Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 110 | Understanding New Age Baseball Terms

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

What actually is launch angle, spin rate, and tunneling? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of talking baseball, we are talking about how to properly talk about baseball. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to talking baseball. We are joined, as always, by Trevor Plouffe. And today, we're going to help you guys, and Trev's going to help us not sound like absolute fools when talking about the sport that we love. Jake's shaking his head because he enjoys being a fool, I think. Yeah, how do you do the impossible?

How do you make us sound like we know what we're talking about when it comes to baseball? So always excited to hear what you've got TPP. How you doing? I'm doing great. You know, all this came about from that video clip I sent you guys. And I don't think we're going to show it, but I was watching a spring training game. I met spring training game. and the broadcaster was talking about a guy hitting a line drive and completely shit on launch angle

and he uses it in a way that it seems like it's a negative thing instead of just a step it's all launch angle is so from there i was like we need to talk about baseball and how not to talk about it so yeah that's good well there's a lot of things things, all right, so there's a lot of stats, and it moves so quickly. Like, you know, baseball terminology right now is growing and changing as fast as, like, the TV market. You know, you went from HD to 1080 to 4K to 8K to smart TVs, to Roku, like, all this technology. Like, if you have a TV that's three years old, you're outdated. If you're using baseball slang from three years ago, you're outdated.

It's all changing so quickly. It's hard to keep up with. And what stats matter and what stats don't? Continuously changing. Yeah, here's something that I found out when I kind of contacted some of my guys. And I figured this happened, but each team has their own proprietary stats. One of my favorite questions. So all the public stats, you know, they're good.

and there's a lot of things that these teams use, but they also have their own stats that mirror some of these, but they're able to, you know, adjust them to whatever their needs are, their systems are, which is kind of a scary thing when I really start to think about it, because if you're a guy and you're like, look at all these awesome stats that I'm good at, the team's like,

and actually our secret proprietary stats says you suck. Yeah. So it's a weird thing, but each organization does have, these stats and I'm not necessarily privy to them but I'm privy to the knowledge that they do have them. Yeah, I always like asking players what stat do you look at? Like I asked Oda when we talked to him like what stat do you go to to project and what stat do you go to to gauge results? When we asked some of the minor league Yankees that we interviewed last season, we asked them what stat does the organization look at or tell you that they care about?

And I know this is way in the old, but, you know, like a lot of fans still look at batting average a lot. And a lot of the minor leaguers were like, that's not even something that is on our mind at all. Yeah, at the same time, we talk to Kevin Beggio, and he says he looks at his batting average. But that's because he does everything outside of batting average. Yeah, yeah. So he knows if his batting average is above a certain point, he's doing really well. Because he's not a batting average guy. It's such a dumb sport.

It's a lot going on. It's the best. There's a lot going on. So I'd say batting averages is out. Yeah. I mean, batting titles, you know, we look at Tim Anderson. He won the batting title last year. And that's awesome.

If you have a high batting average, it means you're getting a lot of hits. But it could also mean some other things, you know, your batting average falls and plays. It's not bad. You can not be a well-rounded player and have a high batting. You can have a very empty batting average. Exactly. A lot of it could be a result of luck, which I think a lot of these stats, kind of take away, especially like the adjusted ones or the weighted ones.

But we'll get into that. Yeah. I'm very interested because you said before the show that you texted some buddies that have played or in the league and ask them, like, what do you hate hearing? When people talk about baseball, what are some terms or some thought processes or whatever you said that you hate hearing and one sent back a whole list? I need you to email. I mean, you can tell us on the pod and then you need to email it to me because I just don't

want to sound dumb to players, you know? It's like anything. You know, if you're an expert in something or you want to be an expert in something and you hear someone talk about it that's not an expert, you're going to be mad. You're like, that doesn't make any sense. You don't know what you're talking about. So it's like, okay if you're a casual fan and you don't know a lot of this stuff. But hey, we want to be the smartest spot in the land. Don't feel dumb if you're learning stuff for the new time. Feel smart that you're learning. You want to be learning. Jake is Yeah, we're going to keep you on your level because that's where you shine. See, you guys bring out more risk that way.

If you try to learn and try to be the expert, now you're open up for risk. I don't want to be an expert. You just got a smooth ride in there, know a little bit to be dangerous, and get yourself into a corner so you've got to swing your way out. I should be an expert. We'll see. Let's see what you got, expert. I do want to point out what I'm wearing.

Yeah, okay. Can't see it. Can't see it. It says other way. Don't think. Don't think Jack Flaherty. Yes. Shout out Jack Flaherty.

Got the hookup on the hoodie. Thank you, buddy. Our Cardinals preview came out today, so all the Cardinals fans were stoked. Yeah. And how was that? Jimmy hates them. Oh, my God. The Cardinals?

Yeah, I think that their lineup is missing a lot of studs. If you take Goldie out, then their lineup is rather average. They're pitching and their bullpen is fantastic. Well, let's dive into this. Don't speak. That's what to remind me of. I know just what you're thinking. Yeah, no doubt.

Love that song. Jake's a big Gwen guy. Big Gwen guy. Okay. All right, here we go. Just get back on track. All right, so there is this new school versus old school going on in baseball. And I think we all know that.

You listen to any game. And most of the time, you're going to get an old school ball player in there. or an old school broadcaster that's seen a lot of games, and he's looking at the game and it seems different. And there's reasons for this. And I think as fans of the game, we need to be, you know, open to some of these changes because a lot of them are rooted in statistics.

And say what you want about some of them, these, you know, the numbers don't lie. So the one thing that I see all the time, and the clip in particular, was talking about launch angle, right? And people have put like uppercut swings and launch angle into the same category. They're using it as like a synonym. And it's not.

Okay. Launch angle. All it is is the angle the ball comes off the bat. It's a statistic. Okay. So it's not negative launch angle on a ground ball. It's just a number. But the swing path provides the launch angle, correct?

Whatever you're, I mean, the pitch does as well. You can have an uppercut swing, and if the pitch is coming down, you're at the top of it. You have a negative launch angle. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So all guys are trying to do with any of these stats, from launch angle to, you know, exit velocity to spin rate. They're trying to be efficient with these numbers. Okay. And as a big leaguer, you were going to hit the ball hard.

Okay. You're going to have an 85 plus average exit velocity. And I guess we can talk about that. It's pretty self-expanster. Exit velocity. How hard the ball is coming off the bat. Had that one. That's it. I knew that one. Yeah. You guys got it. Yeah. All over it. And that also coincides with how hard you swing and how hard the pitch is thrown. It could. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you want to. You know, you want to. You guys. You know, you guys got it. And you to have good contact. So everything matters, but these are all just measurable statistics, and people are trying to be efficient with them. So as a big leaguer, you're going to be

85 plus on your exit. I think MLB average is like 88 or 89. Okay. And at that exit velocity, people are trying to be in like the 18 to 25 degree launch angle. That's where all the line drives and the barrels happen. I think what people think about when they talk launch angle is fly balls. We hear the fly ball revolution, right? Keep the ball in the air, hit the ball on the top of the cage, ground balls are outs, all that stuff. But that's only if you're in this degree, this degree range. And if you hit the ball slower than 80 miles per hour, you know, if you're a kid and you're trying to hit

the ball in the air a bunch and you're hitting the ball 70 miles an hour and it's not going to work for you so this is these are big leaguers who hit the crap out of the ball trying to be efficient in how the ball comes off their bat so you want like 10 to 25 degrees no you want like 18 to 25 18 to 25 okay that's optimal optimal launch angle and those are just numbers that show historically throughout you know statcasts era

you know those are the balls that are going to be hits more often than not and some of those balls are going to leave the yard they're going to get over the outfieler's head

that's all it is good enough so when these announcers come and they're like hey he's got a launch angle swing every fucking swing is a launch angle swing

because every swing produces a launching right right That's true. All we're trying to do is be efficient. When they say launch angle swing, they make it sound like upper cut. Yeah.

Yes. My dad used to say if you had a dining table and a glass of wine at the front and the back, you wanted to be able to hit both with the same swing. Do you think that was bad coaching or good coaching? Say that again. He would say there's a table, there's a glass of wine at the front, and the back, your swing should hit both glasses of wine in the same spot. Level swing.

Should it be a level swing or should be a little angled up? I think ideally with the angle that the pitch is coming from the pitcher, you're going to need to be a little up. And most guys are. When they say, oh, a level swing, you're still up with your angle of your swing. When did, because Trevor, you used. as we talk about every goddamn episode, you're drafted by the Twins in 2004.

Did you, like, do you almost, for a lot of what we're going to talk about, do you have checkpoints of when these kind of things got introduced to you? Like in 2004, when you joined the Twins organization, do they start talking to you about Swing Path? Or does that something you heard about in, you know, when you say launch angle is a stat, Is that something you heard about in 2011 or I don't know, curious. Later than that.

Okay. I think a lot of this stuff came from golf. Ooh. Their technology was advanced. And I don't know if that's because it's like a rich white guy sport. So there's more money in it. But a lot of these things were adopted from golf. Flight tracker and stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, all through my career, I mean, it was hit the ball hard, hit the ball the other way, stay inside the ball. And I still believe in a lot of that stuff, you know, we're going to talk about coaching kids a little later in the show. But I believe you need to be well-rounded and have a ton of swings in your bag. You know, you're going to face different pitchers who are doing different things. So if you're just gearing your swing up for one pitch, I mean, we can name guys. to do that. I think there was a guy in the Yankees, Chris Carter.

You guys remember him? Yes. Jimmy's first initial claim to fame. Yeah, that's actually what I based. This entire company. Yeah. It's built off Chris Carter. I used to go live on Periscope for every single Chris Carter at bat in the 2017 season.

A lot of strikeouts. He swung with his eyes closed, Trev. He had the same swing for every pitch. And I like him. Great guy. Soft-spoken, right? If you have one swing and you're just going to go up there and swing that way, like each pitch, you're going to get eaten alive.

He ran into a couple, babe. He did. And then what happened? Guys made adjustments, right? Chris Davis is the same thing. Yes. I know from talking to guys about Chris, he works on everything. And one of his drills that he does is he's taking the T and he's moving it all around

and he's trying to hit these certain targets in the cage. So I know he works on it, but I don't know if it shows up in the game. He kind of does have one swing. Davis, yeah, the whole thing was that he refused to change his swing. So if he threw a high fastball, he was toast. Yes. So, I mean, that's launch angle. We don't have to say the launch angle, say launch angle.

And don't use it as a synonym for a guy that has an upper cut swing. Okay. Good to know. Launch angle is the is the angle the ball comes off the bat. It is not the swing path. And there are guys who have won MVP's with shitty launch angle. Who are you calling out, Trout? Ichiro.

Al-Tuve. I have the article up here. Okay. I don't know if I can find it. And it was talking about Jose Al-Tuvae. Here, during Johnlinson's 2000 MVP. 2015 MVP season He averaged 8.4 degrees

So not great Before Babe Ruth They're like The launch angle that people wanted Was probably like Like six They just fucking chop it into the dirt That's all

Yeah you know People talk about staying on top of the ball Doing all this stuff And a lot of times that's just a feel You know when people say Oh I stay on top of the ball You're still not like on top of the ball but that's something you tell yourself.

And that's kind of a good segue into our next topic, which is the technology that's allowing us to track this stuff and to be more efficient. It's a big word for us today. Efficiency. Efficiency.

It's not about more all the time. It's about being efficient with these numbers. Okay. So the next thing I wanted to talk about was spin rate. And my buddy who I texted, He said he's in the front office now. He said that's one of his biggest pet piece, his spin rate.

And I'm going to get the text up. The spin rate definition on MLB.com is, a pitcher's spin rate represents the rate of spin on a baseball after it's released. It is measured in revolutions per minute. There you go. So I'm going to read the text verbatim. All right, cool. I was asking.

Do a fun voice. I could do his voice. I was asking him another question and he goes, okay, hold on. I have one more pet peeve. He was just going off. He goes, I don't like spin rate guy. Having a high spin rate doesn't mean you're nasty. It generally means you have the potential for nasty stuff.

But if it's inefficient spin, it doesn't mean shit. And nasty sinkers and most changeups have really low spin. So it's not like you need spin to be successful. Okay. Okay. So you can, it's like, it's kind of like miles per hour. You can throw 100, but if you got no movement on it, Kyle's Farnsworth out there, you can get hit. Yes, and that happens a lot. Jordan Hicks is an example of that. He throws really hard, but he's not really efficient with his spin. He has a lower spin rate. So he's going to reduce more ground balls, but doesn't have a lot of swings and misses, even though he throws 104. Interesting. Josh Hader has a low spin rate, but he has a high spin efficiency. It gets a lot of swings and misses on his fastball.

So, Jimmy, that graph you always bring up that you've fallen in love with this year. Is it spin rate or spin efficiency? Baseball savant? Yes. Let's see. Baseball savant has... I'm looking at Josh Haders. Go ahead.

Fastball spin. Josh Hader is low, 19th percentile. So it's just spin rate then. Okay. and then fastball velocity is high. Hard hit rate very low. So I think that is interesting of note because anyone that has been listening to our team profile and projections,

we've been using this page a decent amount because, again, like Trevor's about to say, and I think what spin rate has been misconstrued as, and your friend in the front office mentioned, was that it shows a potential. If you're getting that much spin, you know, there's a potential you can make it do something, but it doesn't necessarily bring us back to our word efficiency.

Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's also, I mean, that we haven't been, like, wrong in a sense because even with, like, all those peripherals that baseball reference does, they do, like, fastball speed, and that's the same thing. Kind of. Well, I'll hand it off to Trevor. I don't think it necessarily is. Speed's the same thing where you can throw 100 miles per hour, but you can still not be a bad, a great pitcher.

This baseball, Savon isn't results. It's saying they're tools. Right. So this is another new school versus old school thing. Okay. Old school guys. If a guy came and he was throwing hard or seemed like he had life on his fastball, that's what we would say. This guy's got life on his fastball.

And now that we have numbers to break it down and we have these edutronic cameras, you can see and you can have guys work towards that. and that's just that's high spin rate and high spin efficiency yeah you can have a high spin rate like that's still a good thing to have a high spin rate because it's a tool you can use if you're smart enough to be able to optimize it exactly yeah so you want to get your spin efficient and i'm going to tell you i'm going to show you like what they're talking about okay so think about it as a clock and guys that are straight over the top that's a 12 o'clock axis right yes so Guys are straight over the top.

I got the prop now. There's the ball. Trevi props. They want that straight four seam backspin, right? Mm-hmm. That'd be 100% efficient. If I have, if I'm straight over the top, and all of a sudden my spin is going in this way,

I'm going to be less efficient, okay? Guys that have straight over the top arm angles are guys like Justin Verlander. Yep. Right? straight down and he's got a good spin efficiency and that's why his ball has life and it has that ride.

It looks like it's almost riding up. Here's name the two other guys who have a high spin rate and high spin efficiency. Cole? Yes. I mean his is insane. Yes. One more.

Jack Flaherty, your guy. I don't, I've looked it up. But I'm sure it's good. Where can you find, did you find somewhere to find spin efficiency? I kind of was just going through it all, and the three guys they mentioned were they're big guys. Cole, Verlander, Scherzer. He's going to say Scherzer, but he's got a little bit of that weird arm angle, but he's good. That's okay.

That's a good thing to talk about. You can have an arm angle that's not right over the top, and if your axis of your spin matches that, that's how you get the spin efficiency. Gotcha. So your axis of your spin needs to match your arm angle. So when guys who have a lower spin rate, but they match, like the hater, he has a lower spin rate, but he has a great spin efficiency. Interesting. He's matching that spin with his arm angle.

You're going to get the same effect as a guy that has high spin rate. Okay. It's always more is better. It's how efficient you are with it. Yeah. Okay. And on fastballs, typically, guys with high spin rates induce more fly balls and lower spin rates induce more ground balls.

And then when you go to curve balls, it's the exact opposite. High spin rates are going to induce more ground balls and low spin rates are going to induce more fly balls. And that's because we're talking about fast balls. We're talking about back spin, but curve balls, top spin. It's pretty simple when you really break that down. Yeah. That's cool.

So that's kind of what the point of the show. We're trying to make it a little, we're trying to simplify it. So that's kind of the what, but the how is the technology. And what's really changed for these guys and how they're able to measure this is these edutronic cameras. And essentially all those are, they're like high frame rate, slow-mo cameras. So you can get a close-up on a guy's hand, just like we're doing here. and a guy's in full speed

and you can see where his finger pressure is you can see how it's coming out of his hand and then you can overlay those videos so guys are guys will find their their best efficient video of a pitch and they'll work to repeat that and they'll say hey here's my bullpen session from today

let's overlay it with my best bullpen session and see where I'm at yeah and I think that's where the advantage comes in for all these guys and that's where it helps develop players because before you would feel something like this is this is I'm here and it's how do I keep that now if you have a baseline for this is where I feel great and I can go back to that video and match up everything you can you can get those results more frequently because you're working towards it yeah and it's not just like oh I feel this like this is what I was feeling it's like there are hard numbers and this slow-mo high high rate

like high-res video that can just show it to you. And you can watch it within the same session. That kind of opened my eyes when Trevor Bauer was talking about it on C.C. Sabathia and Ryan Rucco's podcast. It was like, you know, back in the day when you had video, you'd throw a bullpen session, then you'd go watch the video and then discuss what changes you thought you should make.

And then the next bullpen session, you make those changes and then see what the results are. And you have that waiting game because the human arm gets tired. He's like, with this, I can throw a, a pitch, watch it, and then the very next pitch make the slight change and throw it again and see what changes within the same bullpen session so you don't have to, you know, wait it out. And it helps you make the adjustment on the fly. And also, it really helps, like, if you want to make in-season changes, that's really hard to do. Jay Hap said he wanted

to make a change, but he couldn't do it at the end of last year because just like, It's so routine. So he, as soon as the season ended, he made the change and then is trying to implement it now. But he said, I couldn't do that during the season in just bullpen sessions and then go out and pitch a different thing. So these cameras in the off season, and Adam Ottavino and other Yankee built a lab like Bauer so he could just do it every pitch and make the change right there. And then he perfected his slider. So the technology really is changing the game a lot. It is.

100% and like this pitch design thing that's coming out of it is awesome because they're slowing these videos down and they're like hey like here's my finger pressure like and here's my arm slot and my hand placement like is it here is it here and they can really get these finite details down and they're able to not necessarily make a new pitch but they're able to design their pitch to what they want it to do like I throw a hard slider and it breaks at at this percentage. I want to throw a slider that's a little slower and breaks at this percentage, so let's design that. And it's easier for them to do it because they can do one pitch at a time.

Like you said, you could just go back and look at it. That's not good. Let's try it again. And if they get one they like, all the numbers match up, video saved. Let's keep doing that. Yeah. And I forget if it was, is either an old school baseball coach or an, old school football coach and they asked them about analytics and they said, yeah, we've had analytics

forever. We just called them stats. And it's like you're mentioning when you said with launch angle, it's just a stat and efficiency in general, which is now becoming the theme of this podcast. But like Jim was talking about, I mean, all of this stuff is stuff that was happening. It's just happening at a higher and quicker level. I mean, how many times have you heard a starting pitcher say, you know, I just got to keep working in my bullpen sessions and get them and where, you know, that could have taken a month and a half to figure out a certain pitch they were working on. Now it can be literally pitch by pitch data, which is, it's incredible. It's really mirroring, you know, our lives.

Like Jim mentioned at the beginning of the show, like your TV technology, it's just happening so much quicker now. Yeah. It's crazy. It's hard to stay up to date. It is. I also understand why older fans get left by the wayside. I wouldn't really, like, criticize anyone that's 60.

plus that is like, I like batting average. That's fine. You can tap out on learning at some point in life. You're looking at it. I think people are thinking it's much more in-depth than it is. They're just statistics. It's true. And I guess that's part of what I was trying to say is that like every statistic has their

thing. Like batting average, yes, it's not as valid. It doesn't necessarily mean you're the best hitter in the league like it did for about 75 years or 175 years. It means you got the most. hits. Now we have other variables. Yes.

That's what's going on now. Take away the variables. Were you lucky? What kind of park do you hit in? What year is it? Right. You know, everything is taking the, it's a factor now, into consideration now. And they're able to evaluate guys a little bit better because of it.

I've got you as a 30 homer guy last year, Ploof. Juice ball? Well, with the balls. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you give me 600 at Bats like that at 30 Homer. And you know, you just change your swing path launch angle. Yeah, I just, I need to be the launch angle guy.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Perfect. Okay, so next one, I want to stick with pitching because this is really interesting to me. Because the other ones I feel like I know and I think hitting is, hitting is not as advanced right now as pitching is. Interesting. And I firmly believe that. And people are, they're just, maybe we guys have more time to like go through it all.

or whatever, but I think the technology is really helping the pitchers. Okay. So you think hitters are dumb? Hitters are not dumb. Okay. Okay. I just think they don't have as much time on the hands as some of these pitchers. That's good.

Another buzzword. Tunneling. Love that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, hold on, hold on. Are you saying tunnelings, we shouldn't be saying tunneling? Because tunneling's awesome. Love tunneling.

Love tunneling. But use it the right way. Yeah, yeah. I put a tweet out not too long ago, and I said two words. I hate right now are analytics and content. I didn't mean like I hate those things as they are meant to be. I hate the way that people use those words when they don't know what they're talking about. I've started using content as like punctuation. I end sentences by saying content. Yeah, so I hate you. That's so I may be the root of that. That's my bad. So let's ask you guys,

tunneling. Give me what you think tunneling is. You want to go first in this spelling bee, kid? I know what tunneling is. Okay. Well, tunneling is when you have two different pitches come out of the hand at the same spot and ride the same plane, the same tunnel, for a little bit before the one breaks or the other break. So like Adamanovino's slider and two seamer are going the same release point and the same tunnel until one breaks left and the other breaks right to confuse the hitter.

You're right. Yeah. I don't know what time. Did you have that, Jake? We host a show called Talking Baseball. So, yeah, I know that. We kind of know what we're talking about. Yeah, and again, here's what I'll do.

I'll relate it to things that we're saying same things but differently 20 years ago. 20 years ago would be making your pitches look the same. It's all it is. It's so simple. So this is a guy. I don't think he'll care that I mention his day. This is Odo, our guy. Kate Cote, friend of the pod.

Friend of the pod. We taught to him, you guys understand how smart he is. He knows pitching. He loves to learn. He's a smart guy in general. Smartest Jake in the room. Yeah. So if it's only you two, yeah.

Yeah, easy. You can throw some more Jakes in there. There's more Jakes, too, and he would still have it. Yeah, you're right. So he has a problem with people talking about tunneling all the time. And he said, tunneling will be another one that I think people throw out there without having full, college of. If a guy has a swing and miss breaking pitch, announcers use tunneling, even though they have no idea if he does or not. He could just be nasty as fuck, but in reality, he could have a

slightly different arm angle or release angle for that pitch. So he's saying guys are just misusing it. Yeah. But like you said, Jim, it's just that same arm angle and arm speed. Yeah. If anyone wants to see this, um, go to Twitter and search. has got a really good bit of it, right? Yeah, but Pitching Ninja. If you go to Twitter and search like From and then Pitching Ninja and then keyword stop GIF, because what he does is he makes GIFs that stops at the last point that the two pitches are the same, and then they break.

And, I mean, you'll see it is insane. I think Cindergarde has a crazy one. Yeah, this is Cinderg. Is that the one that popped up? Yeah, yeah. and as a hitter you're pissed that this is becoming a thing. I don't think the screen can see it. Yeah, no, he's got a fastball that ends up like middle high

and he's got an off-speed pitch that ends up, you know, almost uncatchable. Out of the hand, they look this. And out of the hand and halfway to them, they look the same. And I guess that would be my question to you, Trevor, is as a hitter, and you mentioned that the hitting technology isn't there yet fully, I mean, I feel like hitting technology, only do so much because at the end of the day, you got to put the barrel of the bat on the baseball. And, you know, I guess how could you tell back in the day if it would, I guess you probably

didn't use the word tunneling, but you said, you know, this guy's got the same arm slaughter. He's got the same arm speed. You know, are there a lot of lesser pitchers? Is that their bigger problem? If we see a guy that throws 96 with a wipeout slider, but he's not a successful pitcher, I'm trying, who's that guy in the Orioles, Miguel Castro. I mean, he's got a ton of limbs, he's got dirty stuff, but his numbers really have. Very skinny.

Yes, I mean, all limbs, anti-me. Like a guy like that, if they got gas and they've got a wipe-out slider, is it most likely that you can pick up on that arm slot or you can recognize the pitch easily? He might not be the perfect example, but I guess I'm trying to relate it to the tunneling. Yeah, I know what you're saying. And I think that's a reason why pitchers are. ahead is because they control the variables. Right.

So, like, they're the ones deciding what pitch to throw, what arm angle to throw it from, and whatnot. And as a hitter, you know, you just got to adjust. Okay, you can work on certain things. You can work on an optimal swing, getting your A swing off is what a lot of guys will say. But in the end, you're just trying to put the barrel on the ball. Because you have no control of the variables.

You can guess. You can get told what pitch is coming like the Astros did. Zinger. Yikes. but you can't work one thing. When pitchers can work one thing, one arm slot. You know, one arm action, one arm speed, whatever it is you want to do,

they can just do that because they're controlling the variables. So when tunneling now is like being taught and like they can have these cameras and get guys to do this shit, it's fucked up for hitters. That's the hardest thing that you can go up against is a guy that throws his fastball, his off-speed pitch,

as change up, whatever it is, and they're all coming off the same arm angle and their arm action is good? Yeah. It's very difficult. That's like the gift that you texted me or tweeted me with me against you Darvish. Yeah.

Ethos that Ephis curveball, but his arm slot and his arm action are identical to a 94, 97, my hour fastball. And he's stolen that one at 60. Yeah. There's some really good visuals. Like, just go Google pitching ninja stopgift. Like this Strasbourg one, and there's a Klooper one earlier.

They didn't say. Klobber's a very good example of that. All his pitches are coming from the exact same spot, and he's able to do a lot of different things with them. All right. I have a question for you. Because pitchers are advanced and this tunneling bullsett, this, god damn it, Jimmy.

You got it. This tunneling nonsense is getting so impressive. Are more and more hitters becoming guess hitters? That's another thing that I think, has a negative connotation to it. Oh, he's a guest hitter. But I don't see how you could not be. Like, I don't see how you can be a sit fastball, react to the off speed

when pitchers are getting so detailed in masking the off speed pitches. Yeah, I mean, it's okay to be a guess hitter, especially if it's founded in some sort of statistic or some number that you found. 60% of time, that's what you like, right? If it's over 60%? I like it more than that. I want to be as much as possible. But if you have an idea of what's coming,

then you can match up your swing. Okay, if I am like, all right, fuck it. Outside of the plate is his. I'm looking in because he just threw that front hip cutter. And now I know that he likes to sequence that, another buzzword. I know that he likes to sequence off of his front hip cutter to a, four-seamer inside. So basically what he's trying to do to you there is he showed you a pitch that started inside

and then ran back over the plate. Now he's going to show you one that started inside and it's going to stay inside. But if I'm like, fuck it, I'm selling out to that pitch, then I can adjust my swing, you know, whether it's I open up a little bit or I get started a little earlier, try to catch it more on front. That's what you can do to combat that. And that, I guess, would be considered guess hitting. but most of the time it's going to be founded in some sort of research or number.

So we can call it like estimated gas hitting. Yeah. A lot of guys are doing that. Educated guessing. Calculated hitting. We saw the clip of... What's the science word? Rizzo.

In spring training, when he said, oh, he hasn't done me a fastball yet. I'm going to swing because he's going to tell me one and you got it. What's the hypotenous? Hypotenuse. What's that mean? Yeah, what's that mean? That's like the educated guess. It's like when you have an idea like...

So like a hitcher, he's a hypothesis hitter. Anyways. You coined a new term. A hypothesis hitter. No, that's a normal one. You know more old people out on the game. Yeah. I've got...

I'm not educated guests. I was going to say I've got something weirder than that, but I don't think I do for once. But I do remember my first job out of college, Trevor, a little inside for you. Management training program. Useless, made no money. pretty good times. But the first time they gave us a P&L sheet, they gave it to us and they told us to look at it

and you know, you're seeing, okay, there's some profit, there's some loss, you're putting it together. When you get, you know, the information that, you know, Jake Oterizzi, 2-1 counts after he's thrown his fastball, you know, he's 80% of the time he's thrown a slider. Is it easy as finding that number? because that feels lazy. It feels like there should be more rhythm.

Because when you look at a P&L after a while, you see more numbers that lead into other things. If you invest it early, you know, you're going to see stuff in the long term. Like when you get the data on certain pitchers, do you end up running into more information over time? Does it come that way? Or maybe it's comparing other pitchers or what?

I don't know exactly what you're asking me, but I will say if you face a pitcher more, and more you start to understand their tendencies. And you have to remember that the pitchers also have these numbers. Right. So if he's a guy and he's like, all right, I'm in a 1-1 count. And I know my numbers say 80% of the time, I'm going to Seamer here. There might be a time where he's aware of that and says, well, I know this guy guess is more

than this other hitter. So I'm going to fucking change it up. So it's constantly a chess game. and as a hitter you're really you have to have a bunch of swings in your bag because these guys control the variables like I said

and when you see these guys taking huge swings and misses at a breaking ball that's all they're doing is they had a number in their head or a pitch in their head that they're going to go for and they'd rather get that ace swing off

and if it's the pitch they guessed great if it's not they take this A swing and they swing and miss it looks terrible who cares but it looks very

really bad on TV and people get fucking mad. And to your point, Jim, that's what they call. He's a guess hitter. Yeah. I mean, that's what- Would you rather take your A swing and if you get the pitch, you do damage, or just take like a B-minus swing and hit a dribbler of the shortstop? I'd rather swing and miss.

Yeah, we- Anybody would be there. We had some eye-opening stuff on our Yankees podcast this year. Clint Frazier swung and miss a good amount early on, but it was actually a good thing for him because he wasn't hitting into weak contact. And then I know Aaron Hicks is going in the back of our heads. We'll stop making too many Yankee comparisons,

but he definitely does some educated guessing, hypotenuse hitting. Anyone quickly that you were good at the cat and mouse chess game with? I mean, is it just the pictures you raked off of? Or was there anyone that, like, I know he's about to go against his tendency here, and I've got him? I think you could guess more on pitchers who are, like, confident in their stuff. Because there are guys who say, fuck the numbers. I am throwing to my strength.

Right. That's all I'm going to do. Okay. So those guys, you're able to guess a little bit more. And it's like, well, he's basically saying here it is, fucking hit it. Right. And it's the guys that are pitchers where you kind of have to be, I say pitchers, meaning like they have to locate, have to mix speeds, have to change their sequencing each time to the lineup.

Those guys can be a little difficult. But on the same token, they are guys with stuff that isn't as good. as those guys that don't care about what you think. So if they're missing or you can get on the same page with them, you're going to have success. Gotcha. Yeah, that works. It's basically what I have on here.

And then the last thing I want to talk about was teaching hitting to kids and like hitting Twitter in general. Okay. I don't know if you guys have been a part of hitting Twitter. I didn't know hitting had a Twitter. They haven't been looking for us. You guys should look up hitting Twitter. essentially they're like a pitch ninja is there like a hit ninja out there i don't know if there's

a hit ninja i've actually looked for that before but what i'm talking about is hitting coaches online on twitter okay oh dude i they're constantly battling ex big leaguers some of this old school baseball shit and like kevin eucalus is when i always see he's always like fighting these online hitting coaches yeah i remember seeing euclis get involved in some of that um Yeah, hidden coaches kind of weird me out Because From some of the Like I remember like

Yeah, some hidden coaches They're like break down every video And a lot of them are That I've seen at least Have a very sour taste To the way they talk about everything They Talk in absolutes

And you can't do that When you don't control the fucking variables Right I think that's the biggest point that any guy that's played has for these guys is like you know what your drill it might work you know what you're teaching the way you're the way you're teaching hitting to these kids it might work in the fucking cage where all the variables are controlled where you're flipping the ball at 20 miles an hour or you're throwing BP at 40 miles an hour you can do a lot of

things wrong and still get the right result. Okay, when a guy starts introducing V-Lo, location, off-speed pitches, what are you going to do? And these guys, a lot of them are just set in their ways. And they don't understand that when you don't control the variables, everything goes out the window. You've got to be able to do a bunch of different stuff. What's the Mike Tyson quote? Everyone's got a game plan to get punched in the face, right?

That is the Mike Tyson Club. That's it. It's the same thing with hitting. You can do a bunch of stupid shit in the cage. I can stand on one leg the entire time until I swing and I'm going to still hit a bomb in the cage. You can't do that when you're hitting. You know, like, it's really tough.

For me to watch this. Yeah. Because as you guys know, I am a little league coach now. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the team's record? Uh, wins one and one. One and one and then a clean sweep coronavirus cancels the season.

We haven't been canceled yet, but I'm, I'm thinking we might be. Are you ruined for Corona? I'm not. You don't, you want these? I enjoy it. Okay. All right. How's, save it.

Hey, I have a, I don't know how long we've been going because we had a big gap in between. But I have, I have. I have a website here that is just called baseball slang. And I'm going to quiz you guys. Okay. Love it. Okay. So, uh, buzz in.

Here we go. First term. Uh, these are so simple. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. How about this one?

Snowman. Jake? That's. I didn't ring in. Yeah. Jake's ringing in. first. A snowman, that's when you strike out eight times in a game. I mean, you have like half of it, right, but surprising that you can't. Snowman is just for the number eight. Ooh, this says it's when

you score eight runs in the game, like they put up a snowman. Oh, yeah. I mean, Snowman is for the letter. Yeah, we need a sense. Number eight even. Letter eight. Yeah. It's normally, people use that in golf a lot. Okay. What about this? Shot a snowman. This is so simple. Bang, bang. Oh, too soon. You don't got that? Ferve ball. No, it's if the plays close. Oh, sorry, I used to play in Houston.

Zing? All right, what about pepper? Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Slapping it right at the infielders. Playing a little pepper. You like playing Pepper, Trow? I do.

I hated Pepper. I liked it anymore. I was a big fan. Not a Pepper guy. What's this one? Punch and Judy hitter. That's just a slap hitter. That's like what Jake is.

Yeah. I never heard of the Judy part. Punching Judy, yeah. Derek Jeter. Probably offensive at this point. Derek Jeter was not a punching Judy, Trevor Ploof. Wow. Luis Polonia was a punching Judy.

Was he a good shortstop? What about a... Rubarb. Defensively, no. That's pie. Rubarb, Trev. These are so stupid. I mean, I don't know.

That feels like a blooper or something. It says it's like when a fight. breaks out. When guys start jawing at each other. Okay, these suck. Yeah, these are bad. Well, I'm trying to find ones that I don't know because a lot of them are really simple. I've got a good question that was on a topic we discussed today.

Yacker. I think curveball. I think one point Jake. One point Jake I win. Trevor. Oh, shut out. You mentioned sequencing or when guys come through a lineup and, you know, a pitcher introduces a new pitch. And I feel like every baseball fan who's listening to this watches a broadcast and you hear, you

know, a starting pitcher is on his second time through the lineup or his third time through the lineup. And you always hear him like, oh, he's introducing his change-up this time through the lineup. How does that come through on the opposing team? Because I think when we're watching that, it's always the pitcher's attitude on the mound, and it's what they're doing. Is it two batters in when you're on your second time through the lineup, and they both saw change-ups for the out pitch? Does the buzz go up and down the dugout that he's throwing the change-up now?

or how does that work? I have no idea. It's different. I mean, you know what a guy is featuring, right? You know what his... Features is such a cool word for like, hey,

what's this guy throw? It's like, what does this guy feature? He makes it sound so much cooler. Oh, he features a two seamer and a slider. Yeah. Sounds so much cooler.

I guess featuring would be like what he throws the most. Primarily, yeah. Well, feature two pitches but have four pitches they throw. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you'll see in warm-ups or during the first time through the order, what does this guy have control of?

There's very few guys that go through a lineup and only throw fastball or only throw fastball slider and save their changes. It doesn't happen that often. It does. It the guy's feeling really good. But really it comes down to first time through the lineup, the pitcher has a huge advantage. Anyone can just go look this up online. I don't have the numbers in front of me.

Second time through the lineup, pitcher has the advantage still. Third time through the lineup, it gets a little more equal. And then fourth time through, it's the batter has the advantage. And that's just historical statistics. Do you think you were really good third time through the lineup? Oh, boy. Probably. Okay.

Sometimes it's different. Like when people talk about that, if a guy is, you know, in their third or four time, maybe he's just nasty. They're having a good day. Yeah. Yeah. So, but typically, yeah, if you see a guy three times, that third time, you're settled in, your timing is there, you've seen his pitches, you know what they're doing, and you're able to take advantage of that. That's why we're seeing the opener come in.

They're having these guys open up so the starter doesn't have to see the guys a third time through the order. You can see him twice through the order. Treve. Yes. Third time through the order, first starting pitchers. is your best OPS. Good job. Thank you very much.

Is it super super high? No. 869. No. Career. I'm doing career. 775. Yeah, that's pretty good for me.

I was a 715 OPS guy. Not very good. I turned my average skill set into a pretty good career. Solid. Dude, versus a relief pitcher, the third time versus the same relief pitcher. Unreal, ploof.

One dot zero OPS. The third time I faced the guy? Third time, if you faced a relief pitcher, the third time in the same game? In the same game? You just absolutely crushed him, dude. Was that like twice in my career? Two for four. Okay.

Three different years. That's so funny. Those are analytics. Sorry someone got hurt in the game or something like that. Yeah, it had to be someone got hurt and then the guy came in or like extra inings. kicked out. Yeah. Wow.

Do you want to call baseball reference up and say, can you make my picture, a twins picture, not a Phillies picture? Oh, I don't care. As long as not a minor league picture. Okay. Okay. I do want to end this.

We're talking about, because I think a lot of our listeners are like younger baseball players. Yeah. Sure. And Josh Donaldson, friend of the pod. J.D.

Yeah, J.D. J.D. He is. has that MLB network clip that says basically hit fly balls like if he tells you hit ground balls you're hitting coaches wrong. Yeah, yeah. I agree with that. Like ground balls, no good.

But you got to work your way up. Josh Donaldson is an elite hitter. He has every swing in the book. His fly balls are home runs. The average little leagueers fly balls are pop us to the shortstop. Hit the ball hard. That's all you need to focus on. Hit the ball hard. worry about the rest.

Power, they always say develops last. Now, people are trying to expedite that process with getting guys their A swing. But if you don't have a B plus swing or a B swing, like you're not going to be successful. You can't just have an A swing. That's Chris Carter. And I promise you, he grew up not doing what he did. That swing was developed because they knew this guy's not going to hit for average. Let's try to get some homers out of him.

Yeah When Growing up You're teaching young kids Let them have fun Let them hit the ball hard That's it The rest of the shit will come

Hit the ball hard Yeah you can develop your Optimal A swing As you get a little bit older Swing big Run fast Have fun That's how you coach a little league

Yeah Don't touch each other Don't touch each Especially right now Especially right now All of the coronavirus So at the end we're good? That was great.

That's good. I hope we explain some of these things. Oh, that's great. You hear announcers talk about buzzwords, spin rate, exit v. low, launch angle. Don't be scared of them. Just enjoy them. Their stats, they're an easier way

to digest the information. That's all they are. Yeah. Cement mixer, Jake. Cement mixer. Is that another curve ball? Put them through the cement mixer? It's a bad curveball.

A hanger. necessarily a bad curve ball. Ooh, wow. Spin efficiency. His gyra ball was a cement mixer. A lot of times. Jaira ball was just a change up, ploof. Wow.

Go check it out, Jim. I love you. Wow. But a lot of times the gyra ball, guys will say it all the time, come back from the dugout. It's the best pitch in baseball. Because you're expecting a slider.

Don't move. They're fucking moves. So you're swinging. that pitch thinking it's going to move. It doesn't. You pop it up. Gyro ball is. Jimmy's hot right now.

It's not like a real thing. Thank you. It's essentially a cement mixer. Yeah. I mean, most times cement mixture means a hanging curveball. I'm going to send you an article. Okay. Trevor's got an article for you.

Yeah. I've got an article. The internet. Ever heard of it? No. But yes, also yes. All right. We're out.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Trevor. It's good stuff. Learning. Knowledge. Knowledge is power, Jake. Can't wait to see you out there. Smartest baseball pod in the land.

Jake sucks it. Double suck. Besides Jake. So I shouldn't suck it. Want me to suck it? You guys touch me. I would be.