Latest / Foul Territory / Pitching Ninja on Ohtani's incredible arm, King’s return, Roki’s tweaks + 100mph teen concerns

Transcript

Pitching Ninja on Ohtani's incredible arm, King’s return, Roki’s tweaks + 100mph teen concerns · Foul Territory

0:03
Speaker 1: All right, we've got Robman aka Pitching Ninja back on FT.
0:07
Speaker 1: It's good to see Rob. It's already August man. I
0:09
Speaker 1: looked down. I'm like, man, we haven't seen Rob Freeman
0:12
Speaker 1: in a minute. How you been. I've been good.
0:14
Speaker 2: I miss you too.
0:16
Speaker 1: We like these combos, and I don't know if we've
0:18
Speaker 1: had Trevor on for these combos, but obviously we can.
0:20
Speaker 1: We were nerding out a little bit more than usual today.
0:23
Speaker 1: You know, some of the frat boys are off the
0:24
Speaker 1: show today, so Trevor and I can just nerd out.
0:26
Speaker 1: But let's start off this way, nastiest pitch that you've seen,
0:30
Speaker 1: and I'll put it in two directions, One like the
0:32
Speaker 1: actual pitch, like in one particular game one pitch, but
0:36
Speaker 1: then also just in general, like, which pitch are you
0:38
Speaker 1: enjoying watch watching from a starter or reliever on the
0:42
Speaker 1: mount this year.
0:44
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
0:45
Speaker 3: I think I can come up with two that just
0:47
Speaker 3: hit me off the top of my head as far
0:49
Speaker 3: as nastiest pitch. One is a Joe Ryan sweeper that
0:52
Speaker 3: was originally measured at like thirty inches and I think
0:54
Speaker 3: they scaled it back to twenty eight inches of break
0:57
Speaker 3: or something like that that was insane. It's just all
1:00
Speaker 3: the right elements happened and the thing just broke like crazy.
1:04
Speaker 3: The other one I was thinking of is Jacob Mazerowski
1:07
Speaker 3: against Willie castro with that was a ninety six mile
1:10
Speaker 3: an hour slider that sent him to the nether world.
1:12
Speaker 2: That was pretty sick.
1:15
Speaker 3: And as far yeah, I mean as far as guys
1:17
Speaker 3: like I think he might have just the most eye
1:20
Speaker 3: opening filthy stuff, like you have to watch every pitch
1:24
Speaker 3: that he throws because you might see something you've never
1:27
Speaker 3: seen before.
1:28
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of filthy guys out there.
1:33
Speaker 4: We asked that question. Now, I'm like, over here, I
1:35
Speaker 4: kind of want Scott to interview both of us, just
1:37
Speaker 4: get the same questions from both, because I was going
1:39
Speaker 4: to say, he's going to say the Joe Ryan sweeper
1:41
Speaker 4: if I remember correctly too, I saw it on your account.
1:44
Speaker 4: He also like ran off of the camera screen, and
1:48
Speaker 4: I was like, he kind of went with the ball,
1:49
Speaker 4: which also I think added a little bit another question
1:53
Speaker 4: along the lines of nasty pitches. I want to stick
1:58
Speaker 4: to rookies because I feel like you have a pretty
2:01
Speaker 4: good idea all of the rookies that come up we
2:05
Speaker 4: include Miserowski too. Is there any pitches that you did
2:09
Speaker 4: not anticipate to see that surprised you when you're like, WHOA,
2:13
Speaker 4: I didn't know we had that. Is there anyone who's
2:16
Speaker 4: come up this year that has actually blown your mind
2:18
Speaker 4: with the pitch?
2:19
Speaker 3: Well, there are two guys. I don't know if they
2:20
Speaker 3: surprised me. Miserowski's one of them. Like, I didn't expect
2:23
Speaker 3: his command to be as good as it had been,
2:25
Speaker 3: Like he looks like a taller Jacob de Gram at times,
2:28
Speaker 3: and that's ridiculous. The other I mean Chase Burns. I
2:31
Speaker 3: knew his slider was really good, but his slider is
2:35
Speaker 3: mid may arguably end up being one of the top
2:38
Speaker 3: sliders in baseball. Like he is certified electricity when he's
2:43
Speaker 3: on the mound, and I wish more people would watch that.
2:46
Speaker 3: They pay attention to the runs, which he's had some
2:48
Speaker 3: bad luck, but if you look at his pitches and
2:52
Speaker 3: his strikeouts and swing and miss stuff, you can't miss
2:56
Speaker 3: that guy.
2:58
Speaker 1: I've got a rookie for you that a lot of
3:00
Speaker 1: the world maybe has forgotten about because he's been missing
3:02
Speaker 1: for most of the season, But it sounds like he
3:05
Speaker 1: might come back soon, and he's experimenting with a two seamer.
3:08
Speaker 1: Did you see the recent comments from Roki Sasaki? And
3:11
Speaker 1: do you think that he's going to work on adjusting
3:14
Speaker 1: so that he can pitch in the big leagues. Not
3:16
Speaker 1: that he couldn't, right, he got hurt. That's really why
3:19
Speaker 1: he's been missing time here. But I thought it was
3:20
Speaker 1: fascinating for him to take us inside. You know what's
3:23
Speaker 1: going through his head as he's going to rehab here.
3:25
Speaker 1: He thinks that he needs to remodel his game a
3:27
Speaker 1: little bit, which every pitcher does to an extent. What
3:30
Speaker 1: did you think?
3:31
Speaker 2: I think he's probably right.
3:32
Speaker 3: So his fastball doesn't have like it's fast, but it
3:36
Speaker 3: doesn't have amazing characteristics. And hitters are waiting for that
3:39
Speaker 3: fastball because they can't hit his fork ball, slash split
3:42
Speaker 3: or whatever he calls it. That pitch is virtually unhittable.
3:46
Speaker 3: But if you eliminate it and you sit on a fastball, yeah,
3:49
Speaker 3: so you can have some pretty good luck. But adding
3:51
Speaker 3: another fastball variation, you've seen it work with other guys.
3:55
Speaker 3: I mean Hunter Brown just took off once he added
3:57
Speaker 3: that two seamer. I think it might help him just
4:01
Speaker 3: keep hitters off that kind of flatish fastball, and you
4:06
Speaker 3: know he's got he's young, he's got amazing talent. And
4:10
Speaker 3: I left him out because yes, his forkball, which it
4:14
Speaker 3: really is, is one of the filthiest pitches in baseball.
4:17
Speaker 3: But adding that other weapon I think is going to
4:19
Speaker 3: be really important for him and could help him succeed
4:22
Speaker 3: in the majors. I think he was caught a little
4:24
Speaker 3: flat footed by the dropping velo because of the injury.
4:27
Speaker 3: But also hitters, if they eliminate a pitch I know
4:32
Speaker 3: one hundred mile an hour fastball's coming, it's easier to hit.
4:37
Speaker 4: You. Brought up a great point about the two fastball,
4:41
Speaker 4: kind of to use a gaming term meta, and I
4:46
Speaker 4: feel like this is something a lot of guys are doing,
4:48
Speaker 4: Like Paul Skeen's talked about adding a sinker and a cutter,
4:51
Speaker 4: just because even though he was as good as he can,
4:53
Speaker 4: because he knows what he's going to need as things change.
4:57
Speaker 4: And Roki this is a great example. I thought I
4:59
Speaker 4: said this early in in the year too. I'm like,
5:01
Speaker 4: he's going to need something that goes either that way
5:04
Speaker 4: or that way at some point in order to get
5:07
Speaker 4: lefties and right He's out and get away from produced bits.
5:09
Speaker 4: So what is your opinion on do you think this
5:13
Speaker 4: is a the having two fastballs? That is, do you
5:16
Speaker 4: think this is a trend that is going to stay
5:19
Speaker 4: become more necessary and stay necessary for a long period
5:22
Speaker 4: of time, or is this going to be a you know,
5:24
Speaker 4: one of the trending pitches kind of like everyone through
5:26
Speaker 4: a sweeper and now we've some of the guys you
5:28
Speaker 4: can throw a sweeper have kind of stopped and now
5:31
Speaker 4: we've it's kind of evened out. What do you what
5:33
Speaker 4: is your opinion on the idea of throwing more than
5:35
Speaker 4: one fastball?
5:36
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's a great question to me.
5:38
Speaker 3: The more pitches you have that you can command, the
5:40
Speaker 3: better off you are for even things like tipping pitches,
5:43
Speaker 3: like if you have if Paul Skeins has eight pitches,
5:45
Speaker 3: even if he's tipping a little bit, because everybody has something,
5:49
Speaker 3: it's really hard to figure it out if you have
5:51
Speaker 3: eight different variations of different pitches. So I think that
5:55
Speaker 3: the trend towards more pitches is going to keep going
5:59
Speaker 3: because it's going to be all so easier to pick
6:00
Speaker 3: up tips. Where we have biomechanics basically on the field
6:04
Speaker 3: with Hawkeye stuff. You can run it through AI and
6:06
Speaker 3: figure out what guys are doing differently on different pitches,
6:09
Speaker 3: even if it's a tiny bit different. But if you
6:11
Speaker 3: have to remember eight different things and remember slight variations,
6:15
Speaker 3: I think it's tougher. So I do think there's a
6:17
Speaker 3: trend towards that. Whether it's all gonna be sinkers, I
6:21
Speaker 3: don't know, but we're calling them sinkers.
6:23
Speaker 2: They're not not.
6:24
Speaker 3: I mean some of these aren't even designed to be sinkers.
6:26
Speaker 3: There are two seamers that designed to kind of stay
6:29
Speaker 3: up in the zone as opposed to your traditional sinkers.
6:31
Speaker 3: So there's so many different variations. I think the trend
6:34
Speaker 3: is more two more pitches that guys can command.
6:39
Speaker 1: AJ I'm on my phone right now in Arena Club,
6:41
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at the Emerald slab packs, and I
6:44
Speaker 1: see in the grail a Bobby Witt Junior twenty twenty
6:47
Speaker 1: Bowman Chrome Prospect Auto Gold Refractor card. Give me that.
6:52
Speaker 1: Give me your phone. I'm gonna I'm gonna get you
6:53
Speaker 1: to buy it to me.
6:55
Speaker 2: I don't have it.
6:56
Speaker 1: You get a slab pack, No, I don't have that,
6:58
Speaker 1: And give me your slab pack Card's worth.
7:00
Speaker 4: You buy me slab pack, Scott, so I can get
7:02
Speaker 4: the Bobby with Junior Gold Refractor twenty twenty Bowman Chrome Auto.
7:07
Speaker 2: Because that sounds.
7:07
Speaker 1: Awesome and it's worth a lot.
7:09
Speaker 2: It's worth a lot.
7:10
Speaker 1: He's a stud, he's not going down.
7:12
Speaker 2: Get a grill.
7:13
Speaker 1: Get a grill. I want a grail, Scott, give me
7:15
Speaker 1: the holy grill.
7:15
Speaker 2: You do it.
7:16
Speaker 1: To do that, you must get yourself a slab pack
7:19
Speaker 1: in Arena Club or if you want to get it
7:21
Speaker 1: for a friend, you can do that too. And right
7:23
Speaker 1: now you can get twenty percent off your first slab
7:25
Speaker 1: pack or your first card purchase if you're going on
7:28
Speaker 1: there and just like, hey, I want a specific card,
7:30
Speaker 1: I find it there on to grab it for my showroom.
7:33
Speaker 1: Arena Club dot com slash foul and use the code foul.
7:38
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Just a quick side question for you.
7:41
Speaker 1: Did you see the you say Kukuchi story about how
7:43
Speaker 1: he tried to add a sweeper, you know, and I
7:46
Speaker 1: think he had it, I guess early in the season,
7:48
Speaker 1: and then it was lowering his armslot and he felt
7:50
Speaker 1: like it was messing up his other pitches. How often
7:52
Speaker 1: are you seeing that part of the equation where it can. Actually,
7:56
Speaker 1: I mean for the most part it's it's producing some
7:58
Speaker 1: really cool results for a lot of starters, right, but
8:02
Speaker 1: it could mess you up and like not just be
8:04
Speaker 1: a try and it's like, oh, passer fail, right, and
8:07
Speaker 1: then I'll throw this pitch out. It could be like, oh, wait,
8:09
Speaker 1: this is throwing my entire game off and now I'm
8:12
Speaker 1: in a rut. And then he's picked it up after
8:14
Speaker 1: he ditched that. But what do you think about that
8:16
Speaker 1: side of the equation.
8:17
Speaker 3: It's definitely a thing like you have to monitor it.
8:19
Speaker 3: It's pitcher specific, like some guys will manipulate the ball
8:23
Speaker 3: a little more and then they're tipping it or it's
8:25
Speaker 3: not coming out at the same tunnel that their other
8:28
Speaker 3: pitches are. It's just easier to pick up. Like a
8:30
Speaker 3: sweeper works for some guys, it doesn't work for other
8:32
Speaker 3: guys because it looks so much different from the rest
8:35
Speaker 3: of their pitches that a hitter can say, you know,
8:37
Speaker 3: they're not necessarily even seeing the spin axis of a pitch.
8:39
Speaker 3: They may be saying, oh, that looks different from everything
8:42
Speaker 3: else I'm seeing, so I know this.
8:44
Speaker 2: Is that pitch.
8:46
Speaker 3: But some guys, I think Paul Skins does a great
8:49
Speaker 3: job of just being robotic almost and throwing different pitches.
8:53
Speaker 2: Seth Lugo.
8:54
Speaker 3: He can even very armslots like you have guys that
8:56
Speaker 3: totally very armslots that are successful. Chris Bassett's another guy.
9:01
Speaker 2: But there are other.
9:01
Speaker 3: Guys where it's just one that that's an outlier, and
9:04
Speaker 3: then you can pick up on it. Even if it's
9:06
Speaker 3: nasty metrically, it doesn't mean it's nasty.
9:08
Speaker 2: In a game.
9:10
Speaker 4: You make several very good points there. I also have
9:14
Speaker 4: some experience in basically showing some numbers on a pitch
9:18
Speaker 4: when I'm trying and they're like, it looks really nasty.
9:20
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I'm gonna throw it all the time
9:22
Speaker 4: and not really thinking about all the other things that
9:23
Speaker 4: are gonna come along with it. That was a splitter
9:25
Speaker 4: ended up hurting me, and it actually ruined every other
9:27
Speaker 4: pitch I threw to where I could only throw a splitter.
9:30
Speaker 1: That wasn't what I wanted.
9:32
Speaker 4: But two things you mentioned. We're talking about grabbing a
9:35
Speaker 4: new nasty pitch and deciding when to use it and tipping.
9:38
Speaker 2: And there's a guy that.
9:40
Speaker 4: Has a new nasty pitch but may have had a
9:42
Speaker 4: couple of different times this year tipping, and I want
9:45
Speaker 4: your opinion on it. Jesus Azario added a sweeper, which
9:48
Speaker 4: is he could not throw a slider for life of him.
9:51
Speaker 4: Now he has one of the nastiest ones in that staff,
9:54
Speaker 4: even that has a lot of good pitches. But I
9:57
Speaker 4: think once, maybe even twice, he is I had some
10:00
Speaker 4: trouble with tipping his pitches and having them relayed to
10:02
Speaker 4: two hitters. Were you able to look at any of
10:05
Speaker 4: Jesus's outings around this time and did you see any tips?
10:10
Speaker 4: Did you see anything you're picking up? I have my opinion,
10:12
Speaker 4: but I would love to hear yours.
10:14
Speaker 2: I did it.
10:15
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember what it was because I did
10:17
Speaker 3: a video comparing the two and everybody was like, oh, yeah, god,
10:22
Speaker 3: it's on, It's on X and I did the video
10:25
Speaker 3: and I can't remember it because I later did one
10:26
Speaker 3: on Mick Abel too, who was also I think tipping,
10:30
Speaker 3: which is why teams were teeing off on him as well.
10:32
Speaker 3: There's just little things like glove position, when you're lifting
10:35
Speaker 3: up your glove and one's going over his shoulder, ones not.
10:40
Speaker 2: I forgot what I think it was tapping his glove, ye.
10:45
Speaker 3: His glove really far too, so that you can almost
10:47
Speaker 3: he's almost showing his grip to every time.
10:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think that's what it was too. I
10:53
Speaker 4: was hoping you saw that as well. He's spiking that
10:57
Speaker 4: a little bit too, so you can see the knuffle.
10:59
Speaker 4: And it's funny because in that outing you look and
11:02
Speaker 4: on his face he's like, I know they can see it.
11:04
Speaker 4: I can't stop tapping, like this is not something I
11:07
Speaker 4: can start doing, which is an interesting, interesting situation.
11:10
Speaker 2: But it's one of those pitches. He's still threw it
11:11
Speaker 2: and it was still really good. Yeah.
11:14
Speaker 3: One of those things along those lines is like, as
11:16
Speaker 3: you know, people are blaming your pitching coach or whatever,
11:18
Speaker 3: but sometimes it's tough to pick up, like you're.
11:20
Speaker 2: Seeing a nasty pitch.
11:21
Speaker 3: You can't see everything a pitchers doing consistently, but the
11:25
Speaker 3: opposing team often does because they're game planning for something.
11:28
Speaker 3: Then it's a cat and mouse game. You have to
11:30
Speaker 3: stamp it out once you see it.
11:33
Speaker 1: There got one for you on a struggling pitcher, not
11:35
Speaker 1: necessarily to probably not. I don't think he does that,
11:38
Speaker 1: but I think there's a little blister issue causing no problem.
11:41
Speaker 1: We got a fan question from John in the chat saying,
11:44
Speaker 1: what does roph think about Max Freed and the ridiculous
11:48
Speaker 1: start to the season that really halted in July and
11:51
Speaker 1: we haven't seen him pick back up. So have you
11:54
Speaker 1: noticed anything about him compared to what you were seeing
11:57
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the.
11:57
Speaker 3: Year, not tipping wise, but you know, he introduced some
12:01
Speaker 3: new pitches. He introduced new wrinkles on his pitches that
12:04
Speaker 3: I believe his sinker is different and he's throwing a
12:07
Speaker 3: little cutter thing that's a lot more exaggerated, and I
12:10
Speaker 3: think this hitters are able to game plan it off,
12:13
Speaker 3: you know, over time, and he's been a little.
12:15
Speaker 2: Just less sharp.
12:16
Speaker 3: But also I believe he had a blister issue and
12:18
Speaker 3: that that definitely causes problems as well. But you know it, hitter,
12:22
Speaker 3: pitchers add pitches. Hitters are like I've never seen that before.
12:26
Speaker 3: It doesn't compute, it's not on the scouting report, and
12:28
Speaker 3: then later on it is on a scouting report and
12:29
Speaker 3: you can practice against it, so the league can catch up.
12:32
Speaker 3: And that's up to him to make adjustments to stay ahead.
12:35
Speaker 3: But he's great, like Max Read is awesome.
12:38
Speaker 2: I agree. I agree.
12:40
Speaker 4: Speaking of another guy who is now coming back and
12:43
Speaker 4: is part of a team trying to make a push here,
12:45
Speaker 4: maybe even for their own division. That's andygo Padres, Michael King,
12:48
Speaker 4: we got to see we got to see the east
12:50
Speaker 4: the East West guy back at it.
12:53
Speaker 2: What can we expect from Michael King?
12:54
Speaker 4: What is something you would look forward to as maybe
12:57
Speaker 4: a benchmark to see how sharp he is coming.
13:00
Speaker 2: Off the aisle?
13:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean just making sure his his velo is
13:03
Speaker 3: back where it was and the East West movement like that.
13:06
Speaker 2: Dude is absolutely film. He's made for pitching. Ninja Like.
13:10
Speaker 2: His stuff is just gross both ways.
13:13
Speaker 3: I mean he's throwing He's throw sweepers at break like
13:16
Speaker 3: well over two feet and sinkers that come back the
13:18
Speaker 3: other way breaking two feet like It's it's absurd stuff.
13:22
Speaker 3: So if he has that type of command, he is
13:24
Speaker 3: an incredibly valuable pitcher. I love watching that guy pitch.
13:28
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is perfect for me to finish up
13:30
Speaker 1: with my last question. We're hitting Padres. Padres fans are
13:34
Speaker 1: pumped with everything they picked up at the trade deadline,
13:36
Speaker 1: and then you don't even have King for a while.
13:37
Speaker 1: Here comes King this weekend. What about the other side,
13:40
Speaker 1: the Dodgers Otani specifically, What are you seeing from him
13:44
Speaker 1: on the mound this year?
13:46
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Like, he's a guy I can I
13:50
Speaker 3: can talk about for the next hour and a half
13:52
Speaker 3: if you want me to. But uh, dude, he adds velo.
13:56
Speaker 3: You know, he's throwing one oh one top to one
13:58
Speaker 3: oh two. His his sweeper, I think has probably got
14:02
Speaker 3: a little less horizontal break, but he's throwing a little harder.
14:07
Speaker 3: His stuff is just it's obscene. His slider's been really good,
14:11
Speaker 3: like just the pure slider, the thing that drops off
14:13
Speaker 3: the table. Has been an eye opener for me because
14:16
Speaker 3: I didn't view that as one of his better pitches
14:18
Speaker 3: just in my head.
14:20
Speaker 2: I hadn't looked metrically, but he.
14:22
Speaker 3: Dominated last game with that and then also hits four
14:26
Speaker 3: hundred forty foot bombs. Anybody that thinks that dude shouldn't
14:30
Speaker 3: pitch send him to me, because that guy is mean.
14:35
Speaker 3: Is he not one of the filthiest pitchers in baseball?
14:38
Speaker 3: Is he not one of the best pitchers on that staff? Like,
14:42
Speaker 3: what are we doing?
14:44
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, maybe whoever's saying that doesn't want the
14:47
Speaker 1: Dodgers to be competitive in October. I mean it could
14:50
Speaker 1: be a little troll thing, but no. I mean, I've
14:53
Speaker 1: seen it too. It's crazy, you know, and I get it.
14:56
Speaker 1: There's concern. We've had players on our show, right my
14:59
Speaker 1: Buddy's krats and age. I have at least brought up
15:01
Speaker 1: how is it going to affect the effect the offense
15:04
Speaker 1: as he gets older, as he gets hurt. It's like,
15:05
Speaker 1: I get all of that, but not if he's pitching
15:08
Speaker 1: like a one. If he's a five, okay, and the
15:11
Speaker 1: offense is dipping, okay, you want to make that case cool.
15:13
Speaker 1: But he's a one and he homered the other day
15:16
Speaker 1: when you pitched. So I'm with you, Rob. I don't
15:18
Speaker 1: really see what you're gonna do now. If he gets
15:20
Speaker 1: hurt in a major injury again, we're gonna have to
15:22
Speaker 1: have this discussion again. But right now, you don't mess
15:25
Speaker 1: with anything, right.
15:26
Speaker 3: I think people forgot how good a pitcher he is
15:29
Speaker 3: because you cannot tell me he's not one of the
15:31
Speaker 3: best pitchers on that team. I had a projection the
15:34
Speaker 3: other day, just a crazy thought that what didn't break
15:36
Speaker 3: baseball if like he closes out the World Series for
15:40
Speaker 3: the Dodgers.
15:40
Speaker 2: Like he did in the WBC for Team Japan, Like
15:43
Speaker 2: if he did that, what like what do you do?
15:46
Speaker 2: You just like have to bow down to the guy.
15:49
Speaker 1: It's funny you mentioned that that was me in the
15:52
Speaker 1: second half of last year. I'm like, will he do it?
15:55
Speaker 1: Just because he would?
15:57
Speaker 2: Right?
15:57
Speaker 1: I mean the Dodgers eventually shut down the thought process there,
16:01
Speaker 1: but I was like, could he just pop up for
16:04
Speaker 1: I don't know, the World Series he was going through
16:06
Speaker 1: his rehab. I like, could they snag an any or
16:08
Speaker 1: two out of him? And then of course you're getting
16:10
Speaker 1: the pushback like, oh, they're not going to need that,
16:11
Speaker 1: and then Walker Buehler's closing out the World Series and
16:13
Speaker 1: you're like, no, they would They would have. They would
16:15
Speaker 1: have used a few innings there from showeo Tani even
16:17
Speaker 1: eighty percent of Showotani. So I'm with you, do I
16:20
Speaker 1: hope we see it.
16:21
Speaker 3: I hope we do too, like legit, like that would
16:24
Speaker 3: be absolutely amazing. And the Dodgers are fully reloaded now right.
16:28
Speaker 3: They got trning back, they got they got a glass
16:31
Speaker 3: snell back, snell back. I mean that's a scary team.
16:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the good stuff. Next Dodgers Padres matchup
16:38
Speaker 1: is circled on the calendar. There's two of them back
16:40
Speaker 1: to back, weekends. I think it is coming up in
16:42
Speaker 1: mid August. Here. So Rob, this was awesome man, great
16:45
Speaker 1: nerding out on pitching with you everyone. Check out all
16:47
Speaker 1: of the Pitching Ninja accounts, YouTube, Twitter, et cetera. We
16:50
Speaker 1: showed a little piece of that Michael King sweeper. There's
16:54
Speaker 1: a lot more where that came from if you check
16:56
Speaker 1: out Pitching Ninja. Rob. Thank you man, good catching up.
16:58
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend.
16:59
Speaker 2: Thanksy. Take care.
17:01
Speaker 1: Mace Blaining one of the most popular segments in baseball.
17:05
Speaker 1: You can find it on May Day. You can watch
17:07
Speaker 1: that show hour one on the FT network on Wednesdays
17:10
Speaker 1: three o'clock Eastern and an hour two on Trevor's channel
17:13
Speaker 1: on YouTube four o'clock Eastern. Okay, so I got two
17:16
Speaker 1: topics for you. Let's start with Baseball America's senior editor
17:20
Speaker 1: Josh Norris putting out an article in a tweet about
17:23
Speaker 1: the last three weeks him witnessing not one but two
17:27
Speaker 1: sixteen year olds throwing one hundred miles an hour, Kevin
17:31
Speaker 1: de Frank and striker Pence, which is an A plus name,
17:34
Speaker 1: that's an eighty grade name. But I'll focus on Pence
17:37
Speaker 1: because it's Hunter's nephew. What do you think about youngsters
17:41
Speaker 1: throwing a hound o plus? I don't know these guys obviously,
17:44
Speaker 1: I haven't even watched video. To be honest, I didn't
17:46
Speaker 1: do much homework on this, so you know, and not
17:48
Speaker 1: that I'm going to even be able to chime in
17:50
Speaker 1: much on the delivery, like is it easy gas? But
17:53
Speaker 1: what do you think of a hundo plus from sixteen
17:55
Speaker 1: year olds?
17:58
Speaker 4: It's too hard, probably, but there's one. There's a few
18:03
Speaker 4: things that I think I get lost in translation and
18:06
Speaker 4: talking about these subjects now. And I also agree striker
18:09
Speaker 4: Pence is an elite name, and a guy throws one
18:12
Speaker 4: hundred named striker, come on, you know he's either going
18:16
Speaker 4: to pitch in the middle least or be a fire pilot.
18:17
Speaker 4: So I think getting back to kind of talk how
18:22
Speaker 4: pitching development is like hunting velocity, not new very much,
18:27
Speaker 4: not new every pitching cut, every baseball camp I went
18:30
Speaker 4: to as a kid in the nineties and the early
18:33
Speaker 4: two thousands, we could not wait to get to the
18:36
Speaker 4: station that had the radar gun. Who was a conversation
18:39
Speaker 4: between which guns are more accurate, stocker guns or drugs guns.
18:44
Speaker 4: Drugs give you more velos, So we like to have
18:46
Speaker 4: those ones like we all knew about all this stuff.
18:48
Speaker 4: You saw a gun behind the behind the backstop, you
18:52
Speaker 4: were you were jazzed up.
18:53
Speaker 2: You wanted to know what that number.
18:55
Speaker 4: Told you, like going out the days of going out
18:58
Speaker 4: there not knowing how hard is rung. They're all they've
19:00
Speaker 4: been over for a long time because technology has come
19:02
Speaker 4: a long way. So of course now that that information's
19:06
Speaker 4: more readily available, it is just it's a comparative stat
19:10
Speaker 4: to other people your age, like its teenagers are they
19:13
Speaker 4: struggle with that with everything it can always comparing themselves
19:15
Speaker 4: to everybody, and so this is another thing on the
19:18
Speaker 4: baseball field that you can show that I am I
19:20
Speaker 4: am good, I'm really good, or I'm better or whatever.
19:23
Speaker 4: So that hunt for velocity has always existed, and of
19:27
Speaker 4: course it's going to exist.
19:28
Speaker 2: The problem is we.
19:29
Speaker 4: Now know how to get it, and we know how
19:32
Speaker 4: to optimize guys to get the maximum velocity. And when
19:36
Speaker 4: you're sixteen years old, you optimizing a sixteen year old's
19:40
Speaker 4: body doesn't make sense because it's going to be different
19:43
Speaker 4: in a month. So that's I think where the where
19:47
Speaker 4: it becomes not the greatest thing in the world, because
19:50
Speaker 4: you're optimizing for a person who has not done growing,
19:53
Speaker 4: very likely unless they're very early mature, and that could
19:58
Speaker 4: completely derail the whole thing. Anyways, to where that one
20:01
Speaker 4: hundred and sixteen is now ninety one at twenty one,
20:05
Speaker 4: and because they just simply can't, like something broke down
20:09
Speaker 4: and just didn't heal as they were growing, didn't heal
20:12
Speaker 4: the way they needed to heal, and they didn't max
20:14
Speaker 4: out at the right time. It's called peaking early. And
20:17
Speaker 4: I've played against some guys when I was young. There's
20:21
Speaker 4: a couple of sixteen year olds in my league that
20:23
Speaker 4: through ninety six ninety seven they were absolutely insane, and
20:26
Speaker 4: then when they went to college they were down eighty
20:28
Speaker 4: eight to ninety one because they had to deal with
20:30
Speaker 4: some stuff. So it is just part of the way
20:34
Speaker 4: it happens. And I think that what we're trying to do.
20:37
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean like let's focus on command. It's just
20:39
Speaker 4: maybe don't only focus on velocity, and maybe learning different pitches,
20:45
Speaker 4: learning other positions, playing, don't become a pitcher only. There's
20:49
Speaker 4: a lot of ways to I think, mitigate this stuff,
20:51
Speaker 4: but there's no one way. I think it's just it's incentives.
20:57
Speaker 4: It comes down to incentives. What are we incentivizing. Do
20:59
Speaker 4: we want this guy to pitch long term with them
21:02
Speaker 4: optimizing him right now? You got to leave some potential,
21:06
Speaker 4: some some ceiling here to when they are a grown adult,
21:09
Speaker 4: to then peak when it matters.
21:11
Speaker 2: And I think the.
21:11
Speaker 4: Only chance, only time that chancing this type of e
21:14
Speaker 4: LO is worth it is in the major leagues.
21:19
Speaker 1: What if you know, a sixteen year old's like, oh,
21:21
Speaker 1: it's just coming out of the hand like this, Like
21:22
Speaker 1: how easy is it to take a lot off of
21:25
Speaker 1: a pitch. Like what if you're someone who's just feeling
21:27
Speaker 1: like naturally, maybe you're not throwing a hundred, but you're
21:30
Speaker 1: pumping well into the upper nineties. How do you coach
21:34
Speaker 1: someone through that?
21:36
Speaker 4: Then it comes down to if that person's naturally if
21:40
Speaker 4: they're a Jacob de Gram type and they're just naturally
21:43
Speaker 4: adding velocity because something is clicked for them physically and
21:47
Speaker 4: they don't really know what it is, figuring out what
21:49
Speaker 4: that is, and then building all of the your apparatus
21:54
Speaker 4: around it, your mechanical stuff around it, strengthening every part
21:57
Speaker 4: of that chain to protect them and allow them able
21:59
Speaker 4: to do it longer. It's just about getting stronger and
22:02
Speaker 4: stronger and stronger while and then just letting them keep
22:05
Speaker 4: just doing it naturally. So it becomes on the back end,
22:08
Speaker 4: like we're not worried about you getting like, it's not
22:11
Speaker 4: about trying to get you to slow down or take
22:13
Speaker 4: your foot off the gas if you're not putting your
22:15
Speaker 4: foot on the gas. But if you're out there with
22:18
Speaker 4: intent to throw one hundred percent, that's when you're like, like,
22:22
Speaker 4: maybe we throw change ups at one hundred percent, right,
22:24
Speaker 4: maybe we mix in more change ups because naturally they're
22:27
Speaker 4: just easier on the arm. Overall, there's just not as
22:30
Speaker 4: much pressure going on the forearm and the elbow. There
22:33
Speaker 4: are ways, but again, like if it's natural and they're
22:36
Speaker 4: doing it naturally, not necessarily trying to throw out as
22:38
Speaker 4: they can, then you just build them physically to be
22:41
Speaker 4: able to operate in that space and do the work
22:44
Speaker 4: necessary to maintain.
22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, the part that really struck with me was, Hey,
22:52
Speaker 1: you either played with or played against some guys that
22:55
Speaker 1: were you know, ninety six ninety seven high school and
22:57
Speaker 1: then they're in college and they're not throwing hard and
22:59
Speaker 1: they're on through injuries. I mean, anyone that's been in
23:02
Speaker 1: baseball for a long period of time. Even someone like me,
23:05
Speaker 1: a broadcaster, has met a ton of people who say, hey,
23:09
Speaker 1: I was in high school, I was the man homie,
23:11
Speaker 1: right like, hey, I was throwing ninety five plus all that,
23:15
Speaker 1: And then you're like, what happened? And some of them
23:16
Speaker 1: are probably inflating their statistics, but some aren't. There are
23:21
Speaker 1: those ridiculous players. I mean, I remember a kid in
23:24
Speaker 1: my high school was like that, ended up playing college
23:26
Speaker 1: baseball but kind of flamed out and had the build
23:29
Speaker 1: you thought, oh, this guy's probably gonna make it. Now,
23:32
Speaker 1: shoulder injury