Rates & Barrels - The Search for Baseball's Most Unpredictable Pitches & Pitchers

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Eno, Trevor and DVR discuss Matt Chapman's six-year extension with the Giants, a combined no-hitter for the Cubs, who are clinging to slim playoff hopes with three-and-a-half weeks remaining in the regular season. Plus, they discuss baseball's replay system with *10* years now on the ledger and wonder how things might improve in the next 10 years, and they begin a quest to find baseball's most unpredictable (and predictable) pitchers and pitches. Rundown 1:13 Matt Chapman Signs a Six-Year Extension with the Giants 9:04 What's Next for the Giants In Their Push to Return to the Playoffs? 14:55 A Combined No-Hitter From the Cubs 20:26 Baseball's Replay System Turns 10 27:38 We're Ready for the Ball & Strike Call Challenges 34:30 Quantifying a Pitcher's Predictability Related reading 'The Search for the Most Predictable Pitcher' by Kiri Oler of FanGraphs: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-search-for-the-most-predictable-pitcher/ 40:52 The Surprising Profile of Josh Hader's Fastball 46:07 The Relationship Between Low Release Points & High iVB 52:13 Trevor Finds the Root Cause of David Bednar's Struggles 59:49 Camilo Doval's Running Cutter and a Rare Instance of 'Weird' Not Being Good Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IAmTrevorMay e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday September 5th, special shout out to the Live Hive joining us here on YouTube. We've got a great show lined up. Derek and my brinos, Sarah's Trevor May all here with me. We have an extension, a September contract extension. You rarely see that. Matt Chapman getting a long-term deal to stay with the Giants, we'll dig into that.

We had a combined no-hitter from the Cubs on Wednesday. We have a 10th birthday to celebrate, again, baseball's replay system, which people were pretty mad about when it was introduced, but I feel like most of us have become comfortable with it. We'll talk about a few things we'd like to see changed maybe before the replay system can go buy some beer down the road. We're going to take a look at an attempt to quantify predictability of pitchers and their

decisions on the mound. We'll look at some pitches that are actually predictable like they do what hitters think they're going to do and a few that don't. So predictability, a big theme of the show today. And we will take a few questions throughout the show as well. So we get started today with Matt Chapman, who's going to be in San Francisco for the long haul.

It is a six year extension to keep Matt Chapman with the Giants, $151 million. Because of the contract he had signed this past off season, he had an optout coming up this winter He was going to use that because it's been a great season again for Matt Chapman a couple things kind of jumped off the page Looking at what he's done so far this year guys Lois K percentage we've seen for Matt Chapman since 2019 24.4% right to see that number kind of trend back in the right direction for a player on the wrong side of 30

I think that's encouraging to sign up a bat that might age pretty well And he's 13 for 15 as a base stealer. This is a guy that had 11 career steals and during this season So, you know the plate skills look good He's added this speed element and the defense is still elite 13 defensive run save ties him for fifth across all positions in Baseball this season that makes him first at third base. Tons the like here. I think the only question would be how well does the entire package age because six years is a long time and you're one of that deal next year will be Chapman's age 32 season. You have one position player in baseball this year one that's over the year of third over the the age of 35 that's going to be a league average.

One. Can you guys guess? You already know, I think. We did this once. Carlos Santana. Yes, Carlos Santana. And so he's so very not Carlos Santana, which is interesting. But I think in terms of the things that age well, I mean, what you're getting with Chapman is he does the things that don't age well really well. So maybe he's gonna be okay. You know what I mean? Like, bat speed doesn't age that well. He has bat speed, like so much of it.

He's like, I think in the top five or something in bat speed, you know. Defense doesn't age well. Well, you know, he's got elite defense. So I think he could be one of the few 35 pluses. This deal is paying for 37. If you look at the projections and you just age him like we used to age players, this is a market level deal.

Eight to $10 million per win. That's market level. Joey Botto's comments about this being a young man's game now make me wonder if our aging curves are off a little bit now with the new rules and stuff like that. And just the fact that there's just nobody over 35, just one guy over 35 that's doing it right now makes me wonder if maybe the last two years of this deal will be eaten at some point. But I do think that he will be an above average player, above average offense, good defense and good power for the next three years, at least. This is very Giants move to me.

I feel like they like to have their leader from what I've heard anecdotally. I've never played with Matt Gavin, from Chris Bassett and Seth Brown and the way this, the way this guy is in a clubhouse and the way he kind of, uh, uh, keeps like, he's one of the hardest working day to day, like no nonsense type of guys. He's got very, like some combination of like mad bum and Buster Posey's personalities together in And one guy can be really intense, but he can also be super laid back. And I think that in San Francisco, that's something to pay attention to.

And that factors in, I think, more than maybe other places. Like a guy that's gonna be, he's at least gonna have that fire and they anticipate him having that for the entirety of his contract. So I don't know how much money that makes you, but it's something to keep in mind that he is,

he's a guy that I've heard this stories like this, or people speak about him like this, like dozens now, but people have mentioned it. And, uh, I bet you that has come through big time because in terms on, on paper, it's not like he's, you know, been. Above and beyond anywhere he's ever been before he's been a very good player, but, uh, I bet you that was maybe, maybe what pushed it over the, over the legend got it done.

We wanted to be here for a while and we know you're going to bring this value. This is guaranteed for the entire time and that's going to make everyone around you better. And we would like to not have to worry about that anymore. Who's going to be there in a clubhouse? Yeah. Makeup wise, that's a, that's a good thing to bring up makeup wise. He's, he's a really, really hard worker. And to the point where sometimes it can get a little bit rough where he's like, if it's

not going well, he's grinding. He's in there taking swings and swings and swings. That sometimes I would want to be like, Matt, go watch a movie or something. Motivating guys is harder than getting them to slow down. Right. Exactly. And I think like, I think this is a good sign for, you know, for younger players, you know, to have a Matt Chapman be one of the veterans on your team. He's, you know, progressive when it comes to data and tech, like he cares about that, the numbers, he cares about the hard work, he cares about the right things.

I think. And then you have these young guys coming in, Tyler Fitzgerald, Elliot Rommelis, you know, all these guys. I think that, you know, that's a good role model to have in the clubhouse. It's it reminds me a lot of Buster Posey in that sort of like, you know, a little bit boarding on red ass, but like hard competitors going to work every day and takes the job seriously. And that's, that's a cool thing to have around.

That facet of makeup gives you a better idea as an organization of how a player might age. It gives you a better chance of fighting against the aging curve, no matter how you apply it, right? There's a lot of ways Matt Chapman brings that value, as you guys pointed out, but if he can hold off the aging curve that ordinarily would come because of his ability to work that hard,

put in the extra time, that also kind of helps, right? He ages more gracefully. The big question we had about Chapman coming off of last season was, can he pull the ball more often, right? Because a lot of the high quality contact he was making during his final season with the Blue Jays was pole side, oppo. We just weren't seeing a lot of pulled barrels last year. And you can see comparing his 2023 to 2024 charts, it's pretty different. He's pulling the ball a lot more. It's really interesting.

Cause I was looking at his overall pull rate and being like, oh, he's not pulling it more. But his overall pull rate misses the difference between his pulled fly balls. Like he's going oppo in the medium distance. You can see that, right? Like you see those singles and doubles to the opposite field, but he's taking his chances

and pulling the ball in the air more than he used to. So this is actually a fairly ideal spray chart if you think about it. You know, this is a guy who can take something to the opposite field when he's sort of battling two strike approach, trying to put, you know, high VELO into play. He does that to the opposite field when he's sort of battling two strike approach trying to put you know high VELO into play he does that to the opposite field and then every once in a while he anticipates a slider or he's early on what he thinks is a fast ball and he takes a slider out like this is a pretty good spray chart if you ask me. Yeah right it's the adjustment that we

hoped he was going to be able to make and I think when you looked at just how hard he was hitting the ball a year ago it was I thought it was easier to bet on there was still enough bat speed, we didn't have bat speed metrics during the off season, it would have been a great time to have them, but I thought there was still enough there skills-wise where adjustments could be made and to see that he made them also bodes well for the long-term future as well. Do you guys think this is kind of an interesting spot though that the Giants are in? You retain a key piece of the roster, it's great to have Chapman for the next six years.

Blake Snell, also a guy that can opt into free agency and by all accounts will do that unless he reaches a similar extension in the next few weeks. What's the outlook for the Giants in 2025 as a team that's just kind of on the outside looking in at the playoff picture right now, a team that still looks like it's a player or two away. Zheng Huo Li has been hurt for most of the year, so they'll get him back from injury.

So there's one addition already who's there, but not present because of that absence. What do you think this offseason holds? Can they push more chips in and have a better winter than the Cubs did a year ago? For example, like the Cubs kind of did the same thing, brought a lot of pieces back, ran it back with the same roster, and they're having a hard time closing the gap on the teams that were ahead of them. So do you think the Giants can find more

this offseason, Trevor, to bridge the gap between where they are now and where they actually wanna be? I feel like they're close. I feel like there's things that have come together and then other things that haven't, and it just kinda feels like it's stuttering. There are a couple things slotting into place, I think, between being, you know, battling

for the top of that division. And it's, it comes kind of tough too, because of the nature of the other three teams ahead of them in the division and how well they've been playing and kind of how they're kind of on the up and up, especially Arizona. So that timing is not great for them. The Dodgers are the Dodgers, but I think that they're like maybe a middle, the middle of the lineup type of piece away. I think that if they could just add or get a young guy to, to blossom into, you

know, a star as opposed to like a solid player, because I think that Bailey's their catcher, you know, I think they found their guy from Buster. So that's, that's kind of taken care of. Their bullpen is always notoriously been good. That place is easier to pitch, especially early in the year. So they can, they've found pieces there. Ryan Walker has been really good. You know, they got a Logan Webb, they got a guy who can start the game one if they don't retain snow. Like they got a lot of the things you need to be good and be good for a long time. It's just, they just need one or two more things to happen at the same

time as all of those things. So, Pelle Ramos, you know, like taking a step forward was big. So, yeah, I think they're just one or two bats. And this isn't like, we need a guy to hit 50 homers. Like, that's just not something, unless you have Barry Bonds, that's just not something you can expect in that park. But if you can go and have someone maybe find a diamond in the rough, which I don't think they've done. You know, that was kind of something we thought Farhan was pretty

good at and he hasn't really done it as much since he's been there. So it'd be interesting to see if they got someone from somewhere else, more a prospect and trade or something to come on and be a big part of their team. I feel like we've been kind of waiting for that to happen. It hasn't quite happened yet, but I just don't think it's that many steps. They have money. They've been a team that goes up to at least 200 million most years, if not, um, you know, closer to the luxury tax of 230. The difference between 200 million and what they have next year is probably around 50 to $60 million.

Uh, so they've got some money. This is with Snell not resigning though. So if Snell resigns, they've got maybe one big free agent or they spread the money around. I think spreading around the money around doesn't make much sense for this team anymore. This is the team that has put together the pieces. They have some young guys coming up.

I think it's a big name or bust. And so that has been a consensus of people that kind of look at Farhan's strengths at building the roster from the bottom up. He's good at that. They've tried very sort of obviously to go and get the big star and have failed the big star this year is Juan Soto. Will Pete Alonso count? Especially when you have Bryce Eldridge

as your best prospect coming up. That's going to be a fascinating discussion. Dude, if Cody Bellinger opts out, is that a good fit for them? There's questions. I think, you know, once you start talking about mid-level guys, you don't need another Matt Chapman. You know, he's a mid-level free agent. You need a bigger score.

And I wonder if they're going to do that. The way Farhan works, it's going to be probably a couple other pieces. And I hope it works out better than last year. Only one Juan Soto to go around, as a bunch of teams are going to learn this winter once he hits the open market. But Bryce Eldridge, by the way, just got promoted to double A this week already. So you could see a world where maybe this time next year he's breaking in and actually getting an opportunity for this Giants team. But I could see Pete Alonso being a maybe a short term option.

That's where the Giants have also lived more often than not in the Farhan era and free agency is finding guys that just need a bridge contract, guys that didn't get what they wanted in free agency, offering up something flexible at the opt outs and then getting someone to exceed expectations. They did it with Carlos Rodin. They're doing with Blake Snell. Maybe they'll do it with someone like Pete Alonso because we've talked about Alonso a few times over the course of the year.

It doesn't seem like the massive deal he was going to get a couple of years ago is going to be on the table right now. But one huge season, especially in a Another pitcher and friendly environment like San Francisco could what he signed like a three-year with a one-year opt-out That's like the the giant special. Yeah, would he sign that to go to San Francisco? Maybe or says his agent so there's step one. Yeah, six six the boxes, right? So there's step one. Yeah, ticks the boxes, right? We'll have to see where it goes from here.

Let's move on to the Cubs for a minute though. They threw a combined no-hitter against the Pirates yesterday. Shota Imanaga doing most of the heavy lifting, going seven. We had Nate Peterson and Porter Hodge out of the pen, covering those last two frames. I thought it was funny when I saw the wild card standings last night. The Cubs are now four and a half back of a wild card spot. I look at

FanGraphs this morning. FanGraphs playoff odds are 1.6%. It's another one of those times where I understand enough about the math to realize that it's probably right but it still doesn't feel intuitively right. That seems like more of a long shot than they really are, because this is not a bad Cubs team. Like we've talked about their bullpen woes a lot on this show, and it does seem like they're starting to pick up some momentum at a critical time in the schedule. So I'm not quite ready to bury them completely, even though they are kind of part of that group of teams that we were waiting for the last two months for them to go on a run to really close the gap and maybe they're going to do it just a little bit later than expected. Well I think

the spread of the field is what's causing these things just because the Mets have one seven straight and they're still behind the Braves and one of those two teams is going for one spot and then we have the other two teams that are the first and second seed that are also not letting any the other two be able to catch them. So like the four teams ahead of them are all winning. I think that's what it comes down to. And it's like that in both leagues, like, uh, sure that's close, but everyone's close. And it comes down to, uh, I think a number of teams crunch as opposed to like, you know, your ability to win,

like they're just kind of computing whether or not if you win all your games, this might not still matter because someone else might do it and you still won't get in. But yeah, it feels like there's some teams making pushes here at the end. And it's an interesting way. I thought this would be, that these races would be really interesting

because of this, but in reality, it's like though teams aren't statistically eliminated, feels like they are, even though they're pretty close because there's too many teams involved. So it's kind of doing the opposite for the excitement thing because they're all kind of playing each other and everyone's kind of holding steady. So it's like shaking out a little earlier, even though we're not going to, they're not going to be able to pop any champagne bottles until probably the last three days of the

season. Everyone's going to kind of stay generally in the same spots they're in with the exception. I think the Mets and Braves are really, really exciting. That's the last one for me. I mean, yes, Yankees owes is like a real thing, but it, you know, both are going to be in the playoffs. So it's like a, you know, people are like, oh, the seeding is up. I don't, do I care about seeding? Maybe if that's my team, I care if they, you know, get a buy five days in. Yeah. Right. Then we're like, then we're we don't care anymore.

You know, so so I feel like the real in out race is Braves Mets. And, you know, I did Brad Johnson as a writer who's written for me before. And he said, oh, what if, you know, like we always have like the one team that goes like 15 and four, you know, in September and makes it a race. And I guess if I circled one team that could do that, it would be the Cubs. So it is interesting they had this combined no hitter and they have, you know, some interesting pieces. It is a team where like, oh, if the pitchers rattle it off and the hitters are there, like, that would be the one team that maybe could outperform a 1.6% chance

at making the playoffs. But 1.6% chance of making the playoffs is exactly that. It's not zero, they could do it. But if they do do it, it's gonna be one of those legendary things that we talk about, where it's like the time that the Phillies did really poorly in September. And we'll be talking about somebody collapsing. It'll not only be the Cubs 15 and 4.

It'll be the Mets and Braves both just totally sucking, which will be hard for them to do because they'll be playing each other. So if they play each other, that's what Trevor's point was. There's a lot of like, how could somebody go 4 and 15 if they're also going to be playing other teams that are in the race.

Yeah, but keep a bunch of splits in those series. Yeah. In 2022 with the Mets, you know, a lot of people bring up the collapse and how the we ended up. That was it. Mets and Phillies, right? Mets collapse and Phillies came on. That's and Braves. That's where it's caught us. And we were with the same record at the end of the year. But then they beat us in the fear. They swept us when we needed to win one game and all kinds of stuff. And this was the collapse. But in the last 99 games of the season, I think the Braves went like 71 and 27. I was like, I don't know what you guys want us to do. Uh, when a team's 45 games over 599, it's like that's really hard to fend off that team. And it was, it

was, I, I always had to try to defend us and just say, you know, we got to give a little props for like one of the best hundred green stretches in the last 20 years as well. You could see those stretches coming a little bit longer. Like we don't see that coming right now. There's nobody that's like been hot for awhile. You're like, oh, these guys have been coming for awhile. Yeah. That's how you flip odds that are that low into an actual playoff spot. So it could happen, but it doesn't seem very likely.

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for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Let's move on to the baseball replay system. Turning 10 years old, we love to have cakes on this show, especially ones we don't have to bake ourselves. Did you bake a cake? Oh, I made a cake. Oh, wow.

Yeah, Google Gemini made a cake. It's amazing because it is, you know, it's a baseball diamond shape square cake turned sideways. That could be on, is it cake, dude? It looks like a book with a thing on top, a screen on top of it. Yeah, and the replay monitor it generated is actually like probably about the right size because if you remember when replay was new they'd kind

of huddle up behind Television screen ever and obviously it's improved in the year since doesn't quite work that way anymore, but I think Google Gemini Reimagined what that screen looked like and kind of nailed it. It almost looks like they've got a shot of Miller Park there too, if you look really closely at the details. You just see Miller Park everywhere. I see Miller Park everywhere, yeah. Yeah, so you know, the writing, terrible as always, but it looks like a good enough cake

to eat, I think. Oh yeah, that looks like a different language. Yeah, it's definitely not English. So that's, I don't even know if it's a real language. It might just be random scribbles for all I can tell. But 10 years into the replay system, what's really working well so far? What do we like about it?

And what are your pet peeves? What needs to change as we try and make this even better in the future, right? I mean, I think there's the The worst one for me. I think this is something you know brought up during our meeting earlier in the week the reviews of Slides usually it's at second base right where a player slides in the second base and they're safe And their momentum is pulling them through the bag and for a split second while the tag is still applied They come completely off the bag and they're out on review.

And you're like, all right, is that what this was actually intended for? Or is this just a unintended consequence of a system that does make the game better? Right? That's that to me is like the one particular play that I wish they could tweak or fix and just not have impacted quite the same way it has been by replay. Is replay, like you need to sometimes state your goals when you have things. Is replay supposed to get all the things we could get right, right? That we could get right as human beings?

Is that the point? Then these pop-up slides, you could never get that right right as human beings. Is that the point? Then these pop-up slides, you could never get that right as a human being. Like they're looking at things that you would never be able to see. Like little middle meters of missing contact with the base or whatever, you know? And so that's why I don't love that.

If it's to get everything 1000% correct, then sure. But you can also, I guess, change the rules and make it so that you sort of own the bag, the bags, the space above the bag. So the pop-ups, you can't, you can, you can just sort of hit the bag and be above it, do not slide past it. I mean, you can change rules to make it, to make it better, or you could say what's reviewable or what's not because there are a bunch of things that are not reviewable. I think like check swings are not reviewable.

Right. Yeah. You can't call replay review for check swings. Which I kind of like because there's a lot of chess swings and I would I'd hate to go to replay on a lot of those, you know. I think there could be some some some alterations to it. I think they should be there should be a hard clock on them. They should have a minute or something. Trevor playing in the replay system and playing for a little while before it, right? Did you notice the long pauses when there's an exact...

You can tell, you obviously notice them on TV, but I kind of feel like, depending on the situation, you might benefit from it. Like, if you're out there, you're tired. Two or three minutes to catch your breath might actually be a good thing, but how much does it feel disruptive in the flow of the game when you're playing?

It's even worse in person when they go really long, when they're, when there's some, something, some hang up, someone, you know, is in the booth in New York or something that is like not great at making or they're, they're kind of, they're arguing or whatever. Sometimes, like a lot of times you throw your hands up like what is going on? And no one knows because no one's in the room, right? They're just not giving them an answer. They're waiting for an answer.

Like the guys in the field are to their spots quickly. It's not like they just have to get the feedback and they're not. That gets slow. That gets disruptive and it just gets annoying. I honestly, as a pitcher, if it's out in the field, I just want the play. Right. Like at that, like I can wait forever. Cause I just, at the end of the day, I just want the play right. Like I can wait forever. Cause I just, at the end of the day,

I just want it to be right. But yeah, it can get, it can turn into a slot. It's not happening as much there. They're definitely dialed it in, but I think you're right. I think that established, I think we have an issue with this a lot of times, like setting a very, very clear standard,

kind of like the, if there's not enough to overturn it, then it stays the same. That's clear to me. I think that you say that to a guy who gets upset about a play being to overturn or not overturn you say that to him usually like yeah you're right I know that I know that standard but like there's other things in the game that we don't have any clear standards for and it makes no sense like sticky stuff.

Arbitrary we don't know. Oh my god. We have no test. We have no like thing. Like we have no sticker you put on. If it sticks, it's you're out. That's so easy. Could go out there with a whiffle.

Like a ball of some weight, like a and then stick it to the hand. And if it falls, you're fine. If it sticks to the hand, you're out. There's gotta be tests for the stickiness of something. I looked into it. There are machines, but it's like

it'd be pretty funny if they had like a machine in the dugout. Really put your hand on the machine. I looked into it, there are machines, but it'd be pretty funny if they had a machine in the dugout where you're like, put your hand in the machine. That would be funny. But, I mean, if you wanna do it, you gotta do it. It's better than some dude manhandling. There's a whole bum garner one where he was really massaging bum garner's hand

and looking him in the eyes. Very weird. That was so weird. We're not good at doing this. I think that some of the standards here are crazy. So like establishing what do we want from the replay? Does we want every player? Yeah. What's your mission statement? Not reviewable then if we want every play, right? Why or something? You just got to be very clear on what you're looking for and then everyone can live with it at that point. But I think we could, we could continue to get a little

bit better at that. And I like the hard clock being like you have 10 seconds. You got to just say yes or no to me guys in New York. And then we got to run with it as we ran out of time. And then we can argue there, I'm sure, because I'm sure some stuff will get messed up because of that. So speed is is the name of the game. I kind of understand them. Got the pitch clock.

So we got to we got to figure this out a little bit better, too, I think. And I think we're at the point now too where even the expectation of the challenge coming from the dugout has a time on it. You know, you see a lot of managers, the hand is up for a second, like, hold on, we're checking. The other guy's on the phone in the background, and then it's the wave it off or a handset or headset gesture that initiates it. But that seems like it's getting a little better over time, too. I think the other thing I would think about it for improvements would just be like we've seen the automated balls and strikes in the minors.

We talked about how they use basically like a tennis system for challenges. I think that's great. I think we need that. I think that's that's the next iteration of this that will make the game a lot more fun and a lot more fair. I think fans are going to go nuts for close ball strike calls that get overturned in their favor. I think it'll be fun. You know, I've seen it in tennis that the crowd actually makes this sort of noise where they're where the ball's coming and they go, oh, you know, and like more already is participation. It's it's I think it could be fun. And then you have the whole there's more strategic.

You have the whole like we have like one challenge left and it's the eighth inning. Is that the play big enough? And the hitter has to do it or the or the catcher. Somebody has to, you know, make the challenge and they have to have the confidence to do it. And it's not coming from the dugout.

So that's like kind of a cool like putting some power in the players hands where they're like nope I am not striking out with the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Hit the helmet. Let's see that again. There's internal value put on your replay guy because every team has a guy in there watching the replay and then that's who they're talking to on the on the phone. There's value put on the guy in there and how good he is at his job. In New York, Harrison with the Mets, shout out to Harrison. He also ate a bunch of sandwiches for some money once, so that was pretty cool.

He's the guy? Is he a cheese steak guy? Yeah, he was, oh, I don't think it was cheese steaks. I think it was just like deli sandwiches. We had a bunch of them on a huge plate. They were huge, we were like, bitch, you can't eat four of those. And he's like, yes, I can.

Anyway, he's the man,, again. Uh, anyway, man. Um, but he is, he is one of the most confident, you know, who's the best in the league. He's like, me, me, those guys getting it right. That your rate hit rate is really important for your team. Cause you lose things and that's, there's a strategy to it. No one talks about it. I want the metrics on like this hitter is really bad at challenges. Players to have to do that. And then how the management team or how the manager and stuff runs it and whether or not like, you know, they have two and then they get to save one. I think that every time you institute a new rule, if you can create a way where

it's like a new game mechanic that has to be decided on by the team strategy. This team totally empowers its players and says, you guys do the challenge when you want this other team is like, don't you do a challenge unless it's these situations, become like the green light and stealing. Yeah. Very clean with that. Do we trust you or do we not? And some guys are going to separate themselves as really good at it. And then also you mentioned the tennis system with the ABS.

I think ABS is the next step for sure. Um, but there's no reason that because the same company that does all of the tennis and actually the Hawkeye that developed all of this is in all the it's the same company. They have the same technology. So let's maybe let's get some of these like line error or these line lasers where you can see where if it hits line, it's in and out or not. Maybe we get those on the foul lines and the foul poles. I don't know. I just spit ball in here. Right. Yes. Maybe we throw a little laser

to suit up in the air. We can tell whether or not the ball crossed it. Yeah, that seems easy enough. They have that right from tennis. Oh, and here's a fun little side thing. Right now, Whit Merrifield is very angry about being hit in the head, and he's on the competition community. He's talking about they're gonna have more penalties

for hitting players in the head. I'm okay with that. You know, some guys, it's just a little bit wild. What I have seen is I've looked at the hit by pitch rise very closely and what I found mostly is a huge rise, about 10 to 15,000 more high fastballs than we had 10 years ago. And I think high fastballs are actually harder

to get out of the way. So that leads to more hit by pitches, more head hits by pitches. So, you know, if you hear that, then you say, OK, maybe we can lower the zone. One nice thing about having ABS is if you want to change the zone, you can be very precise about it. And so what they've done in AAA is they've actually lowered this top of the zone because they're looking for fewer Ks at the top of zone and fewer hit by pitches. The one thing that was weird though is when they did that strikeouts and walks went up. So you know the strike zone is a is something that we can use to make the game we want but

it doesn't always act the way you want it to. You do something and you think oh if we just lower the zone strikeouts will go down and all of a sudden strikeouts are up and you're like, why? Yeah. Well, it's cause now they're challenges are helping the pitchers. Yeah. That's why we don't have ABS by the way yet guys. It's been tested for years. The reason it because they wanted it to help hitters and it hasn't helped hitters as much as they wanted it. Exactly. Yeah. Trying to dial in like,

how can we get the increase in offense that we're trying to get here or put it in the big leagues? And that's why it's taking so long. So I always see challenge system first for sure. Yeah, but that challenge system is going to be fun. Smokey Gator in the live high. They had that system in the Florida State League. Funny watching a batter get punched out and then having the pitch get overturned back to a ball. You had another one saying that they'd seen it a lot in St.

Paul was it the one you just had up before that was They've seen the system in place in St. Paul and enjoyed it Yeah, that's Perry also from the live hive today So tons of ground to cover though as we think about different ways this could change going forward It's going to change change again one last little weird note about the hit by pitch thing Max Bay who's gonna come up again later the creator of stuff plus Said he did a study while he was working for the team about hit by pitches and he looked into it and he corrected for location, for velocity, for type of pitch, for everything he could correct.

And he found that the same pitch, like if you just correct for everything, the same type of pitch leads to slightly more hit by pitches every year Which means there's a batter effect and I put this together with there's a team in D one I think that was just like hey take the hit by pitch. Yeah, we're gonna get hit by more pitches than anyone ever There wasn't there. There's a tea this last year. I'm pretty sure of it I just like the leak and hit by pitches and they're like, yep, we wear them. Yeah I just let the league and hit by pitches. And they're like, yep, we wear them. So maybe that's part of this. The batter effect is maybe you have some armor on there.

Maybe you're going to take the free pass. Yeah, Jake Mintz wrote about this team back in June. It's a D3 program. Oh, it's D3, OK. It's Mr. Ricordia University in D3. Can you imagine being recruited for your willingness and ability to lean into pitches? We just like how tough he is. He's not a great hitter.

He gets drilled in the elbow, stays in the game, he's fine. It's horrible. Who would want to play on that team? It'd be terrible. I'm not into that at all. Let's get to our next topic. We're going to try and quantify a pitcher's predictability. would want to play on that team. It'd be terrible. I'm not into that at all. Let's get to our next topic. We're going to try and quantify a pitcher's predictability.

We talk a lot about different things, like hitters being surprised. And there's different ways to surprise a hitter. But the main one is not really falling into a pattern, right? It's interesting because Kiri Euler over at Fan Graphs actually wrote about this earlier in the week. We'd been talking about it on the show a little bit recently, kind of wondering if there's a good metric out there. And we were

thinking about, well, how would we quantify this? We probably need a situation like 2-0, 2-1, where you have pitchers asking a question, something to the defect of like, what's the nastiest pitch I can throw for a strike right here? And then the hitter, knowing something about the pitcher, maybe sitting on that pitch, right? And what's this going to be like? How is this going to play out? Will something lose its effectiveness? So, you know, started running some queries and tried to try to see guys violate. Yeah. Try to see who throws the most in each count. These guys violate Trevor May's rule. So hardcore. What was the rules sort of like 60% or, you know, once, yeah, yeah. Like two thirds.

Look at the percentage on it. 90s. Oh. I mean, some of these are just amazing pitches. So top of this list are Kaley Jansen and Manuel Classe. Like they throw those pitches a lot and they don't actually do that badly. Even in this two oh and two oh one counts,

they throw them 95% of the time and they still do well with them because they're great pitches. Michael Kopecks fastball I think you know deserves to maybe be on that list in terms of you know pretty hard to hit even if you know it's coming. Kimbrough's fastballs going to come up again later when we start talking about shape. You know Kirby Yates is fastball a little surprising but a zero percent slugging even though he throws it 86% of the time in two oh and two one counts. And then you start getting to ones where you're like, okay, Tanner Rainey is your fastball good enough to throw this 85% of the time and two oh and two one counts. He's given

up 846 slugging. Pierce Johnson loves his curveball in two on two on count He's any ball. He loves his curveball. He taught his curveball to you Darvish and people love his curvy He's not why he's in the league but 917 slugging on this curveball and two on two on counts because it's a good curveball But it's not as good once you can anticipate it. So this is the role of anticipation where you know some of these guys have good enough pitches where you know Josh Hader's sinker fine. You know Emmanuel Class A's cutter fine but somewhere in the middle your stuff plus David Robertson's cutter

probably not as good as it used to be. He's an older guy it's still pretty good pitch but he throws it 81% of the time in 2-0 and 2-1 counts and it's given up a cutter probably not as good as it used to be. He's an older guy. It's still pretty good pitch, but he throws it 81% of the time in two oh two one counts. And it's given up a five 71 slugging. So as a hitter in these two on two one counts, you can kind of pigeonhole these guys cause they violate pretty heavily the rule of 67%. What do you think here, Trevor?

I mean, is there a, there's gotta be diminishing returns with anything you throw if you throw it too much. But there's got to be a certain threshold where your pitch is so good that you can get away with it. That's that's to me what this a lot of this points to is like there are some guys that can overuse a pitch and still live to tell the tale because the quality is just that good or the location is that good. quality is just that good or the locations that good. So like guys like Ken Lee, like you mentioned Ken Lee, like guys that throw or Hader, right? Hader for 75% fastball all the time. Right. You're, you're, you're going up knowing that that is the pitch you're going to get. That's the pitch you're going to have to hit because you know, the,

the, you might get one slider and if you do, it's probably not going to be in a, you don't want to hit the slider when at the fastball anyways. And so that is what you know, going in against him. And then it comes down to just getting the barrel to where you needed to get to. And it's really hard to do. Cause we've talked about his festival and why it's crazy. So like manual closet, 80% cutters, like these guys that throw these pitches and kind of just, I want to say it's kind of a wash at that point because it's like

that all the time for all counts. So like when it doesn't change count to count and this counts included, then it's you're just as unpredictable or predictable as you are in every other count. So like this count doesn't matter at that point. It kind of just defeats the purpose. But if you throw one pitch, if you're showing like the example I gained when we were talking about this is like a 2019 situation. I remember CJ Crone telling me about how he intensely, he looks at usage and counts specifically. He wants to find a, some gimme some cookie, some, you know, free space in your bingo card. And at the time we faced Blake Snell in like June, and this was the year after he won his first

Cy Young. He had thrown a hundred percent change up two out of varieties at that point, like three months in the season. And so he's like, I get two, Oh, I'm just sit on a change up. He got one and he ended off the foul ball. And I was like that right there is an example of full sellout, full pitch place. No, it's not a guy. He throws a 12% change up. So like when, when 12% of your pitch is 100% in a certain account, that's when you need, you can't do that. That is when, those are the egregious ones

because you're doing something that is not only predictable but it's also usually not your best pitch. Those are the guys I'm trying to check in on. And I would say like guys with curve balls like Pierce Johnson, for example. It's not a fast ball. A lot of those are fast balls and they're dominant fast balls.

Pierce Johnson, if you can sit on the curve ball, if you knew when the curveball is coming, you can do better on it is generally the like the pinpoint commands usually lower on that pitch breaks a little bit different and it's slower, slower, it's slower. You have more time, yeah, and it's very clear he wants

it to be in the box like that is something that you could sit on a breaking ball that you want know that he's trying to throw for a strike. It's not his like a curveball. It's not his lane down below. It's like his lollipop in the zone curve ball. Yeah. So I would say focus hard on the guys who throw breaking balls or some off speed pitch because there's some,

there's something they're worried about happening in that count and they feel like throwing that pitch is going to reduce the probably the damage. Do they think their fastball is not that good? Definitely. Or like if I throw a fastball, I can't throw a fastball, so what else am I gonna throw? That's pretty clear to tell by these. Hayter is also really interesting because he's able to get away with certain things

with his fastball, right? Like it's just not a normal fastball. It looks like a four-seamer, but it's not. And Trevor, you were trying to explain, like, this can't really be replicated, right? It's hard to teach it much like trying to teach someone how to throw Mariano Rivera's cutter has been basically impossible since Mo retired. No one's thrown a cutter like that. So how does Hayter do that?

But what makes that pitch work as well as it does? Well, first of all, you know, I think you sent me last night. I can't remember what the tool's called, but it's about like your hand position slash your arm angle, and then how the ball. Your expected, yeah, expected arm angle. Yeah, yeah. He has, I think, one of the best,

in my opinion, that is deception, that are a major part of deception, a major factor in it. And the way that he deceives people, yeah, he's funky too. He's left-handed, kind of goes across his body. He's very like long-levered. All of that is a little bit like garring to face. But then you add in the fact that it's spinning

like a two-seam, like his grip, he holds it the same way Clay Holmes holds his, which is, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. Clay Holmes is like a top-down, like it's like this, zoop. Yeah, it's a top down. And the way they hold it now, the way they release the ball is completely different.

But Josh's spins pretty consistently backspin. It's not like he gets on a weird axis where he's underneath the ball, atop the ball or whatever, and creates like some sort of movement. It's like a backspin two seam grip that wobbles, meaning that on both sides of the ball, the horseshoes are kind of going in and out, in and out.

They're going back and forth, back and forth that are creating these big pockets of air. Which would reduce movement because if you have a seam catching on one end, that seam shifted away. So if you had seam catching and you had a seam on one side and not on the other, that would create push one way or the other. So what you're saying is it's being pushed in both directions, which it's killing the movement. It's killing the movement. So he's getting anti-movement AKA ride. So the effect I keep, people keep telling me this in the internet and I forget it

immediately, but on a forcing fastball, when you backspin it, that Magnus, Magnus effect. Yes. He's getting the Magnus effect similarly because the two seam on the other side of the ball away from where he's released it is also creating a little bit of effect. So he's got a little bit of pocket of air underneath. So he's got three sides of the ball

that basically he's created an air gutter through the air. Throwing it and it's keeping it online. Those high nineties. But guys see two seam. They see a two seam. They see two seam. They see a two seam. They see the spin. They see that they see the release point. You're like, Oh, this is going to run.

It has to, there's no way it can't. And then not only does it not, it's like 10.8 inches of drop or 20, I think it's 10.5 inches of drop, which if it were classified as a four seam, he would be up there with Carter Crawford as the best riding four seam fastball. But it's not, it's the best riding sinker by far, cause it's not a sink seam, he would be up there with Carter Crawford as the best riding four seam fastball, but it's not. It's the best riding sinker by far because it's not a sinker, but he would have the best four seam ride if it were, you know, so nobody else has been able I, we tried, we actually messed around with this last year. I have a theory and I don't know, this is kind of throwing this out there. You know, this may be some, a thread for you

to pull on, uh, maybe through this week is the idea. I don't know if you ever talked to catchers, but catchers being able to throw back the light when they threw back like a two-seam and it would cut at you. So that's the opposite of what it's supposed to do. And I was always wondering like, why do catchers able to do that?

And it's, they're creating a seam shift on the right side of the ball that's making it that. That's what's happening, what they're doing. I think what Josh has done is he's been able to do it on both sides. So that's just like my first thing where I'm like, that's someone throwing a two seam grip that is moving differently.

That's the only example outside of Josh that I can think of that where that happens. And so now I'm interested in watching catchers throw as maybe there's some hand position or something. I email myself ideas. So I just have an email chain of ideas. Email yourself ideas. Yeah, I'm an old man, I guess.

And so one of the emailed ideas is catcher mechanics on throws. There you go. So he does something no one else can do. We talked about Mariana Rivera with his cutter months ago and how is induced vertical brakes like four inches bigger than

any cutter in history. Canleys does that at times, but just cannot replicate it the same way Moe could. And I think we have even in this, but we didn't have the technology back then and now we have the technology and I think people are still trying to figure out how to replicate Josh's release. And it was going to be really scary when they figure it out, because they're gonna eventually someone else is going to throw it, but, uh, it's gonna be interesting to see if, if it's how much of it has to do with his like physiology,

like the way he's together, how much of it is deep. Well, um, we just don't know yet. I think to some extent you mentioned this, um, Max Bay has an app called dynamic Dead Zone. And so, you know, we've been talking about let's let's actually start with the leaderboard. So, you know, there's this is the leaderboard of these are guys with a five point four foot release and lower. So these are low release points, the highest vert with the lowest release point. And so we know from this the show that Shota Imanaga has this great this great vert from a lowest release point. And so we know from this show that Shotai Managa has this great vert from a low release point.

Kikuchi has a pretty good one. Tanner Scott's on this list. Freddy Peralta's on this list. Craig Kimbrel actually has the lowest release point on this list and yet is in this top group, this top 10 when it comes to vertical movement out of low release points. So I think Craig Kimbrel deserves some credit as one of the pioneers of these like sort of great flat fastballs, you know,

good IVB from a really low release point. And it's not even really obvious when you watch Kimbrel how low his release point is, but it's there. And Tanner Scott's a new version, I think, of Kimbrough. And so if you go then, this is Tanner Scott. Let's see, let's watch this. Is it really obvious that his release point is that low? It doesn't seem like sidearm or something.

It's just kind of low. Now look at this dynamic dead zone app from Max Bay. So what you're looking at here is basically vertical movement versus horizontal movement. And then what he's shown in the middle, the yellow point in the middle, that is the expected movement given that arm slot, right? And then Tanner Scott's fastball is in red.

And so what he's doing is, despite having a lower release point that people would kind of expect, give kind of more sinkerish movement, more drop, he is managing this good ride and he's staying up there. Just as an aside, Max Bay really wants to make G-Force part of the conversation and talk about this in terms of acceleration. So, Tanner Scott throws his fastball with two-thirds G-Force vertically, which means that he's counteracting gravity by two-thirds with his fastball. This kind of makes sense, right? It kind of works, but it is a new lexicon, new item in the lexicon that people will complain about.

They're talking about G-forces now with pitching. What's wrong with baseball today? It's another physics term, weirdos. We're gonna use them all probably. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to auditing a physics class next semester so I can better understand things that are happening at work.

It's just like good, like when we think about IBB, it's no longer as important to think about raw vertical movement. It's better to think about vertical movement vis-a-vis your release point. As a function of, and I think we talked about this before, the idea, I love this too, by the way. If you're looking at a chart like that, guys,

that chart specifically, just think about it this way. The farther from the middle is the more deceptive it is. For the most part. Clay Holmes will probably be on the bottom part of that. Where you see his arm slot, you see he doesn't have good sync. He's over the top. He's not going to have a good sync. And then he has great sync. And so he's on the bottom of that. Tanner Scott has more ride than you expect given his release. And in general, above that zone will be will produce probably more whiff and below that zone will produce probably softer content. This goes back to predictability. Like we're talking about predictability and we started with counts. But one of the reasons there's a great piece

over at Fangraphs that I do recommend reading by Kiri Oller and it's about the search for the most predictable picture. And I'm going to say things that I think could take the research further, but you should read it because he talks about just who's the most predictable pitch in certain counts. And the reason why there's a couple things I tried to look at, you know, swing rates on these pitchers that he that he highlighted and there wasn't really like really obvious patterns. I think it's because a a player can play with how predictable they are. If you start thinking they're predictable, then oh my gosh, now I can, and you start swinging a lot,

because I think if someone's predictable, you start swinging a lot. That's what we saw with the Red Sox. People start swinging at their sliders because they were being predictable using their sliders so much. And so I would say swing rates are when the batter thinks he knows what's coming, and so he's going to swing a lot. If you put unpredictable, the batter swings a lot. Oh, boom. Now's the time for me to throw a slider, you know, when they thought fastball, you know, so, you know, the pitcher can play with that.

And the other instance is there are other ways to be unpredictable. We were just talking about Emmanuel class, a throws his cutter, Ken, Ken, Lee Jansen throws his cutter 95% of the time in these counts. He's totally predictable, but he's not because the pitch itself has unpredictability to it. The pitch itself, Tanner Scott's fastball itself is weird. The batter has a rubric in his brain that's like, I see slot, I see this, I see spin, you know, and they can't even

put words to it because it's a thing they developed over their life and it's not in the part of the brain that uses words. It's in the like, it's in the animal brain. It's like, oh, swing. It's just that animal reaction. And that computer that's doing the computer is looking at the slot and doing all that can be thrown off by, you know, doing weird things with your hand, having good spin, you know, having more ride than you expect

from that slot, that sort of stuff. So predictability is, and then you can be predictable in terms of location. So there's like, you know, location type and just the physical characteristics of your pitch. So it's really hard to nail predictability. You know, you can sort of look at counts and you can look at this and you can look at that. But then the pitcher is still going to find ways to play with you. Oh, you expected fastball. Walker Buehler used to do this.

You expected fastball, but it's not high, it's low. And sometimes you can throw all this out the window. So Trevor's been working on something with David Bednar, we talked about earlier in the week. Bednar, by the stuff metrics, seems seemingly has everything working, but Trevor, what is David Bednar doing that's basically negating the quality of his stuff right now?

Tipping, and he's been tipping all year, and he's been tipping in different ways. Now this is early in the year. I believe these are back-to-back road trips. I don't think this is the same road trip, but basically he started the year pinning his hands against his body like that, like we see. And on the left you see a fast ball with a vertical glove.

And on the right you see a splitter, which is a horizontal glove. And this is consistent. These are just the most clear versions, but like in both outings, they did both, he did both in both of these outings. I just couldn't get as good of a screenshot. Was his leg weird too or?

Yeah, I think that might be more a camera angle. Just the way you took the picture. Yeah, it's that timing of the shot probably a little bit too, yeah. Also when he's coming up, his leg height is slightly different depending on the glove. So the glove on the splitter on this right, he keeps his glove a little bit lower than a swoosh

just for the whole time. Even a glove separation on the fastball goes a little, he keeps his glove a little bit lower than a swoosh just for the whole time, even at glove separation on the fastball, it goes a little higher, like all this little stuff. And then recently he moved his hands away from his body. And I think there's something that he knows about a little bit, but unfortunately he's a guy who grabs his grip as he's delivering and he's a splitter.

And he's been throwing a splitter a lot more because his curve ball has been high or he hasn't commanded it as well, probably because he's been tipping it and a little worried about it getting hit hard. And when he does that, he's doing another thing with his wrist and like tapping his wrist against the top of his glove on breaking pitches

and then, or on fast balls and not doing it on the off speed. Matt was like recently, recently at a clunker, he did that. He's got two different tips and he's still kind of tipping in different ways, but he's trying to find some comfort with his hands. And that's the only way to explain his year so far,

because there's no worse way to be unpredictable than tipping your pitches. The way that guys are swinging at his splitter, cause splitters are not easy pitches to just like come out of your shoes on when he got those 98 with. He's thrown the hardest he ever thrown. He is the highest our IVB has ever thrown and his commands the same on his 14 fastball yet. It's getting hit the hardest. It's because I think what

he's doing is he the people can create off speed pitch buckets and then fast ball buckets and they're guessing one or the other and that is making his fastball worse, but it's still the best pitch for them to hit. And that's why they're hitting that pitch the hardest. Um, the other two pitches haven't performed any, they're not great, two pitches haven't performed any they're not great, but then performed way worse than in the past years, but his fastball has. And I think it's because he's tipping the other ones. We can talk all everything we talked

about before does not matter for tipping. I mean, that's makes you predictable, even if your counselor grade and you throw a weird fastball and like, Oh, but I can see when you're doing it. Yeah, I was just talking to Bryce Miller and he he's just like, like always shoving, like even when we were just talking to each other, he's just always shoving the ball into his splitter grip. And and so what he does is while he's getting the count, he's putting his he's putting his hand like he when he as soon as he gets the ball from the catcher, he puts the ball in his hand in the splitter grip. So when you, if he's got the ball dangling, it's in a splitter grip.

When he puts the ball in his hand and the glove, it's a splitter grip so that he never has to do, he actually has a pretty deep too. So he's never has to be like trying to shove it in there. And I had to do that with my eldest where I'm like, dude, I can tell, yeah, you're trying to get the ball in the curveball grip. I can walk. I can see you. Yep.

Is this going to be a curveball? This is how Bryce Miller throws a splitter, same as mine. He threw ours the same way. So what we do is we both go split. I did this till the last year of my career. I didn't throw the splitter anymore. But it made me have to change the grip every single pitch. I didn't throw that pitch anymore.

Oh, that's a fun way. Yeah, you could just put it in some grip that's totally different. If you can do anything kids at home, grip a pitch, grip a knuckleball as you go behind your back and then come up. So you have to move it. If you don't pick a pitch,

you don't throw and you have to grip every time that that's helpful. But splitter getting splitter first. When you throw it, it's also like, it's a dig, the dig pitch, and that can take away from needing to do it later. The thing with Bednar is I think he does come with a split, but it's looser, and when he's going, he like digs as he's delivering.

He does it with the curve ball too. I think it's just, I did a tap. I used to tap my glove. It's just a timing thing for him, but he gets the grip tighter when he's delivering, which is changing his glove. Doing it, it's different every time. One choice that he has is what Kirby's done

is to exaggerate the thing that used to tip to the point where you're doing it on every one. It's almost goes back to the Ryan Denster glove bag waggle. The wiggle. The wiggle. So what I've noticed is with Kirby, I was watching him last night, he does this. And it looks a little obscene

because he does it at belt level, like right in front of him. And it's like a... It's a little obscene. I used to fan. And the problem was I would get the timing. I'd be like curve ball and I'd be like one, two, three. Oh, yeah.

I found it hard to fan a little bit past having the grip keep at the same time. But we're like, yeah, if the grip takes a little while, you have to fan. Like if, if one grip takes three seconds to do and one step, it takes two, you have to make sure you've fanned a four every time I actually did a Mike Pelfrey. I learned this from him. I created like a little pin the glove against my body, create it, like fended out as big as it gets. So it was more like a screen. And then I just wasn't pin the glove against my body, created like a fan, did out as big as it gets. So it was more like a screen.

And then I just wasn't touching the glove anymore. Like your, your balls against your belly and you're just sort of like, or I would just have the splitter grip and then everything else was looser. It was really easy to change and you couldn't see it. And that's, and that's, I remember doing that. I did that in 22 between two outings or 21 and between two outings where I thought I was tipping, did that the next outing and then punched out the side again.

That seems like a good one for Bednar because he's obviously comfortable with it against his chest. It looks like he knows, but not exactly what he's doing. And he's just trying to fix things a little bit because he wouldn't change his hands as much if he didn't know about it. Or maybe he's just wildly uncomfortable and just does not.

He might also be losing his curve ball. I talked to him about he loses curveball from time to time. And he said that in fact that like staying back on his back leg helps him with the curveball. So there's something about bringing the curveball up, I think you talked about a little bit, but when you brought up your your splitter, like it kind of changed your arm path a little bit. He's doing like the like this whip or I can see it. I know exactly what he's feeling and it's probably because he's throwing so many splitters.

He's also interesting. Yeah, because he started throwing a splitter and he lost the curve. That's actually sort of how it happened the first time. So within 90 degrees like here a lot and he looks like he's slinging it. It looks like it's just spinning out of his hand. But it's funny because it's moving the same though.

My movement. But his command of it is lost. Yeah, a lot going on but I think starts with fixing. I still have a lot of confidence in him long-term. This is the kind of stuff where it's like, he's working through stuff in front of us, but it's not like, you know, Camilo Deval, on the other hand,

like his extension is turfed. Like, you know, there are weird things going on in this movement. That seems like a heavier pull, you know, like that is weird movement for Commutival. Like that's not normal for him. He's a cut. He's a Classe clone, you know? So to have that sort of sinkerish movement, I think that's a little bit harder pull. He has more work to do mechanically. Bednar's work is more, you know, maybe a little mechanically with the release in the back to find the curve ball, but it's a lot of it is just,

you know, find a way you're comfortable that nobody can see what you're doing. He's going to click and then all of the stuff that he's still, all of his movement and everything is just going to start playing. I think he's the closer for them again next year. Yeah. Deval, that is such a, that pitch being classified as a cutter, just like what, what is that going to start playing for them again next year? Yeah, the ball that is such a pitch being classified as a cutter.

Just like what what is that going to do? It's getting smashed this year, by the way. Five fifty seven slug allowed in that pitch to throw a pitch that's a cutter at ninety nine point three and having it slugged that much. That is mind blowing to me. Now you look at his extension. It's pretty far off. I mean, he's like, I think he's down like six, five, six inches in extension. It's like... Oh, that's not good. I didn't know that. Wow.

So that just means the whole delivery is off. Something like the whole thing is weird. Big offseason overhaul seems like it might be in store for Camilo Deval. You know, in deeper leagues and in deeper situations, if I'm the Giants, I'm holding the hold them. He's got the good V lo and he used to have a good shape. It's just like the sending down was a big eye opener. He said, you know, I'm now willing to listen, basically. So hopefully they can work together to do it.

But, you know, it's funny, some guys don't throw the same way in the offseason. I just found out yesterday that George Kirby throws to a nine pocket in the offseason. That's it. That's all he does? Yeah. I threw it in that mass majority of the time, but he throws to a nine pocket. Wow. I mean, it keeps the command good.

Yeah. Learn something every day. But yeah, so definitely read that piece on fan graphs that we mentioned because we kind of talked about other ways that pitchers can be harder to predict, right? I think Kiri did a really nice job with that. It breaks out guys that have two pitches, guys that have more than two pitches, not surprisingly Seth Lugo grades out very well. Very unpredictable. For unpredictability, you would expect that. But you know, lots of interesting things

fold into that story. We're going to head out on our way out the door. A reminder, you can find us on Twitter. Trevor is at IamTrevorMay. Eno is at EnoSaris. I'm at Derek VanRyper. The pod is at Rates and Barrels. You can join the Discord by hitting

the link in the show description. If you've got a question for a future episode, send them through that way. Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.