Rates & Barrels - What Information Do Hitters Want About Opposing Pitchers?

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Eno, Jed, and DVR discuss a few injury-related news items including updates on Aaron Nola, Matt Chapman, Bryce Miller and Justin Martinez, plus a few surprises from The Athletic's (anonymous) 2025 MLB player poll. They also dig into information hitters might be interested in when preparing for a particular series, using Pete Alonso's new approach as inspiration for a theoretical matchup against the Astros.Rundown1:21 A Rib Cage Stress Reaction for Aaron Nola4:15 Matt Chapman: Will See Hand Specialist This Week10:19 The Athletic's 2025 MLB Player Poll($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/640663623:33 Managers That Players Want to Play For30:15 What Information Do You Want About Opposing Pitchers?37:46 A Game Plan for Pete Alonso v. Framber Valdez47:59 Do Hitters Value Information About Usage Tendencies?52:27 Hunter Brown and the Value of Two Very Good FastballsFollow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Jed LowrieProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Raids to Barrels, it's Wednesday, June 11th. Derek Van Riper, you know, Sarah's Jed Lowry here with you on this episode. We got some baseball news you should know, lots of injuries getting worse around the league but we do have the Athletics player poll, the annual anonymous player poll results are in. Some fun results, I think, as we looked through some of those earlier today, so we'll discuss that. We're gonna dig into game planning for opposing pitchers.

There was a great story that Will Salmon wrote about Pete Alonso and how Alonso has changed some of the things he is doing in game prep this year. We started asking questions like, what do we actually wanna have at our disposal if we were in a position like that of Pete Alonzo right now? So we're gonna use Pete Alonzo versus the Astros in an interleague series as a hypothetical breakdown.

So a lot of ground to cover today, guys. If you haven't joined our Discord already, you can do that with the link in the show description. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to smash that like button. I will just say smash the like button until the end of time. I don't care how much the kids laugh at me. That is what I am here for.

All right, let's get to the news. Aaron Nola has a stress reaction in his rib cage. It could keep him sidelined until the All-Star break, you know? Maybe an explanation for why Aaron Nola hasn't quite looked like himself but it does leave the door open for Mick Abel to continue getting some run against big league hitters. Yeah I was hoping this would be the case for the good news being like Mick Abel gets the chance he's been really exciting and it's been fun to watch him pitch.

I'm not hoping for that for Aaronola. This is one of those lost seasons. It feels like it was an ankle and then maybe he was compensating for that ankle and did something to his rib cage. But it's really hard sometimes, I think, to just come back. You think, oh, it's just this one injury. And you're like, okay, the ankle feels good enough to get out there. And then you're like, oh, wait, I did something. I guess the one way that I would refer to it is the pitchers refer to themselves as compensators and that they're elite compensators. And that's a good thing in like how do you get through, you know, small things, but it can also lead to big things because you're like, Oh, I'm doing this more because I did that or that hurts.

And so I'm doing this. And I think that's probably how we got to this moment for Aaron Nola. I think that's just true in general in baseball, not just pitchers, right? You got everyday guys doing the same thing that, you know, you're going out there and trying to, you know, these, these small things that add up and then, and then something else gets hurt for overcompensation. So, so yeah, I mean, I think pitchers, pitchers is probably because of the repetitive nature of the pitching motion. And that's truly the only thing that they're, they're doing right. Like on a, on a regular basis. So it's probably more amplified, but I think, you know, position players are in the same boat

and I would say baseball players in general are elite compensators. Yeah, my old friend Bernie Pleskov was a pro scout for a while and he compared injuries that impact mechanics to the real life problem of getting a pebble in your shoe, right? You're gonna walk around with a pebble in your shoe for a little while, but you're not gonna walk the same way you of getting a pebble in your shoe, right? You're gonna walk around with a pebble in your shoe for a little while, but you're not gonna walk

the same way you walk without that pebble, and eventually something else starts to bother you. Maybe you're flexing your foot, so your calf starts to hurt, and then you're compensating and creating a problem with your other leg, right? So I think it's something along those lines where you can take one problem, and because of the kinetic chain and how the body works,

you can quickly create another one. We'll see where things go with Abel though, and I think the update on Andrew Painter was that they're still bringing him along slowly, anticipating bringing Andrew Painter to the fold, more likely as a starter than as a reliever after the All-Star break, but this could be an absence for Nola

that spans about that long. Jed, here's some injury news that came down on Tuesday. Matt Chapman went on the IL and will actually visit with a hand specialist in Los Angeles later this week. Every time I hear about a hand and a wrist injury right now, I start thinking of the Jordan-Elvarez situation in Houston where it might seem like a relatively minor problem, but it's one of those areas that can be a lot more

complicated than people realize. Yeah, and I just want to give a shout out to Mick Able, It's one of those areas that can be a lot more complicated than people realize. Yeah. And I just want to give a shout out to, to Mick Able, a local kid here to the Portland area and had a chance to get to know him this last off season. So I'm really happy to see the success that he's had and obviously continued opportunities and success. But Chappie, yeah, I mean, you could see that on the dive back, something got jammed, something happened.

And obviously when you're talking about a throwing hand with a guy who has, you know, one of his greatest assets is on the defensive sides. I mean, obviously he's having a great offensive year, but I mean, this guy is one of the best defensive third baseman's I've seen in my life. He's a guy that without that throwing arm is still valuable, but you're also talking about the top hand of the bat

that's gonna generate a lot of power and direction. And he's kind of a top hand hitter too. Mm-hmm, exactly. And it's also gonna absorb all of the force from the ball. When you have that top hand, I remember when I came back from my torn UCL and my right, my first at bat back was against Clayton Kershaw. And he's just pounding cutters in on me. And it's a really hard injury hands.

You realize very quickly in baseball how valuable and how, you know, you don't people talk about a lot of other systems in the body, but the hands ultimately, you know, allow you to do the things that you're trying to do in baseball. Not a lot of depth in San Francisco either. I mean, you lose a guy like Chapman and Casey Schmidt, I think is a good defensive backup, but not going to bring anything close to the same offensive ceiling that Matt Chapman offers. I think that's one of the flaws of the build in San Francisco right now. When they have to lean

on depth, it's more suspect, kind of quad A type players right now that are in the mix, but an opportunity nonetheless for Schmidt. I think the differences between surgery and non-surgery outcomes are going to be on the level of weeks and weeks. I mean, I think if it is surgery, he may be out six to eight. If it is not surgery, then maybe it could be two to four. I'm sort of guessing, but I'm not a hand specialist. But once you put surgery in there, there's all the recovery from the surgery and the rehab. So I doubt there's no way that he's back in a month that there's a surgery involved. There's a difference between being medically cleared to participate and feeling good, exactly. It also strikes me as another area where even if you avoid surgery, there's so many ways to aggravate the injuries in and around the hands and wrists. You get hit by another pitch,

you follow something off, you dive back into a bag again, you slide into something. There's a lot of ways to create more discomfort with a problem like that. So that could be a longer term chronic problem all season, even if the outcome ends up being relatively positive with a Chapman return. Bow-Mile's gonna have some managing to do

with that moving forward, regardless of surgical or non-surgical. A couple of quick updates on players. We discussed earlier in the week, Bryce Miller had a PRP injection likely out four to six weeks. Yet again, Dr. Keith Meister getting a mention on the show, he checked Miller out. And for now, surgery will be avoided.

We know he's dealing with a bone spur in his arm. That seems to be the root cause of the inflammation that Miller is dealing with. So opportunity for Logan Evans will be even longer than we realized when we announced that news earlier in the show on Tuesday. Got a follow up on Justin Martinez. The diagnosis of a sprained UCL has been confirmed. He's going to get a second opinion on the MRI, but that probably means the possibility of Tommy John surgery is looming over the Diamondbacks young flame throwing

reliever. And as you suggested yesterday, you know, it's probably going to bump Shelby Miller back into that closer role for Arizona. And Shelby's a good story. I mean, he's throwing harder than he's thrown in a while and he's even changed his mix. And I think he can be a good stand in for Martinez. If they can find another young fireballer to take his place then maybe they can still recover the season but it's going to be sad for just Martinez. Once you have a sprained UCL, I think there are some guys who have pitched through it. You know, we famously talked about Masahiro Tanaka kind of pitching through it.

But Tanaka threw like 91. I just doubt that a guy that throws 97 to 100 is going to come back out there with the sprained UCL. Sprain is always a, you know, always a funny term to me. If you have a grade three sprain, it's a full tear of the brain is a tear is just a question of degree. Yeah. And so exactly like everyone's like, oh, it's just a sprain. You're fine. It's not even torn. Like, no, that's literally the definition of a stretch, stretched or torn ligament. So

like, it just depends on the grade of the sprain. It's a player poll week at the athletic. So a few pieces dropped coming off of that. It's an anonymous player poll. And it always makes me wonder when I see a great quote from these polls, who actually said it. There was one player that wanted to make the season longer. And it was first the quote. The quote was, it might make my wife upset,

but I think the season should be longer. And I'm like, what what's sicko who in the game wants the season to be longer? Who is such an animal out there that they're like? It's a young married player we play a game of guess who here Somebody wanted more fights. Is there anybody that comes to mind when you saw that? add to the hundred and sixty two game season. I don't know, man. I can't imagine it. Somebody wanted more fights. Is there anybody that comes to mind when you saw that? I'm guessing it was a position player who was on a hot streak. You can't count them at the right time. He's like, man, if I if I play, if we play, I play forever.

Like feeling real good about himself. Yeah, more fights. That was part of the, you know, some of the players saying, like, remove all the rules that we've done. Let's go back to old school baseball. Let's like run people over at second base and at home again. And like, you watch those old highlights of like Pete Rose taking the guy out. I think the what's the who's the guy at second that they always show?

Is it like Harold Reynolds being taken out? I think that's Albert Bell running into... is it Fernando Vina? Oh yeah, that's a big one they show too. But there was a... in the 70s there was a guy that just like, you know, would just fully take out people. Just like almost like football tackle them at second base. And I don't know, I don't think we need to go back to that. I just feel like, you know, our modern players are getting, are pushing their bodies to such an extent, they're such elite athletes, that if we add this component to it, we're just adding more injury. That's all I see is like potential for injury.

I've never understood that. Like I get it from an entertainment, you know, perspective, but you know, that's what boxing and UFC are for. The union always talks about we're collective, we're one unit. It's better for the game too. Injuries are just not good for the game ultimately. It's not good for the player, it's not good for the team. So I think player safety is something that is valuable.

And, you know, we should we should be looking to continue to keep the big names and giving people as much opportunity to stay on the field as long as possible. So I'm going to I'm going to have to disagree with the more fights part. Yeah, the more fights definitely seems to counteract the finding ways to keep people healthy. If you were games, I mean, that seems like a thing that people would actually want. And I think the complications with that usually come back to gate revenue, TV revenue, all those deals that are already in place. It becomes tricky to do that.

But someone suggested the seven inning double headers that were being played during the 2020 shortened COVID season as one way to maybe work around that. I mean, imagine if every Monday was off, like in the minor leagues, but on Sunday, before your off day, you played a seven inning double header and it was just an extended baseball day for fans. It was the best day to go to the yard

because you get two games. I, it was a really obvious thing that we can do. Cut spring training, dude. I think we went to 154 game seasons, which we used to have in baseball. It's not like something that's never been done before. Go back to 154 and cut a week off of spring. Just a week. Just a week off of spring and you've got your days back already. I don't know what you have to give to the owners though because, you know, some of those owners are really raking in the cash in the spring. They're not really paying the players.

It's not really the way the players are played. They don't really get money for spring training. Then the Giants and the Cubs, do you know how much those tickets cost in the spring? It's like a hundred bucks for a seat in spring training where you only get to see the starters for like six innings, five innings, you know, before they're walking out, you know, into the clubhouse. So I don't know, I think that one, you just have to kind of appeal to the owners' best wishes

for the sport, but you have to give them something. So maybe the seven inning doubleheader is a way to be like, okay, we don't have to cut from 162 to 154 and like take away money out of your pocket. I'd be curious to know, you know, how much if there's any correlation between injury and 162 games versus 154. If you could show that the owners are going to save x amount of money, because you're not going to have as much. Yeah, exactly. You're not going to have as much money on the IL, you know, because there's replacement costs. I mean, if you're adding a guy to the 40-man, you're also adding him

to major league insurance. Like, you know, there's all these other ripple effects that happen when a guy goes on to the IL. And if you have to add a guy to the 40-man, it's not as simple as black and white. There's a lot of drag alongs that come with that. But I think from a starting point, I'd be interested to see, you could draw any conclusions from a shortened season to keeping guys off the IL and saving money that way. Yeah, I think having that built in rest day once a week would at least be a step in the right direction. If you got some nagging thing you've been playing through,

maybe just one day off that isn't a game off. It's just a day off. Takes the pressure off your team because you're trying to win. Gives you that chance. If you're struggling with a slump mentally, it gives you a chance to reset, you know, do something that sparks a little joy, spend some time with your family when you don't get a lot of that during the season. I think it could go a long way. I think it'd be good for people covering the game too, to have a built-in break every week.

Furthermore, I think there's opportunity to engage with sponsors and get more publicity for players. If you look at the NFL or the NBA, those players have far more opportunities to engage with corporate sponsors. And you know, it's really hard to engage as a player when you do have an off day. They're so valuable. And they're so precious that the last thing you want to do is show up at a corporate sponsor

event or, you know, go to a photo shoot or a video shoot on one of those precious few off days. Yeah, one thing I've also noticed from people covering the game, you know, I think this actually has slowed down a little bit because we are no longer sending writers on the road as much, and so they're not really doing the grind where they're on the road as much as a player and getting paid way, way poorer than a player. And so what I've seen from what I used to see a little bit more was a real level of cynicism from older writers.

Just because you're like, you know, I do this every day, you know, every day I'm on a plane, I'm going somewhere, you know, and the players don't respect me and the game, you know, this, this and that. And they get really grumpy and it comes through in their writing, you know, and then you start getting like, think about some of these broadcasters we have that are broadcasting games and talking crap on baseball as they're broadcasting the game. I think some of that comes from just like this, just this heaviness that comes from, you know, having to play every day and having to go through the grind. Like if you lift a little bit of that heaviness, maybe there's just more positivity

about the sport in general. Yeah, that's a good point. If you're worried about the action stopping for a day, you could also just split it where AL teams are off on Monday, and AL teams are off on Thursday, right? Lighter slates both days, but everyone's still getting a day off. There's still ways to do that and keep the powers that be all happy. But yeah, a lot to unpack. I like the idea of a full stop for a day. I mean, they do it in Japan.

I think it can make you thirstier for like, hey, take your wife out. It's Tuesday. Like, go see your family. On Wednesday, you can turn the TV on again and start watching baseball. You know what I mean? I think that I would take Tuesdays off,

because Mondays are long weekends. One other thing I looked at a lot in this was the appraisal of different organizations. There's not really too many surprises in there. The bad ones are at the bottom, the good ones are at the top. Everyone wants to play for the Dodgers and Yankees, the Braves and Cubs up there. The Guardians being up there is interesting because they don't have a lot of money, but I guess they make their players feel good and they feel generally like this is a smart team that's going in the right direction. So like even the Rays got like a bunch of votes for that's a place that they'd like

to play. So, you know, it's not only about money, but it's a lot about money because at the bottom of the Angels, the Pirates, the Marlins, the Rockies, the White Sox, the A's, and the A's probably deserve most of the or all of the smoke they got in this. I just found it interesting that it's really obvious when you look at the A's and then they were talking about the Marlins getting subway sandwiches as the spread on the road sometimes. I think you do that enough and the players talk and are like, oh, did you hear what they ate last week? And like, they don't even get this

or they don't even get that. It's a little bit akin to like in Moneyball where like they had to pay for the, they've had to pay for their drinks out of the vending machine. Like if you do that too often, I think players will talk and you get really bad reputation.

The Pir pirates though, somebody said, you know, they get the players get the resources, they said, but the pirates give players resources, but their owner just has zero interest in winning. So I thought that was interesting is that you could you could still do right by your players on a like individual basis and on giving them resources and give me what they need to win. But if a player just thinks, you're not going to add, you're not going to give us anything. If we're good, you're not going to go trade for anybody. You're not going to sign a free agent. I think that just leads to a level of pessimism about the team that can kind of change your

appraisal of the team as well. I will defend the A's a little bit on this one because I read one of the comments about the A's is like on the road they stay in, you know, I think it was bad places. And I didn't know if that was at the major league level at the minor league level, but that was one thing I will say from the A's organization. The travel was always really good and we stayed at really nice places. You know, hats off to for, you know, I'll give Mickey Morabito a shout out here for always finding the good hotels

and then having the resources to stay at the nice, the Four Seasons, the Ritz's. And so I will defend the A's on that front. Yeah, it is interesting. The perception of an organization for people that have never been there is mostly secondhand, or it's what you might experience in the visiting clubhouse, right?

If those facilities are average or worse, then you might have a negative feeling about that. But I do think the Pirates approach and the White Sox being so negatively viewed, like that's a pretty strong take on how the players feel about how those teams are run and that traces usually back to ownership. I mean the the White Sox had the second worst reputation next to the A's like that's pretty surprising. Chicago, big city, generally a place people like to live. I was really surprised they were that far down. I also thought it was interesting there's this cluster of teams many of which play in the central divisions, not all, that don't really have a strong opinion from the players either way.

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That is one thing that was difficult about the manager one. They literally had a quote where he's like, bad one, I need to give you a bad one. I don't know, that guy in St. Louis. It's like, well, you never played for him, so you don't really know. How are you asking players to be like, oh, I would never play for Mike Schilt. Well, you haven't. So how much do you know? You just know that he kind of chirps across the aisle at the umpire song or you don't like the cut of his jib

Like, you know, like the way it looks like what is it? Why is it Mike Schilt get all this crap in this? Why did all the marble and I and I think it's all just it's like vibes on some level It's they don't really know idea what it means. I would say that the guys, the coaches that got the best votes like for I would love to play for that guy were all the chill. Like they even said, like Terry Frank Kronos, like a young grandpa, you know, like the boat. He's not there. It's all the chill guys vote.

I think vote vote was on there, too, right? Yeah. Vote is chill. I mean, he's he can be he can be funny and he can but he's chill I think that's I would describe as chill. I have never played with anybody who wanted to win more You know, and I and I think that's the like like you say chill I think it's I think it's the understanding that the game is hard, right? That's and respecting Yeah, respecting that like that the understanding that the game is hard, right? And respecting, yeah, respecting that like the outcome that you expect isn't always going to happen

because the game is really hard. And so I think from a chill perspective, but I think when it comes down to all those guys, Tito. He's still intense in terms of winning and stuff. Yeah, I mean, like Tito and Vo,ito and vote, like, to me, it's a recognition that the game is hard, but we're going to do everything we can to minimize mistakes and put ourselves in a position to win.

And if we control that aspect, that you're satisfied, right? Because if you do the things that put you in a position to win and you don't win, you can accept that. But if you're doing things that are, you know, you're beating yourself, that's to me the best managers I've played for are the ones that don't allow you, you know, don't allow you or don't allow you to make the mistakes that allow you to beat yourself on a consistent basis. Well, I just feel like also like it just seems very unlikely

that anybody at the top of that list would throw a player under the bus to the media, you know? Like they'll defend, even if they do have a problem with the way the player did something, they'll defend them publicly and then maybe say something privately. But you know, a real sense of how to work with media, I think is also something I see at the top.

Yeah, interesting that vote popped that high up on that list though already as a guy that's what, A real sense of how to work with media, I think, is also something I see at the top. Yeah. Interesting that Vogt popped that high up on that list though already as a guy that's what, in year two of his managerial career. But I think we had a feeling before he ever was a manager that Steven Vogt was going to be in that role and do well with it. Yeah, he was pretty obviously a future manager. I think the last thing I said to him when he walked out the door as a player was, I'll see you in a year or two as a manager. He just nodded and said, yeah, probably. Yeah. One of the pieces, and I didn't wade into the comments and I'm not going to, but I can imagine

it wouldn't be received that well, was the piece that was about the lifestyle of being a player and the difficulties of it. One of the things they pointed out was, we miss all the weddings, we miss a lot of the vacations we've taken in the summer, a lot of the family moments that happened this summer, we're missing a lot of that while we're on the road. We're not necessarily gaining a lifestyle that like people may have a different idea of what players lifestyle is like on a day-to-day basis on the road. I think there's a lot of just like getting into the hotel late, you know, eating DoorDash or eating something, you know, like not like fancy meals and like, you know, going out partying. There are some players who still do that, but I think it's going away more and more. What I've noticed is the more you track your health, the more you have an aura ring on,

the more you understand about rest and recovery, the more you're not going to go out. You're not going to do things. And in today's culture of if you're like Mike, or like if you're one of the top stars, like also that's gonna take energy if you go out and people recognize you and then you have to deal with it. Like I'm finishing up the crown and it's like, they are so tired, Princess Di is so tired at the end because all she's doing is like running away

from people taking pictures of her. And in this like, you know, give me an autograph, give me that sort of culture, like, you know, it's got to be hard. You've got to be like, I'm just going to eat in, you know, I'm just going to order in room service. And then you start to think like, oh, that's not really the most crazy lifestyle. Yes, they get paid well. But then there's a lot of like, you know, what is it zooming with your with your children while you're eating, while you're eating room service, you know, it's obvious that they've made that decision to do that. But it's not something that we need to we can give those people days off. That is a hard life. Maybe they could go, you know, see what best dinner Seattle has to offer

instead of just being in Seattle for like this amount of time and being gone. Nobody's going to feel sorry for guys making millions of dollars, the ones that are those big stars, but there are younger guys not making as much money that are still living the same lifestyle. I was never the guy that went out and I would get recognized occasionally, but when I would go out with the David Ortiz's of the world

or some of these guys. It shocked me. I think a lot of that has to do with personality too. Do people drain you or do people give you energy? I think guys like David Ortiz, he eats up that energy. Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of that has to do with personality, but it is. I mean, you're on the road a lot, you're FaceTiming with your kids, just trying to get a couple minutes

with them before they either, especially as they start going to school, just get a couple minutes with them. So it's, you know, there are, I would describe them as sacrifices that most people might not recognize and or really understand the implication of those sacrifices. The pros are heavily reported on the media at every transaction, right? Every signing, we know number of years, number of dollars. It's stuff that's just ingrained in the reporting. The cons list, which exists, comes out occasionally through things like this. So I do think it sheds interesting light on what it's actually like because our perception doesn't completely align with the reality from the outside looking in Let's build a game plan

I actually was having dreams last night about Like being in this scenario because we talked about it in our meeting on Monday as I mentioned up top Will salmon wrote a story about Pete Alonso changing his game planning and how that impacted me as we started talking about the idea of breaking down the information that we would want to have at our disposal if we were going into a series. So we picked the Astros as just a random opponent because they've got a few starters that do different things. So we're going to talk about Framber Valdez and preparing for him versus Hunter Brown versus Colton Gordon, a guy that's kind of popped up recently to join this rotation.

We'll look at a couple of the key relievers you'd likely see in a series with Josh Hader and Brian Abreu. And I think what I was doing was I was sort of like putting myself in the scenario dreamwise in real life of, oh, no, like I'm actually going to. The scenario was this for some reason, and I didn't know why in my dream while this was happening, the Giants needed a body. They needed a person, and I was the only person they could get, and I didn't make it all the way to game time, but they had me at the stadium, they were getting me ready, they told me to take a nap,

which I don't think is part of the usual pregame ritual in the clubhouse, and I think it was a little bit like the David Ayers situation in the NHL a few years ago. They had needed a goalie and this happened every once in a while. The emergency goalie is someone that plays in beer league. And they just can't get the goalie from the AHL to the NHL fast enough. So it's the person that maybe like drives a Zamboni part-time and has a regular job. And that person almost never has to play. I think that was the scenario that was gonna unfold. I woke up before the game started.

So I don't know what my role was or how it was gonna play out. I was gonna strike out looking. I don't think the bat was coming off my shoulder to be completely honest. But pushing all that nonsense aside, the simple question to start was like, okay, so Pete Alonso gets more information

from outside the organization to supplement the game planning the Mets do. That's something that's happening more and more around the league. I'm curious Jed, like what would be missing from what the Mets have to offer? There's nothing wrong with this. It seems like a good thing. Pete's doing more homework and you can kind of tell reading the story, the results are paying off. And even the way he's talking in meetings about preparing is different than it was previously.

But what does a team not have that a player might want to go get and have at their disposal on their own? There could be stuff that he's getting that is very, you know, tailored to him specifically, right, where like the team is game planning from, you know, an entire organization perspective. And at the end of the day, if Pete Alonso or any player feels confident in the information that they're getting, that helps everybody. And so, you know, I think, you know, in and I think a lot of it is, you know, based on your performance and where

you are in your, you you are in your career cycle. And at this point, Pete is a veteran guy. He is kind of taking charge clearly of his own career. And if this is what he feels comfortable with, it's kind of on him, right? And I think that the organization, if they're getting the production out of him, Pete, keep doing your thing.

Now, if there's a drop in production or they don't like the thing, you know, the things that he's doing, there's probably a deeper conversation to be had. And I think this is why, you know, an open line of communication and buy-in from both the player and the organization side is really important to make sure

that there is an understanding between the two. But like I said, from my perspective, if I'm looking at it from an organization, if I'm getting the production out of the guy and he feels confident in that information that he's getting that he feels like is tailored to him and he's being productive, keep doing your thing. That buy in part is a key moment because I was talking about this with a hitting coach being like, what about this is outside hitting coach and he's telling your guy something that you don't agree with. Like, what do you do about that? And he said, I just broadcast my values and I asked them to

have an open line of communication, like you said, to talk to me about what they're hearing. And you cannot tell them no outside knowledge. That is not the way to get buy-in. You can't say no outside coaching. You can't do that. You can't say my way or the highway. That does not work in today's game. What you say is this is what I believe. This is why I believe it. Here are my values. Tell me about your values. And he said there was often a moment when they're struggling that if you broadcast your values enough and they're struggling, they might say, they're struggling, that if you broadcast your values enough and they're struggling, they might say, hey, what's that thing you've been talking about?

I need a change. And so he said that there's always this sort of golden moment from the analyst point of view. I do talk to analysts a lot and they will, I don't know if there's anything more than rolling your eyes, rolling their eyes till their eyes fall out of their head. They're like, our stuff is better than this stuff. You know, like, they'll be like,

we've looked at their stuff and our stuff is better. And yes, we would rather they used our stuff because our stuff is tailored to them. And we spent a lot of time on this and we think our stuff is better. That's why we made it. So like, they privately will sort of roll their eyes. But to the players and to the, as an organization,

they'll say, whatever makes you feel comfortable, you know? And higher up the food chain you go, AGMs will say, whatever makes them feel comfortable. The analyst says, use my stuff, it's better. Yeah. I mean, if you're an analyst, you want people to use your stuff because it proves your value to the organization.

If you're getting outside information and not using the reports generated by the analyst, that might make you feel like your job is not going to be valued, right? So I can understand that trepidation. From a player's standpoint, I mean, there's a certain level, sometimes maybe a mistrust of an organization. Sometimes it's just like your values are to win the game. My values are for my career to get better. And these usually are in the right direction, but they don't always go in the exact same direction. And there's also just a value in sort of taking ownership of your own career. That's something Matt Libertaure said to me.

You have to take ownership of your own career. And so, you know, getting your own analysts, you know, I know this is something that Garrett Cole has done, like getting your own analysts, you know, gives you a certain, maybe it can be just a foil. Oh, they're telling me this. Can you guys run the numbers and see what you guys think about this? You know, and some of the biggest agencies, organizations like Boris Corp will have that probably for their biggest players, you know, I don't know if they do that for all their players, but they will have some assets available to them to kind of crunch numbers for them. But you know, you've seen these places, Vaulted, Dan Stradley started a new place called Vaulted.

There's also Codify. There's more and more like these kind of like your own R&D department, you know, where they can crunch numbers for you and answer questions for you. There's value in that. And I think, you know, when I think of what Jed is talking about, like you could be in a meeting and be like, they're going to do this to righties. Okay. I'm Pete Alonso. Am I just a righty? You know, or am I more than that? And so I try to think of it this way. I came up with this. Fromber Valdez. This is what Fromber throws to righties with 74 mile an hour plus bat speed who swing with

a 30 to 33 tilt like Alonso and have an attack angle that's not fully pull and not fully push sort of a neutral attack angle. So other players like Pete Alonso, so not just all righties, and these players are like Julio Rodriguez, Seiya Suzuki. You know, they have similar swing planes, similar bat speeds, similar approaches. And so you see, against these players, I think the sinker one is probably the most different. Fromber against these players will throw some high sinkers because these players generally are low ball hitters. If you've got 33 degree tilt, you've got great bat speed, and you don't pull the ball like a ton, then you're letting the ball travel. I think you're comfortable hitting the low and away pitch. And that's where Alonso is best.

That's, Julio Rodriguez is pretty good at that. Seya Suzuki is pretty good at that. Sayaz Zzuki is pretty good at that. So I think Fromber, when he attacks Alonzo, he's going to mix in some high sinkers and some some low and in sinkers. The idea of a sinker to like I know that Staticast records these things in certain ways, but like you're still talking about, you know, Fromber's sinker at 2200 RPM. You know, we're not talking about a guy who is throwing, you know, he has the ability to throw one that has a lot of drop on it, but he's got he's also got the feel to be able to throw it with more like a sink up in the same. Yeah, it's more like a yeah, exactly. So it might come out of his hand with the pitch dynamics of a sinker. He's not intentionally throwing a sinker up in the zone. He's trying to play with your eye level to set up the breaking ball. In that case, say to Alonzo, like, you know, I might show him this. And then if he was a lower information person, I might be like, see it up, you know, like see it up because he's going to try if you saw those, he's going to try everything under

the hitting zone. He's going to try and get those low hitters to swing at change-ups and curve balls that are under the strike zone. And so if you can just see it up, then that's a simple way to kind of coalesce this information. But if he wants to see the maps, you could say something more nuanced, like you were just saying, Jed, like I might say to Pete Alonso, call the high two-seamer or four-seamer in your head. Just be like, I'm looking for the four-S up. I don't care what this says. Oh, they say it's the only throw sinkers.

It's a four-S up and a two-S down, you know? And like, think of it that way and you might put the right swing on the right ball at the right time. If you kind of break it down, that's really what Framber is, right? Like he's 80% sinker curve, right? Or fastball curve ball.

You're talking about a curveball that is elite. You're talking five inches more break, five and a half inches more drop than the average left-handed curveball. And you're talking nearly 3000 spin, 29.59 with a 46.8% whiff. I mean, he is trying to set you up to chase the breaking ball down out of the zone. And you know, with the, with the sinker, with the sinker down on away, the fast way, I mean that, that is he is going to throw the four seamer up in the zone or the, the more straight one just to try to get you off, like, like to play with your eye level for the breaking ball.

But for the most part, he's just throwing the sinker and it's gonna, you know, down and away and the curve ball down and in, right? And he's just, that's why the ground ball rate is as high as it is. Cause if he executes those two pitches against an average major league hitter, he's getting it out or he's getting swings and misses. Yeah, I think one thing that kind of stands out to me

looking at the usage patterns from Raveldez is just how heavily he can lean on that curve once he gets ahead. I mean, especially against righties. Looking back just these last two seasons, when he's ahead against a righty, 45% of the time he's throwing a curveball. Two strikes he's throwing at 54% of the time. So I think there's some guys and some pitches that are so good and so effective, they can

almost have a more predictable tendency and still get away with it. There's some guys and some pitches that are so good and so effective, they can almost have a more predictable tendency and still get away with it. So a frumber might actually fit into a bucket like that. Ordinarily, it's certain usage thresholds and that becomes problematic. But look at the body of work. A lot of it just has to do, like I said, the actual pitch dynamics, right? It is one of the best breaking balls in the league. has to do, like I said, the actual pitch dynamics, right? Like the, it is, you know, one of the best breaking balls in the league.

So yes, he can get away with a lot more, but still, like, you know, I think it's, I just remember an at bat late in my career, you know, Jesse Chavez, right? Sinker slider, I think he was 2% change up. I had an at bat against him where he threw me five straight changeups. Right? So like, so, so this is where this is where, you know, you, you go into it and like, you're the operator, right?

Like you're the, you're the guy flying the plane and to use a star Wars analogy, right? Like you're Han so like when you're the player, you're Han Solo and you got C three PO standing behind you, you know, telling you that you got a one in 3000, whatever chance of flying through this asteroid field. I'll go back to this. Right. It was like, you have to believe like, like you have to have your plan and be able to execute it as the pilot. Right. And so the information is valuable, but in the moment, if you were overanalyzing this,

unless you are just fully committed to one particular pitch, which and that's how some guys hit and I'm not trying to say that that's the wrong way to hit. I came from a different school of thinking where I was different thinking around hitting where I was far more reactionary and I was trusting my eyes and the work that I put in prior to stepping into the box so I could be reactionary in the moment. Sounds like there's a lot of information you want pre-game, maybe even pre-series, that you kind of consume that and then work with that, but then in-game,

what you're looking at. Were you video in-game before played appearances? Do you find video to be helpful in any instances like that? The videos back in my day, right? Like, and, and still to this day it's from center field. The center field camera to me is very deceiving because when you're standing on the side of the plate and you're watching from behind center field, first of all, you don't really know where that angle is and it changes.

It's not uniform across the league. And so being able to understand the depth of a pitch or the like the lateral movement or release point, I ended up not relying on the video. I would have relied much more on the stack cast information that we have now that really didn't exist when I was playing because because that actually shows you real movement. And I also think the Traject systems now are game changers. I mean, they're really before Traject, I really don't think the analytics favored hitters much at all. I think the Traject machine where they can actually reproduce the actual

movement profile of pitches has been the most positive you know, positive analytical development on the hitting side because you can go down, they're warming up a reliever, right? Kenley Jansen is down in the bullpen and he's ready to pitch. You can go see Kenley Jansen's pitch profile before you step in the box against him. Yeah. And in this case, Pete Alonso, if he's like, Ooh, what he's, he might actually try to back foot. You might try to throw the sinker in and the curve ball in, and I wanna see how those two play off each other. Just give me that sequence over and over again.

So I can just, oh, now I can maybe spot which one's the sinker. Because the sinker's gonna stay higher and maybe stay, be a strike. And the curve is gonna be below the zone. So I'm gonna, you know, you need to play off that. You're trying to find that release point, right? Like the release point, because like to your point of like seeing fromber up,

right, like I need to know where that release point is, where it's going to be a strike and where it's going to be a ball. He doesn't have great command. That's that's his weakness. I think you generally would want to tell them, be patient and look for what you think are actually strikes and maybe do some work down the cage. It's like trying to discern between just where his strike zone is, what release angles are giving you strikes.

That's what makes it hard about a guy like this that has the spin that he does and the amount of depth and break that his breaking ball does. It's really hard to recognize that pitch and see if it's going to be a strike or not. I mean, that's why he's effective and why he gets a lot of swings and misses. For my experience, analytically, this is what is so great about high spin curve balls. If you look at Lugo's, it looks straight. Looks straight and then goes down.

As opposed to anything that kind that goes up and down. You're getting the movement off of arc. You're casting it, but the real sizzling curve balls are the ones that the highest spin ones actually look straight and then just disappear. You're telling me. How much do you want to know about tendencies? I was looking at Colton Gordon and you know they have this chart they highlight in red anything that's really sort of over league average but you know knowing that he uses the curve 28%

of the time on first pitch is something I might and maybe I might be like well he doesn't go fastball all the time on on first pitch that's something I'd like to know. But a lot of the other stuff I'm not sure how much it's helpful. Although when the batter's ahead on righties, Colton Gordon goes to the fore seam 63% of the time. I think I would circle things that start with a six. If I'm looking through here, anything that's like maybe close to two-thirds of the time he does it, that's to me an opportunity to take a chance as a hitter. Now it might be one of the one-third of the times time he does it, that's to me an opportunity to take a chance as a hitter. Now, it might be one of the one third of the times when he does the other stuff, but two thirds of the time, I'm guessing right, if I guess four seam on a two-oh count, I'd want to know that. So I think that would be useful. But if you're being reactive in the box,

does that stuff go away or do you keep a couple things in your head where you're like, yeah, he does have a tendency to go to the fastball in these counts? I'm obviously looking at it from a little bit different perspective. I mean, there's a guy with a 27 degree arm angle, right? Relatively relatively flat, kind of out like slinging the ball. So it's a lot more lateral movement as opposed to the vertical movement. There's not a guy who's going to overpower you. And I think that what he's relying on on that 63% is the batter is ahead. He's relying on them getting overly aggressive

and getting themselves out, right? He's looking to put that fastball in a spot that just entices you enough to take a big swing to get yourself out. That's not a middle middle fastball. He's trying to hit a corner. If he makes a mistake, right, and like that was my note on him is like, this is a guy that you're

going to walk up there. You're not going to be blown away by his stuff. You know, he's going to find a way to get you to chase, right? Or I should say, to get you to take a big swing out of your, and you know, listen, the guy is at, in the 72nd percentile for chase, right? He's getting guys to, you know, to chase his fastball because they're looking at him and they're like,

this guy is not gonna beat me, so I'm gonna take a bigger swing, right? So that's another way that they can use the tendencies against you, either he can throw something that's not a fastball and then oh surprise or he can be like oh I gave what you wanted you circled this I gave you what you wanted and you're gonna take a huge swing and oh look it wasn't really even a strike or it was it was not really a pitch you wanted. And these are these guys you go up there and if you try to do too much against a Colton Gordon where you're

like oh this guy this guy's got nothing, you're gonna get yourself out more often than not off a guy like that. To me, I think you're looking for him to make a mistake because he's not gonna walk you, right? I mean, you're talking about a guy that's in the 99th percentile for walk rate. So he's not gonna walk you,

and he's also not gonna overpower you. So I think the biggest thing with him is you just can't chase. Because when he gives up, when he when he makes a mistake it's gonna get hit hard and you just can't chase out of the zone because that's that's where he is going to get guys out is that they are going to you know try to hit the 500 foot home run against him and get themselves out. I think it's interesting because that profile lends itself to being the low

walk rate high home run rate sort of profile like that That to me seems like that would be a common thread Throughout Colton Gordon's career like you could have a 10 plus year big league career But I bet we'd see five to six percent walk rates a lot with above average home run rates Because he's using that fastball that way because he will make some mistakes with it because guys can hit even non Mistake fastballs at that level for home runs. I think I think that's part of what you're gonna get from him I was also trying to use this like batters like thing for Hunter Brown I think you got to actually see the real value of having two really good fastballs because

this is how Hunter Brown attacks people like Pete Alonso. And I think one thing you see is he's not throwing in the lower half of the zone. So he's not giving them a fastball where they want it. You know, they want the lower half. And so, you know, even in the top half what he's doing is he's throwing the fore seam and the two seam basically the top black and the fore seam is going up above it and the two seams like fading for a called strike, right? I think or even a swing strike because it's in on the hands.

So that's pretty deadly. If you're a hitter, you probably prefer one of those two pitches. You either have a swing that's a little bit better for two seamers or a little better for four seamers. And I bet with tilt like Alonzo, he's, you know, it's a little bit more in line for two seamers. So you're hoping it's the two seam's a little bit more in line for two seamers. So you're hoping it's the two seamer, except it's still a high two seamer. It's not exactly where you want it. I mean, I think this is a pretty deadly combination.

I mean, what would you do, Jed, if you stepped in the box against a guy who had two really good fastballs and he could do this with it? This guy, you know, 56 degree arm angle, right? Pretty much straight over the top. Classic, you know, top of the zone fastball 12 six breaking ball, right? You're talking about a guy who has six inches more drop on his curve ball than average and one and a half inches more ride rise than, you know, on his fastball. And so, you know, I look at that like, and then the two seamer in particular, the two seamer really just keeps hitters honest just for that click, right? Because if you go up there and it's a four seamer only up in the zone and a breaking ball, you can eliminate certain release points, right? Because if the fastball starts, if

the fastball starts two up, then you know you can basically, if you're looking for a fastball and it starts two up, you can give up on it, if you're looking for a fastball and it starts to up, you can give up on it, right? You're like, OK, this is a ball. But if you just know he's got that sinker and it has any sort of depth to it, you've got to just stay in there for a little bit. You can throw over them high release point,

and it could come back down to the zone. Exactly right. The sinker to me for Hunter Brown is just a way to keep guys honest on the four seamer up in the zone and setting guys up for really what is, you know, the breaking ball is his pitch. So I think that this is a guy, I look at the slider and the cutter as virtually the same pitch. I think it'll probably vary in movement and V-Lo depending on the execution of it.

I don't view him as a cutter and slider guy. And then I look at the change up too, like he's got a pretty deep mix of pitches for a guy that has such an effective fastball and curveball. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, if you look at the change up, you know, it is a little bit more of a show pitch right now, but it's been effective for almost the same reason

that the Sinker has been effective. It produces some weak contact. The batting average is relatively low against the change up. And so, you know, it's just another thing to put in the back of the hitter's mind that they can't then cheat to the fastball up in the zone. That's a really deadly combination when you've got a guy who can really ride

that fastball up in the zone and then have that big 12-6 breaking ball. Because if those are coming out of that same, you know, tunnel, they're really hard, especially with the spin that he does put on his breaking ball. It is really hard to differentiate the two. What would you tell Pete Alonso in this situation? I think it's situational dependent, but I think that I'm aggressive early on a guy like this because it gets significantly harder to have this at bat and be able to cover both of those pitches as you get deeper in the at bat. So you want to swing when he wants a strike still. You want to assume he needs to come in the box. Maybe that's I am hunting a heater right here and just committing to the heater in the zone early. And then you know if he gets ahead with the breaking ball like you tip your cap to him.

But I'm aggressive early off a guy versus versus a Colton Gordon where like you know I know he's not going to blow me away with his stuff. I'm waiting I'm waiting him out right. I and I'm going to be a little bit more picky with what I'm looking for versus if I get something against Hunter Brown that like is close, especially heater, I want to be aggressive. Yeah. If you look back at the box real quickly, just for Hunter Brown, he's not thrown the four seam in the zone. I barely it's the two scene that he uses to be in the zone. So the more he needs to be in the zone, the more he needs to be in the zone the more you have count leverage or the earlier in this in the thing I would assume it's a two seamer

So you could almost if you I don't know, you know Maybe he's more of a guest guy more of an anticipation guy than you I would say Early anticipate that's a two seam if he if he switches to the four seam and gets you swing strike early then then he won But if he needs a strike, it's probably gonna be the two-samer. So just kind of assume in the counts where he needs a strike, it's more likely to be the two-samer and proceed accordingly.

Let's talk about the relievers briefly. I know we're running short on time, but the two you'd likely see in a three game series at some point, Brian Abreu and Josh Hader, I mean both heavily two pitch guys, kind of common for relievers to be that way. Hader's had the unusual fastball really his whole career. And is it as simple when you see a heat map,

if you look at something like Hader's location maps, do you start to have that same kind of, if it's up, it's a fastball, if it's down, it's a slider, like can you find anything in the release points, like what clues are you getting for a guy that has struck out more than 40% of the batters he's faced as a big leader? And he's one of the best relievers we've seen really ever, despite a few

occasional meltdowns in the, in the postseason. Like he seems like an incredibly difficult reliever to prepare for, even with his tendencies. I wrote a couple of things down. There's a, there's a reason he's an elite closer, right? And then the last thing I'll start with it, but the last thing I wrote down couple things down. There's a reason he's an elite closer, right? And then the last thing, I'll start with it, but the last thing I wrote down is good luck. Because like this guy, you know, and I also think it's interesting that Statcast also

refers to his fastball as a sinker. It must just be arm slot because this is a guy like, you know, you're talking about 11.7% vertical drop with 2,300 spin on his quote unquote sinker versus Hunter Brown's four seamers. That's 11.9% vertical drop with 2,200 spin. That's an elite four seamer that is virtually like, the hater's actually spinning his quote unquote sinker faster than Hunter Brown's four seamer and virtually has the same vertical drop. It's crazy. It's a sinker faster than Hunter Brown's four seamer and virtually has the same vertical drop.

It's crazy. It's a sinker grip is why. Yeah. And I mean, it just doesn't. Yeah. It is a four seamer. Yeah.

I mean, it's, and that's what, that's what makes it unique, right? Because you know, you just, when I started looking at the savant page, you know, they were saying, if you were to just say, hey, this guy's actually got a terrible sinker. It's 11 inches less drop than average,

and 6.3 less tail than the average sinker. So you'd be like, man, this guy's sinker stinks. If you didn't know who the guy was or the statistics were, you'd be like, this guy's not gonna be effective at all with this sinker. It doesn't play. So it's not a sinker. But he's also got 2,500 spin on the slide, at all with this sinker like it doesn't play. So it's not a sinker.

But he's also got 2,500 spin on the slider with a 53% whiff rate. And I think a lot of it, there's some funk in the motion. There's a low release point with good extension. And so I think it's, you're talking about a guy and he throws strikes, he can beat you in the zone and that's what makes him an elite closer. So you're talking about a funky motion with a low release point with, you know, extra stuff. Yeah, I bet you if you mapped release points in a 3D way,

right, so you had the extension, you know, along with, you know, their height and that he would have a very much an outlier that kind of extension on that low, that low, like, so you'd, if you heightened, that he would have a very much an outlier, that kind of extension on that low, that low, like, so you'd, if you saw the sort of cloud of release points, there'd be hater over here that's like in your face and low, you know, and it's just like, just not something you get used to. I wonder if there's any value in sort of just renaming his pitches in your head and being like, this is a four seam cutter guy, you know, and I'm just going to think about it that way. I know that I heard one opposing coach say that they were having a hard time facing Joey Lucchese because he had this thing called the cherv and it had a

weird movement or whatever. And one of the pitching coaches, one of the hitting coaches said, just think of it as a crappy curve ball. And they were all like, okay. And then they all hit it. as a crappy curveball and they were all like, okay. And then they all hit it. So sometimes you have to sort of rename the pitch in your head to get, to get a different expectation. Let's sort of talk about that with Alonzo and just, just think of Framber's high pitch as a four seam, just to like put that in your head that way. You know,

this is where, you know, some of the disconnect happens between, you know, analysts and players is like the analyst is saying sinker and you go up there and you're like, that's not a sinker. Right. And then you start to distrust what the analyst even says generally. And they're just like, well, this is classified as a sinker. Do I need to explain all that to you? No, you know, which is why the, the operator is really, you know, the more

valuable opinion in this, right? Cause it, cause ultimately they're the ones that have to, that have to execute on it, right? Like the analyst obviously is providing very valuable information, but you know, the operator has to be the one, the hitter has to be the one that is that opinion, especially the guys that have a track record.

There's certain guys in the lineup as you know, you communicate in the dugout that you're like, you know that you can trust, right? Like if he comes back and tells me that the pitch is moving this way or that way, I can trust that. There's other guys you come back and he's saying one thing or other,

like, yeah, I'm just gonna brush that one off. How about Brian Abreu on the way out? I noticed one thing about his slider, the stuff number on it has come down. Not as dominant as it has been, but the results are still really good. So same kind of question that we had with Hader, like, what do you do to give yourself a chance against the guy that's been one of the most dominant relievers in the league really for the last three plus years now?

I'm looking at this guy, you know, with closer stuff, but, but ultimately just, just walks, you know, way too many guys. You're talking about a guy that with a percentile 98k rate, 90, but then you start going, chase rate is only 51, walk rate is in the sixth percentile. And then you start looking at sliders. I mean, I know you said talking about the slider, the spin rate is down a little bit from 2914 to 2888,

you know, year over year. But I mean, this guy has incredible stuff. And you know, I guess I similarly to like a Hunter Brown, I'm being aggressive in the zone with a fastball early. And then I'm probably getting a little bit more patient as the at-back goes because he's got a propensity to walk guys. And so you know, I think that if you get that fastball in the zone, depending on the situation, you know, if you're down by three,

and he's in and you're leading off, might not be the best situation to go up there and hack at first pitch fastball. I mean, you know, you might, you might hit a homer, but the odds of that are not good. And what does it really do for the team? But I think with the stuff that he has, I'd be aggressive early and then probably shrink my zone as the at bat went, because he's going to walk you. Probably going to throw you some sliders if he gets ahead.

It's like 63% usage of two strikes, 57% if he's ahead in the count too. So you're right to be looking for that fastball early from Brian Abreu. But hopefully that's insightful overall in terms of types of things that might be part of those reports that Pete Alonzo is getting or part of the reports that hitters want as they try to prepare for the high leverage relievers and starters that they might see over the course of a series. As I mentioned earlier you can jump into our discord at the link in the show description.

You can find Eno on BlueSky, unosaris.beesky.social. Jed's over on Instagram, just Jed Lowry. I'm on BlueSky, ddr.beesky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. Thanks.