Latest / The Mound Visit / Brendan Miller: Arsenal Breakdown of 3 Chicago Cubs Pitchers

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Brendan Miller: Arsenal Breakdown of 3 Chicago Cubs Pitchers · The Mound Visit

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When we look at stuff plus and pitching Bot and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: all the different run prevention models to date, they're great tools.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: They have pushed things forward, They've found different traits you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: can bring about pictures. But the way that these models
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: are trained is biased towards volume of data, volume of
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: entry points. So if you have entry points to these
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: models that don't include guys like a SOD, well, then
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  Speaker 1: the model is going to bias against those pictures who
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: have more similarities among everyone. With a SOD, his stuff
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is going to grade as a forty out of eighty
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: on the scale, which is one standard deviation below league average.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: His slider is going to grade as bad by all
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: intents and purposes. But the way those models are working
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is they're assuming a SOD looks like a normal picture,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: All right, today, we have a special guest on I've
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: known this person for twenty something years at least long
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: is a long time. He is an addicted I think
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: that's the word to use for this addicted Cubs fan.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: He is unbelievably addicted to them and growing up, you know,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: we went to elementary school together. This is before the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Cubs won the World Series in twenty sixteen.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. They did win the World Series, by the way,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Before that, though, you know, me and
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: some other people would chant nineteen oh eight and sing
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a song for you, and you had some tough times
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: growing up with being a Cubs fan, and of course
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: being in Arizona. The Diamonbacks won the World Series when
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: we were what nine years old, so of course all
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: the local kids suddenly became Diamondback fans when that happened.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It taught me mental fortitude, dared all right, that's what
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I'll say. I thought that wasn't a good time when
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it was going on, but it taught me toughness, that's right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Say that.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. Now you're on the other side. They won
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  Speaker 2: a World Series and now you can die happy.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: That's right. And you know, it's weird seeing you and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I do this because we grew up playing baseball together.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen your success as a pitching coach over the years,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and who would have thought, you know, twenty years ago,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: us two idiots elementary school getting in trouble doing this.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, no doubt could have asked for a better situation.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It's been great, but well, I'm gonna give you a
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  Speaker 2: formal intro. So I don't even if I said your name, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: Brendan Miller is who our special guest is.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I can't even say my name properly. I have a
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: problem saying ours with my name. So well, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: So the description I'm about to give them might be misleading.
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  Speaker 2: Then for your credentials, so and I literally, like I said,
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  Speaker 2: I've known Brendan for a long time and I had
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  Speaker 2: to ask him last night. Okay, give me your exact degree,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: your titles, all this this fancy stuff, because Brennan's done
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  Speaker 2: a lot from an academic standpoint and what he's doing
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  Speaker 2: currently in life. But so we went to school, has
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  Speaker 2: a PhD in neural science. He is a neuroscience researcher
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: living in the beautiful San Diego, California. From a baseball standpoint,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: has experiencing, has experienced developing machine learning software and making
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: baseball computer tools, and we'll dive into some of those.
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  Speaker 2: He has a pretty cool tool that he has developed
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  Speaker 2: and is using to evaluate pitchers right now, which is
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. And then of course I mentioned he's an
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: avid Cubs fan. He actually, you know, part time on
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: the side does a podcast with one of his buddies
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: on the Cubs. They talk every week and break them down.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I love listening to him and getting his getting him excited,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: hearing him get excited or upset about what the Cubs
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: are doing, which is usually depressed these days with the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Cubs these days. But yeah, and then also you're also
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: part time with pitching coach. You you helped me with
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  Speaker 2: visuals and some of the analytics and help me with
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: some of the visuals that you guys see that I
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  Speaker 2: post online sometimes and all that. So a lot of
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: great stuff that Brendan is able to do. And what
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: we're gonna do today is a little bit different. We're
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  Speaker 2: gonna talk about the Cubs. I wanted to gear it
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  Speaker 2: towards what Brendan studies a lot and does a lot of,
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  Speaker 2: while also leading into more of the pitching side and
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  Speaker 2: me talking more about maybe some of the specifics of mechanics,
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  Speaker 2: you know, what I'm seeing from a pitch movement standpoint,
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  Speaker 2: maybe what they could add to their arsenal. And Brennan
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  Speaker 2: will give a lot of analytical insight and what he
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  Speaker 2: sees watching the Cubs day in and day out. So
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  Speaker 2: the plan's going to be to dive into three pitchers.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to start with the first one to just
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  Speaker 2: jump right in with Justin Steele, who is the ace
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  Speaker 2: of the Chicago Cubs. If you're not familiar with him,
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  Speaker 2: you'll probably hear about him soon because he has been
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  Speaker 2: pretty dominant. I would say this year he started off
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the year with an injury. I think opening day right
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  Speaker 2: had that hamstring injury on baseball.
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  Speaker 1: Own the first base tumbled over, you know, almost ruined
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  Speaker 1: my entire life. I thought he was out for the
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  Speaker 1: entire year, but you know, he recovered.
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  Speaker 2: You're you're usually a little dramatic with injuries, so that's.
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  Speaker 1: A little bit, a little bit, it's a it's a thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, But Justin Steele he's unique because number one, he's
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  Speaker 2: the ace, so we want to talk about him for
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  Speaker 2: that reason. But he also has some unique characteristics. Has
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  Speaker 2: a lot of cut on his fastball, and he's left handed,
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  Speaker 2: and I feel like with lefties especially, you don't typically
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  Speaker 2: see their primary fastball being a cutter essentially. Usually you know,
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  Speaker 2: they're more of a sinker guy if they have, you know,
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  Speaker 2: more of a non traditional four seing. The cut aspect,
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  Speaker 2: I would say is pretty unique for lefty starter specifically.
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  Speaker 2: But let's just jump in, Like what stands out to
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  Speaker 2: you about.
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  Speaker 1: Justin unorthodox trajectory number one? I think it speaks to
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  Speaker 1: what you do as a pitching coach, and I've always
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  Speaker 1: had questions for pitching coaches like yourself. How do you
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  Speaker 1: find unique traits and how do you go about balancing
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  Speaker 1: something that you want a pitcher to adopt while also
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  Speaker 1: ensuring that it's not too risk heavy. Right, you want
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  Speaker 1: someone to develop and succeed, but you don't want to
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  Speaker 1: completely ruin the guy's entire repertoire by taking this extreme risk.
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  Speaker 1: With Justin Steele, he was a different pitcher. Prior to
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. He was throwing a seat once every
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  Speaker 1: four pitches at the tail end of September. Now he has,
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  Speaker 1: as you point out, that cut ride fastball, and he
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  Speaker 1: implemented that as more of his dominant pitch type even
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: though he had it in his basket. But really he
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  Speaker 1: implemented that as his dominant pitch type in June of
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and he took off ever since then.
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  Speaker 1: And around that same time, although he did have some
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  Speaker 1: of that natural cut right profile, it actually geared towards
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  Speaker 1: a little bit more of a cut right profile, and
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  Speaker 1: since then he's taken off and he's become principally a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: two pitch guy. But this was someone who was experimenting
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  Speaker 1: with a curve ball, a sinker, a changeup, and a
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  Speaker 1: four seamer just one year prior to becoming an exclusive
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  Speaker 1: almost two pitch guy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a good lesson from a
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  Speaker 2: pitching development standpoint of really leaning into what a pitcher
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  Speaker 2: does well, and what Justin does well is he is
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  Speaker 2: believable at supinating and cutting the baseball. So that's why
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  Speaker 2: he naturally can cut the fastball. He gets a ton
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  Speaker 2: of sweep on his sweeper and can throw that really well.
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  Speaker 2: Typically armside pitches are going to be a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more difficult. Now, this was prior to us understanding team
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  Speaker 2: shifted wake and how we can still utilize the seams
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  Speaker 2: to get armside movement despite having lower efficiency. But at
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  Speaker 2: the end of the day, like you got to focus
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  Speaker 2: on what they do really well at first before going
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  Speaker 2: down those rabbit holes. And for him, he already naturally
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  Speaker 2: cut the fastball, so like in twenty twenty one, despite
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  Speaker 2: it being still about four inches of armside movement. It
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  Speaker 2: was like a seventy one percent spin efficiency fastball, which
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  Speaker 2: is well below league average. League averages around ninety percent
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  Speaker 2: for fastballs. So he already naturally cut it, and then
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  Speaker 2: I'm assuming the Cubs did a little bit of additional
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  Speaker 2: work on maybe adjusting the grip, maybe a que I
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  Speaker 2: think we saw his armslot when we were talking about
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  Speaker 2: this last night. His armslot has risen a couple inches
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  Speaker 2: since that year. So it's really like seeing the potential
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  Speaker 2: in a pitch and seeing the ability that he has
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  Speaker 2: and really leaning into it and making it something super unique,
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  Speaker 2: which is now you know, thirteen to fifteen inches of
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  Speaker 2: a news vertical break right around that zero line of
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  Speaker 2: horizontal on average, and he's really leaned into it. So
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  Speaker 2: you know, now his beneficiency I think he's like sixty
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  Speaker 2: six percent, So he's cutting it slightly more. Release height
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  Speaker 2: is a little bit higher, so now he's able to
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  Speaker 2: get behind the ball more, and now he's able to
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  Speaker 2: get you know, thirty minutes I think to forty five
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  Speaker 2: minutes of seam effect, which is allowing it to get
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  Speaker 2: that late cut with that ride as well.
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  Speaker 1: Here's a question, he's someone who's older for having success
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  Speaker 1: he was going through a bullpen stint, getting roles on
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  Speaker 1: a weak Cubs team out of the starting rotation. It's
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  Speaker 1: kind of a stupid question, but people do wonder why
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  Speaker 1: did it take them so long to figure this out?
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  Speaker 1: You know, Like it's not to critique the Cubs or
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: or those involved. They got it right and he's become
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  Speaker 1: one of the more successful pitchers they've ever developed. But
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  Speaker 1: with your experience, is it because they were worried about
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  Speaker 1: taking risk and to your point, you know, elevating that
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  Speaker 1: release point a little bit? Why would it take someone
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  Speaker 1: so long to find those unique traits? Is it just randomness?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't speak on the Cubs behalf,
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  Speaker 2: so I don't know what their process is for developing pictures.
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  Speaker 2: And like, was was still a high prospect, Like how
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  Speaker 2: high in the draft did he go?
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  Speaker 1: He would he had Tommy John when they drafted him, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so basically you know they drafted him, he recovered from
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  Speaker 1: Tommy John. I believe he was an overslot, so if
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  Speaker 1: they drafted him, gave him more money, let him rehab.
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  Speaker 1: So he was always considered a top prospect, but he
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  Speaker 1: was never in the light of someone like Kate horton
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  Speaker 1: their current top prospect and you know the guys that
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  Speaker 1: you see these days.
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  Speaker 2: And we need to get drafted, like eighteen nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: Man, he's twenty nine now, so it must have been
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  Speaker 1: seven years ago, so like twenty seventeen or so somewhere
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  Speaker 1: in the period.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I would say, like if he were to get drafted,
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  Speaker 2: you know now, or even a year or two ago,
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  Speaker 2: I bet the development process would have been a lot
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  Speaker 2: faster with trying things. I would say, even Aroun twenty seventeen.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And once again, I can't speak on the cusby behalf.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know what they do and how forward they
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: are with or how aggressive they are with some of
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: this stuff. But then were are still a lot of unknowns,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: right like pitch movement. You know, at the highest level
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: of big leagues, they were definitely looking at that stuff, but
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  Speaker 2: I don't know how much at the minor league level
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  Speaker 2: like that was necessarily taken into account for. And especially
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: him being someone coming off of an injury. They drafted injured.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Typically you're gonna be a little more concervative those guys.
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  Speaker 2: You're not going to make crazy changes immediately after an injury.
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  Speaker 2: So it's probably one of those things like, hey, let's
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: just get him healthy, let's see how he performs, and
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: we'll let the game tell us if we need to
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  Speaker 2: make an adjustment. And how was he coming up in
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  Speaker 2: the system. Once again, I don't have a background really
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: on him, like did he dominate coming up or did
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  Speaker 2: he have some rough patches in the minors, have.
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  Speaker 1: Some command issues? And I think he was trying to
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: find his groove. COVID hit in twenty twenty, so you
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: had that gap. Yep. They had this off site in
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: mesa developmental program during COVID, so he was experimenting with
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: different things there. This is speaking general, but he's someone
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: who didn't find the groove until twenty twenty two. Ye
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: for a while, I thought he would be that two
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: seamer guy, just because he finished twenty twenty one using
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that pitch more than his other pitches. So I was
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: shocked to see him not use that and just go
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: do like a four steam uh slider profile and it's
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he's he's taken off.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, the pitch is dominated. I mean, I don't have
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: the numbers in front of me. Let's see. Yeah, I
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: mean the fastball right now this year, I mean it's
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: got a three twelve expected wOBA.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Last year is the most run effective fastball in May baseball.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean three twelve isn't bad either anyway
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: for a forteam fastball. I mean that's that's above average.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know what averages off the top my head.
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  Speaker 2: I want to say it's close to like three to
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: forty for expected wOBA. And he just pounds the zone.
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  Speaker 2: I mean he has a sixty four percent in zone
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  Speaker 2: rate with the fastball. He's doing it for a strike
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: seventy four percent at the time, like it's just here
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  Speaker 2: it is, trying and hit it. And then he sets
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: up the sweeper and some of his other offerings with it.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: But what was interesting is we talked about this last night.
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  Speaker 2: He might be able to benefit from some location changes,
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  Speaker 2: specifically to lefties, because if you look at how he's pitched,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: he is dominating, Like I would say, he's borderline dominating.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: The only reason I would say he's not fully like
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the most dominant starter in baseball is because he doesn't
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: quite strike out enough guys to be in that caliber.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Being that reliably two three four year projection window, he
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: needs to get more strikeout So we spend one of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the questions we've had with them.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he's a strike thrower. He pounds his own.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: You know, his fastball is kind of unique. He doesn't
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: throw super hard. He's averaging like ninety one point five
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: or ninety one point six. Now has the good sweeper.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But he was missing more bats with his fastball a
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: couple of years ago, despite not it despite not having
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: it cut as much as it is now. And what
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: we noticed when we were looking last night was it
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: was specifically against the lefties. He was living up and
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: in more with the fastball as opposed to now he's
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: going more down in a way. He had a forty
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: five percent misrate on the fastball against lefties two years ago.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Now it's like twenty percent, which is league average. So
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: now that he has such an ability to pound the
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: zone like he obviously can throw a strike like it's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: nothing now now he probably needs to take that next
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: level and get a little more precise because if you
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: look at his heat mass for his fastballs, I mean
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it's pretty middle. There's not a lot of precise location
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: at least it appears that he's trying to go to
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: with that pitch. It's kind of just here it is,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna let it naturally cut and see what happens
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: to just pound the zone with it. So he might
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: be needing to take that next step with locating it
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: in more specific quadrants of the zone, especially since he's
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: not throwing you know, ninety five plus.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: The idea with steel against lefties was to start using
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: more of his sinker, and that way he can go
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: up and end to lefties rather than using that forcing fastball.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: To your point, you don't typically see him get those
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: whiffs that you saw in twenty twenty one when he
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: had those command issues and when he was experimenting with
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a different breaking pision and more sinkers. From your perspective, again,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you're not with the cobs. It's always like unfair to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: ask you because he don't have all the information at hand.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But if you were to look at him on just
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a piece of paper, would you say, okay, you have
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the for singing fastball or we have the sinker From
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: day one, not even meeting the guy talking to him,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: would you first think at the sinker? Or four team
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: is priority target number one to throw against lefties? Which
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: one would you pick?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Or just against lefties?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Just against lefties.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: That's tough. Probably the sinker, because sinkers performed so well
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: left on left. Yeah, and he's proven that. I mean,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I don't have the numbers exactly against lefties, but his
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: sinker is working. Like he's getting a seventy what I
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: have to write down, seventy three percent ground ball rate
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: on the sinker. That's incredible, right, But it doesn't necessarily
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: solve the strikeout issue because sinkers aren't going to be
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a strikeout pitch for him. Now, it might set up
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the sweeper more and now he throws that sinker in
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: on the hands maybe earlier in the count, and now
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: the sweeper is going to play better off of it.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: But I don't think the sinker alone is necessarily going
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: to help him increase his strikeouts. But that doesn't mean
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: he can't still perform really well that like he has.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: What's the best way for him to increase your recouts?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Different types going forward?
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Throw harder.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Listen, man, you gotta be a real.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: He's throwing ninety one. I mean he's throwing ninety one.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: There's that is that's a sacrifice with generating more cut
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that's an intentional sacrifice, you would think, right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe, well, If that's the case, I'll tell you what.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I would probably go back to his twenty twenty two
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: fast but twenty one whatever year was.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Now you're going to cost some controversy over here. But
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: he's that's been that's been his bread and butter. That
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: cut right, a profile rap over here. Let me show
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you what this please. So I got to figure out
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: how to do this presenting thing, which, right, I got
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it right here. We're going to figure this out on
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the fly. I should do this on my own show. Actually,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I think people.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Will stream, right, don't you?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I do so. One second, here, I gotta show Could
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I show my entire screen?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yep? Click present at the bottom?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Got it? Okay?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Do you see this?
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Nope?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: You do? You guys see this.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Let's see it. Let me see if I have to
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: change my settings.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Well, you got to show it on it? Oh there
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: we go, I got it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. I have to share it to the screen.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah here we are, all right?
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: You see this?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yep? Okay, Well, first let's tell us about because this
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: is something that you created. This is one of those
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: tools I was talking about in your intro.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The question I always have when I don't know a picture.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with his stuff is. I want to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: find a comparison. I want to find a ruler. I
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: want to find who does he look like? And the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: tool that I wanted to make to do this borrows
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: from what's called a data reduction technique, And there's limitations
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to this, but the general idea is to take every
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: stack cast metric you know, vertical approachangle, spin rate, release points, movements,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: YadA YadA, everything that you can get from just scraping
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: stack cast data, and you compress it and you find
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: all the different correlative numbers, and then you just shrink
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: it down into two variables. That's basically that you can
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: press everything and you shrink it down in two variables.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: That way you can display it on a screen. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get in trouble saying this because there's
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: some very opinionated data reduction folks out there, but the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: distance among the points generally reflect similarities of guys. Now,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: if you look at the screen right here, you have
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: all these different black spheres. This represents one picture. And
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: don't worry about the X axis or the y axis.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: It's just look at all the black spheres. Those are
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: one pictures fastballs a left handed pitchers. Fastball Justine Steel
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: is highlighted and red in the top left. Now, the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: first thing you will notice is that he's away from
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the center of the black dots. That means he's dissimilar
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: for most pitchers. Number one, that means he's forcing fastball.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Is you meaning batters don't see his shape of fastball.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: There's not many comparisons if you look at who he
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: looks like. The most one guy on this list is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Max Fried from Atlanta, but he doesn't generate the same
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: amount of cuts as Steel does, and or rather this
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: amount of ride that Steel does. You though he has
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: some cut on that pitch, actually more cut on that pitch.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And really what this shows is that Steel's forcing fastball.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It's dissimilar, but within the tiers of guys who've had success,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but dissimilar enough where really no one has had that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: type of pitch thrown in the league before. So that's
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: why I'm always wondering when I look at these graphs
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and these charts of how much do you want to tinker,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Because like we talk about, we need to improve like
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: whiff rates, we need to improve you know, long term success.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: But we're assuming that the way he was about his
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: business now is similar to how pitchers tend to have success,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and because he's so dissimilar, in my mind, you can't
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: really say with high confidence that things need to be
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: changed because he is in a league of the zone.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So I would be more inclined to see how it
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: plays out his current repertoire, and then you subtly adjust
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: things as you go.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and truthfully, like looking back at his
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: fastball a few years ago when he had a higher
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: with race, I was just looking at it was a
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: twenty nine percent misrate on the fastball, which is elite
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: like averages around twenty twenty one, which is exactly where
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: he's at now, and his movement I think was like
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: fifteen VB four HB, so four inches of armside run,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: which is still relative cut.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: To relative coverage. Now it's like almost a zero.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Right now, it's a zero with a little bit less
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: VB at like thirteen ish, But like if you take
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: the velocity out of it, I would say, his fastball now,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the shape of it is better. Yeah, but he averaged
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: over ninety three in twenty twenty one, So I'm wondering
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: if the reason he had high whiffs than is purely
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: because he had a little bit more velo and his
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: locations were slightly different.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a question that you would have to
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: take some risk trying to address. Right, and ago we
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: talked about vlo. Velo is so important. Velo directly correlates
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to more whiffs, better run production. But again VLO is
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: interpreted in the context of the entire shape being within
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: like a normal distribution of pitchers. Right, So, if you
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: had Steels shape currently with two more miles per hour velocity,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: undeniably that's a better pitch. But if you have Steals
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: ninety three mile per hour fastball with less relative cut
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and a less ability to command, then do you want
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to risk that to gain more velocity or do you
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: want to keep it as it is with that unique
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: pitch shape.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I agree. If it was me right now,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I think the number one thing I would do is, like,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: let's start to get a little more precise with your locations.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Because you can throw strikes. Let's now start to go
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to different questions of the zone.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting too, because like and we were
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: talking talking about this for a couple of years, but Steele.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: He just attacks you, and he has a general he
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: talks about this. He's a general idea of what he
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: wants to do, and if he just beat then the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: batter beat him. But one of the reasons for success,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: he said, was because his misses became competitive. If he
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: went up and in to right handed batters and missed
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: up in a way, he was still able to get
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: those swings and missus or weak contact, whereas his missus
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, which were plenty with the high
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: walk rate, those misses tended to result in more damage
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in the form of more base runners, more stress, or
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: more hard contact when he did not command well. So
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it's one of those weird instances where I'm wondering, like, like,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense for him just to keep going
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: as is and just generally hitting in an area or
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: trying to be more precise. Is there? What typically do
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: you tell your pictures?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Typically we start off broad. It's like, let's just prove
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: that we can throw strikes right in middle middle. We're
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: gonna let the ball move where it wants to go.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Like with steel, his ball is going to naturally cut
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: glove side a little bit. Throw it middle middle. But
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: once you are throwing enough strikes, like Kevin Gosman falls
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: into the same bucket Goslin. I do too, but he
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: throws too many fastballs right down the middle, or at
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: least he did. I haven't looked at this year. I
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: know he has in the past, and he's always one
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: of the highest end zone percentage guys with the fastballs
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: in the mid sixties, just like justin Steel. So it's
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I understand it because especially for Gosman, and he's using
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: that fastball mainly to set up his splitter, like a
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: split is his it's his primary pitch. Steel his sweeper,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: and I don't know what off the top of my head,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: but I think that's probably his best pitch. It's his
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: main off speed. So I'm going to share my screen.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Let's just look at the locations real quick, and let's
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: see what would be the right path. But to answer
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: your question, what I typically do is start off more
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: abroad and then we get a little bit more narrow.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: So we might start off like, just prove that you
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: can throw it in the strike zone. Once you can
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: prove you can throw in the strike zone, now we
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: can move to halves of the plate. So if you're
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: more of a ride guy, maybe we're thinking top of
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the zone. If you're a sinker guy, just bottom of
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the zone. And then if we need to get more
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: specific with you know, in and out, then we can.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: But I would say that's a few steps away. But
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: for someone like Steel, he's probably ready for that. Can
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: you see my screen?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I see it right here. I see a lot of colors.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: We've got the storm coming over here in the strike sun.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Sure do. So this is just fastballs fastball location. So
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: where it's the most red, that's where he's thrown it
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the most frequently. Right handed batters here on the left,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: left handed batters here on the right. Yeah, so against
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: righty's I mean, on average is pretty much middle middle up,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I would say, is where he's throwing it left, He's
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: pretty much middle, sometimes middle away, but for the most
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: part middle middle. Yeah. Let's start. And you might coming
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: back to people that are more analytically inclined, they might
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: say that this isn't the best way to look at this.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But I'm going to look at his expected wOBA heat map,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: and I understand that this might not be the best
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: way to look at how his pitches are performed. By location,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: but it will at least give us a general sense
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: at least in my opinion.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Going to piss off all the nerds.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Yep, okay, so here we go. So just for those
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that don't know, blue is good for the picture. The
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: more green and Reddit gets, the better it is for
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: the batter. So we can see you right off the
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: bat in on the hands inside half is going to
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: perform really well, really bottom of the zones fine, top
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: of the zones fine. Basically where he's throwing is the
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: only place not to throw it. Probably for the most part,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I would say, like it seems pretty clear if he
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: throws this where it naturally wants to move, which is inside,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: is going to be pretty beneficial for him. Let's look
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: at lefties, lefties pretty much anywhere. So just throw it
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: down the middle, over the middle, keep doing what you're doing.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Throw it down the middle, like like you said, probably
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: using that sinker more now to lefties, or he potentially
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: could use that sinker more. It could use the cutter
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: off of that and then the sweeper to finish them. Mainly,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: it looks like Righty's would be the main location thing
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to concern himself with. So let's see let's go back
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: to pitch frequencies so we can see. So I guess
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: there are some of you that are just listening to this,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So I'll try to describe it a little bit more. Fastball.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: He's located basically middle middle ups sometimes inside. It's performing
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: its best when he is going basically belt high in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: or bottle of the zone or top of the zone.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Essentially just middle across the plate is not his best place.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: What do you got on that? Correct me if I'm
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: wrong on any of that or what you're seeing.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: It aligns with the eye tests. The redness that you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: see in the top left of the zone towards like
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: middle up, those are.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Missus, right, So I'm not trying to go there.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: He's not, but he's getting still enough weak contacts. You
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: see the miss rate right there. Look at that, See
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that miss rate.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: So when he goes up in a way, that's where
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: he gets his missages.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so again those are not intended most of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the time, sometimes maybe, but he explicitly says those are misses.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So that is one reason why he's had success. Because again,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: if you just substitute out those success whips from twenty
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: twenty one, what happened in twenty twenty one. Were those
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: misses generated damage? So that's in part why he's having success.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, yes, because this is important to realize, right
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Like when he throws it up in a way, he
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: gets his he gets his misses. But like you said,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: it's not intentional, and it kind of comes to this
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: is kind of different, but same messages with sinkers. When
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: you throw a front hip syncer or a glove side sinker,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: it performs extremely well, but the risk of it is
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: really high. If I don't execute that and it floats
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: over the middle, it's gonna get launched. So I'm wondering
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: if it's kind of a similar idea with his cutter. Yeah,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: if he intentionally is trying to go up and away,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: the margin for air is fairly small to where if
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: it ends up just cutting right down the middle, now
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: it's right in the barrel and they're able to hit it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I've heard different folks who have been involved in you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: organizations or data analysis talk about command and even the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: principle of command. These are all from the NERD's, not
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the coaches and the jocks like you guys, suck,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: which probably I don't think I'm a nerd. I'd be
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you saw me. I have some athleticism. You know.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I didn't mention that Brennan was my second basement behind
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: me in high school and I was pitching, made great
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: plays for me, turned double plays.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I just had a bad arm. I had a great glove.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I had a bad arm. That's okay, that's okay. But
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: but there's the principle of like this command like exists,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and can you actually like fine tune with a lot
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of precision, hit your spot over and over and over again,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: or are you more inclined to take like from what
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I've heard, the raise philosophy, where you just hammer the zonies,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you just aim middle in like every single pitch, and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: wherever the pitch goes, it goes, and you. Darvish talked
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: about this when he was with the Cubs before going
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to San Diego. One of the reasons for his success
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: after a rough start to his Cub's career was he
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: kind of just took an approach as if I'm going
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to throw it down the middle and just let the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: pitch move and let my stuff take over. And so
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I bring this up because from like a from like
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: a a neurological perspective, I think there's some value of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: just always trying to hit the same spot over and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again and not even deviating.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And if that's down the middle, you just do that.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: The reason I think that is because your your brain
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: is naturally going to calibrate that. So let's give your
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: brain the highest volume and the most opportunities for it
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to naturally calibrate. For me, like you know how I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: am and I played baseball, I was always in my
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: mind like like that. That's why I was not a
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: good baseball player. I was always in my mind trying
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to focus on my mechanics. I talk and I listened
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to like Josh talk about the yips, right, I think
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: also the best way to decrease the chances of the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: yips is just to have your brain default state take over.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So my thinking would be, all right, give your brain
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the most chances to naturally calibrate, and it's hit one
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: spot over and over and over again, and that's down
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the middle, so be it.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: The issue is if you actually get good at that,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: thrown it middle in the big leagues isn't going to
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: work well.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Not trying to like actually throw a middle middle, but
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you just take one spot and you only hit that spot.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: You don't go in. Maybe some guys like Kyle Hendricks
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: can can do this with success, but you don't always
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: try to mix and mash all throughout the own.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I agree with that, Like I would say, for the
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: most part, at least, you know, when I was studying
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of guys that I loved watching pitch, Like
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: you know, Greg Max is kind of a bad example.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Well maybe not Greg Max, Tom Glavin, some of these
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: other guys. When I first started getting introduced to Brooks
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Baseball where I could actually look at locations of pitches
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: and some of these other websites, for the most part,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: these best pitchers they had one location for each pitch type.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So if it was a slider, it was down to
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the glove side, down and down and into already down
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: and in. There was a sinker, they were going down
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: and away, down and away, whatever it was, each pitch
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: at least had a specific area they were trying to go.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Maybe every once in a while they deviated from it,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: but it was probably an accident most of the time. Yeah, right,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So I think I totally agree there should be probably
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: a little bit more consistency. And I see that in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: amateur baseball, in the minor leagues. I saw it to
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: where guys think they're better than they are at commanding
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: the baseball. They think that one pitch they can throw
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a glove side sinker, and then the next one they
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: can throw it down in a way.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And you see that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would say it's getting better, I'd say, but
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I would say when I first got into pro ball
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: and an amateurs, I would say eight out of ten
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: players think.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: That why would that happen anything? Just like they're growing
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: up in high school.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's just yeah, I think grown up, you're
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: you're told you know, you need to be able to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: hit spots and need be able to change speeds, be
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: able to go in and out and all this. That's well,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that's different.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: A little bit different over here. But I will say
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I will say, for people who don't know, I'm gonna
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: give you you your flowers. You had a twenty strikeout game.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: You know you talk about me like helping you out defensively.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't do it a thing behind you on.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: That that that game. You didn't have to And for
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: those that are for those that are asking, it wasn't
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the deafen blind school. It was actually a team that
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: I think went to the state championship that year because
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: unfortunately we did it. But anyways, that's right, Yeah, I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: think there's something to be said for that. I do. Now,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I will say a lot of organization are having the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: philosophy of just throw it down the middle and let
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the pitch go where it wants to go, because most
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: of the time you're not gonna end up throwing it
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: down the middle.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not saying that right, I'm not saying, oh,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you just throw it in the middle. I'm saying, hick
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a spot and let your brain take over and not
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: think about it. Don't give yourself the yeps.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: No, I agree, I agree. Okay, that was a lot
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: about justin Steel. We didn't even get into his sinker
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: or his change up. I'll just give you some cliff notes.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I think his change up, if I just look at
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the movement plot, I would say it could probably be improved.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But then I look at the results and it's great.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: It's weak contact. He's getting really really good results of this.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: He's more confidence with it. You throw it more you're
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: gonna get more confidence. The results so far have been great.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So with that in mind, I wouldn't touch it until
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: it needs to be touched right, Like, if it's performing
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: well and the movement's good enough, it's it's good enough,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: especially off of his forcing fastball, like it has depth
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: and armside run relative to his fastball. It's getting good results.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Let it be. If a bigger sample size tells you
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: that it's not working, then you make an adjustment.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Can can Guys like Steele who superinnates a lot, can
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: they have successful change ups? So how would that happen?
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: So he would have to utilize seam shifted wake, which
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I've talked about a few times on this show. But
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: essentially he needs to be able to orient the seams
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: correctly to where the ball is able to move differently
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: than what's expected and to allow it to actually catch
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: and move armside and down more than what would be
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: expected purely based off of the way the ball's spinning.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Is that a grip change or a mechanical change.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, mechanical change doesn't need to make because
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: he already naturally cuts the ball. It'd be more of
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: a grip of orienting it correctly, So it needs to
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: be either like a two seam or a one seam variation.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Four seams typically are going to be more symmetrical with
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the way they spin, so you're not going to get
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: as much seam effects on those pitches, at least to
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the arm side. It might actually cut like his four
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: seam does. If he has like more of a four
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: seam change up.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Principally a grip change is going to allow him to
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: do that and getting comfortable with that gript change.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Got it, and honestly, I was looking at it last night.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Let me just pull it up real quick. His change
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: up the spinefit I think is like perfect on it.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I don't have it in front of you, but it's
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: like seventy something percent, which honestly, all the ones that
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: are like zero or negative vertical break, they're around that
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: seventy percent range a lot of times or even less.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: So he just needs to get the seams oriented correctly
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: to get more depth. But he also has a lot
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: of backspin because he has such a high slot. Like
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: you need lower efficiency, but you also need the access
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: to be a little bit lower to where there's more
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: side spin on the ball and he's just not able
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: to probably do that as well. So he might even
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: got the benefits from a splitter where the splitter can
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: kind of kick the access sideways.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: That would be sick. Now you're talking like you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: in La la land over here, and.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: He could throw a split. I actually, if he wants it,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: he can send me a message. I got a couple
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: of grips for him.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: All right, So just we'll steal. You know, if you
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: want a dm US over here, we got your splitter
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: over here.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: We got your splitter. Yeah, because he actually he gets
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of seam effects. He's geting like an hour
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: of seam effects. Averagon change ups is about forty five
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: minutes of deviation. He's getting close to an hour. It's
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: just out of the hand. It's like eleven something, so
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: it's only dropping down to ten something.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Let me let me ask you a question and maybe
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I can pull this spot up. You know, you thought
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: we would get out here in forty five minutes.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: You thought we're thirty three minutes in on one picture.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: This will be the last thing and then we'll move on.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I don't want to take too much time on steal,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: so let me show this screen. I got to make
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: sure I hid my notifications over here. I got my
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: mom texting me, you got to meet your notifications about
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: cruck pot recipes. Okay, can't hate that, can't hate that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: You see this, so okay, So what you're looking at
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: on the left or all of his fastballs, what you're
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: looking at on the rights, or all of his sliders
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: or sweepers, Now, this is not movement profile. This is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that data compression technique I was talking about. So every
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: single stat cast number you throw in and then see
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: those arrows, those arrows are telling you why pitches are
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: moving in a certain direction. Okay, So more pitches on
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the bottom left means released extension is causing those pitches
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to appear in that population. They're also color coded by start,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So blue spheres are his early season starts. Red are
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: his most recent. If you look now at the red fastballs,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you're seeing it deviate towards being influenced by more release
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: points like release point X, Y, and Z, And it's
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: also affecting how his pitches are accelerating vertically. And interestingly,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: when you take all that information and then you asked
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the question, well, is that influencing how hard his pitches
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: are getting hit. The answer is yes. So the question
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I have for you is, over his last few starts here,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: why would his release point be trending differently? What would
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: be changing that release point and would that be a concern?
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Is it fatigue? Is it just randomness that you typically see.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Should we be concerned about that, et cetera?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: How much is it changing? Sorry? Or and what direction
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: is it changes? Is going to up or down?
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: This is the thing with the We have to look
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: into the five specifics, right, So this is where the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: data compression is not going to give the direction. All
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: we know is the whole cake. The release point horizontally
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: in space and vertically is changing, and that's influencing his
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: vertical acceleration. So you would take this signature and then
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you would go into the fly specifics and start to
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: ask a questions, right, what actually is changing here? And
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that's like where I call this like the pitch alert
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: tool because it will tell you what is deviating from
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the norm and you don't have to go one by
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: one in each metric. You just get it within thirty
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: seconds and it will tell you, Okay, within the last
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: few weeks, yeah, your lease points different. So then it
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: starts to ask, prompting the questions of what's going on,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: essentially for more finer details.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to share my screening on because I
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: just want to look at I have to see what
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: his numbers are actually doing. Okay, and his release sight
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: is changing a lot. Okay, So there you go as
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: a higher or lower. Last start it was lower, So
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: so why would that be happening. I don't know. Yeah,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I really don't know. There's so many variables.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So the release points lower. What about his horizontal is
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: that different as well?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Let me look at this. So there's a lot going
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: on here, guys. Sorry for those of you that are
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: looking so love this release z is in inches his
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: release height. So let's just go back to So his
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: average for the season is seventy three point five Okay,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: so six feet one and a half inches.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Good math, Jared, good show.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So at its highest point recently in the last
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: few starts July thirtieth, it was seventy four point three inches.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: His last outing was seventy two point five. Now something
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: else to consider here.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Two is two inches significance.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: That's quite a bit.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Now something to consider though, is the mound now maybe
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you can answer this for me. Are they measuring release
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: height from the ground or from the rubber?
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's from the from from the ground.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, that that's the case, then the mound will
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: play a massive role. So say he's on he's in
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Cincinnati and the mound is a little bit lower.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Listen, it all has to be standardized. I don't know.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I's not Oh what's standardized the mounds?
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Well, all the data I download from, like all my programs,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it's not standardized. I have to standardize by the mountain heights.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because every mound is different. That's the issue.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I don't have the mound heights.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Well these What you should do, then, is just compare
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: it to home games, because home games it should be
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: basically the same.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Can you do that here?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just filter home games. Can you still see
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: my screen?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I can see your screen. I'm a little upset that
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: they don't standardize by mound height with the hell they should.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, so home games, he's averaging seventy three point six. Still,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: last game was at home seventy two point five. All right,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: so you're still down an inch from from his season average.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: But if you look back to early in the season
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: or sorry, when he came off the il. Yeah, he
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: was at one game, I mean June first, he was
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: seventy four point seven.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Right, where's the where's the release acts that's right next
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to it. So he's also letting go further away from
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: his shoulder or.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Is he or is he standing on different parts of
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: the rubber that so then.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: You have to look at the video. We don't have
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to do that now, but this is what I mean. Right,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: so you're getting this weird mix of change, and then
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: that's probably influencing how the ball is moving, you know.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this is interesting. This last game that's at
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: least compared to all the home games, it was his
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: lowest release height and he was the furthest over towards
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: first base out of any game.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what to think about that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Let's see how that impacted his fastball shape.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well he you know, it was a rainy day
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: about the left, so you know, it's horrible whether he
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: pitched two innings. But still this has been a trend.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: So horizontal is still negative point for so still within
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the range of what you typically see. It's not like
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: a huge outlier.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Right, that's that's average for the season.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Oh. Sorry, so he was negative point sepend so still
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: within the range.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Of his vertical break was a little lower.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly, So the way it's moving vertically is.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Lower, right, yeah, just because he probably had a little
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: bit more side spin on the ball.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Again, So when I see this, Jared, like, this is
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: not something he's shown at all during the season. So
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: when I see that pop up, it makes me think
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: what is going on? If I should be concerned? Is
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that something that's just mechanically needs to be tweaked, or
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: is it potentially a sign of you know what I'm
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: going with this, maybe like injury or some underlying thing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: It's impossible for me to know without being on the inside,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Like it could be they're trying to make mechanical changes.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe he's trying to do something.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: So you're not going to, like in your experience when
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: you see a release point change like that, what would
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: be your intuition? Ama asking you to, like, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: project and diagnose steel over here, I'm just wondering what
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you've seen in your experience.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: If it's not injury related, it's usually because you're trying
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: to create a different type of movement on a pitch
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: or improve movement in a certain way, so you end
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: up compensating in some way to cheat it in a
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: way to create that movement. So I'm not saying that's
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: what he's doing. But a lot of guys, with the
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: younger players, minor leaguers, amateurs, say we're trying to kill
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: the depth on their chain. They might naturally drop their
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: slot a little bit to create more drop on the pitch.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: So I would say with him, that's probably not it.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: But you're making me a little concerned. I'm not gonna
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: lie like like you don't typically see you release points
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: changes that much.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: His vila has been about the same though, so that's
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: a good sign. Yeah, but he's still he's still commanding
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the ball right, No, he's.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: He's had a results in the past few weeks, but
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the command hasn't been as sharp, like visually looking at it,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: he's specially more up in a way to right handed batters.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: That's just my that's just my two cents. I don't
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: know if that's actually happening, but that's my two cents.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it's not the answer you want. It's
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: just I literally couldn't say that it could be a
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: million things. Yeah, it could be injury. Really, it could
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: be fatigue. Really, it could have been that day, like
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: you said, it's a rainy day. Something was off. Maybe
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: he had a stand on a different part of the
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: rubber because.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: It was on the last three four weeks. We're okay,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of scaring me over here. You
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: guys need to get a tool to figure this out.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I'm serious about this. All these pitcher injuries. He had
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: no tool to figure out fatigue in games. It's ridiculous.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Yep, no, I agree. Okay, that's enough of mister Justin Steele.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Let's go on to the right handed version of him,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: a Porter Hodge. Who I'm sorry, Porter, I had not
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: heard of you, and so Brendon told me about you.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I haven't been doing my due diligence on Cubs relievers
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: this year. But I like your stuff, Porter, You got
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: good stuff. He's interesting right Like he's I would call
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: him a harder throwing, right handed version of Justin Steel
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: in a way. He has what they've said cut ride
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: for Seemer. He has a good sweeper like he has
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: a good stuff i'd say as a reliever, like he's
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: pretty dialed in. What's your assessment.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was always the comparison when he was first
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: called up, A hard version, more extreme version of Justice
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Steele as the happiest cut run profile professional baseball for
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: right picture. And so if you look at that same
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: lot I was showing with Steel with him being an outlier,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Hodge is even more of an outlier, way way different
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: from the rest. The big question with him was commands.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: He had a walk rate going off my memory around
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: five and a half is six batters per nine Indians
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and Triple A gets called up now his walk grate
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: is around three batters per nine at the big league level.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I was told by Tommy Adivi and pitching coaches that
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: it's rare to see immediate improvements in command and walk
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: rate at the big league level. So I'm inclined to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: think how they were able to do that.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's actually pretty good. Like I mean,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: his walk rate is I mean, I look at percentages,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: so I guess the switty quid's around that three mark,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: but ten point seven percent average in the big league
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: is about eight point three percent. I imagine relievers it's a
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: little bit higher. Is probably closer to nine is average,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: So ten point seven, Yeah, sounds like that's fairly high.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: But he's also striking out thirty percent of batters, which
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: is pretty absurd. So like I would take that. I'll
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: take that ratio thirty percent strikeouts with ten percent walks,
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: like that's that will work, especially as a relief pitch.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: How will he become the cops closer? What does he
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: need to do? What would you like to see?
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Probably just throw a few more strikes. I mean, I
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: would say to be like a Domin star, Like he
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: needs to be in single digit.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Does he hav any issues against potentially left handed batters?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Is that cut ride fastball sufficient against lefties? Does he
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: need to develop a tighter breaking pitch because a sweeper
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: may not work against lefties?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: What would you say, Yeah, let me, let's just share it.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Let's let's let's go down a little.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Because like this was a problem with Adbra al Zalai.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: It's they have very different fastball shaped. But the issue
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: with Alzalai he had a heavy sweeper and so he
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: had to develop not a heavy sweeper, he had more
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: of a sweepier slider, and he had to develop more
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of a north to south harder slider to get you
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: on lefty issues. So I'm wondering if Hodge will need
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to do something similar or he just uses that four
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: seems fastball that has cut and he just changes the location.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, I mean there's a lot of relievers, There
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: are a lot of closers that dominated with just a
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: cut ride fastball. I mean, the two famous ones would
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: be Rivera and Kenley Jansen.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Do we, like, do we even have any comparison of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Rivera stuff in terms of like number four, not that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I know of, but that pitch was nasty man.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so, I mean, this is a small
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: sample and he's only thrown twenty nine innings this year
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: in the big so it's not that big of a sample.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: He's facing only one hundred.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: And twelve bad or it's still pretty big though.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: But I mean lefties, he's actually dominating more than rightys.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: He's striking out thirty nine percent of lefties twenty five
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: percent righties.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: So hawkme, his command is so much better. All of
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: a sudden, what's up with that? What do you? I
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: mean that seems so difficult to do? He just comes
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: up and starts throwing strikes more like I don't understand
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: how all of a sudden that changed.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: So it is interesting, Like I would not guess that
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: as he gets called to the big leies, he's suddenly
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: going to be throwing more strikes, Like it's almost always
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: the opposite. If there is a regression, they're gonna throw
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: more balls because they're facing more disciplined hitters. Just the
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: atmosphere is different, so sometimes players try to do more
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: than what they typically do. They just it takes a
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: little while to settle in. But I'm wondering if Porter
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: did he get off to a really good start, Like
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: was his first couple outings really good?
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: It was never like really bad. He got options after
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: his first I don't know, four five outings, but it
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't because he was bad. It's just like you know,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: roster crushes, So he got an option, came back up,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and basically immediately he was good. He may have had
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: maybe two outings that were kind of suspect, but yeah,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: for the majority, the bulk resols.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Have been there for him, and I think there's something
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: to be said for that, like because his first couple
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: outings were pretty solid, like you're able to build confidence
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: now right, So now I trust my stuff. I start
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: to feel like I can I belong in the big leagues,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: I can get people out here, and it kind of
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: can just build on itself. Like I think confidence is
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: a big piece, and it's tough to quantify obviously, So
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: that's I don't want to say the annoying part of it,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: but you just you really can't quantify that, but there
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: is there's no denying that that piece is super important.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: And you look at it like his first four outings,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: he didn't walk anybody right, struck out quite a bit
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: of guys. First four outings were great. Then he went
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: through that little lull you kind of talked about, looks
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: like in Chicago, Cincinnati and against New York, like he
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: walked a couple guys in an inning or two innings,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: both of all three of those outings, and then he
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: started to figure it out again. But I think it's
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: or that it just kind of snowballed on itself in
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: a positive way to start the year, saw good results,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: and now he's able to build on that. And I'm
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: sure they're doing some strategies to help with it. Maybe
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: it's targeting middle middle and throwing more fastballs early, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: there's numerous ways or reasons why he's throwing more strikes.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: But I would say the confidence piece is something that
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: probably should be valued a little bit more.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: In this site, it's get more difficult to control cut
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: right fastballs.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't throw one, so I can't say
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's true, because I feel like
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: most people that throw that's their natural fastball, so it's
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: normal for them, right you think of Corbyn Burns another example.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: A Corbyn Burns has ruined my life with Milwaukee for
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: so many years. I hope he stays in the American League.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: If you have a young pitcher seventeen eighteen, nineteen years
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: old and he has natural subpanation, are you immediately trying
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to optimize that? Like? Are you is there any rooting? Okay?
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: So like, if he has a profile that you know,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: again he's seventeen eighteen years old, If he has a
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: profile that's suggest it can be improved, is there any
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: risk in trying to maximize that cut?
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Well, see we're talking about cut with the supernation bias,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: but there's also people that because they supinated to say
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: they have a slightly lower release, or their their wrist
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: angles able to kill the tilt or get the tilt
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: to be lower. They can use that cutting action to
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: actually make the ball sink. So you first have to
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: figure out which way do we want to lean into this.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Do we want to lean into the cut profile or
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: do we want to lean into the sink profile. You
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: potentially can do both, but if we're talking about the
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: primary fastball, we probably want to decide, Okay, which one
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: do we want to go with first?
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Now, you don't want that this sink, right if you
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: want to sink. If you had a primary forcing fastball,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't want that to sink.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm saying you would change it to a sinker.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, you would just change it to a sink.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Like let's just say, yeah, it was middle of the
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: road movement. Not not a great pitch. Yet you got
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: to decide do we want to just turn this into
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: a sinker or do we want to try to make
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: it cut actually cut more and optimize the forcing grip
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: a little bit.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Do you think you'll see more have your cutrighte profiles
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: in the future or is this just kind of how
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: it is?
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think more people are just going
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: to start leaning into what the pitcher's strengths are. So like,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: and I feel like a lot of people, a lot
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of players naturally soup and it pretty well, so you're
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: going to see I honestly think that's why we're seeing
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: a resurgence. And sinkers is because we went from everyone
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: through sinkers to sinkers are bad and no one's ever
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: going to throw on against and now they start to
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: become valuable again. And truth to be told, I think
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: coaches are kind of having fun learning about seam shifted
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: wake and being able to make the ball do different things.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: So we want to throw big shapes and nasty pitches
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: like sinkers and depthy change ups and sweepers. So like
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I would say, everything comes and goes in waves, Like
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: I think everything can work in the right place. Do
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I think cut ride is the NLB all No, not
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: for everybody, but for guys like Justin Steele, Tyler Glass,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: now Corbyn Burns, those people that naturally are able to
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: do that, Like, yeah, let's lean into it and let's
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: not try to make it a clean spinning fast ball
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: that has true spin when that's just probably going to
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: make it a dead average fastball.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: With working with different pictures, especially if they're not familiar
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: with all the number stuff. It's pretty overwhelming. There's a
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: lot of numbers. Like out there, I put myself into shoes.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: If I were a pitcher seventeen eighteen years old, knowing
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: who I am and knowing who you were at that age,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you would dive into that so much. You would, I know, yeah,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: you would try to maximize every single ounce, every single
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: I do it.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I do it now.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I know you still do it now. Is there is
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: that dangerous to do without supervision? Like, I'm scious about
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: that because the injuries are up like crazy, dude, And
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: even these guys who are experimenting that at the big
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: league level or an organized ball injuries are up like crazy.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: So is there like a huge risk?
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Well, what we're saying, Well, I would say the risk
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: is trying to do something that maybe isn't natural for
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: you to do personally, right, Like maybe you don't soup
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: innate well and you have a high slot and you're
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: trying to throw a sweeper and you're trying to manipulate
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: the ball in a way that isn't necessarily natural, and
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: you're changing your mechanics to achieve it. Yeah, maybe you're
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: able to get the movement, but at the sacrifice of
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: it affecting your arm and simply and simply just not
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: being natural for you to do personally. So I think
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: it's just leaning into what the natural bias of the
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: player is. And I would say, honestly, like I do
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: think that a lot of people can throw a multitude
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: of pitches. There's just different avenues to do it right,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Like change ups, there's so many ways to throw a
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: change up. You can throw true for seeing if you're
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: a great supernator, go Devin Williams. Sou Devin Williams is
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: the king of pronating pitches. He literally I would call
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: his change up a screwball. That is a screwball, that's
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: not a change up.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I hate that guy. I hate so much.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: So like it's like that's one way. Okay, you're a
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: great pronator. Okay, let's find a grip that allows you
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: to really rip on the seams to create more of
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: that pronation. Or you a guy that superinnates, Well, okay,
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: let's get a two seamore one scene variation to where
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: we can get the same effects to take it maybe
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: a high slot guy. We have to go a split
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: variation to get any sort of depth just because you
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: get so much backspin on the ball. There's there's so
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: many ways to achieve the movement you want. You just
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: have to use the right strategy for that.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Guy, which makes it fun, right because you're seeing un
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: orthodox development. One last question, and you know, I do
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: want to go about a sod but I value that
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you've been an organized ball and even with the Twins,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you work with so many different pictures of different backgrounds
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: and age groups. And it's not to suggest any one
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: team is better than the other, But do you think
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: there's a shrinking gap among organizations in terms of their pitching,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: development infrastructure, Like do you think that gap is shrinking now?
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Where maybe in twenty eighteen and the Cubs were one
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of these teams. They were behind, according their president Jed Horrier,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and they caught up with Tommy Hotteby and Moscows and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Breslow's now in Boston. But I from the outside of
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: looked at teams and it seems to be like everything
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: is shrinking and a competitive age or that market in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: efficiency so to speak, is now shrinking, and these teams
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: seem to be all catching up the speaking the same
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: language across organizations.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I would say the gap is getting smaller as far
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: as just the knowledge of what we potentially can do right,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: understanding pit shapes a little bit better, using the tech more.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: But I will tell you there's definitely still teams that
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: are way behind. And one thing you have to consider
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: though with this is maybe.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Behind in resources or behind.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: In behind communication and implementation. So I would say across
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: the board, like if you look at front offices, you
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: look at you know, even the PD departments that are
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: at the top of them. Actually even that I take
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: that back action at all PD departments.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: How often did you how often did you work with
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the nerds, like all the programmers and you know, all
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the statsos pretty consistently.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: We had conversations all the time. If I've read questions,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I would reach out to them.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Question vast like or a general common question. Is it like,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: hey make this tool for me, Hey fix the software
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: for me, Hey losing to this analysis.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: They were always building tools and sharing stuff with us
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: and knew they'd come up with new ideas, and it
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: was more of just an open conversation about what they're
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: seeing on their end, obviously not knowing the player and
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: working with them, and then us pairing that with what
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: we've already tried, why we think that will or won't
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: work those things. I would say with the Twins, it's
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: an unbelievable relationship. So you guys were in seeing oh,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: there was no silos like between you.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: That's why the Twins have been so good for the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: past few years.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: You know, Yes, Like you look at it with the
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: front office, the PD department, the analytics team, the strength
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: and conditioning team, the trainers, all of those groups, Like
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: we literally were doing stuff together all the time. Like
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: especially with like some of some of the players. We
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: would literally once a month have a meeting with like
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: one person represented at least from every group where we'd
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: have a conversation about one specific player. Like it was very,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: very good. So coming back the to what organizations are doing,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: I would say for the most part, there's someone at
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: every single organization at least one person that is up
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: to date. They know everything that's going on. The difference
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: from one org to the next is how many of
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: the coaches are bought in. I would say, so the
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: coaches that are actually on the field every single day,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: even some of the coordinators in some organizations probably, But
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: I would say it's the implementation that the coaches are
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: able to do because the coaches are the ones that
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: are with the players day in and day out. A
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: coordinator might come to town, the pitching coordinator, the hitting
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: coordinator might be they'll come to town for three days.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: They'll tell you, hey, we need to be doing X,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Y and Z, But when they leave, there's no saying
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: what you're doing right now, you're probably being evaluated if
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: you're in a good organization, they're evaluating how good you're doing,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: how much better you're making the players. But at the
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: end of the day, you can kind of make your
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: own decisions, right Like, the coaches are the ones that
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: are with them day in and day out. And if
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: the second a coordinator leaves, the coaches bad mouth and
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: the coordinator what he said and basically saying no, we're
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: not doing that, it's there's to be an issue with
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: the players in that relationship. So I would say that's
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: the separator. They're really good organizations from top to bottom.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: They're in sync. They might not agree on everything, but
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: they are pushing the needle for development to get guys
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: as good as they possibly can. And the systems in
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: place that the coordinators in the front office put in
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: place are just unbelievable to where now it's a clear
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: plan of what the organization believes and now the coaches
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: just have to execute it. And the good orgs are
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: having training sessions where they're teaching this stuff like with
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: the Twins that we literally would have classroom sessions during
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: screen training with coaches, all of us coaches where work there. Yeah,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: we're doing presentations going over steam shifted wake how we
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: can optimize every player's pitch. We would have one on
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: one meetings with every single player. We'd go over all
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: of this information where US coaches were being educated constantly
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: and we were being held accountable for actually implementing those
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: things and helping players right. Like, it wasn't just hey,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: here's an idea of you know, if you want to
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: try it, go for It's like, no, like, this is
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: what we believe as an organization. We're expecting you to
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: implement this. If it doesn't work well, obviously adjust and
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you have freedom within that to use different strategies to
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: achieve it. It's not like you're a puppet, but there's
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: core principles that you're following and that you're trying to
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: push forward. And in my conversations with coaches that are
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: with other orgs or players that I've now coached and
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: trained in the private sector and all those things, that
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: is one of the biggest missing links is the coordinators,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: the coaches, all of them. They're not on the same page.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: The coach wants to do one thing, the coordinator wants
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: another thing. There isn't consistency with what's being preached. So
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: as a result, that's why players go outside the organization.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: That's why they go to drive line, that's why they
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: go to tread athletics, that's why they go to all
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: these other places. Is because they're not getting what they
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: need within their organization, or at least what they think
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: they need. So I don't want to say that for
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: every organization, Like I'm sure there's still players they still
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: want to do their own thing regardless, But at the
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: end of the day, players are going to find a
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: way to get better. It's their careers. They're going to
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: take ownership of it. The ones that want to actually
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: be as good as they can, and they're going to
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: go to whatever resource they have to, even if that
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: means it's outside of the organs.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it makes sense. It's always an ambiguous
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: perception for fans because we just see stats on you know,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: on web pages, and we hear postgame press conferences. But
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: in reality, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: We can't make informed opinions whatsoever. And if you do
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: have an informed opinion, well you're kind of an idiot
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: because you don't know what's going on. And like just
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: hearing about the classroom stuff and the alignment between the
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: stats guys, the coaches, the coordinators, it's a massive operation.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's what you have to do.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Like I know, people talk about all the time, and
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: you can say it's I don't know if cliche is
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: the word, but just the culture matters. Like you can
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: the top dog can have all the knowledge in the world,
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: but if you can't get the people underneath them implement,
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. Like there has to be buying, and
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: how you get buy in is by creating that culture
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: in that environment where trust is built and people want
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: to get better and want to go in one direction.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I hear you, all right, Hobyer soft before I sign offer.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: Rants over let's go.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I was good.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, Now can I start with the SOD.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Can I introduce this?
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Please do? Because my intro wasn't going to be very nice,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: So yeah, go for it.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Well, easy over there. Okay, that's not a good preface.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'll say about a SOD. He doesn't make sense.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: The the profile with a SOD is one that you
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: can't match other pictures too.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: I may be obsessed with uniqueness, and I use uniqueness
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: as a way to, you know, formulate these arguments that
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: even though stuff doesn't look good on paper, it's because
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: they're unique. So let me let me show one screen
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: over here and then I'll throw it back to you.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: But if you look at a SOD slider, which I
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: gotta find over here, his slider is an outlier pitch.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: So let me show this and there we go. So again,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: this is like the pitch gene profile or pitch DNA.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: So you see that big red dot on the very
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: top yep, So this is all stackcast numbers. He's completely
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: away from the norm, the center focal point of most pitchers.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: He's not like other pitchers. His slider looks different in
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: many different aspects. So when we look at stuff plus
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and pitching Bot in all the different run prevention models
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: to date, they're great tools. They have pushed things forward,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: they've found different traits you can bring about pictures. But
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: the way that these models are trained is biased towards
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: volume of data, volume of entry points. So if you
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: have entry points to these models that don't include guys
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: like a SOD, well, then the model is going to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: bias against those pictures who have more similarities among everyone.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: With a SOD, his stuff is going to grade as
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: a forty out of eighty on the on the scale,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: which is one standard deviation below league average. His slider
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: is going to grade as bad by all intents and purposes.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: But the way those models are working is they're assuming
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: a SOD looks like a normal picture, but he doesn't.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: So there's some error in selecting guys purely based on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: those run prevention models, and then also error in projecting
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: those guys going forward. That's why when we look at
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the periphery or the market inefficiencies, the way I interpret
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that are just outliers trying to find those unique traits
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and then you really capitalize all those traits and try
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: to make it work. And that's why I think, to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: your point, you fit walk rate all this stuff. I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: agree with you, but it's been such a larger sample
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: now that I don't know what to think about a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: SOD and his lack of alignment between his ear ray
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: is fick and his stuff.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, are you talking about a slider
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: or is sweeper, because it looks like he has both
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: from what I.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: See, that was the slider right there.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: So just the small like what seven inches of horizontal.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'd have to look at it again.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Somewhere over there. I can pull up a sweeper too.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Let me see what a sweeper is.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Sweeper looks good.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you look at his sweeper, it's also uh. Well,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: in this case, most of his breaking pictures are being
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: classified as as a slider, right, So.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's the discrepancy because there's not very many sliders
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: on the.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not. The difference is not being carried
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: by horizontal, So it's it's it's the shape from a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: release point perspective and angles and horizontal it's all different.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't even fit the normal sweeper mold. It's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: still a unique trait even if we were classify as
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: a sweeper.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think he made a good point that
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: sometimes players just don't fit into the general buckets, right, Like,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: for the most part, most players, you're going to be
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: able to figure out if their stuff's good, if they're
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: going to perform well based off of some of these models.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: But there's always going to be outliers. But what I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: think we have to be careful with, especially from a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: player development standpoint, is like people, sometimes we'll look at
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: guys like this, like see, like fIF doesn't matter. All
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: this stuff doesn't matter. You don't have to strike out
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of guys. He has above average walks, so
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: you can still be successful if he can pitches, he
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: knows how to pitch, he has all these different pitch types.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: So yes, it works for him. I have no doubts
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: that because of the track record he's had with this,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: that it will continue to work. Everything inside me tells
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: me it won't, but it obviously will. But I think
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: we always have to be careful with not looking at
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: outliers and thinking that everyone can be an outlier and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: that everyone is that, but under also recognizing though when
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: there is an outlierk I would probably like, just looking
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: at his numbers, right, just strikeouts, his walks, the damage
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: all that, I would say, Yeah, this guy's not a
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: very good pitcher because he.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Have his numbers in front of you right now.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's his r three point.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: One makes no sense? And that's just this year, right.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah he strikes yeah, three point one nine with us
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: the last year with a four or five, five, fIF
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: he's striking out nineteen point seven percent big league averages
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: twenty three percent. And he's so here's the thing. If
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: he wasn't walking, guys, I'd be like, okay, like, yeah,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: this this can work. There's always out last fist. But
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: he's walking more than the average.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Whats his ear ray last year if you have in
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: front of you, yep, I can let me see.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Was it good?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah it was. I'm just being rhetorical over here.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna look at the last few years.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Let's look, and I'm not on Well, he came up
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and pitched most of the time last season, so he's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: a two year guy.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: And I, by the way, I'm not arguing the case
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: for a soad arguing the case for confident projections.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I'm arguing, no, this is incredibly had a
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: three point oh five last year, three point one one.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: And so this is in I want to say, in total,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: because he had one hundred and nine about one hundred
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and ten in his last year. Things over one hundred
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: this year. This is over like two hundred innings where
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: he's had this.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Here's his career career is two hundred and fifty four innings. Yeah,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: with a three point one to one er and a
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: four point four to three FIP.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: So at some point the two hundred and fifty innings
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: becomes not a small sample size, and it does beg
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the question how this happened. So when I see the outliers,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, oh, he's not liar, pick them up.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: I'm saying he's an outlier with success. So what is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: going on? How can we learn from a sauce profile
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: if he's not fitting the mold yet still having big
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: time success.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: I'll share my screen so I can show heyone his
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: pitch blocks. He throws about eight pitches according to this,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: So he's got a four seen fastball, yeah, a sinker,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: a changeup, a cutter, a sweeper, a slider according to this,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: and then a curveball. So he's throwing everything but the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: kitchen sink. So like, yeah, he's just he keeps you guessing,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: like and you can see for the most part, like
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: he throws decent. It doesn't look like he throws very
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: many change ups, is that right? Basically, yeah, it looks
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: like a lot of but between yeah, four team sinkers, cutters, sweepers,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: and curveballs, like there's a pretty good sample with all
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: of those. So like even those alone five pitches right there,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Like he's he's mixing it up a lot. But where
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: I still get confused is that should lead to weaker contact.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: And we looked at his barrel rate. His barrel rate
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: is average. It's not like it's below average where he's
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: given up you know, a lot of contact, but it's weak.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: It's it's about average. So it's just I'm honestly lost.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know what is leading to the success.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Listen, you're gonna have to figure it out on your
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: own time. I think anecdotally watching him pitch, there's stretches
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: where all of a sudden everything's we contact, and then
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: there's stretches where all of a sudden barrels are through
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the reo and so.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: It makes it seem average, but it's Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I think there's just a ton of variability there and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of times he can hit hard, you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: second time through back into the lineup, third time through
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: fifth and sixth and eight, and he hasn't been able
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to go deep into games with regularity, although he has
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: done it. So I think for him, it's more of
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: this weird hyper variability and he may just be best
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: served as like a three four to five inning guy
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: and a swing starter long term if he can't make
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: it you know, through the order two three times. But
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: he it's one of those weird case studies where you
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: can learn information and that's kind of why I posed
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the player to you, because I'm like, hey, he's not
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: making sense, Like everything on paper suggests this guy is
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: like below average, but he's been one of the best.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: It's very odd.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to do more research on him because
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: there has to be something like I have to be
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: able to figure it out, and maybe I won't be
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: able to, but there's there's something there that you're right,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: we can learn from and you know what I mean,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: maybe two years from now it levels off and he's
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: getting crushed, but hey, ride the wave while you can,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, don't ask questions.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: But still, but still, let's say, uh, two years goes
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: from now he does get crushed. Still, you have two
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty indians of success, So there's some randomness involved, granted,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: but it's still a large sample and something in that
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: span was leading to success that isn't fitting typical balls.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: So you can still learn from that even if he
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: starts getting crushed going forward.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: That's true. Well, this was a good Brendan. I think
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: we could talk for a couple more hours if we
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: went down the whole hours. No, we're not doing a
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Joe Rogan podcast or for for your taste, Lex Friedman,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: He goes on, for what four or five hours?
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: You want to do an eight hour podcast? I could
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: do an eight hour podcasts.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll do a little marathon session going
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: through every Cubs pitcher.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: You want to do a session of you pitching to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: me and me hitting off you. Actually, I don't know
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: if I want to do that.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll make that a YouTube.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: One I'll just track out every single time.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Well, let's do this. Here's a little deal. If we
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: make or if the Cubs make the playoffs, we'll do
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: a little special edition episode right before the first playoff game.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: You will preview talk about the Justin steal, maybe talk
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: about some of the changes he's made between now and then.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: You're just saying that because they're not going to make plays.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, regardless, we'll do it again at some point. But well,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: I see you got your name here, Brendan Underscore Cubs
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: that you can find Brendan on Twitter. Are you just
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: on Twitter? Are you on anything else? No?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Just on Twitter?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So if you want daily rants and tweets
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: about the Chicago Cubs.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Be nicer than that.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: You know, it's good.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: It's just a little extreme.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: Well right now there's rants you guys aren't playing. Well,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: that's more depressed tweets.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: More depressed tweets for sure.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: A lot of visuals though, like Brendan does a lot
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: of the pitching side of things. He does other stuff,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: but he does post a ton about pitching, So a
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: lot of really cool visuals for you to see. So
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: definitely would highly recommend checking him out there. You have
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: your podcast, what's any of the podcast.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Again, Corey Freeman, I do a podcast. It's called Chgo Cubs.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: We've been doing a podcast before that for about ten
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: years and quite frankly as a hobby of ours. It's
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: quite a big network where Corey and I are very
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: lucky where they let its continue our fun projects on
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: the side of our normal lives, and we're fortunate that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: we get support to do that.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so check that out. I listened to him every week.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: You guys do shows on Sundays, right, Sunday shows, Yeah, yep,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: so tune into that. But Brendan, this is great.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anytime, Jared, anytime.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: It made me sound good and smart.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, but you are all right, that's the pod.