Latest / Foul Territory / Pitching Ninja: Shohei/Roki breakdown, DS pitchers, Reliever fatigue
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Hey, we've got the great Pitching Ninja with us Rob
- 0:06Speaker 1: Friedman back on Foul Territory. Check out everything Pitching Ninja
- 0:09Speaker 1: brings to the table, Twitter, YouTube and everywhere else.
- 0:12Speaker 2: Rob.
- 0:12Speaker 1: Great to have you on. I do want to start
- 0:15Speaker 1: with history sho he Otani is going to pitch for
- 0:19Speaker 1: the first time in the postseason, and I just want
- 0:21Speaker 1: to make sure that we don't miss the moment and
- 0:24Speaker 1: how cool it is that somebody's going to pitch in
- 0:27Speaker 1: October baseball and still obviously be one of their most
- 0:30Speaker 1: valuable bats. So your expectations for Otani here, and do
- 0:33Speaker 1: you think that they lined him up correctly by putting
- 0:35Speaker 1: him in a spot where he can get the day
- 0:37Speaker 1: off after the first one?
- 0:40Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I love it. Anytime you can get
- 0:42Speaker 3: Showha on the bump, it's like Christmas for me, Like
- 0:45Speaker 3: that is fantastic. He's he's been filthy, like I hope
- 0:48Speaker 3: everybody's been paying attention, like arguably as nasty as anybody
- 0:52Speaker 3: on the planet. So yeah, I expect big things out
- 0:54Speaker 3: of them.
- 0:55Speaker 1: And then also I wanted to ask you about Roki
- 0:57Speaker 1: Sasaki and how much you've followed his story throughout the year.
- 1:00Speaker 1: He was one of maybe three that dominated the offseason
- 1:04Speaker 1: headlines for US rob and then it was pretty much
- 1:07Speaker 1: a nothing burger for the entire year due to end
- 1:09Speaker 1: effectiveness and injury. Did you see this coming? And what
- 1:13Speaker 1: are you seeing right now? Isn't this the Rokie that
- 1:15Speaker 1: we expected? Forget it?
- 1:17Speaker 2: Can he do that over five six innings? Whatever?
- 1:19Speaker 1: But right now we were all excited about the fastball
- 1:22Speaker 1: splitter combination, and here it.
- 1:23Speaker 3: Is literally the guy that we expected. There were a
- 1:27Speaker 3: ton of comments. I posted his highlights from his last appearance,
- 1:31Speaker 3: and a bunch of Japanese fans were like, this is
- 1:33Speaker 3: the Roki Sasaki of the two consecutive no hitter type guy,
- 1:38Speaker 3: Like this was what everybody expected.
- 1:40Speaker 4: I noticed a little change in his mechanics.
- 1:42Speaker 3: I don't know if any of you all noticed, but
- 1:44Speaker 3: he's got more bend in his back leg now, and
- 1:46Speaker 3: I think he is more glute dominant than quad dominant,
- 1:49Speaker 3: which helped him with his velo. And I'm sure the
- 1:52Speaker 3: Dodgers worked on that while he was struggling and fixed
- 1:56Speaker 3: him in the minor leagues. But he looked fantastic, like
- 1:58Speaker 3: this was the Rokie all of six we all expected.
- 2:02Speaker 5: Obviously see him in a closing role as something new,
- 2:06Speaker 5: but it's not the easiest thing, and kind of piggybacking
- 2:09Speaker 5: on the whole show Hey thing. Are both of these
- 2:12Speaker 5: guys set up to one because the Dodgers want to
- 2:16Speaker 5: make a deep run? Are they set up to recover
- 2:20Speaker 5: and be able to give the team all that the
- 2:24Speaker 5: team's gonna need? Roki in the bullpen? Can he bounce
- 2:27Speaker 5: back from a intense max effort ninth inning and pitch
- 2:32Speaker 5: again in the ninth inning again? Can show Hey bounce
- 2:35Speaker 5: back for Game five? Because that's what you want from
- 2:37Speaker 5: your game one starter.
- 2:40Speaker 3: I have little doubt about show Hey bouncing back. Show
- 2:43Speaker 3: He's been there, you know, he started for forever. He
- 2:45Speaker 3: knows what he's doing and is incredibly talented. Rokie, I'm
- 2:49Speaker 3: a little a little more skeptical of, or a little
- 2:51Speaker 3: more worried, because being a closer in the postseason is
- 2:55Speaker 3: a whole different ballgame. And you know, I know his
- 2:59Speaker 3: mechanics have been fit. I know his stuff looks really good.
- 3:01Speaker 3: But when you got a hostile crowd yelling at you,
- 3:06Speaker 3: all things go to hell. Like I you know, we'll see,
- 3:09Speaker 3: but he looks really good. He looks like he's pitching
- 3:12Speaker 3: well within himself, so I'm optimistic that he'll be good.
- 3:15Speaker 3: His stuff is definitely good enough to play at the
- 3:17Speaker 3: end of the game. But whether he can bounce back
- 3:20Speaker 3: and deal with hostile crowds and stuff like that, you know,
- 3:23Speaker 3: we'll see will be Will he turn up his game
- 3:25Speaker 3: like Cam Schlitzler did last night?
- 3:28Speaker 6: Yeah, that was absolutely ridiculous. There's some names out there
- 3:32Speaker 6: that are just getting well known and for a while
- 3:35Speaker 6: now a guy throwing in the eighth inning first time
- 3:38Speaker 6: ever in the postseason twelve k's dabble a little bit
- 3:41Speaker 6: about him and his performance of you know, what you
- 3:44Speaker 6: thought and what you saw from him, Like, is there
- 3:45Speaker 6: anything you see when he throws that's like above average
- 3:49Speaker 6: or something that you know crosses your mind when you're
- 3:51Speaker 6: watching a guy like Cam Schlitzler throw.
- 3:53Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 3:54Speaker 3: The big thing that I saw was he dominated with
- 3:57Speaker 3: three different variations of his fastball, so you couldn't sit
- 4:01Speaker 3: on one. I mean, at its four seam fastball, obviously,
- 4:04Speaker 3: throw a two seamer off that, and then hitters are
- 4:06Speaker 3: you know, getting a little more confused. And then with
- 4:07Speaker 3: his cutter he was able to tunnel them as well
- 4:10Speaker 3: as sequence them really well. And ale an hour. One
- 4:13Speaker 3: hundred miles an hour gets on you real quick anyway,
- 4:15Speaker 3: But when you have to determine whether it's one of
- 4:17Speaker 3: three different variations, that's tough. Because I got asked that
- 4:21Speaker 3: question why can't hitters hit him? And that's a big reason. Also,
- 4:25Speaker 3: he throws so effortlessly and gets one hundred miles an hour,
- 4:30Speaker 3: Like you look at it and the ball just jumps
- 4:31Speaker 3: out of his hand, and I think as a hitter
- 4:33Speaker 3: that probably is somewhat deceptive.
- 4:37Speaker 5: As a pitcher, throwing one hundred miles an hour, you
- 4:40Speaker 5: are going for strikeouts, are we right?
- 4:43Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
- 4:45Speaker 5: Everybody loves the strikeouts.
- 4:46Speaker 4: Everything he's about to.
- 4:47Speaker 5: Face, he's about to face a team that does not
- 4:50Speaker 5: strike out. Does he have the repertoire to be able
- 4:54Speaker 5: to get that weak contact? I know what you're talking about.
- 4:57Speaker 5: You know his cutter and I wouldn't even called a sinker.
- 5:00Speaker 5: It was more of a runner. It's running off. So
- 5:02Speaker 5: he's playing all that top plane and the Blue Jays
- 5:05Speaker 5: hit balls at the top plane, high velocity better than
- 5:09Speaker 5: any team. That's why they strike out the least. Does
- 5:12Speaker 5: he have enough to go off that top rail and
- 5:16Speaker 5: go downstairs to get early quick outs with low exit velocity.
- 5:21Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's gonna be the cat and mouse game.
- 5:23Speaker 3: It's gonna be really interesting how he makes that adjustment,
- 5:26Speaker 3: because you're right, like that team does not strike out
- 5:28Speaker 3: a lot. CAM showed that he had with stuff, but
- 5:31Speaker 3: it's a different animal going against the Blue Jays. I
- 5:34Speaker 3: did notice he did throw some true sinkers and then
- 5:37Speaker 3: some runners.
- 5:37Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with you.
- 5:39Speaker 3: Is he gonna throw more of that? Is he gonna
- 5:41Speaker 3: rely on his cutter to get some weak contact? You know,
- 5:44Speaker 3: jam some folks maybe like I'll be interested to see
- 5:47Speaker 3: how they game plan because it's gonna be really interesting.
- 5:51Speaker 6: I want to talk a little bit about because we
- 5:53Speaker 6: were talking about this when you came on here, the
- 5:55Speaker 6: ABS system. What are your thoughts on it? And you know,
- 6:00Speaker 6: people always find you we saw the final strikeout and
- 6:03Speaker 6: well not the final the out to Bogart's yesterday, the
- 6:06Speaker 6: pitch that was really down low. I would love to
- 6:10Speaker 6: hear your thoughts and what you think about it moving forward?
- 6:13Speaker 6: Is there more we could do? Do you like the
- 6:15Speaker 6: two pitch calls?
- 6:16Speaker 2: Like you do?
- 6:17Speaker 6: You think this is the way to go?
- 6:19Speaker 3: I thought your feedback was really good because I could
- 6:21Speaker 3: see it going to three. But I don't want a
- 6:23Speaker 3: full automated strike zone. I think it just takes it
- 6:26Speaker 3: makes the game too mechanical. No one wants to see
- 6:29Speaker 3: it played by robots. I love the what it does
- 6:32Speaker 3: to catcher skills, like in the in the preseason you
- 6:36Speaker 3: had cal Rawley making I think he called he got
- 6:39Speaker 3: eight consecutive challenges right, So it creates another skill that
- 6:44Speaker 3: a catcher can show off, another skill maybe a hitter
- 6:47Speaker 3: can show off or a pitcher show off. So if
- 6:50Speaker 3: you look at it like that, we're introducing maybe a
- 6:53Speaker 3: different human aspect to the game that I think we
- 6:55Speaker 3: could showcase, Like these guys are really good at challenging
- 6:59Speaker 3: versus making it all mechanical and then taking all the
- 7:02Speaker 3: all the fun stuff, like imperfections are sometimes part of
- 7:05Speaker 3: the perfections of baseball.
- 7:06Speaker 4: So having some of it's good.
- 7:08Speaker 3: But I thought you're I mean, maybe adding a challenge
- 7:11Speaker 3: is not a bad idea, but I wouldn't take it
- 7:13Speaker 3: further than that. I like what they've done because it
- 7:16Speaker 3: makes betting interesting in game, like betting a beer on
- 7:18Speaker 3: whether you're going to get the challenge right or not,
- 7:20Speaker 3: Like you know, that's what I would.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Oh, the fan interaction will be off the charts. It's
- 7:25Speaker 2: going to be awesome. It's a guarantee.
- 7:27Speaker 1: I just want to make sure everyone sees the instant
- 7:29Speaker 1: replay of what I personally got two seconds ago, two
- 7:32Speaker 1: feet away from Todd.
- 7:33Speaker 2: Father. What did you do when you heard him agree
- 7:36Speaker 2: with you? Gimme?
- 7:38Speaker 6: Yeah, like this, maybe said, let's go. I pun in
- 7:42Speaker 6: my first that somebody finally agrees with me on something.
- 7:45Speaker 6: So that means a lot. Man, you'll be get a
- 7:48Speaker 6: Christmas card this year. Don't you worry about that? Thank you?
- 7:51Speaker 4: Awesome. I can't wait.
- 7:55Speaker 5: I'm looking ahead, looking ahead. What's the one pitching maybe
- 7:59Speaker 5: not Yeah, the pitching matchup that you're most intrigued about
- 8:04Speaker 5: in this next series?
- 8:05Speaker 4: Well, I mean number one.
- 8:06Speaker 3: I really want to see show Hey on the mount
- 8:08Speaker 3: of the postseason, because if he takes his game up
- 8:10Speaker 3: another notch, it's going to be just so much fun
- 8:14Speaker 3: to watch. I also want to see the Mariners pitching
- 8:16Speaker 3: staff go, because you know, I think they're putting it together.
- 8:20Speaker 3: Watching them take on anybody is a lot of fun.
- 8:24Speaker 3: They throw so many different looks at you. That'll be
- 8:27Speaker 3: that'll be exciting for me, so I mean, I think
- 8:30Speaker 3: those are two of the big things. How the Brewers
- 8:32Speaker 3: use Miz is going to be fun to watch. And
- 8:35Speaker 3: I heard you all talking about Freddy Pearolta. I love
- 8:37Speaker 3: him in the postseason. I think, you know, he's just
- 8:40Speaker 3: electric and you know, having to beat him twice as tough.
- 8:44Speaker 5: And Quinn Priester never loses, so that's that's a tough
- 8:49Speaker 5: that's tough to go through. We had Quinn on just
- 8:51Speaker 5: the other day. But I want to also talk about
- 8:53Speaker 5: the relievers moving forward. You you post and show all
- 8:57Speaker 5: these incredible, you know, appearances and things that these guys do,
- 9:02Speaker 5: but they have pitched so much. There's guys that have
- 9:05Speaker 5: thrown three days in a row for the first time
- 9:07Speaker 5: in their career, let alone first time this season. How
- 9:10Speaker 5: do you feel like that affects the pitching going forward.
- 9:15Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it definitely impacts it.
- 9:16Speaker 3: But they do have something like, you know, this is
- 9:19Speaker 3: the postseason, pour it all out, let's see what you
- 9:21Speaker 3: got and we'll see who can come back and who can't.
- 9:25Speaker 3: I do like seeing you know, Matt Brash we haven't
- 9:27Speaker 3: seen yet. That's gonna be fun to watch. But you know,
- 9:31Speaker 3: whether guys can or not this is where your reputations
- 9:33Speaker 3: are made. Like watching Mason Miller. Granted he didn't win,
- 9:37Speaker 3: but he did pretty well pitching, you know, back to
- 9:40Speaker 3: back right, Like, so guys can either step up or not.
- 9:43Speaker 3: And this is part of beauty of baseball.
- 9:45Speaker 5: All right, what about Mason? What about Mason Miller's pitch?
- 9:49Speaker 5: I'm not sure who who tweeted it was that, but
- 9:52Speaker 5: that's a perfect pitch.
- 9:55Speaker 4: It was as good as pitch as I've ever seen.
- 9:56Speaker 3: Like, that's the fastest pitch of his career, the fastest
- 9:59Speaker 3: pitch ever in the postseason, and it was as dotted
- 10:01Speaker 3: as you can dot something.
- 10:03Speaker 4: I mean, for all the guys. So you know how
- 10:06Speaker 4: much drama we hear out there, Like pitchers today are.
- 10:08Speaker 3: Just throwers, Bob, you can't throw a pitch better than that, Like,
- 10:12Speaker 3: so let's stop with that and let's admire what this
- 10:15Speaker 3: guy's doing at that high level. Like that was as
- 10:18Speaker 3: good a pitch as I have ever seen anybody throw.
- 10:21Speaker 5: Canna be taught, Rob.
- 10:25Speaker 4: I don't think so.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Like I you know, we can control command, can be
- 10:29Speaker 3: taught a little bit, so you can know how to
- 10:32Speaker 3: control your misses and all that, But to dial something
- 10:34Speaker 3: in that well, that's a very hard thing to teach.
- 10:39Speaker 4: And I talked to Maddox about that.
- 10:40Speaker 3: He said, he said, yeah, I can teach people to
- 10:42Speaker 3: command a little better, but I can't really teach him
- 10:44Speaker 3: to command the ball like I did, because it's like,
- 10:46Speaker 3: you know, you either can do it or you can't,
- 10:48Speaker 3: but you can get better at it.
- 10:51Speaker 1: Hey, Rob, I think one of the themes this year
- 10:53Speaker 1: as teams always look for an edge, was it felt
- 10:56Speaker 1: like there's more technology to be able to take down
- 11:00Speaker 1: on tips right, for teams to find the slightest thing
- 11:05Speaker 1: that alerts them that a certain pitch is coming. Just
- 11:08Speaker 1: like super basic casual fan question here, who's not you know,
- 11:13Speaker 1: nearly as knowledgeable on the pitching part of things as
- 11:16Speaker 1: you like.
- 11:17Speaker 2: If we're seeing more and.
- 11:18Speaker 1: More pitchers I think have more variety, does that help
- 11:21Speaker 1: to combat that a little bit? Because I feel like,
- 11:24Speaker 1: you know, and it's early in the playoffs, but we're
- 11:26Speaker 1: seeing certain guys pop up and it's like, this guy's
- 11:28Speaker 1: got five pitches, he's throwing ten percent or more, and
- 11:30Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I feel like we're getting a little
- 11:31Speaker 1: more of that again these days versus a two or
- 11:34Speaker 1: three pitch guy. I mean, how many signs can you
- 11:36Speaker 1: give away to somebody and be able to pick off?
- 11:39Speaker 1: How many pitches you're you're able to see from a
- 11:41Speaker 1: small tip.
- 11:43Speaker 3: That's exactly my theory on it too. I've talked about
- 11:46Speaker 3: that before, where a guy like you know, Paul Skein's adding,
- 11:49Speaker 3: now what he has seven pitches. If you're tipping one
- 11:51Speaker 3: or two, it's very hard to tip seven or to
- 11:54Speaker 3: remember the seven tips that you have to go through.
- 11:57Speaker 3: So yeah, if you're relying on fastball change up, you
- 12:01Speaker 3: can probably figure those out. But if you're throwing twelve
- 12:03Speaker 3: different pitch types, it makes it a little bit tougher.
- 12:06Speaker 3: So yeah, I think it does combat tipping. I love
- 12:10Speaker 3: you know, this is a real cat and mouse game.
- 12:12Speaker 3: Like we have cameras all over the ballpark, we have
- 12:15Speaker 3: AI that can determine if a pitcher does anything different
- 12:18Speaker 3: on a fastball versus a slider. But then now pitchers
- 12:21Speaker 3: can combat that by number one, fixing the tip because
- 12:24Speaker 3: you know their teammates and their front office will help,
- 12:27Speaker 3: but also throwing more different pitches that it makes it
- 12:30Speaker 3: impossible to actually pick up a tip in real time.
- 12:32Speaker 4: So yeah, I totally agree with you on that.
- 12:36Speaker 5: Ten teams in the postseason get by without guys that
- 12:41Speaker 5: are striking out. The biggest thing we talk about is
- 12:44Speaker 5: hitters have to hit homers, and teams have to strike
- 12:48Speaker 5: guys out. Can the teams that are left get by
- 12:50Speaker 5: without punching tickets?
- 12:53Speaker 4: It's gonna be really hard to do that.
- 12:54Speaker 3: Like that is what the game's about, at least, having
- 12:56Speaker 3: dominant stuff, Like you got to throw hard enough to
- 12:59Speaker 3: keep hitters off balance. I don't know if you necessarily
- 13:02Speaker 3: need strikeouts, but you definitely need to get hitters on
- 13:04Speaker 3: a defensive and that's going to be mostly done from
- 13:07Speaker 3: you know, hard throwing guys. You do have a crafty
- 13:09Speaker 3: guys too that can, you know, make their mark, but
- 13:13Speaker 3: generally at this stuff that I spoke to Chipper about,
- 13:16Speaker 3: Chipper said, you know the reason why John Smoltz was
- 13:18Speaker 3: so good in the postseason. Yeah, dominant stuff, And that's
- 13:21Speaker 3: what plays in the postseason because you know, whether you
- 13:23Speaker 3: play the infield, you have to play the infield in
- 13:25Speaker 3: with a guy that pitches a contact, but with a
- 13:27Speaker 3: guy that's going to case somebody, maybe it's a little
- 13:29Speaker 3: easier to get out of those situations. So yeah, I
- 13:32Speaker 3: like my guys with swing swinging mess.
- 13:35Speaker 1: And just to finish here, Kratz, I know your question
- 13:38Speaker 1: plays into teams having contact versus power, right, So but
- 13:44Speaker 1: I will counter you here and we'll get Rob's thoughts.
- 13:47Speaker 1: You have teams like the Blue Jays and the Brewers
- 13:49Speaker 1: who are upper echelon power teams, right, And the Brewers
- 13:52Speaker 1: have won and scored in a variety of ways, like
- 13:55Speaker 1: almost as unique as we've seen it these days because
- 13:58Speaker 1: they're playing an older school brand of baseball.
- 14:00Speaker 2: Do you think that plays.
- 14:01Speaker 1: Or this power elite strikeout stuff overcome all of that, Like,
- 14:06Speaker 1: do you think these teams are the two serious threats
- 14:09Speaker 1: or do we look at teams that have more pop,
- 14:11Speaker 1: like the Yankees and the Dodgers.
- 14:14Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a great question because I think
- 14:16Speaker 3: sometimes good pitch, if you're swinging just for the fences
- 14:20Speaker 3: all the time, you're also more app to, you know,
- 14:22Speaker 3: be taken advantage of by some guys with swinging miss stuffing.
- 14:26Speaker 4: The putting a ball in.
- 14:27Speaker 3: Play in the postseason is important, and that's why you know,
- 14:30Speaker 3: getting somebody to not let them put the ball in
- 14:33Speaker 3: play is important on the other side, but if you're
- 14:35Speaker 3: playing small ball, that could make the difference like you're
- 14:38Speaker 3: testing a team's fundamentals. You see some fundamentals break down
- 14:41Speaker 3: sometimes on defense, and I do think it's a different
- 14:45Speaker 3: game in the postseason. Every pitch matters a lot, and hitters,
- 14:49Speaker 3: you know, have to do a job instead of swinging
- 14:51Speaker 3: for the fences a lot of times.
- 14:54Speaker 1: Rob, good stuff. Always appreciate you coming on dropping Insight.
- 14:58Speaker 1: You got Todd father as fired up as anyon one right,
- 15:00Speaker 1: and he's he's pretty tired.
- 15:01Speaker 2: He's he's on low sleep. You just gave him a
- 15:04Speaker 2: jolt of energy for the last hour of the show. Here.
- 15:06Speaker 2: He just came back from Tiger's Guardian. So thanks for
- 15:09Speaker 2: joining us.
- 15:09Speaker 4: Man.
- 15:09Speaker 2: Always good to see it. Enjoy the weekend.
- 15:11Speaker 4: I'm ready for the holiday cards from from top.
- 15:14Speaker 6: It's coming, baby.
- 15:15Speaker 5: We'll get your Halloween cards.
- 15:17Speaker 4: Halloween cards are Hey, that's fine too.
- 15:20Speaker 2: You go all out for Halloween with his family.
- 15:23Speaker 6: I didn't see that actually, drive by. Okay, she did
- 15:26Speaker 6: everything when I was going, I'm my god.
- 15:27Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it.
- 15:28Speaker 1: But you might got a Halloween card now too, at
- 15:31Speaker 1: least digitally, Rob.
- 15:32Speaker 2: But good to see it.
- 15:33Speaker 4: Awesome, Good to see y'all.