Rates & Barrels - The Strike Zone is Shrinking

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss the strike zone, which is shrinking in 2025. They dig into why that changes have taken place and consider a few implications of that adjustment. Plus, they look at a trio of underperforming starting pitchers through the first month of the season including Zac Gallen, who may have started a turnaround Thursday against the Mets, Sandy Alcántara, and Aaron Nola. Rundown2:32 Is This Strike Zone Really Shrinking?4:36 Where Is The Strike Zone Getting Smaller?13:23 Adjusting the Game to Increase Offense & Balls in Play20:52 Walk Rates Don't Fluctuate Much29:59 Zac Gallen: Adjustments Already Happening?38:16 Sandy Alcántara: A Typical Post Tommy John Command Lag?45:14 Aaron Nola: Is the Ceiling Coming Down Again?52:00 Eno's Greatest Fear Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.socialFollow Trevor on Bluesky: @iamtrevormay.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See app for details. ["The Daily Show Theme"] Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Thursday, May 1st, Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris, Trevor May all here with you on this episode. We have a big question that's been bouncing around recently. Is the strike zone changing this season? Eno's going to dig into that here with us in just a couple of minutes. We're going to talk about a few struggling pitchers, try to figure out why things did not go well for them over the course of the first month of the season and try to forecast

what is going to happen from this point forward. Gentlemen, quick question before we get started. Whose April did you have? How was your first month of the season? Do you have a comp to somebody in the game right now? I feel like I had a Jorge Polanco sort of April. Kind of an amazingly good month out of nowhere. And everyone's just waiting for me to come crashing back to earth. But how about you guys? I did not have an Aaron Judge or Jorge Polanco since April. I've been just trying to figure it out.

I mean, maybe even like a Tommy Fam April. Just trying to battle my way through a veteran season, maybe near the end of my usefulness. That's pretty bleak. Pretty bleak, but interesting name pull there. I'm trying to say, figure out where I am between, you know, Polanco and Kelnick. Uh, I'm probably just middle of the road.

I think maybe I'm, who's average? It's just having an average. You just did what they were supposed to do? Who exactly hit projections for the first month of the season? That's you? Who's just been solid? I think that there's been a lot of good, it's been a lot of just plugging away.

I think plugging away, seeing some good stuff, being like, ah, there's some adjustments I can make here. But yeah, in general, I think just, I'm your league average player, rocking a.6 War right now. Hey, pacing out for three and a half this season. I think that's a perfectly fine place to be on the first day of May. Taylor Ward, there you go, does it all the time.

Trevor is Taylor Ward. Join our Discord with the link in the show description, there you go. Does it all the time. Trevor is Taylor Ward. Join our Discord with the link in the show description. We've done that already. And be sure to join the Six Picks group. New session just started up here on Thursday. Not too late to jump in on that. Let's get to the first topic of the day. You know, is the strike zone shrinking?

What's going on? Yeah, if you've trolled around looking for, you know, your favorite framers, you might have noticed that a lot of their numbers are not as good. I don't know how you would encounter this. We've definitely talked to players who've noticed. The players will notice because they will not get calls that they used to get. But we're starting to see analysts notice it because of things like, hey, why is our location plus model seem kind of weird? Or like, why is our framing model weird?

One coach said, why are there only two teams that are above average in true media for framing? That's not the definition of above average. So something has changed. And so we started to look into it and this is the fewest amount of called strikes in the shadow zone on taking pitches in the sound zone since we've tracked it. So that's a

thing. And then what we've also noticed is that balls in the strike zone called balls in the strike zone are up a little bit. Basically, it was really bad in 2008. I mean, like a quarter of balls taken in the strike zone, pitches taken in the strike zone were called balls. When we started pitch tracking, that's where umpires were at the beginning of pitch tracking. And pitch tracking itself, I think,

made them better at the strike zone. And you can see this. And then there's this little uptake in called balls. It's not a lot by itself, but when you start to see that, oh, the shadow zone is shrinking, they're calling balls a little bit more inside the strike zone. There has been a change. And what we are reporting, uh, along with Ken Rosenthal and Jason Stark is that there's been a change in how umpires are being judged.

And we have another graphic that you can throw up here on YouTube to show you. This is 2025 called strikes in the shadow zone put on top of 2024. So you can see that 2024 over the same amount of sample is bigger, the strike zone is bigger. So you can sort of see the shrinking that's happening. So the way that umpires are being judged has changed.

They used to have a two inch buffer zone around the edges of the strike zone. And that two inch buffer zone was, if they made a call incorrect in there, they weren't really penalized for it. I think that's helpful because humans aren't binary. You look at this, this is the zone. The zone is probabilistic. There's no line where it's like, that's a strike and that's helpful because humans aren't binary. You look at this, this is the zone. The zone is probabilistic.

You know, it's not, there's no line where it's like, that's a strike and that's a ball. We haven't gotten to computers yet. And so they had this buffer zone. Well, now the buffer zone has gone from two inches outside and inside to 0.75 inches outside and inside. And that's effectively reducing their buffer zone area by 60%. Course, the result, if you're a human being and how you're being judged is

being changed, you're going to change your behavior. So what we're seeing is that the zone has shrunk. Now, I think from the league's perspective, this is a march towards progress. This is a more better zone. If you look at wrong call percentage, which is basically the number of balls called in the strike zone plus strikes called outside the strike zone, if you add those together as a percentage, this is pretty much by percentage points,

second best season, maybe the best season ever in the pitch tracking. So in terms of wrong calls, they're getting it right. Their perspective is this is the best it's ever been. And maybe they're right. Maybe this is what it should be. Maybe if we're gonna tighten up towards ABS, if we're gonna have ABS,

we're gonna have the challenge system, then you gotta tighten up the zone because it's gonna be closer to that. It's gonna be closer to the rule book. And so this is the most rule book, quote unquote, the strike zone has ever been. You can also say this is maybe not a big deal. It's like 650 calls have been affected so far.

You know, that's only 1.4 per game. I don't know, man. If that one call doesn't go your way or two calls doesn't go your way. If you think about it as a 650 calls, you're an analyst or you're a coach. You can think about the 650, not the 1.4 per game. You know what I mean? So it's a change. People have noticed it.

The question that we have to, you know, maybe do some more reporting on is just, why are so many people surprised? You know, this was a collectively bargained agreement between the union and the umpires. That was a result. The new buffer zone was a result of that collective bargaining.

You know, according to baseball, they told everybody that needed to know, but according to our reporting, we're finding a lot of people high up the chain, low down the food chain, players, executives, GMs, analysts, director of R&Ds, pitching coaches. I haven't talked to a person who knew about this change beforehand.

So it's one of those weird stories because it's, you don't know, you know, from different angles, it doesn't seem like a story maybe. But I think if you're a pitcher and you're in the middle of it, or you're a framer and you're in the middle of it, you know, if you're a pitching analyst and you have to redo your models,

if you're, you know, if you're a fr analyst and you have to redo your models. If you're a framer who's about to become a free agent, you care about this. So it's something that people care about deeply. And I was just noticing because I was asking Trevor, when did you debut? 14. So when you debuted, in terms of balls called in the strike zone, that year there was 16.7% of strikes taken in the strike zone were called balls. That was 16%. So that's in the strike zone, taken, called a ball. And then over the course of your career, that number went all the way down to 10.5%.

So they did get better at calling your strikes what they were, but on the flip side these shadow zone ones where you were getting getting calls that those went away over time. So the zone tightened up while you were in the game. I guess A, what was that like what was that subjective feeling like with the zone? Knowing that maybe ABS is coming and challenge is coming, knowing that the way the umpires, you mentioned maybe even the umpire grading reports

that are out on Twitter and stuff. What was your interaction with the strike zone over time? One interesting thing that I, just now kind of thinking about too, is I was improving my command while the strike zone over time. One interesting thing that I just now kind of thinking about too is I was improving my command while the strike zone was tightening. So it was hard for me to tell whether or not I was just getting better or-

Was it because? Yeah, or was it because? It's all of these things probably. It depends on the day where I was benefiting from it probably sometimes and other times I had better command and I was just kind of, they were like, he's making better pitches, right? So that's kind of impossible for me to pull apart. But I think a lot of the things, it comes down to like incentivizing or maybe even de-incentivizing

for the umpires. So the more they become aware of what a strike, like they're getting feedback, this is what's happening, this is what you're seeing and this is what that actually is when you see that. Like it's the same thing that pitchers, how pitchers learn of what they're getting feedback, this is what's happening, this is what you're seeing, and this is what that actually is when you see that. Like it's the same thing that pitchers, how pitchers learn of what they're doing, and if the things are moving the set right way or whatever. So umpires over time, we're getting better. It's like visual feedback,

and plus the machines helping, yeah. And then it started to bleed into their collective bargaining and like, okay, now we're tightening up, we're talking about standards at least. We're talking about, we're establishing them there being your performance reviews are being affected by things that we know now with data that we were just kind of looking at and guessing before. So they've also had a revolution in that way too.

So of course, umpiring is tightened up and they're more consistent. And I think it started with, they got more consistent and now they're more, now that they've established those skills well, and the group of guys that are doing that are the best that probably they've ever been, then they can tighten the thing up and be like, okay, so it's almost like a control. We're figuring out where the box is,

and now we know where the edges of the box are. All of those things together. Early on, we had Questek. Questek was even before 2008. Ever since then, we've noticed that the machines help the umpires, you know. Machines help the players too, you know. Exactly. And they've gotten better and obviously the strike zone, the buffer zone getting tightened because that, I think the two inch buffer zone's

been there for a while. That's been the standard, I don't know how long, but I've heard since I've been in professional baseball, it's always been two inches. You know about the buffer zone. I know about the buffer zone. That's another thing. You know about the buffer zone. I know about the buffer zone. That's another thing. You knew about the buffer zone. Yeah, everyone knows about the buffer zone. So if you knew about the buffer zone, then you'd think that you'd want to know about the... So here's another thing.

This seems a little unrelated, but look at drag. This is historical drag on the ball. Now, I did mention this on the pod a little bit earlier. Now we're starting to get a significant result here. If you look at the drag in 2025, it is significantly higher than it was in 2024 and 2023. You're going back all the way to the beginning of 2022, and maybe even a little more drag than 2022.

You might be going back to 2016 in terms of how much drag there is on the ball. And 2016 was a bit of a dead ball year. So there's more drag on the ball, but no one said anything. It's observable. It's something that anybody who plays with the numbers can see, but we don't get any word about it.

Because I don't know, maybe some people made a big, too big a deal out of the past or the media or is it the media's fault? Like we're just asking questions. We see these things. You gave us the data, the access to the data. There they are. What's going on, dude?

To drag things really interesting too. I just think it comes down to this. It's pretty obvious at the end of the day that the powers that be have made meaningful changes to the game in order to bolster offense. That's every sport did this and is doing it constantly. Football defensive players all say how they can't hit anybody. Basketball, you can't touch them. Basketball you can't touch them either. No hand checking. No hand checking. Let the guys get the shots off the best quality shots so they

can make shots because we want to see more shots. Now that's shooting them in the foot. I think basketball right now, NBA specifically, is in their three outcome phase. They're gonna have to figure out a way to make this more exciting, which was... we went in the three outcome phase, I think was a byproduct of maybe some of the changes and pitchers being way ahead of hitters technologically, which you wrote a piece about a few years... a few weeks ago, which makes a lot of sense as well. So the timing was where we got to fix this stuff because we're getting way too far in there. And so then the pitch clock comes and then the

pickoff thing, because we went more stolen basis. So like, it's very obvious. This is not an indictment on like, I agree with that some of this stuff, we couldn't keep going that way. But maybe that there are along with some of these rule changes, couldn't keep going that way. But maybe that there are, along with some of these rule changes, there are some slight tweaks to other things to continue to move us in that direction a little bit faster because baseball moves slower than all the other sports. And fortunately, I think the batting, the hitting revolution, you guys are right, all of you guys wrote that article. You're right, it is moving. They're catching up naturally through their own revolution, which is great.

And I think the game is naturally gonna move back to this old, I don't call it old school, but a little bit more of an old school, run the bases, hit the ball in the gap, to go to first to third, try to steal home. We had one of those happen recently. There's a non-zero chance all this is gonna work out. That it's actually going in the right direction.

That you up drag so that you don't hit as many homers. That puts more pressure on putting balls and playing singles and stuff, right? And at the same time you shrink the zone. So fewer walks, you want fewer, I mean, you think you push people into the zone, more contact in the zone. The thing that I don't like is when you play around

with the zone, there are unintended consequences. When they played around with the zone and the miners, they got both walks and strikeouts, so that's not what you want. And, you know, one player was saying, if they wanna shrink the strike zone to like make it better for command guys, that's the wrong idea because what they'll end up doing

is putting more pressure on stuff. Because if you got to throw to a postage stamp, then you better be throwing some some hot stuff, you know Nasty if it's in the zone, you gotta be nasty I have a director of analytics that I'm that I'm texting with about this story and he said I mean he said it's anecdotally But he said anecdotally our big stuff pitchers and the miners are feeling kind of effed. The zone is shrinking on them in AAA. So now they feel like they have to throw middle, middle more than ever, you know? And then they're also saying like, which zone is it?

Because again, I want to have some sympathy for baseball. They're AB testing stuff, right? So they're like, okay, Monday through Friday, you guys got the challenge zone on, you know, on the weekends it's ABS. We want to Monday through Friday, you guys got the challenge zone. On the weekends, it's APS. We want to have data on all you guys and all these situations so we can see what happens. I get that's a great thing to do if you have minor leaguers.

But they're people, and they're trying to figure out zones. And they come to the big leagues, and they don't know what the zone is. Well, they don't have the players association. They kind of do. You've got to think about it that way too. What pushback will the league get from the minors? Nothing. There's nothing the minor leaguers can do about it. Major league players, they can at least put up a stink and it'd be a little bit more of a poke in the eye. Yeah, right. Because if the minor league would strike,

I don't think baseball would blink an eye really. So you got to remember the pressure to the way, they can't A-B test like that. Not, not straightforward in the big leagues. They can't do it. Or they're not supposed to be out, whatever. But we saw a little bit of this spring, right? Challenge system was with the major leaguers. You know, that was a little bit of A-B testing. And I think it was a precursor of this.

Cause if you look at this strike zone and you compare it to last year's challenge system strike zone, which we did thanks to Duke Hill, Prospects, Avant, Discord Guy, I'll be throwing some some visuals down there and it'll show up in some piece somewhere because it the zone this year in the Major Leagues is basically the challenge zone in AAA last year. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace

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some that make you laugh, and some that remind you when you were a kid watching sports for the first time. Connections Sports Edition. To play today's puzzle, go to theathletic.com slash connections. And that consistency is good, ultimately. I don't think you want different zones at different levels.

I think that's pretty much a disaster scenario to come up. It feels like no, it's for challenge. Yeah. So now that they're in challenge of the minors, they get to the majors, this challenge zone, this is the zone, that's the zone. You've got to have sympathy for baseball because they're trying to make changes to the sport

and make it good. And there is a road where like the drag comes down, it puts more pressure on balls and play, you make pitchers come into the zone. So there's fewer strikeouts. We're seeing strikeouts have leveled out. Like strikeouts are not getting worse every year as they used to, you know?

So as a sport, some people said watching. And I agree, cause I think when I go to the park, and this may upset Trevor as a pitcher, but like when I go to the park, I don't love watching strikeouts as much because you don't really, unless you're right behind home plate, you can't really see how nasty your stuff is. It's like a line to the plate. Maybe it's a curvy line or it's a straight line. I don't know.

Like it was that nasty. I don't know. But when you're at home, a strikeout is can be compelling because then you're kind of seen all the movement and stuff. But anyway, so if you wanted to get strikeouts down, some of what they're doing is working. I think, yeah, you look at strikeouts per team game so far this season are the lowest they've been since 2017.

So we're at 8.3 strikeouts per team game. It's the baseball reference seasons page. If you want to take a look at how everything has been changing. Stolen bases. We're at 0.81 stolen bases per team game. That's the highest it's been since 1987. So we've had these new rules. I enjoy stolen bases.

I think it's fun to have people running around the base pass. 100%. So we jumped from 0.51 steals per team game in 2022, the last year before they changed the rules to 0.72 in 2023, 0.74 steals per game last season to 0.81. So we're getting closer probably to that new line but I think that number can tick up even further if you're right. If the drag on the ball holds up and homers are down just slightly we're at 1.06 homers per team game down from 1.12 a year ago not much of a change could just be an early season thing with the weather being cool we're gonna have to see where that goes I think if you create the game

with more stolen bases than you have now I think that's generally a more exciting product for the average person the The other terrible thing that you wanna try and cut out if you can, I don't know if you can do it because you know, you've pointed this out, walk rates stay pretty consistent over time. That's the weirdest thing for me, is like there might be thousands of missing strikes at the end of this year and there might be the same

walk rate as we've seen before. Walk rate is like 9%, around 9% of the history of baseball. When I asked Trevor about that, he's like, yeah, duh, walks are bad. Yeah, it's the number one worst thing. You're walking too many guys, you're not in the league. It's the, if you walk a lot of guys, there is no quicker way to have a coaching staff

or a front office lose faith in you than if you're walking people. We know that. That's like the, it's the unforgivable sin. That's one way to spend five and a half years in the minor leagues. Like I did, like, cause I struggled with walks until I got to the big leagues basically, and it's just the way it is. But one thing that is worth looking at and might be interesting to check in with towards the end of the year is how many more Sonic, how much of the middle

third of the zone is, is thrown into like how many more, how much of the middle third of the zone is thrown into. Like how many more pitches are catching a lot more play because guys are, instead of being like, 3-0, I'm gonna throw a slider here. They're just like, I gotta throw, I have to throw. I have to throw something that's, I have to be safe here and go for the center because I don't know where the buffer is

or the buffer's harder to find. And that's the way they adjust. Like, it doesn't matter, If you walk tons of people, you just don't get a pitch in the Bayleagues. So like, they're just getting the guys who don't want people. That's the number one, that's the first box you have to check

in order to get a long look. And so guys who are walking tons of people, they just don't throw enough innings. It's just the way it is. The other thing is, you know, with strikeouts, we've leveled it, but we're not like reducing it. And if you do make the strike zone smaller and then need more stuff, I don't know. We're not doing really the opener's thing anymore.

And bullpen games gets you in trouble, I think, with the bullpen. You don't want to overuse your bullpen early in the season. You start doing a lot of bullpen games. You have a tired bullpen at the end of the season, you know? So, you know, bullpen games and openers, we haven't seen as much as we thought we would, but we're not seeing it. Starters go longer. And, you know, I was talking to Justin Verlander and he was thinking like, we

just need to be like, starters need to throw a hundred pitches and they can have, there can be outs injury, this, that, whatever. We can have score situations. And I thought that was also funny to have, was it Britt that did the story about like, no, it was Hannah Kaiser who was like, she talked to all the relievers like, you know, every time they talk about what's wrong with baseball, they talk about relievers.

Yeah, it's always our fault. What do you mean? Everything's our fault. We made too much money. What do you think about that? And we're too, we're too valuable to the game. And we're faceless or whatever. It's literally always our fault. That's so funny.

One of them actually said the bullpens were the funniest things happen. And I was like, yeah, I think the bullpen is rife for more, more interesting stuff. But you know, I also get what I mean for a lander starting pitchers, he's like, yeah, we should have to be out there. You know, it should be 100. Is there another rule where you're like, you have to be out there for 100 pitches? Like, what rules that like in the history of baseball? It's like the three batter rule. Wasn't it in the late 19th century, couldn't you just ask for the ball wherever you want to be pitched?

Wasn't that an original rule in baseball? Like a kickball? You have to stay out there. Yeah, give me right here. I mean, I don't- That's a rule where it's like- Middle in. I mean, the three pitcher rule is the closest. You have to stay out there.

Making it 90 pitches, but you just add a bunch of caveats. Like one standard, right, is like, if you throw more than 35 pitches in an inning, that's usually the standard around the league where they're like, we have to think about taking him out. Yeah, that was actually one of them. The takeouts you mentioned were like too many pitches in one inning, and then one was like if the game is tight

and it's like the eighth inning or ninth inning. Or yeah, or maybe the rules go away after seven. It just doesn't matter anymore because you've thrown seven. So we've accomplished our goal. We're not worried about it or six, but like to get you to six innings, basically you got to make a good faith effort to get your starting pitcher through six,

unless something drastic was happening, and then you just add those, like, what are the indicators? Lots of pitches in an inning. Honestly, pitches in an inning usually will be that. Very rarely a dude's out there, starting pitcher's out there struggling, he gives up like five runs in nine pitches. Like it just doesn't happen that often.

That happens a reliever, it's more than it happens to starters. So like, if happens then you just go well you need to pitch, you need to throw more balls then. You might want to inflate this thing because stop throwing it down the middle. Like you got to. And that's something that they can do. That'd be a weird set up. You're at 25 pitches and you want to be out of the game. Yeah we got to get you out of the game throw 10 but we're just like, walk them on purpose, but we're actually throwing the pitches now. That's something that would probably,

someone would do, someone would do that. Like balk a guy home, like if it's a, if it was like a blowout rule. Like guys dropping the ball to get them to go to third, cause they don't want them to play that. Dropping again score, thank you. I don't think people want that. I think pitch limits probably your best option there, but I don't, I still don't know. I would rather it be incentives than, I don't think people want that. I think pitch limits probably your best option there,

but I still don't know. I would rather it be incentives than, I don't know, like maybe you get one more challenge. I don't know. You get something if you get it. Let's get more creative here. I don't know. I'm all for incentives and all this is to say,

I'm not unhappy with the state of the game as it is right now. I'm not complaining about baseball. I don't hear a lot of people complaining about baseball right now. I think generally we're headed in the right direction I think if there's a complaint about The strike zone. It's just that people didn't seem to know that this change was in effect

I feel like the only the only thing I care about the strike zone. There's two things consistency and transparency Right. Everyone should know where the zone is what the zone zone is, and it should be called consistently. If you do that, that's gonna knock out 99% of the complaints. So just do that. What's so hard about that? I think we know what's so hard about that. Because some of it's unilateral and it's not supposed to be. It's probably, it's just like, we don't wanna deal with it.

We don't wanna have to explain ourselves. Well, that's what happens when you have a union and a group of owners. Yeah, I guess it's also hard to disseminate information sometimes I mean like this is one of those weird things where it's not a rule change So if it is if it was a rule change people would know about it because the rules I think the rules committee meeting or whatever People go to like people are thinking about how can I get an edge off this? Oh, you're doing what now? How many throws over like I got it? I can I get an edge off this? Oh, you're doing what now? How many throws over?

Like I gotta get that to the pitching coach. You gotta know three foot throws over. You know, like anytime there's like a little thing like that, they care. This was not a quote unquote rule change. So it didn't go out in the same channels. If it had gone around the same channels, then you know, then we would have had a different reaction.

More people would have known about it. So there's some semantics at play here, but it is, I think, and this is editorializing, but I think it's de facto rule change. You're changing the way the umpires are being graded. That changes the way the zone is being called. It's a de facto rule change. It's not a literal one.

Exactly. And that's what the pushback pay would have gotten. It's the strict interpretation versus the loose interpretation. And exactly, technically it's not a rule change. So we don't, and there are rules around rule changes. Guys, remember, like you used to have to put it in and wait a year. Oh yeah, the keeping has to be approval.

Now they have to wait 50 days, which we let that go through for some reason. And now, and then there's other stuff they're like, we would rather not have to go through this process. We would rather just like do it. And they know that if that's what you do, it's gonna make people, namely, I don't know, the people who are in the players association, who negotiated the whole thing about rule changes, be like, isn't that a rule change? And they're like, we don't want to have this argument. So we're just gonna like do it and ask for forgiveness later. We're not gonna call it not a rule change. What if the buffer zone was

zero like that would change the strike zone tremendously. It would be. This was this reduced going from two inches to 0.75 inches reduced the area of the buffer zone by 60%. I believe it's a 67.5% but I don't mean that. Oh my god. Let's move on to some other stuff going on around the league. Let's talk about some struggling pitchers. Zach Galin, maybe not struggling anymore. As we have been recording this episode, Zach Galin turning in a great start against the Mets. He went six innings on Thursday, struck out eight, walked three, only give up one earned run on a couple of hits. For the season, entering play on Thursday, we saw a slight dip in strikeout rate, not even an alarming drop really,

but big jumps in the walk rate and the home run rate. That was the what's going wrong with Zach Galen on the very basic surface level. I also noticed there was about a 10 percentage point drop in his left on base percentage compared to his career mark. Usually that sort of thing will straighten itself out over the full season but the longer term trend with gallon is pretty clear his stuff has dropped off in three consecutive seasons he was at a 105 stuff plus back in 2022

down to a 98 down to a 92 last season and he was sitting at an 88 entering play today. So there were a couple of things that stood out to me in the profile. One, why was the knuckle curve getting hit as badly as it did in the first month of the season? And could Zach Galen maybe throw more changeups, especially right on right? Or is he already sort of match that out or max that out? Because I like that pitch, man. Like Zach Galen's change up is nice.

Just a couple of right on rights, swirled into Dan to be Swanson, one to Mookie Betts. That's nasty. That's a good pitch. What other tweaks does he have that can maybe help reverse this trend of stuff deterioration year over year for three seasons in a row now. I think he just needs to embrace being a big mix guy as opposed to what he used to be. I think there's two Zach Allens. There's one Zach Allen who's forcing curve. I think that's his core.

And I think a lot of starting pitchers are looking for an identity and they're like, what are my two best pitches? What am I doing at my core? And then what am I doing around that to keep them from guessing, you know, keep them guessing. And I think he needs to be a little bit more like Seth Lugo, which is like, you're always guessing. Like I think he's transitioned from having any sort of one dominant pitch to being like, I need to throw these five pitches in equal amount of time almost.

And I don't think he's quite there yet because you look at just the overall percentages, 48% curve ball, I mean, 48% force team. That's pretty high for a guy who throws 93 miles an hour. It's a decent shape, but it's not, it's not like a dominant fastball. Like 48% is pretty high for that kind of fastball. And then 20, 20% curve balls is kind of, he's almost to pitch pitcher sometimes against lefties and righties, curve and forcing change I think he really just needs to throw all of them the cutter is not great but it's it's a good enough and throw that some more throw the change up some more throw the slider some more

just throw everything more and the forcing less is basically my answer for him because over time the force team you know you talked about the drop off and stuff plus and the stuff plus has really been seen the most in the four seam where he used to have a 118 stuff plus in 2020 on the four seam that's down to 92 and you know he's retained more of his stuff on his other pitches than he has on that pitch yeah i agree with that i would say a better more mix um and also he could he only his only pitch he has that goes, that can be used effectively into a right, cause he has that natural supinated like cut, like when he's yanking, he's cutting the crap out of his fore seam.

So everything kind of spins and goes that way. He's much more comfortable. It's kind of similar to extreme example of this is class now, right? Everything is in wrap. He wrapping the ball is the thing that he naturally feels comfortable with and he's really struggled to get anything to go into a right here, use the inner half against a righty.

And he might need a seam shifted sinker or something or one of those rising to seam things that just runs away from guys. His sinker last year had two inches of arm side movement. The power change has 13. Yeah, so like maybe he uses the change up the same way that Jason Adam uses his change up. Like Jason Adam throws 94 in a 91 mile an hour change up.

It's just because he gets 15 inches of arm side run, that's what he wants. He wants the run, he doesn't want. So like once you get that much run, the V-Low change doesn't matter as much, and you can throw it harder, which the ones you showed us were pretty, pretty firm, pretty close to the fastball.

Yeah, it was like 87 and 89. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you throw a 93 with an 89, use it like that. So maybe using, I think, the change of usage run, right, instead of trying to go for it, because what he's still using it for, and I think that what we saw with the two pitches as well, and he's using it for a swing and miss pitch, which it can be, but maybe he needs to use it a little bit more as a wrinkle also to a righty to get them be like, oh, I'm going to get this. This is a pitch that's on the table a lot more.

And that makes the north to south thing a lot more effective when there is one thing that you have to worry about possibly getting on the label or the handle that has a little bit of like heaviness to it. little bit of like heaviness to it. So that could be one. So maybe the changeup takes a little bit more of the pitch mix from the fore seam and that would even things out quite a bit. Or maybe just start there where you would use a fast ball pin and maybe just use the changeup instead and then build off of it and see you see how everything kind of settles because he is kind of just doing what he's always done and I think we're seeing an adjustment. Do you think we get ratios by the end of the year similar to last year, it was a 365 VRA and a 126 whip,

those were three year highs, certainly not bad. Because I don't know if we have a ceiling as high as what he was doing three years ago, like that seems impossible, the 254 with the.91 over a strikeout per inning, like that seems like the career year that he won't be able to repeat. But if he could just be even last year's version of himself,

that goes a pretty long way towards staving off decline. That's at least a useful mid-rotation, especially over a high volume of innings, a useful mid-rotation arm. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- Did it did it did it did it breaking news breaking news did it did it did it breaking news Zach Gallin is using his cutter Really hard today 14% on the cutter. He has never had a game where he used it over 10% of the time Never this season or never ever Confirming that really quickly. I think he used to throw it a lot more. I think when he was really good he threw more cutters. That's right. He used to throw it more in 2022. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Most thrown games were all 2022. Late 2022, Zach Galenhead starts where he threw the cutter 25 times twice and one time he threw it 35 times at a start. Maybe go back to that. That fits what we're saying, which is, you know, mix it up some more. And I mean, 2022 was a great season for him. You know, for us worth 93-9 on the fastball, then 93-1 now, it's not impossible that, you know, he could do a lesser version of that. I think the ceiling is 2023 when he had the 3-4-7 ERARA 112 whip. And I've always liked, I've always thought he had like a little bit of pitch ability to him, you know, beyond what the numbers say.

So I'm gonna give him, I'm gonna give him some of those gains back and say he can keep the, I think he can keep the ERA south of four, you know, going forward. I think he can still be a mid rotation guy in fantasy. In real life, he needs to be a number two. And you know, a guy who keeps it under four and can mix it up,

and that sounds like a number two. He's a guy who'd still play in a playoff situation, I think. He's not a guy that you put in the bullpen in the playoffs. Now, if he's your game two starter in a playoff series, I think you're fine, if that's the good version of Zach Galen again. So maybe the tweaks are already in progress. Sounds like we generally like him as a bit of a

by-low sort of guy you could trade for now if you're looking for some pitching. How about Sandy Alcantara? Is this just a problem of working back from TJ and the command just being the last thing that comes back? We've known this for a long time, so maybe we shouldn't be that surprised. The velocity compared to when he was Cy Young Sandy a few years ago, it's close.

The four seamer, 98 then, 97.4 now, sinker 97.8 back then, 96.7 now, so he's lost a tick there. Slider was 90 now, it's 88.8. Change was 91.8, now it's 90.1. That's not enough of a drop to explain why things haven't worked right is this Trevor's purely a command question that should resolve as we get further into the season yeah I think it is vast majority command because even usage is pretty similar he saw his feel for

pitching it looks like he's still trying to do the things he did he's just executing a little bit a uh, not as good. And the clustering of his pitches, especially during the Cy Young was like, kind of disgusting for a guy who throws that heart. You're like, Oh, is this Kyle Hendricks in this prime? Oh no, this is, this is, you know, a guy throwing a hundred. So like, I think we just, he was just, he was such an outlier that he's still well above average, especially with all this stuff. So his VLO is going to, he's going's gonna get it back we're seeing it with everybody like

Spencer Strider same thing Felix Bautista's now I just saw him throw a 99 last night like it takes two to four months I think of consistent big league appearances before you forget that you had Tommy John and it's gonna take 10 to 15 starts to get like where he's maintaining his velocity the whole time and like the the command doesn't kind of degrade over time a little bit too. And that's something he never had an issue with before, right? He was like in the eighth inning and he hasn't even sweated yet. And now it looks like he's just laboring a little bit to keep things sharp.

And that's just going to come along. So, I mean, I don't see any, any reason that he can't continue to be the Sandy of before because I think all the stuff's gonna be there. And it's not like he had like his crazy pitches that movement wise in vacuum anyways. They all just work really well to each other. It's not like he has a slider like from hell. It's just a slider. But with the velocity and command is what made it so good. And so he needs the command or he's just not as Good he's not gonna be able to go out there. I'm gonna throw only sliders today because it's that good He's just not one of those pitchers

Yeah It really became a guy that would throw everything evenly when he won that Cy Young four pitches thrown almost all within a few percentage points a 25% usage This isn't a great question for you, but it is something that I've been talking about The reason it's not a great question for you, but it is something that I've been talking about. The reason it's not a great question for me is even though you had Tommy John, you didn't really throw the slider as, especially at that point in your career,

you weren't throwing it, it was like a 10% pitch for you. It looks like you came back with a slightly different slider. Maybe you came back with more of a gyro slider after, it was like 87. I changed my slider like 19 times. So like, I'll be honest, my slider is a terrible indicator of anything about me,

because it was probably different from month to month. I think this is important though, because did they tell you to not throw the slider when you're coming back from TJ? Uh. Was there a period of time where you could just go fastballs, right? Yeah, yeah, you definitely go fastball change up

on it first, yes. I've heard that that's like, especially Keith Meister with his surgeries, like, you know, that's his, he's like, this Keith Meister with his surgeries. Like, you know, that's his he's like, this is how you do it. Don't throw the slider for the first three months or whatever. It's possible that's just wrong. First of all, it's affecting Sandy right now, because he has a 75 location plus on the slider. He's never had it below 100 before. And that's the one pitch that he really can't command. Well, big surprise. He hasn't been throwing it. He's like three months behind on the slider

then he's on the fastball. So you're like, oh, look, the location plus on his fastball is okay, but it's not on the slider, but he hasn't been throwing it for three months. Duh. And I did talk to people who work on this. I'm an expert in rehabbing pitchers, who was like, how are you gonna come back

and throw sliders in the big leagues? And you're gonna tell me that the best way to rehab this guy is for him to throw in one of his first competitive sliders in competition? Like if you want him to come back throwing 80% throwing fastballs at 80% effort, right? That's your first, like get back out there, you know, why shouldn't he throw the slider at 80% effort too? Because it's all about building back up. Right? So it's so weird that you're like, throw the fastball, don't throw the slider. And then you then you get the fastball up to like 98. Like you, oh, hey, look, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. And then they're like, okay, now you can throw

the slider and you're like, whip. Here comes something I haven't done in 15 months. I think conventional wisdom is catching up with that. And you've talked about this too, that like a lot of the researchers is pointing towards fast ball, having just as much stress on your elbow, if not more. Right, yeah, I do. I understand the whole snapping it off thing too,

but I think it was just like the assumption was, breaking balls were worse. They are bad for you. And you know, like even when I was a kid, my dad would be like, Hey, we're not throwing a curve ball till you're 14. And I'm not saying that's entirely wrong. I'm just saying like, if you are going to throw eventually an 89 mile an hour breaking ball, don't like get up to 89 and then start throwing the 89

mile an hour breaking balls. Throw some 83s for a while and get that feeling back and get those muscles. Yeah, you don't wanna have all your other pitches feel like, oh, okay, I'm going 100% and you're like, and this one's 80. And then here comes this. You're not gonna throw it.

Then you're not gonna throw it. And then you're like, cause you wanna compete. So like, let's just make sure that when you are competing, you feel like you can compete cause that can create other bad habits. And I think you're totally right there, yeah. And you'll see Sandy Alcantaraantara slider at league least amount of usage. I mean, his career, you least.

That's why he throws all four pitches all the time. He's like, they all need to be competitive for me to use them. Cause I'm a mixed guy, even though I throw a hundred, like I'm just one of those guys. I'm a weird, I'm a weird guy. It was a guy who throws a hundred who is a command pitcher. I don't know what to tell people to do about it though. I mean, I guess I would watch the slider percentage. There was one game he didn't throw one at all and against the Mets and I would just watch the slider

percentage. I would watch games and see if he's starting to get the slider back. Like he obviously still has the change-up but he needs the breaking pitches to get more whiffs. Like he can't he can't just be a ground ball guy. That'd be a pretty uninspiring return if that's what it turns into, but given the timeline with that slider lagging behind, maybe we're talking about him as a mid-season turnaround sort of candidate. It might take a couple more months before it actually all comes together, even though the long-term outlook is good, short-term outlook might still be a little bit cloudy.

Let's talk about Aaron Nola. I think he's tricky. Is the ceiling coming down yet again? His velocity check, just looking this year versus last year down 1.2 miles per hour on the four seamer, a 692 slugging against that pitch so far. Sinkers down almost a tick and a half, knuckle curves down a little over a tick,

changes down, cutters down a tick and a half. And I've noticed one other trend with Arenola pulled flyballs are up year over year, every year, going back to 2022. How does that happen? What does what happens to a pitcher that he gets easier to pull flyballs against? I feel like he's throwing more four seams now than he did at the beginning of his career, because I remember him being a very heavy sinker curveball guy, which was weird. I was like, that's a little bit not true. He's throwing more cutters now than ever. Is that,

is it they're pulling fly balls cause they're, they're turning on his cutter. That could be it. Cutters, especially cutters away to righties are usually not like you want depth because you want it on, like if you're going to hit it, you don't want them to be able to get under it all the time. So that could be it, especially with like that doesn't't it's kind of a especially if you're worried about his curveball which that is his always been his pitch that he's been the most confident in for flipping over for a strike and throwing for a strike out but giving a pitch that's kind of a way or outer half of the plate too and then making it smaller

and he's not necessarily a hard thrower so like it's almost like you throw a slider off the plate down and away and then you try to bring it back over the plate. The chances that you bring it too far over the plate are high and the chances that you moving it closer to the bat also makes it easier to hit for them is high. Now you're doing a too high probabilities. It's really dumb to do. Maybe the curveball cutter thing is that same thing where they're able to lift it a little more. Guys are guessing right, hitting homers, and then it's just showing up a little bit more in the statistics.

That would make more sense to me too. And he was also very heavy ground ball at the beginning, because like I said, he threw a lot more sinkers, he threw a little bit harder. So maybe that has a little bit to do with it too. But that would be, yeah, cutters to righties, that's just generally limited. He throws them to righties. He's thrown 24 cutters to righties

and 31 to lefties and last year he threw 177 cutters to righties and 117 to lefties. He threw more to righties than lefties and guess what? The slugging percentage on his cutter last year was 796 and this year it's 636. Like maybe he should dial down the cutter usage. I'm trying to see the movement profile in this too, because I, in my head, I'm seeing it, and I think it moves a little bit more like a, yeah, a little bit more of like a little baby slider thing. It's like, he just, the way he throws, he's got a low arm slot and stuff, he doesn't have this like tight cutter, he's got kind of a little hump in it. Everything does, just the way he throws. So maybe he uses it or thinks of it that way.

Like I have a little bit more of a slider movement to righties. I know he's more like a cutter to lefties. This is a little bit of a guess, but that sounds very how Arenola would think. Manipulating the ball a little bit more. Cause he's got feel for spin. He's being a little fine with that pitch, dude. I don't know. I think that should be a surprise pitch that he dials feel for spin. He's being a little fine with that pitch, dude. I don't know.

I think that should be a surprise pitch that he dials maybe back down. Maybe it's just getting like 10%, maybe just too much for it. Maybe it's just a pitch he throws once or twice a game. I do get the idea, though, because it's like, hey, three fastballs, two off speed. This is a better way to turn the lineup over. It gives you something against lefties that you can use. Maybe just stop using against righties. I don't know. What's interesting to me is that

Aaron Nola overall still has a decent stuff plus number and it's because the model likes his fast ball still in terms of shape and it loves, it's always loved its curve, its knuckle curve, which has lost stuff since it was a 139 stuff less pitch in 2020 down to 118 now, but it's still a good pitch. So he still got his outpitch. He's not quite, I think in Wainwright, you know, or sorry to say late Morton territory. That seems far enough off. I think he'll right ship.

I think it's just, it's like a, it's a pitch mix tweak. And the other thing is, so Sandy had like this, Sandy Alcantara maybe had like a slightly bad short-term analysis, but like, we think long-term he'll be fine. It's a little bit different for me for Nola, where it's like, short-term I think he'll turn this around. But like in a keeper league or in like a long-term situation,

I'd be nervous if I was the Phillies. I mean, you just sign this guy until 2030, you know, for $172 million, and he shows up with a 91-mile-an-hour fastball? I'd be a little in edge of my seat. We're getting close to precipitous territory here. Like, one, blue is a mile and a half on everything. Exactly. Like, if he had 89 next year.

Yeah. Yeah. We're close to, like, he's already well below average. So, like, we're close to being like, what's going on here? I look at this more as a situation if you're trying to find pitching in your fantasy league I'd rather go for gallon I'd rather take the longer term shot on Sandy and I'd rather just be wrong a year too soon about Nola Then trade for him right now and have him throw up a four to five the rest of the way with maybe a lot of strikeouts

But she's done really bad ratios over a high volume of innings too he said full years like that right he's already when he had better stuff he put up years like that the parks tough like I I'm nervous about this one I'm not into the by low on Aaron Nola even though there's things you can pick at and say wait a minute his own contact rates actually really good 80.4% that's the best we've seen from him ever as a big leaguer. That's kind of weird in the face of the struggles he's had, but three years now where he's had a high home run rate,

I think that's generally who he is, again, because of the par, totally six out of the last seven years. That's just baked in there, and I don't think you're getting a high strikeout rate, even though it's all volume dependent. So if you think about the tumble of like Kevin Gossman from a value perspective last year. I think that's where we might be with Nola, where it's like, oh, yeah, pick 150 next year. Erin Nola is going to be out there and you're going to talk yourself into it

maybe as your third or fourth starter. I think that's probably where we're at based on this velocity loss that we're seeing from him. All right. We got one more topic to go here. Where we're at based on this velocity loss that we're seeing from him all right We got one more topic to go here. It's a game Yeah, I got him. I got him. I thought we had another picture I scratched it. I changed the rundown on the fly Do you want game a or game B? You know be?

Sounds different. More career homers, Eugenio Suarez or Jose Ramirez? Eugenio Suarez. Yeah, Suarez. Yes. Higher career OBP, Nick Swisher or Jeremy Giambi? Nick Swisher. No, Jeremy Giambi. Next swisher. No, Jeremy Giambi.

More career steal, Andrew McCutcheon or Mookie Betts? Why are you thinking about it so long? You gotta go. Who? Mookie Betts. No, McCutcheon. Lower career ERA, Johan Santana or is that Grinky? Santana Yes, more career strikeouts Dallas kike or Annabelle Sanchez

Annabelle Sanchez Yeah, all right. That's good by a large margin too. I was surprised by that All right, you took the player be line got three. Trevor gets the player A toss-ups. Here we go, Trevor. More career homers. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Teasca Hernandez? Teasca. Yes.

Higher career OBPs, Xander Bogarts or Manny Machado? Bogarts. Bogarts, that's correct. More career steals, Sammy Sosa or Mike Trout? Mike Trout., Sammy Sosa or Mike Trout? Mike Trout. Nope, Sosa. Lower career at ERA, Francisco Liriano or Jake Arietta? Liriano's nasty, lefty.

Liriano. But he went to the pen. Arietta. More career strikeouts, Ari, Dickieie or tib linsecombe. Oh This is hard, uh, we'll go with dickie Yeah, I couldn't remember how many more years dickie played Yeah, that was that's why I threw that in there. It's an absolute absolute mind.

Dickie 1477, Lincicum 1736. So I had one fun fact from from this. I am not the twenty twenty four White Sox. I got one win on the board. I am I'm actually impressed. The fun fact, the the relationship between two of the players in the player a one that Trevor just played Teasca Hernandez hit his first big league homer off of Francisco Larianne. Oh wow and tasker still in the league I guess they're y'all know his mid career for their honor. That was Larry on before he became a reliever

We're jayler around. Oh, I was that was like and end of days Larianne.. I thought when he was a reliever, okay Yeah, but yeah Teoscar's got to 200 for his career I think in the last couple of days so that's that's what led me down that rabbit hole and then the Eugenio Suarez one versus Jose Ramirez I think that's just the reminder of man Jose like Jose Ramirez is a great player and Eugenio Suarez just gets to that power a lot man like that He's gonna it's gonna get to 400 for his career? Is he gonna hang around long enough for that?

It also is like you sort of generally associate quality where you're like, oh, Jose Ramirez is on like a Hall of Fame track, but it's like, homers are just one of the things that Jose Ramirez does so well. I mean, he has 249 steals, he has a career 350 OBP, and great defender, so when you're looking at Suarez, you're like, oh, well, Jose Ramirez is better,

so therefore he has more homers, you know. I do like the new graphic that picked together for Ambush, if you're watching on YouTube. Which one am I? You are definitely Tina in this one. Just being sad. There's an episode of Bob's Burgers where Aunt Gail runs an art camp,

and of course, Tina and her mom are two of the three people there but Aunt Gail is sneaking up on Tina in the woods as the creative block ambushing her. That's what we got. That's just nervously awaiting the next disastrous game show segment on our show. You know I think you're off to an Aaron Judge-like start though for May, so you gotta feel pretty good about yourself. May 1. Yeah, May 1.

On my day I lose too. That's right, it's Trevor May Day. Well, hey, you got 30 more days this month, Trevor, so I think your chances of rallying are pretty good. I'm pretty confident. But that's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. On our way out the door, a reminder,

you can get a subscription, theaethetic.com slash rates and barrels. If you don't have one of those already, join our Discord with the link in the show description. You can find us on Blue Sky. Trevor is imtrevermay.beastguy.social. Eno's enoseris.beastguy.social. imdbr.beastguy.social.

Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We're back with you on Friday.