is because it was literally a different pitch in their mind because they were trying to learn it and they didn't want it to be a gyro. So that distinction happened, then we started using the terms. The interesting thing just sweeper goes sideways and gyros are two-plane or more depth generally. That's just kind of

what it is. Gyros also tend to be harder than sweepers. Like I mentioned earlier in the show, you want to slow down a sweeper to get it to move. Or maybe I said that right before the show. I actually can't remember. But you want it to slower is actually a little bit better. See Jason Adam throwing at 77 and getting through 25 inches. Slower is actually better because Seam Shifted Wake, the thing that keeps the ball up can act on it longer and it generally does stay Like you don't lose your seam shift awake as the pitch goes like other pitches would with gravity Like it stays on that buffer of air until he catches it for a lot of times you throw a really good one So we started making the distinguish

Distinguish them that way so that you could design one or design the other one But gyro I mean a lot of people Like they think of the old school people think of that as like dice k throwing the the gyro, I mean a lot of people, they think of the old school people, think of that as like dice-k throwing the gyro, right? But in reality, it was like a looser slider that didn't break the same way that like the guys who were trying to throw the dot or the tight dot, you see the bullet spin of the dot, that's traditional slider, that's kind of what a gyro is now. Like that's what we use our that term now to use it. It's a traditional slider that you're trying to

get. The however it moves naturally for you. I threw that too. I got more depth. I always had more depth. I really struggled with horizontal, but it was okay because it worked with my forcing fastball. It was basically a hard curveball without the action on the pitch. It was just the way it moved and the way I threw. It was a little weird. The spin didn't really tell you how it was going to move like other people's were going to move. Well, that's a big component of the gyro is that the spin does not contribute to movement. It's a very low spin efficiency pitch. So it's spinning, but it doesn't move.

So that's, I think, one of the better gyro sliders in the league right there. That's Yusei Kukuchi. Let's see it again. It's just, it's hard, it's 90 and it looks like a bullet. And it just goes down a little bit. Yeah. And it just goes down a little bit versus your fastball though. There's a big difference because your fastballs have ride and, and, and sink. And so they're doing a lot of things that the foreseem, so the bullet slider is different from the fastball. But, you know,

we have these, these like sort of movement ways, describe movement. And one of the ways you can describe a gyro is often, you'll hear pictures say, I want to get zero zero or I want to get close to zero zero. And that means like just a bullet. And here what we're looking at is, you're looking at Velo versus drop. Drop is on the Y axis, Velo is on the X axis

and stuff plus is best. Basically you see how Velo just makes everything better. But Velo plus drop, I think, are probably the best gyrosliders. So that's maybe the power curvy, you know, the kind of just hard, but has some downward. Those are the best gyrosliders. In black is, you say, Cucuchis right there, the black dotted line. So he's in the red, he's in the good spot.

That's a good place to be, hard breaking balls. We talked about this in context with injuries, but the best thing you can do with a gyro, I think is make it 90 and have, you know, like a zero vert. That'd be, that's the dark red right there. That's like the Goldilocks zone for a tunnel with your fastball too. Because the move, you don't want to pitch to move

too much differently than your fastball. So slower it gets and the bigger it moves, the more, the more earlier it breaks generally and doesn't tunnel to your fastball, which is an issue I had in 22 and changed my slider grip in order to make it smaller and harder. And I remember the first one I threw coming back

after I had like three swings and misses on it all year. And it was like July. And then I threw it the next one I threw was a punch out the next, just the next one I threw. So I was like, at 88, I was like, Oh, it works. So yeah, that's that's the big thing too. You want it. So you throw a dry row, you want it to you're tunneling with your fastball sweeper to but you're also getting you're getting more chases and you're trying to get it to move more. And it's just a little bit of a different setup. But so that's just kind of what people are doing. Well, the nice thing about a gyroslider is also the platoon splits are smaller, like

right, like that. And it's easier to command because it's a smaller shape. So was that the gyroslider was something that you could do other than the changeup that you could do lefties lefties Yeah, I threw one sweep or do lefty and almost almost like only only Eddie Rosario could get out of the way of this Shade go and caught it and I'm like Yeah, that's that's Eddie I'm like I might have been in the swing that was three But yeah, I had to stay fastball change up after that.

And he got me a double into the corner. So I wish I would have thrown a better one. But yeah, I threw a lot more gyros to lefties 100%. And also my splits against like, they really struggled with it as well. Like they actually hit it worse than my change up. So I was like, the fastball was actually thinking of me hit fit.

So I was like, I got both change up and slider to lefties. And then I have sweeper slider, fastball change up varieties. It's a pretty good place to be. Theoretically, if you're like evaluating you say, kukuchi, like, can he be a starting pitcher? Can he be successful against right handers? You know, one thing you have to think about is like, you know, I was talking to a pitching coach that said that the two, what he thinks are most important is that you have a command pitch and an action pitch that work against each side. most important is that you have a command pitch and an action pitch that work against each side. So he said the easiest way to do this is ask, does he have a fastball and does he have a cutter or gyroslider? You know, does he have a forcing fastball and does he have a cutter or gyroslider?

And if the answer is yes to both of those, then you can be a starting pitcher, even though you're a quote unquote two-pitch pitcher, because at the very least you have two pitches that work against the left and two pitches that work against the right. I tend to think that you say Kukuchi is going to be fine. I think the curveball addition is good and widening his arsenal is good, but with a guy with bad natural command, which I think even Kukuchi might agree with, you have these hard shapes. You have the hard fastball the hard small slider That was a really good foundation to give someone that needs to get guys from both sides out and also doesn't have great natural command

I was trying to see if I had the leaderboard handy for just the just the slider since they are separate and I would Imagine Kukuchi did well Overall, yeah, it was a plus eight and run value, not like at the top of the board. Sometimes the run values way higher on pitches that you can surprise people with. And like people know he's gonna throw that slider over and over again and still he has good values on it.

Yeah, I mean, the thing that changed everything for him too was just getting the walk rate down. He was in the 6% range last year, which seemed impossible the first couple of seasons that we saw Kikuchi pitching in the big leagues. I think we should watch this out of vino clip here for a second for like a great extreme sweeper example. Let's watch it again.

Like what are you supposed to do there? It's like 20 inches. That was, that was really good. Do he has one from, I think it's 22 of Duvall swinging on it. It's almost off the camera frame. Well, it might have been the biggest miss of that year. That that's one to also just go look up if you ever get a minute. I would have to do it here, but it's it's great.

And you've all swings. He's like, yep, I was sitting sinker. And he had no problem. The 30 inches the other way. I love him and Ren fro. They'll they'll swing a miss by six feet if they don't care. This one is the same as the last one in terms of Velo is on the X axis, but on the Y axis this time is horizontal movement.

And again, you'll see the same kind of movement pattern where yes, Velo is good for sweepers. You know, Griffin Jacks always told me that the reason why my sweepers are one of the best in the game is I throw it 88. You know, and it has, it still gets the 15s or whatever, you know. And what you see here is, if you follow the line there for 80, I think what we're looking at is sunny grays in black and that's, that's in a great spot. But if you follow the line for 88 and 15s, you grays in black and that's that's in a great spot but if you follow the line

for 88 and 15s you find Griffin Jackson he's solidly in a dark red spot too so uh I like I like when the the interaction charts show you this which is like you know this is a takeaway you can have what's good for sweepers really big horizontal movement and Vilo. And so if you can combine anything over 85 with anything over 15, you've got a good sweeper. You can do better at 82 with a sweep. You can do fine with 82, but then you have to get sort of 20s. Yeah, you get tons of movement. You've got to have the tons of movement. So there's just a kind of almost, it looks like a linear relationship between horizontal movement and Velo, where you're just like, you know You better get a lot of Velo if it doesn't have the good sweep

Or you got to get a lot of sweep if it doesn't have the good Velo Yeah, I think this is interesting too because Gray is a top the sweeper run value leaderboard And he throws that pitch like 20% of the time It was a plus 19 by far the most effective sweeper and run value I think he should have changed it up a little bit in the postseason. It was such a good pitch. What are you gonna tell him not to throw it? Yeah, that's just off the charts. Good. Ohtani pretty high on that list with a plus nine. A lot of relievers. Justin Lawrence, Evan Phillips, Stephen Wilson, Brooks Rayleigh all really

high up on that list for last season. Well, it has bad platoons. We talked about how the gyroslider has good platoons, so we talked about how the gyro slider has good platoons, which the sweeper, I think they just see it. It has such big movement, it's a little bit slower usually, and for a lefty, they just see that thing forever. And I think that lefties mostly just take it, but even when they do swing at it, they're like, this thing's coming middle, middle, I can see it, and they can see it and see it and see it.

And so, you know, that's why I think you see more sweepers among relievers. And I think that's why you see that like, we're discussing if sweepers are hurting people and there's 3% of the population. It's like, we had this whole craze about a thing that was thrown 3% of the time in big leagues. It was because more and more people realized,

hmm, I can't use this against lefties. So like, yeah, it's a good one against righties. But like Jameson tie on was like, Oh, look at my new sweeper. And then he, he had the terrible first half. And by this, by the second half, he's like, okay, now I know how to like fold the sweeper into the other things I do. I'm not going to be like, look at this great sweeper I throw every time. And, you know, try to throw it to Eddie Rosario. Don't do that. Well, you got to throw it to a free swing.

Yeah, yeah, it might be the one person. I'm not waiting for it to come back over. He saw it out of your hand. He's like, I'm swinging. I'm going to swing it. Makes sense to me if you're going to throw one to a lefty, throw it to him. We'll take a few questions of anybody else on stream has them. And I got one that caught my eye really early on.

The question was from James. Is that the Airbnb that smells like meat? Oh yeah, I've had an Airbnb where the elevator went out and I had to do 11, 12 flights of stairs this week, up and down from my apartment. The bed is a sofa bed. The actual bed I'm supposed to sleep on I thought would be a regular bed is a sofa bed. And for some reason it smells like meat. And you know it's not totally unpleasant. It's

somebody cooking for themselves and people live there. That's an okay thing. I can't tell you not to cook meat. But when I come back at like 10 or 11 and I just want to go to bed, meat is not what I want to smell. It's like, oh, bulgogi. You can eat that. Like your neighbor or something? Every night? I think it's a design flaw.

So it's one of these buildings that's supposed to be like a hotel, but you could stay, you could live there, something in between. They don't have any hoods. So if you're cooking, that smell is just permeating your apartment And I guess the apartment next to yours and so I feel like that's not legal I don't know why I feel like having a hood is like part of having to I don't know I feel like that's not like something code. Yeah, it's gotta be that's gotta be part of the code You have to have some kind of ventilation especially enough high-rise come on

I would assume it's a flaw of the ventilation code. You have to have some kind of ventilation, especially enough high rise. Come on. I would assume it's a flaw of the ventilation system. However it is. We got a more on-brand question for us here from Saul, which pitchers that throw a sweeper would benefit from a gyro slider given that it's easier to control? Well, I always thought like, Clark Schmidt throws a cutter and a sweeper and it's like, I think that he could almost throw a gyro, not necessarily because of control,

but just because against lefties. He's really searching for something against lefties. You know, Hayden Wesnenski throws a sweeper and has control issues. And he has a cutter. So a lot of the, like one of the packages you have for a pitcher is kind of cutter, sinker, sweeper. Because again, like we were talking about earlier, the mechanics are somewhat similar

in a lot of those pitches. And I guess you just don't want to have them throwing like three breaking balls and loose touch on all of them. Aaron Savalli has done this thing where he's a curveball cutter guy and he de-emphasized the slider with the guardians. And I think it's because of command. But the Rays were like, we're going to give you one target and we want you to throw all three of these breaking balls. He's gone up and down with it. It hasn't all been positive with him doing that, that approach. But I think generally, pitching coaches know about this. So I think it would be, it wouldn't

be, it would be surprising if a pitcher hadn't thought of adding a gyroslider because they were having trouble commanding the sweeper. Guys that are throwing cutters and a sweeper, that's what they're trying to accomplish. The cutter might even be a gyroslider. Yeah, they might just be thinking of them as way different pitches so that they can throw them both. A lot of that comes down to that. Making the distinguishing between them is just for you so that you can

feel that difference. Rasmussen has a gyroslider, a sweeper and a power curve, and they're listed as cutter, slider and curve. Yeah. So and that's that's where Savant then gets confused sometimes because guys don't the same things with the classify them differently. And it gets it gets confusing sometimes. And that's just probably what's gonna happen. Sorry guys, you're guys, you're gonna go and you're gonna have to like, look at the movement from my back. This flow for us more as a, as we're hoping to help you do here on the show.

What's a good way to differentiate a cutter from a gyroslider? I guess a cutter you would expect to have four, six, seven, vert. Yeah. And high below. Maybe similar Maybe similar horizontal to a Jarvis slider. But I think when you start seeing like sort of 5, 6, 7, like above 5 vert, that's more likely in sort of cutter territory. And when you start seeing more like zero vert, that's more Jarvis slider territory. That's a pretty small difference. But I mean, you, breaking balls are all in this continuum. So it's kind of hard sometimes to separate them out.

Got a breaking news item, Buster Oly is reporting Joey Votto has signed an NRI deal with the Blue Jays. Baseball's better with Joey Votto in it. I think that's a fair statement to make. I was gonna see if he come join, just like be my co-host on YouTube, but eventually it's not gonna go. Dang it. Well, 2025, right?

You gotta have a multi-year roadmap. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just, just. I mean, I like Vogelbach, but I can see the Blue Jays making this decision. I guess a big part of it will be how hard is he hitting it in spring?

Like exit velocities will matter here. They're gonna be like, how good is your shoulder? Like how's, how are you feeling? Like let's see the exo-vilos. It's a little interesting on a roster that also has Justin Turner on it. If you keep Vado, you're gonna have to play Turner somewhere around the infield a little bit

because you have Vlad playing first. So I hope he makes it. I'm informed. I think you could maybe sneak Turner in at second. They have the need between second and third. And a lot of those guys who can play second can play third for the second. Who's it now? IKF, right? Third? Yeah, I mean, IKF can between second and third a lot of those guys who can play second can play third for who's it now? I KF right at third. Yeah, I can play second or third doesn't matter

Santiago as a spin on can play second or third doesn't matter. I think even BGO can play second or third So do you where do you think it's easier to like to hide a veteran? I think it may be a little bit easier on the at second Yeah, maybe it might be a better solution for sure For sure you got all those like smashed hot shots from righties right at third base You kind of want to have you know some hops and some from rain I think it's Turner was actually one of the better defensive players on Boston last year I don't know if that's a reflection of him or them though. I kind of think they might just play him a third dude

Like I think they might just put him back out there if it's 305. I don't think matters what he does out there Yeah, I think you live just play him a third, dude. Like, I think they might just put him back out there. If he hits 3-0-5, I don't think it matters what he does out there. Yeah, I think you live with it in that case. Balooko31 has a question. What's going to be the next sweeper, the new pitch that takes over baseball? Because it does sound like the sweeper might be at or near its saturation point for usage based on the limitations you were describing, especially in righties not really being

able to throw him to lefties. Is this the year of the splitter? Is that what we've decided? That's what everyone's talking about. I mean, thank you, Sanga. It's his fault. And now we have Yama Motote. Yeah, it's going to be splitter fork. But we're going to see more true fork ball. Guys are actually trying to throw the old school 90s fork because it's hard. Like the kind of the knuckling action pop out of the tumbling knuckle action.

Get if you can, like that would be something no one would seen. So that could be really good for a while. And then obviously to get adjusted to be at. Now we have the breaking balls kind of guys who have like figured out ways that they're breaking balls. They didn't have, couldn't figure it out before. Now the guys who could not,

there's so many guys who like just have given up on changeups or splitters. And now they're able to pitch design them more. Yeah, we're getting better at pitch design. I think it's definitely in the changeup space. Because if you think about the breaking ball space, we've like, you know, just in this show, we talked about two different breaking balls that you could call a slider. But there's such a continuum, and there's even a thing called a death ball that people are talking about, which is somewhere between a curve ball and a slider. In that, it's a one-plane 12 to 6 baby power curve is how I describe it. It's the Fairbanks breaking ball. And so people, I think we're running out of places to go in the breaking ball space. There's no more places to circle and be like, what is this? You know, let's do that.

But change up, you know, people think of, oh, well, you either got it or you're done. Oh, you just have to pronate everything. Well, there's, there's change ups. You don't have to pronate. There's power changes. We've done a little bit of that, but I think we stayed away from it for some part because it's hard to describe in Hawkeye and like, but seems just awake is getting us better at it. We're betting better being able to replicate things. So we talked about a little bit about lefty splitters

on an episode about, you know, people think that you're not throwing, that lefties can't throw splitters. And that's because they think of splitters as sort of a binary thing. This is how you hold it between these two fingers. You throw it like this, that's a splitter. Well, there are splitters that you curl this finger and it kind of, ooh. Every week. Balloons. The balloons are back. There's a splitter where you curl this finger.

That's like a totally different thing. Then there's like a fosh. And then there's like a splitter of Vulcan. So there's all these different fingers that we're like, I think we, the Vulcan could be the next one. You know, because like really who threw a Vulcan. So there's all these different fingers that were like that. I think we the Vulcan could be the next one, you know, because like really who threw a Vulcan was Kyle Losh. Big leagues. I don't know many.

I knew some guys, the miners Straile's, uh, Straile, like hold it in a split finger kind of, but he said that when he looked at it on the edger, it actually comes off like a Vulcan. So, you know, there's some people out there that with the edge, electronic plus a better sense of like different variations on each of these grips, we're doing teams are doing more grip libraries and stuff. So, you know, as you have a grip library and you put that together with Team Shift awake and you kind of put those two things together, I think the big explosion is going to be the change of space. The next thing that has a new name is going to be a changeup, some

sort of change up. The Splunk. I think it's- It's gonna be called the Splunk. Yeah. Not the Splinker, please. Is it, Karen? Yeah.

We've already, we're good with that. We'll get the Splinker or the Splork. We gotta work on naming these things. It does, it feels like children are naming things. That's what it kinda feels like. I'm just combining two words. Like that you go to when you're seven. So, yeah, I guess. Yeah. I guess that's what it kind of feels like. I'm just combining two words. I got to go to when you're seven. So, yeah, I guess.

Yeah. I guess that's what. I'm sure if I invented a picture when I was a kid, that's all I did is just smash two words together. Like, it's what it is. Philip says, bring back the palm ball. There you go. I played with someone who drew a palm ball.

Why? It did not work. It's sort of a ball. It doesn't seem like it would. Well, the fork is, one of the ways the fork works is by getting it closer to your palm, right? It's deeper in. Deeper in, but it's harder.

That's the thing. That's how a palm ball work. It should work, but like palm balls are slow. So like, I don't know. It was like for people who couldn't throw an off a ball as we were trying to get some funky pitch. We have a death ball. I like this one.

Dan G says dragon ball. I like that. Ooh, I like that too. Yeah. What does the dragon ball do? It has like, has some sort of wippy tail, you know, wippy tail It's got to be high Velo, right? It's like some very variation on the power change full major league. Everyone should just name their stuff Everyone should have nicknames for the pitches. I think that's fun, too. I love the ghost fork I love that he had a thing. He has a thing. Yeah, I think we need more of that baseball for sure. We're guys making up ridiculous names.

That's a lot more fun. The ghost fork is a lot more fun. Oh yeah, I'm still working on this you Darvish, like oral history of all his pitches. This is something that's on the back burner. I'm going to come out with it. I got all his grips and he used to call, he had something that was between the sinker and the fork that he called the supreme. Those are a Taco Bell menu. He said eventually it didn't make any sense to throw it because it was too much, it was like too close to his, the more he threw the sinker, he was like,

okay, I've got a sinker, I've got a fork and I've got this thing in between. It's, it's, it's not differentiating enough. I love how much he loves pitching. Uh, it's, it's a new talk about stuff and make stuff up on the fly. It's, it's awesome. That's how it should be. I bet Darvish has invented pitches and then forgotten about them every year. He's thrown so many different pitches. Our, our bullpink coach last year worked with you a lot because he's the AAA coach here before. Um, in spring, and Ted just listened to him talking. He's like, he makes up like a new pitch every couple months just for fun. Like 90% of them don't ever get thrown in the game.

But sometimes they're like, you'll see two pitches. You're like, what was that? And then I'm like, I don't like it. And I'd never throw it again, but if you're in too big of a games. But that's like, that's, that's what's the fun part about baseball for him. So it's like, keep going for it. Just don't man, maybe do that not in playoff games. Yeah, right. That's what regular season games in May are up for. Like just, you know, have a little fun out there. Nothing wrong with that. Throw the supreme. We are going to go on

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