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How Shota Imanaga and Tanner Houck are Dominating MLB · The Mound Visit

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When I threw my fspel. This is actually how I threw my fspel And
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I have never been a high carry guy, but honestly, this que really
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works. It increased my carrie and you can really feel it come off your
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fingers like it feels like you're really pulling down on the ball, which is
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what you need for a full scene and for it to carry. All right,
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So today we are going to do something a little bit different on the
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episode. Me and Josh have both selected one picture that we want to give
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an end depth breakdown about. It could be a variety of things, whether
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it's personal things or performance based. I know for mine personally, I'm going
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to dive into more of the performance side of things. But we thought this
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would be cool. These are two pictures that we both really enjoy watch and
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compete. We've learned from both of them and think it'd be cool to share
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some insights on both of these players. So, Josh, I'm gonna kick
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it off to you to get us started. Who is your pitcher? Yeah,
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so I've got a couple of my favorite pitchers in the big leagues.
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You know, you Davish Yamamoto show tiny, but I think the guy that
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I really wanted to talk about today was showta Imanaga, just because he had
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such a great start to the season. You know, he had a pretty
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bad outing the other day. I think he gave up like Tenner and runs
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in three innings or something like that. But other than that, I think
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the Cubs got like such a great deal. He signed a four year,
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fifty three million dollar contract and so far, I mean it's been a total
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bargain for them, so up until like pretty recently. He had an era
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in the ones, if I'm not mistaken. So yeah, I did a
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little bit of research on him, especially when he signed, and even today
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I just had to look into why he was so good and so choateay Managa
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is the guy who I'm gonna be talking about today. Perfect No, I
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think Showed is a great one to do. I I've really liked watching him
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pitches. Obviously he's left hand. It's on bias more towards left handed pitchers,
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but I remember when he first signed in the off season. My buddy
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is a die hard Cubs fan, So if you're a Cubs fan, followed
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Brendon Miller on Twitter. He does a podcast on the Cubs, writes about
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the Cubs daily, like really good insights. But so he asked me when
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they first signed him, like, what do I think of this guy?
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So I looked at some video, looked at public data that was available through
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the World Baseball Classic, and I was like, this guy looks pretty good.
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Like overall, it looks like he fits the bill, and it does
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seem like, you know, if he pitches like he has in Japan,
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like this is a pretty good steal. And he was kind of under the
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radar just because of Yamamoto and just some other players this offseason. It does
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really seem like they got a steal. And he gave up ten earned in
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his last outing, but it's one outing. For the most part, He's
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been really solid this season for them and really has carried that rotation a little
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bit, especially when justin Steel, their ace went down the very first game.
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They had a couple other guys I think get hurt too, Like he
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really had to step up and lead that staff, and he's done a phenomenal
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job. So what is the first thing you're going to jump into about him?
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Real quick? Everyone, I want to let you know that my new
3:23
course, Pitches on You is officially available for purchase. I have three core
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modules inside the course, the first one covering the fundamentals of pitch movement how
3:31
it is created. Number two, I break down how to throw every single
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pitch type with major league examples as well as exratronic video. And then the
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last module, I dive into the analytics and the performance of every single pitch
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and how to optimize the usage and your arsenal overall. Check it out in
3:47
the show notes below. All right, back to the show. Yeah,
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so obviously show to Imanaga's greatest strength is his fossible and so I do want
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to talk a lot about his fastball today, and I think the first thing
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that I want to dive into is actually how he thinks about throwing his fastball,
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and then we can dive into Wyatt's so good later. But yeah,
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when he first got signed, I dug into some of the some of some
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Japanese video where he explains how he throws his pitches, his thought process behind
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it and stuff like that, and I thought that'd be pretty interesting to share.
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And so, yeah, Shota in Managa, obviously he throws a fastball.
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It's a it's a high carry pitch. And one point that I found
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really interesting was that he tries to throw it on a downward trajectory, and
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so he's holding the four scenes. For those who are watching us, it'll
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be easy to attrack. But he watches he holds a four scene and he
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tries to throw it down. He tries to throw it this way down instead
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of straight, and I thought that was super interesting. And when I when
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I dug into his view video, he pretty much just said he does this
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to so that it feels like he's really pulling down on the seams, and
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he feels like it increases spin rate when he does this. So when I
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was actually playing a couple of months ago, when I threw my fastball,
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and this is actually how I threw my fastball. And I had never been
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a high carry guy, but honestly, this que really works. It increased
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my carry and you can really feel it come off your fingers, like it
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feels like you're really pulling down on the ball, which is what you need
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for a forcing and for it to carry. And so yeah, the first
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thing that he thinks about is pulling down and throwing the ball down instead of
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straight. And I thought that was a great queue for anyone out there,
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all right, perfect, I like, that's that's helpful because you know,
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forcing fastballs obviously, we want true spin on that. We want to get
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as much backspin as we can. We want to be as clean a spin
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as possible. So like, it's kind of an interesting way to think of
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it, because yes, these people just think more external or sorry, that's
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external too, but think more ripped through the seams, or do something more
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at the hand. But I kind of like that just thinking about ripping straight
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down to create that backspin. That's cool. Okay, well go ahead,
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you have something out of that. Yeah, yeah, I'll just I'm just
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gonna run through some of the his cues for as possible. And so another
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one that I found quite interesting was that he tinkers with the width of his
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fingers so he has his full seam, and then he either goes wider or
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narrower. And he said that when he goes wider, he feels like he
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can command the bull way better, and so when he needs to strike,
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he's gonna get his fingers wide. And I don't know if there's any like
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science or if it's just a field thing, but he says that he can
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command this type a fastball much better than when he goes narrower, and when
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he goes narrower, it's more of a swing and mispitch because he says that
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it feels like he gets way more carry on it, and when he goes
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narrow it feels like he can get more spin rate and really pulled down on
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the ball. And so I thought that was super interesting. I never really
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experimented with it. I just kind of kept it the same width, but
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I think if it's something that works for you, then it's definitely something that
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you could try. And it was interesting that he does that. I'm interested
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to see if he actually does that though in games, even in the MLB.
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I know he does that in Japan, but things change. So yeah,
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No, that actually is really interesting, especially because he says he thinks
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he gets more soon a miss with the fingers together, more command, better
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feel for it with them spread. It would be fun for someone to have
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that be their job. They just literally track every time he throws a fastball
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the fingers together, every time they're apart, just to see if it's more
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of a feeling or if it's actually true. And how does he decide when
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he's doing that, is it pre two strikes before two strikes, it's always
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fingers apart, and then two strike fastballs it's always fingers together. Or how
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does he determine which one he's going to use. Did he talk about that
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at all, about how he decides which one it's going to be. He
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just said, like count based, So if he needs a strike, he's
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going wider, and then if it's a swing of mispitch, then he's going
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narrower. And that's kind of what he said. But another one that I
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thought was really interesting, and this is something that I felt all throughout my
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career, was that he only puts effort into the throat at release, and
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so his whole delivery is super loose, super loose, and then he only
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puts in effort like right when he's about to let go. And it's interesting
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how he describes it. He says it feels like gravity is taking his arm
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for a brief moment and is describing the feeling of his excenal rotation when he's
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here, when his arm is up and when his hand drops into xcenal rotation,
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it feels like it's pure gravity doing that. It's just there's no tension
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in the in the arm. He just lets it drop and then at release
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he's putting all of his effort into the throw. And yeah, that's something
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that actually really helped me in my career as well, was that if I
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wanted a little bit more velo, then that's something that i'd focus on.
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Is all right, I'm gonna try to be as relaxed as possible, and
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then at release I'm putting everything into the ball. And so yeah, I
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think that's a great cue as well. Yeah, I like that one a
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lot too, because, especially for younger players, oftentimes when they try to
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throw harder, they try to you know, blow a pitch by a guy
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with two strikes, they usually tense up, they try to move faster,
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and what ends up happening is they usually end up throwing slower or or they
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just don't command the ball the way they normally would. So sometimes that's why
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you see guys even in like three zero counts, younger players, when they
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throw a fastball, it actually ends up being faster in a three to zero
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count than it doesn't an O two count because they're just loose, they're trying
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to just to throw it right through the target and because there's less effort,
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but they're more efficient with their delivery more smooth, they end up throwing it
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hard, harder. And another cue that is interesting that that kind of goes
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along those lines that I know tread Ben Brewster specifically has talked about, is
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thinking about music in a sense. When you're throwing with the idea of being
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early in the delivery, you're moving down the mound like Beethoven music, super
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soft, super smooth, and then once that front foot lands, it's like
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Metallica, It's aggressive, everything you have right through the target. And I
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think that's just another way to put exactly what Imanaga is feeling, what he's
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trying to replicate, And I think that's a really, really good helpful thing
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for a lot of guys to be just a little bit more smooth and efficient
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with their delivery and to wait till the right time to allow everything to unleash
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on the baseball. Yeah, one hundred percent. And back when I was
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coaching some kids, we would do pulldowns, and you know, they'll go
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and do their pulldown, and when I gave them this cue of hey,
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I want you to be as relaxed as possible and only put an effort when
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you're about to release the ball, it was like an instant like three to
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five mile an our gain. So I mean tensing up during the throw can
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really kill Velo and doing this can be like an unlock for some guys.
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So I think if you're watching this and you're a player, then it's definitely
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something to try. No doubt you got anything else on the fastball those that's
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it for the cues. Perfect. Do you want me to jump in with
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with my guy to get started or do you want to keep going yep,
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yep, yep, go ahead. Perfect. So the guy that I am
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going to do is right hand, a pitcher for the Red Sox Tanner Hawk,
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and I've written about him a couple of times just because what he's doing
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this year has just been really cool. Because he had a really not a
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really rough season last year, but it wasn't his best season. It was
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probably the worst season of his career. Battled some injuries, finished with like
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a five ERA in one hundred and six innings, just wasn't completely sharp,
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And so far this year he's been absolutely dominant. Like you can make the
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argument that he's been the best pitcher in baseball this year. Overall, he
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has the highest war according to Fangrafts that I want to say, it's like
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three point four right now. He's got a two to one ra FIP is
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right around there as well. He's not walking anybody, and he's just just
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mowing through guys, and he's pitching in one of the toughest divisions to in
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baseball, in the Al East. So what I'm going to start with today
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is simply just how he has changed his pitch usage. And that is something
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that I talk about often with guys, is you might have the right arsenal,
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you might be throwing enough strikes, but if you're not using your pitches
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in optimal situations, sometimes you're not going to perform as good as you could.
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And he has really dialed in his pitch usages, specifically against lefties.
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Because he's a right handed pitcher, he's more of an East West profile.
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So what that means is he throws a sinker as his primary fastball. He
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has a sweepy slider. Most of his pitches are moving right to left and
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that's really really good when he's facing right handed batters, but it's not so
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good or it can be more of a challenge when he's facing a lefty just
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because of the way the ball is approaching the strike zone, from his arm
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angle, from his movement profile. Lefties typically like to face those guys more
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than same side of hitters like a right hander would. So I'm going to
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just break down his pitch usage and how he is he has changed everything,
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so actually it might be helpful. I'm just going to share my screen,
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so if you guys are on YouTube, you'll be able to see this.
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If you're not, you'll want to head over there because Josh is showing visuals
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too with grips. I'm gonna be showing some grips here in a little bit,
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so you want to head over to that to watch this. Okay,
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can you see my page? Perfect? Just go to this one. Okay,
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So I'm going to hone in here on this bottom box area. So
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there's a lot going on here. Just face or just look at this bottom
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screen here, so you'll see on the left column we have the season,
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so we have two thousand and three or sorry, twenty twenty three, twenty
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twenty four. When we look at the percentages, that's just telling us how
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often he is throwing those pitches. When we look at twenty twenty three,
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he threw a four sing fastball nine point nine percent of the time. This
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year, he's not thrown a four seam at all. He's completely dropped it.
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Sinkers he was throwing thirty percent of the time last year. He's still
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throwing him thirty percent of the time this year. Cutters. He threw a
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cutter last year at eleven percent of the time this year hardly at all,
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at two point six. The slider, which is a sweeper, he's throwing
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about the same a little bit more this year thirty eight percent last year,
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forty two percent this year. So he has up it a little bit.
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And the pitch that has really changed from a use of standpoint is his splitter.
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So last year he threw it eleven percent of the time, not very
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much. This year he's throwing at twenty five percent of the time. So
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that is the biggest change. Is he scrapped the four sing fastball, he's
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throwing less cutters, and he's throwing a lot more splitters. So I'm gonna
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break this down now just by this season, just so you can see like
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exactly how he's using his stuff this year and how it differs when he's facing
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a ariety compared to a lefty okay, so lefties, he's only throwing a
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fastball or his sinker twenty percent of the time. And this is a guy
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that can run it up to ninety five ninety six, and he's hardly ever
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throwing his sinker against left handed batters, throwing at twenty percent of the time,
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throws his cutter four and a half percent of the time, so kind
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of just like a show me pitch to show a harder pitch running in on
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the hands. Then he throws his sweeper thirty eight percent of the time and
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his splitter thirty seven percent of the time. So those two pitches are carrying
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the bulk of the load. From an arsenal standpoint, he's throwing that sweeper
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down and in, he's throwing that split down and away, and then every
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once in a while throws a sinker in there. And the reason for that
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is sinkers just don't perform as well against lefties. It's actually the worst performing
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pitch against lefties as the right handed pitcher is the sinker. And that's why
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he's essentially just eliminated. Only one out of every five pitches is that pitch.
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The rest of it, they're moving to the glove side, whether it's
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a cutter or a slider, or he's throwing that split. Now with Righty's
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it switches a little bit. Righty's sinkers are very advantageous, so he's throwing
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a lot of those. He's thrown forty three percent sinkers, hardly any cutters,
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and then a lot of sliders at forty five percent, and then the
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occasional split at twelve percent. So primarily he's running sinkers in on the hands,
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sweepers away off of it, and then to keep them honest, he's
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throwing just enough of that splitter to make them have to respect it so that
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they can't just sit on one of the other pitches. And changing his arsenal
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like this, or changing his usage has just completely changed the way he's gotten
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lefties out this year. He for a while, actually this year, he
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was getting lefties out at the same rate as Righty's, which is just unheard
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of, honestly as an East West type of pitcher. And it really comes
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down to just the ability to reduce the usage of a pitch and increase another
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pitch. And now he's using those more optimally. And I'll talk about here
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in a little bit how He's changed the movement of some of these pitches,
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but they haven't changed enough to where that alone would have made him a better
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pitcher. But the fact that he's just optimizing his usage is really taking his
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game to another level. And he's now, you know, leading the Red
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Sox pitching staff and has been one of the best pitchers in baseball so far
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this year. Yeah, that's I love ten of Healck because when I was
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playing, I actually like that was my camp. Like a lot of people
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were like, hey, like this might be someone that you can pay yourself
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to because I had a big close off stride. I was cross body and
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Lowa armslaught and I know he gets compared to Chris Sale a lot, just
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the writy version of him, and so that's kind of how I threw it
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as well. So I really loved how he threw something that's really that was
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really interesting to me when I was looking into him. This was a little
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bit back was his sweeper and why and how it was so good because it
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didn't have too much movement when when I was looking at it, it was
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like negative ten, you know, like nothing super special, but it was
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still performing really well. Has that improved this year, Jared, Yeah,
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the sweeper is actually a lot better. Now. I'll get into that because
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I'm gonna go over as grip as he did change a grip with his sweeper.
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But yeah, it was, yeah, ten eleven something like that last
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year. It's closer to i want to say, seventeen inches of sweep now
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this year, and it's gotten even better from a performance standpoint. But the
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reason it's still performed okay at that ten eleven mark is because his sinker has
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so much horizontal break to it. The pitch is moving relative to that.
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So if a batter's used to the sinker as his primary fastball and it has
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let's just say sixteen inches of horizontal and then a sweeper had ten, that's
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still twenty six inches of difference off of the fastball, and if he's locating
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it well, it's still going to get good results. Now that he's improved
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the sweeper even more, now it's getting even better results. Yeah. Yeah,
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it's going to be interesting to see Hugh you dive into him, because
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I mean I just kept up with him the whole time when he was in
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the bullpen. When he came out and started, you know, he had
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the big wind up over the head delivery. But then he went to the
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set position and I actually don't know what he's doing right now. He might
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have stuck with the set position because he was having success. I'm not sure.
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But yeah, no, I really like tin of how can I'm excited
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for you to dive in. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well,
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let's just keep going back and forth. We'll keep going over some points that
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we have for each guy. So what do you got next on Imanaga?
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All right? All right, So, as we talked about, his fastball
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is his biggest strength, and so I wanted to dive into a little bit
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of the numbers and why it is so good. I know, Jared,
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you made a post about this when he first got signed, and there's been
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a lot of hype around his fastball, and I just wanted to quickly go
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over why it's so good despite you know, having despite it not being like
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ninety eight to one hundred, and why he's getting so many swinger misses.
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And so I think it starts with this height. So Imanaga is five to
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ten, which is much shorter than MLB average, and this allows him to
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have a lower release point and so when it's throwing his release point is really
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low, and so it maximizes his vertical approach angle and vertical approach angle.
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Jerry might piotic explain it a little bit better than me, but it's the
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angle at which the pitch is coming at the at home plate and so you
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want to as you want as flat as possible for a ride carry type guy.
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So basically that means like you want to you want to try to make
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it look like it's dropping as little as possible. And so if you have
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a lower release point, then it's coming from a lower and so it's going
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to look a little bit flatter than if it was coming from a higher arm
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slot. And so that's kind of where he's really elite at because you know,
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it's a perfect mix of his super short and then he has a lower
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release point. It's at five point four nine, and he gets a lot
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of ride to it. And I'm not sure the exact metrics of his fastball
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because I don't have true media, but I'm pretty sure it's like eighteen plus
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right something like that. Yeah, it's actually have it up right now.
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It's eighteen and a half. Okay, yeah, eighteen and a half.
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Eighteen and a half. So that's pretty elite. That's pretty elite carry.
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And so combining that with the lower release point, it's just it's a it's
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just a great pitch up in the zone. And so another thing that I
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want to talk about was that his command is just crazy. There's this new
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cold what is it W execution Plus and it's just it's just the metric that
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measures how well is it? Is it how well you place the pitch where
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it plays the best? Is that? Is that right? I'm actually not
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fully sure. Is it on fangrafts or what's it on? It's it's the
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uh, it's a stuff W stuff plus and W execution plus. Well,
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what website are you on? It's just the the tread oh on tread stuff?
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Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm not actually sure. I haven't looked
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into that enough to be honest with you, but yeah, I'm guessing yeah,
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it's either that it's either like how often they're thrown in the optimal location
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or it's how close to within the target of the catcher set up is it
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thrown. I'm not sure if they can measure that stuff exactly, but essentially,
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yeah, how well are you executing pitches? Is the simplest way to
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look at it. It's just a matter of how they're quantifying execution. Yeah,
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and so with the ranges, we had a very similar thing. I
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don't know if it was actually cold W execution plus, but we had a
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location metric and basically what they measured was all right, where does this pitch
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play the best and how often do you throw it there? And so I'm
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pretty sure this is pretty similar. But anyway, he just executes his fostiball
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really really well. And if you look at his heat map, basically it's
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all red at the top of the zone and a little bit in the middle,
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and everyone's like, well, like, how can you have so much
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success like you know, like throwing it in the middle a lot of the
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time, because if you do, lucky look at his heat map, it
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is pretty red down the middle, like right down the middle. But during
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the start of the season he wasn't getting hit. He was having a great
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stretch. So basically it comes down to yet like the low release point,
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the high carry and as long as he's like middle up in the zone,
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then he's gonna be able to get some swinging misses despite it being like you
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know, ninety ninety three, ninety four. He doesn't throw gas, but
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just that mix of low release point plus high carry is what gets him the
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success on his possible and the swinging misses. Yeah, that's good. And
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I actually just looked at it a little bit, so like if you break
24:30
it down by count, he actually locates the fastball pretty well. So if
24:34
you look at it just with two strikes, I guess against righty's it's like
24:38
shaving the top of the zone perfectly, So when it's he's looking for a
24:41
swing to miss, he's executing on the top of the zone perfectly. Against
24:45
lefties, it's more just a way like most of them are up at some
24:47
of them are like middle height wise, but they're all away for the most
24:49
part. So my guess is maybe before two strikes he just doesn't get fine.
24:53
He just says, here it is, try and hit it. I'm
24:56
gonna come at you. You're either gonna put in play and hopefully'm gonna get
24:59
it out, or I'm gonna get ahead with strike one. So like,
25:00
and I think that's a great mindset. I'm kind of reading into it.
25:03
If that is his approach, it just looks like it because it's more of
25:07
a general middle location before two strikes, and after two strikes he gets more.
25:10
Fine. I think that's an approach that a lot of players should take,
25:12
Like don't try to get cute oh oh or one oh one one,
25:17
like, just attack the zone, challenge them to hit it early in the
25:18
count, and then when you get to two strikes, then you can try
25:21
to go to specific locations. Yeah, that's that's a great mindset. I
25:25
know we talked a little bit about the the stats on the first pitch and
25:29
something. It's something crazy like you know, if they hit it then it's
25:33
I can't remember the exact stat Do you remember it. I don't want to
25:37
butcher it. No, I can't remember it. It's just yah, it
25:41
favors the picture. Attack the Yeah, if they hit it, then they're
25:44
pretty much out. That was That was pretty much the summary of the the
25:48
talk. So yeah, that's a good mentality. All right, first pitch
25:51
or like early in the count in general, just attack the zone the general
25:55
area, and then when you get ahead, all right, now you can
25:57
really start to put it where it really plays. And so yeah, I
26:03
thought that was that was pretty interesting. Find No, that's great. Yeah,
26:07
anything else on that are you ready for my next one. Yeah,
26:11
you can go ahead. All right. Well we alluded to it just a
26:15
second ago, but now we're gonna talk about how's pitch movement and how he
26:19
has improved some of his pitch shapes. So I'm gonna share my screen again.
26:27
Okay. Can you see these pitch plots? Okay, So the one
26:33
on the left is twenty twenty three, the one on the right is twenty
26:34
twenty four. The blue is a forcing fastball. I'm not sure why there's
26:40
two dots. So for those of you that aren't super familiar with movement plots,
26:44
the bigger circles that are that are dark with a certain color, that
26:47
is the average movement for that pitch type. So blue is fastballs, the
26:51
yellowest sinkers, the oranges cutters, the greenest sliders, and then the splitterest
26:56
teel. So you can see here as fastballs are there there's two. I'm
27:00
not sure why. I don't worry about that cutter sinker slider split. The
27:06
main difference is the sinker is basically the same. Actually, if anything,
27:08
the sinker has less movement than it did last year, but it's still really
27:14
good. The splitter has more depth, the cutter has more depth and is
27:17
like a true bullet now this year, and the sweeper clearly has way more
27:21
movement, way more horizontal movement. So I'm just gonna go pitch by pitcher
27:26
so we can pull up the averages and as it loads we can see here
27:32
twenty twenty three top column, twenty twenty four bottom column. The induced vertical
27:37
break on the sinker last year was negative one. This year it's zero point
27:40
four, so not much of a difference, but one point four inches is
27:42
still something worth noting. This year, though, he has one more extra
27:47
inch of horizontal break than last year at sixteen point four. Had fifteen point
27:49
four last year. As far as I know, sinker did not change or
27:53
from a grip standpoint or anything like that. It just slightly changed. He
27:56
did change his release height, and I'm going to talk about that in my
28:00
last point after you go again, but we'll touch on that here in a
28:03
little bit. So sinker relatively the same, didn't make an active change with
28:07
that pitch. Now for the cutter, so cutter last year was ninety one,
28:15
so it averaged ninety one. This year it's only averaging eighty seven.
28:18
But the movement is way different. Last year, it had seven point two
28:21
inches of induced vertical break with three point four inches of armside horizontal movement.
28:26
This year it's about as pure bullet as it gets. Zero point eight induce
28:29
vertical break negative zero point five horizontal, so it's basically right in the middle.
28:33
It's more of a true gyro slider. It's labeled a cutter, but
28:36
it's really a gyroslider. In eighty seven, that pitch is gonna play really
28:38
well. I don't have a grip change for this one, but there's obviously
28:42
something changed, Like you don't lose seven inches of vertical break and add three
28:48
inches of horizontal without making some sort of change. I'm just not aware of
28:51
that one. But the one that I am aware of is his sweeper and
28:53
his splitter. So we'll go with the sweeper to start firstus look at the
28:57
movement difference. Last year negative two point four induced vertical break, this year
29:02
negative one point three, virtually the same. That was not as big of
29:06
a deal. It's the horizontal break I want to focus on. Horizontal break
29:08
went from negative eleven last year to negative seventeen, so he got an extra
29:12
six inches of horizontal break this year. Compared to last year, And I'm
29:17
gonna go back to showing myself so that I can show you the grip change
29:21
that he made, very subtle, very I know. Last year actually he
29:23
played with a couple of grips, but the one he's going now is very
29:26
similar to what he finished the year with last year. So last year he
29:30
was throwing his slider like this, pretty typical slider grip or sweeper grip.
29:37
The difference was he was sorry, let me change both this way. He
29:41
was a little bit further back on the scenes like this, So he wasn't
29:45
like over this part of the ball very much. He was like it was
29:48
almost like a cutter for some guys, honestly, So he wasn't really way
29:53
over on the leather going into the horseshoe. He was more just back here
29:56
fingers together. This year, super simple change. All he did is now
30:00
he's further up on the scene. He's upright here just like this, which
30:04
I'm guessing allows him to pull through the inside of this seam a little bit
30:10
better to get a little bit more side spin, a little bit higher spin
30:12
efficiency, which is allowing this pitch to take off an extra six inches.
30:15
He did play around a little bit with this script, which is another common
30:18
sweeper grip. I don't know what the movement was on it. I just
30:22
saw a video of him talking about it early in the season last year that
30:25
he was throwing something similar to this, and then at some point he switched
30:29
to this grip here and now this year he's just a little bit further up
30:33
on the inside of that horseshoe. Really simple change, which is great right
30:37
as a pitcher when you know Josh, like, if it's a really minor
30:41
change that I have to make, it makes it so much easier to adjust
30:44
from an execution standpoint because it's not really a different feel. I just climbed
30:47
up maybe three inches on the baseball. Then now I just do what I
30:49
did before. I'm just in a better position to leverage those seams a little
30:52
bit more so. That is the sweeper. The last pitch, and this
30:57
one's a big one that he changed, is the splitter. So I need
31:00
to share my screen one more time now with the splitter as it loads.
31:14
Last year, he averaged one point three inches of induced vertical break fourteen inches
31:19
of horizontal This year he's getting negative three inches of induced vertical break and thirteen
31:23
point seven horizontal horizontal, basically the same, but he's gained four inches of
31:27
depth on this pitch. And this one was another grip or another grip changed
31:33
that wasn't that much different from before, but enough to make a difference.
31:37
So last year he was throwing similar to a Kevin Gosman splitter grip. So
31:41
he had these three fingers, so his middle finger, ring finger and pinky
31:45
on one side of the ball and on one side of the seam here like
31:48
this two seam, and then the ring finger was just forming a circle like
31:52
this, so he was holding it like this. These three fingers were all
31:55
the way up together like So all he did this year is he slid those
32:00
fingers over a little bit more and it's more of Honestly, this is a
32:04
change up. Now. I wouldn't even call this a splitter. He has
32:07
his ring finger on the outside of this seme here, his middle finger on
32:12
the inside of that seam, and his pinky's all the way up against that
32:15
rain finger and then he just does a circle change just like that, so
32:19
it's really a two seam change up. He just has that pinky up all
32:22
the way up, which is a little bit more unique, and he's at
32:24
a slight angle, so he can hook those seams a little bit. And
32:28
now it's just allowed him to kill the or kick the access a little bit
32:30
more sideways and the seams are just oriented a little bit better for him to
32:34
get a little bit more drop. So once again, subtle change that probably
32:37
didn't take him as long as a complete overhaul with a pitch to increase the
32:42
movement and still keep the feel of the pitch. So I thought it was
32:45
pretty cool. Like, you know, we talk about younger players all the
32:46
time having to make adjustments. They need to, you know, learn as
32:51
they get older, they need to mature, they need to do X,
32:52
Y and Z. But when you see a big leaguer who has had success
32:55
at the big league level and then maybe goes through you know, a rough
33:00
for a season, to see those types of guys make changes is really cool
33:02
because it's like, if a big leaguer thinks he needs to make changes,
33:07
needs to make adjustments, and is willing to make these grip changes, there's
33:08
no reason a high school or college kids shouldn't be doing whatever it takes to
33:12
take his game to the next level, whether it is pitch movement or velocity,
33:15
whatever it might be. I just think it's pretty incredible the data that
33:20
we have access to now and the interviews and everything involved with big leaguers that
33:24
we can learn so much and really get inside their process and what they're doing
33:29
and what they are trying to change and actively see how the results are showing
33:34
up as a result. So that's what I got on on how main changes
33:39
were the sweeper and the splitter did make change through the cutter movement. I
33:44
just unfortunately don't know what that change was, but I'm definitely going to be
33:46
on the hunt for that one. Yeah, that's super interesting. Did those
33:52
changes happen at the start of the twenty twenty four season or did he make
33:58
a couple adjustments throughout the season. I don't know exactly when they changed that,
34:04
but I'm pretty sure it's been the entire season he's had these grips because
34:07
it was because I found it from like an earlier like spring training, I
34:09
want to say, is where I found these So yeah, it's it's been
34:14
this whole season and it's been a nine day difference from a performance standpoint.
34:17
Awesome. And how about that the gyro slider slash cut up how's he how's
34:22
he? Is he using that as a swing in this right now or is
34:25
it more of just like a get back in the count type pitch. Yeah,
34:29
I mean he hardly ever throws it. It's like four percent of the
34:31
time, So I think it's just more of just a show me pitch for
34:35
leftiscause it's only the lefties. He doesn't throw it to righties. I think
34:37
it's just something to keep him honest, because he just he abuses sliders down
34:42
and in splitters away, and I think maybe if it's like a longer at
34:44
bat, or like you said, he's behind it's two to oh, he
34:46
can just throw something different from his fastball to get back in the count.
34:50
M Yeah, that's super interesting because when I was watching him a couple of
34:54
years ago, maybe even just a year ago, like his splitter wasn't really
34:59
like a go to pitch for him, and you know, it was very
35:01
very new and he would only use it against lefties like sometimes, and so
35:07
it's actually super interesting to see him like using that so much more this year.
35:13
Yeah, And it's not really a sween and mispitch even this year for
35:15
him, Like it's actually I think it's like below league average from a miss
35:19
percentage standpoint, but the contact is super weak and he's getting a ton of
35:22
ground balls. It's I think it's getting like sixty five percent ground balls,
35:25
which is super high. I don't know what average is four splitters, but
35:29
I just know in general, average ground ball rate in baseball is around forty
35:32
five percent. So he's getting sixty five percent ground balls with it. And
35:36
when the ball is put in play, generally speaking, it is pretty pretty
35:38
weak contact. So it's not his sween and mispitch. The sweeper is more
35:43
of that, but it's getting really good results nonetheless, And what's his biggest
35:49
in zone pitch was it? Is it the Is it the sinko? I'm
35:54
gonna guess it is, But why don't we take a look real quick?
35:59
Yeah? Here, yasa, Because when I was looking at him, it
36:04
felt like his sinco was just like it would move too much for him to
36:07
control, and so maybe he made an adjustment, and I guess like the
36:13
the less drop might have helped. But I thought that's why he always threw
36:19
the full scene was because the sinco was just so tough to control. Well,
36:22
he's not walking anybody this year, so I think we let me go
36:25
to twenty twenty four. Yeah, like, so his walk rate is four
36:35
point three percent this year, so he's literally not walking anybody. Big league
36:38
average is eight and a half percent. He's walking half the guys that the
36:43
major league average pitcher walks. Let's look at end zone sinker fifty three percent,
36:47
so that actually is a little bit lower, but his strike percentage is
36:51
super high. So in zone percentage is strictly just is the pitch in the
36:54
strike zone, regardless of whether it's called a ball or a strike. Average
36:58
is about fifty five fifty six percent for sinkers. He's at fifty three,
37:01
but his strike percentage is seventy percent. Average is around sixty four percent,
37:06
so it's super high. So that means he's getting swings outside of the strike
37:08
zone, which is really really good, So getting great results, not a
37:13
mis pitch, like fourteen percent, that's about average for a sinker. But
37:15
like, sinkers aren't designed to be mispitches or could get ground balls, and
37:19
he gets fifty five percent ground balls, which is pretty good. Then yeah,
37:22
come back to the splitter. Splitter sixty eight percent actually sixty eight point
37:25
five percent ground ball rate and a two point fifty nine expected WOEBA, which
37:30
is just absolutely phenomenal. And then you can see, like I said,
37:31
not allowed to miss twenty three percent average is actually thirty percent, So he's
37:36
below average on the miss on the miss percentage for changeups, but it's getting
37:38
super weak contact, which is just as you know, just as valuable.
37:43
Do you know if he is a big stuffless guy, like all of his
37:47
pitches grade out really well, that's a good question. I'll have to look
37:53
that up another time, but I'm gonna guess his sweeper definitely grades out well.
37:59
That's gonna be his high graded pitch without a dat if I were to
38:00
guess his splitter might be. But this yue is pitches are graded in relationship
38:07
to your primary fastball for him as a sinker, and the movement separation isn't
38:12
that much just because most guys that are sinker change up guys like it's really
38:15
hard to get a big movement gap in those pitches, especially when your sinker's
38:19
already down to zero inches of vertical break. But I would guess that his
38:22
sweeper grades out well, and his cutter actually probably grades out pretty well too.
38:25
M Yeah, yeah, I know that's interesting. I thought. Just
38:31
listening to his pitch characteristics, I feel like they're going to be too crazy.
38:36
And that's a good example of someone who's I might be wrong, but
38:39
someone who doesn't have like elite elite pitches, but just dominating right now,
38:45
maybe while you're maybe while you start talking about your next point view Naga,
38:47
I'll look it up on fangrafts real quick and see it is tough plus.
38:50
Okay, all right, sweet, well, I'm going to jump into my
38:54
lost point on Imonago. So he throws his four seam at about fifty eight
39:05
percent. I don't know if that's gone down or up by now, but
39:08
the second most used pitch is his splitter. At at the time, at
39:15
the time of this, when it was shown, it was at thirty two
39:19
percent usage rate, And so he's been using his splitter a ton. Obviously,
39:24
his four seame is go to, but his splitter is his next go
39:28
to, and so I wanted to show exactly how he throws it a couple
39:32
of his grips. Something that's super interesting is that he has a splitter,
39:38
but also he has a traditional change up. And I'm gonna call it traditional
39:44
because it's a traditional change up in Japan. But it's a really weird grip
39:47
that I never see in the US. And it's basically it's like a splitter,
39:53
but it's with your index and ring finger and your middle finger is just
39:59
like kind of floating. And so you know, when I played in Japan,
40:05
I played when I was really young, and this is the change up
40:07
that you're taught in Japan. It's there's no circle change, there's no pronate,
40:13
there's no like seam shift change ups, none of that. It's basically
40:17
you throw this change up where it's basically splitter with splitter with your index and
40:23
ring finger until you can throw a splitter, until you're big enough for your
40:30
fingers to spread enough to throw a splitter. But in Japan, he threw
40:36
this a lot and it was a really good pitch for him. I'm not
40:40
too sure if he throws it a lot now. It's kind of tough to
40:44
see the difference between the splitter and the change up, especially with this script.
40:49
I feel like the metrics will be pretty much the same. But yeah,
40:55
his split change is his pitch. And the interesting thing about his split
41:02
was that he throws it with the four seam grip, so he goes four
41:07
seam fastball right here, and his splitter he just splits it, and so
41:14
he throws it off the four seams, and I'm not too sure if that's
41:17
why it's so effective, and because like the rotation looks the same. I'm
41:22
not sure if the hitters can actually pick that up or not. But that's
41:27
how he throws it, and that's how he's getting all these like that's his
41:31
secondary weapon, and so I thought that was interesting how he had two grips
41:37
for two different change ups slash splitters, and that's pretty much his secondary go
41:44
to right now. Yeah, it is interesting. I've heard of a couple
41:49
guys doing that where they have two different grips depending on whether they want to
41:52
swing the miss or they want to strike for the pitch. Just what everyone
41:53
they have more feel for. But I don't know, I always thought that
41:57
was interesting. I can't say I ever did that. Did you ever play
42:00
around with different grips depending on like the counter situation. I always had a
42:06
really hard time throwing change ups and splitters, you know, like later on
42:10
my career when I discovered that you don't have to pronate on a change up,
42:16
and then my changer got a whole lot better. But most of my
42:21
career I was like, damn, I just got to grip the two seam
42:23
and pronate it, and I just don't like pronating. I'm a big supernata,
42:28
so it never really worked for me. I did mess around with splitters,
42:31
and I did work with a Japanese coach who he actually taught Singer his
42:40
ghost fork, and so I was working with him. He was with the
42:45
Rangers for a year, and something interesting about the splitter. He told me
42:52
that there are three ways to throw a splitter. So the first way is
42:55
to just split the two seams and throw it straight. You're just gonna throw
43:00
it straight right here. The second way is to hook a scene with your
43:06
index finger and try to spin it off that index finger. So if I'm
43:12
going right here, then I'll spin off the index finger right here. So
43:16
it's more of like a you want like armside type movement. You're trying to
43:22
spin it to go towards your arm side. And the last one, which
43:27
I've never actually seen, is the you're trying to hook it with your middle
43:34
finger and then you're trying to gyro it as you throw the splitter. And
43:38
I thought that was super interesting because in the US, like we never see
43:42
gyro splitters, you know, but in in Japan, like Sasaki, he
43:47
throws a gyro splitter, and you know, I'm sure we're gonna see a
43:52
lot of him in the coming years. But his splitter is absolutely nasty,
43:57
and so I think that's a hitch that it might it might make its way
44:01
to the US. But yeah, those are three ways to sort of split
44:06
up. The one where you hook the seam. Is that more for like
44:10
a pronator, because it seems like you would pronate that one to create that
44:14
spin. Is that right or no? Or is it more of just like
44:16
trying to kick it with your finger? I think I think yeah, it's
44:20
more of a more for the pronators. You're hooking it there and then I
44:23
feel like you can just throw it straight and try to get it to come
44:28
off your index finger. Yeah, but I think it'd definitely be better for
44:30
the pronators because they can just get right around it, like you. Yeah,
44:35
that makes sense. Yeah, perfect. You got anything else on the
44:40
split for him? No? I think that's it. Cool. Well,
44:47
I'll dive into my last point for mister Hawk, and I alluded to this
44:52
a second ago, but he has made some mechanical changes. His release height
44:58
is different and his delivery is to So we'll start with looking at the release
45:05
height difference, and it's actually a pretty substantial change. So twenty twenty three,
45:10
here this top column twenty twenty four, where it says r ELZ that's
45:15
released Z. That is release height, and it's in inches. So in
45:19
twenty twenty three he averaged sixty three point six inches five feet three inches essentially
45:23
or five feet four inches right around there. This year he is averaging five
45:28
foot seven inches, so three inch difference or sorry, four inch difference close
45:31
to it in release height from release X. So this is how far away
45:37
from the center of the rubbers he're releasing the ball. It's a negative number
45:40
because that is from the middle of the rubber moving in the direction of third
45:44
base. It would be a positive number if it was towards first base.
45:46
So for him, last year, he was at thirty five inches away from
45:50
the center of the rubber towards third base at release. This year he's only
45:53
at twenty eight inches, so a seven inch difference in that release side in
45:58
a four inch difference in release height. I'll pull up some videos so you
46:01
can kind of get an idea on this. Okay, so this one on
46:07
the left is from last year. Just watch his delivery. I'll just play
46:12
this full speed to start. Sorry if there's sound, I'm not sure how
46:15
to mute this. But you can see pretty much, you know, like
46:22
you said, crossbody goes over the head, pretty smooth, devery, I'm
46:27
not seeing the video. Oh you can't see it. No, it's still
46:30
the okay, let me try to change that. Then, all right,
46:40
do over. I'm glad you stopped me. Share a screen, entire screen.
46:47
We'll just do that, how about now? Yeah, that's good.
46:55
Okay, So one on the left is last season. I'll play the full
47:00
speed and you'll just be able to see how he goes over the head,
47:01
throws crossbody. Okay, now this season so similar, but he doesn't go
47:19
over his head anymore so, no more over the head. We can see
47:22
stays right about there, go up a little bit more so, he brings
47:25
it up to his head as he goes into leg left. This one on
47:29
the left goes up overhead before going into his delivery. Pretty far a crossbody.
47:36
Probably about the same, i'd say, maybe a little bit more last
47:38
year, but about the same. Yeah, I would say maybe a hair
47:43
more, but release height is definitely different. So it's a four inch difference
47:49
from last year to this year. And the reason why his release side is
47:52
different is number one, the release height is hirghed, so when the release
47:55
he's higher, your side release is going to be a little bit different.
47:59
But he also he made a subtle change where he stands on the rubber.
48:01
So last year, as you can see as he goes into this, if
48:05
you look at his back foot here towards the first base side of the rubber,
48:09
but most of his foot is still on the rubber. When we look
48:14
at this year, he is shading over towards first base much more. So,
48:19
not much of a difference, but I would say probably a four inch
48:22
difference. Three four inch difference on where he's staying on the rubber. He's
48:24
more towards first base now than last year. And what's cool about this or
48:29
what's good about this is it helps him against left handed batters. So we
48:32
talked about the pitch move, we talked about the usage. That's one way
48:35
to optimize how you get lefties out. So let me take my screen off
48:39
now. But the other thing to consider is horizontal approach angle actually plays a
48:46
really big factor into how effective you are against righties versus lefties as well,
48:50
and that's going to go into your pitch shapes, but also where you stand
48:52
on the rubber and your release height is going to play into the horizontal approach
48:57
angle. Against righty's, it's advantageous to be on the third base side,
49:01
to release on the third base side, because that pitch such when he throws
49:04
a sweeper is starting behind him and it's running away from him. Sinkers,
49:07
it's going to start at an angle behind him, going towards home plate and
49:12
then running back towards the batter. Very uncomfortable a that for a right on
49:15
right guy. For a guy has a lower slot throwing towards the third base
49:19
side, but when he's facing a lefty and he does that, they can
49:22
just see the ball traveling towards them for so long. That's why they're so
49:25
effective against right handed pitchers lefty batters. It's just because they're able to see
49:30
the ball so much longer. So a way to combat that is to stand
49:34
further on the first base side when you're facing lefties. Now he's not changing
49:37
from batter to batter some guys do do that. He's not. But what
49:40
I would suggest for guys like him is to do exactly what he's doing.
49:45
Try to favor that first base side of the rubber all the time, just
49:47
because you're still going to be super effective against same sided hitters because he still
49:52
has a lower slot, he's still going cross body like. It's still gonna
49:54
be uncomfortable at that, but now he's neutralizing his effectiveness against lefties a little
50:00
little bit more so it's not as severe of a platoon split against lefties compared
50:04
to rieties. So that's, you know, just another subtle change, right,
50:07
Like a lot of these changes that he's made are really in his control,
50:10
like he can decide where he stands on the rubber. You know,
50:13
obviously he made some sort of mechanical change to change his release height. Pitch
50:17
usage is completely in your control Like that one is just simple, simply throw
50:22
this pitch or don't throw this pitch. The one thing where he had to
50:24
make really active changes along with mechanics, of course, is the pitch movement.
50:29
He did have to make some sort of change with that, but those
50:30
were very subtle changes. And you make all these subtle changes and you add
50:35
them all up and you're looking at, you know, one of the front
50:37
runners for the Scian Award this year, just by making all these little adjustments
50:40
that have now made him super super effective. Yeah, that's super interesting.
50:46
Why do you think he went a little bit more towards first base side,
50:51
especially because his cross body, right, I feel like if he would wanted
50:54
to increase command and that was his focus, then maybe he would like stay
51:00
towards a little bit of the middle of the rubber and straighten out a stride
51:04
a little bit or something like that. I feel like it was because that's
51:07
that's what I did when I was struggling with command and I was on the
51:13
very far left side of the rubber. I was on the first base side
51:16
of the rubber and pretty much on my toes were on the rubber and I
51:22
would throw and I was super crossbody. What I got told was, Hey,
51:25
like, let's try to get you a little bit across on the plate
51:30
and try to get you a little bit more straighter to the plate. Do
51:34
you have any guesses as to why he made that adjustment. Well, let
51:37
me verify first. So you moved to the middle of the rubber, you
51:42
moved to the third base side of the rubber. I kept I kept creeping
51:46
towards the third base side just so that I would straighten out. Okay,
51:52
So the goal was, Okay, if I keep sliding over towards third base,
51:54
you're gonna stop throwing severely crossbody because your direction will be going towards the
52:00
dugout essentially, so like it subconsciously will help you straighten out your stride exactly.
52:05
Yeah, Okay, Yeah, I mean I definitely can see the logic
52:08
behind it, for sure. I think in Tanner's situation, his wasn't necessarily
52:14
a command issue because even though he has reduced his walks this year, he
52:17
didn't walk a lot of guys last year, like he was league average.
52:20
He had a like an eight and a half percent walk right, So like
52:22
he didn't have an issue throwing strikes. It was more so just his effectiveness
52:25
against left He's lefties just teed off on him. He gave up a lot
52:29
of damage, hard contact, so he needed to find a way to get
52:32
weaker contact and miss more bats. And he's done that. He's been able
52:36
to induce much weaker contact. So I think that's, at least from my
52:38
mind, it makes sense why he moved more towards the first base side because
52:43
coming back to the horizontal approach angles, he's now able to start those pitches
52:47
more over the plate or more towards the bat or rather than it being coming
52:51
from the third base angle. It still is, of course because of his
52:54
how far across body he is and how low his slot is, but it's
52:59
at least a little bit better, and every every little inch matters, right,
53:01
And he made what did I say, like a seven inch difference,
53:04
So that's actually quite a bit seven inch difference in his release side, and
53:07
that's just allowing him to be more effective along with optimizing pitch usage and the
53:10
locations and movement of his pitches. Mmm. Yeah, that's interesting because you
53:15
said that his release height got a lot higher, right, Mm hm,
53:21
that's that's an interesting one that I'm not really I'm trying to get my head
53:25
around it because I feel like his stuff would have like got in a little
53:30
bit worse if he did he did that, because no sinca movement went down.
53:36
I guess like the angle got a little bit better. But what do
53:38
you got on that? So that's all I was gonna say, right,
53:42
So, like movements movement is important. To look at it by itself,
53:45
there's there's something you can get from it, but knowing the relationship between the
53:50
release height is super important as well. So yeah, even though the sinker
53:54
is moving was like I think I said, like one point four inches less
53:58
than last year, it's actually relativeatively moving more because his release height is four
54:01
inches higher. So coming back to what you were talking about with Emanaga,
54:05
with vertical approach angle, it's the exact opposite with sinkers. Compared to four
54:08
seam fastballs four seemers, you want to be flat and if I throw it
54:13
higher in the zone, it's going to be flatter. If I have a
54:15
low release height with good carry, it's going to be even flatter and it
54:16
has that ride carry effect to where it just looks like the ball is just
54:21
rising on the batter. With sinkers, it's the opposite. If you have
54:23
higher slots with low vertical breaks, so more sink you know, throw at
54:27
the bottom of the zone, that pitch is going to be super steep coming
54:30
downwards towards the bottom of the zone. So him raising his arm slot by
54:34
four inches already makes it a steeper angle. If the pitch stays the same
54:37
from a movement standpoint. Now he lost one point four inches, but that
54:42
trade off of four inches and release height is still worth it, and he's
54:44
still able to get even more of a steeper approach with that pitch. And
54:49
that's another thing. Like the splitter. He improved the splitter change up whatever
54:52
you want to call it, by four inches. He has four more inches
54:54
of depth now and he has a four inch lower or higher release height,
54:59
which is just really incredible. So now that splitter is even more affected than
55:01
last year, regardless of the vertical break dropping. But now you add four
55:06
more inches of drop from four inches to have a release height, and that's
55:07
why it's getting really really good results from a groundball standpoint. M that's interesting.
55:14
Yeah, I think the track man needs to you know, maybe the
55:17
track men numbers don't show everything sometimes and that's something that I learned a little
55:22
bit later in my career. But yeah, that's that's super interesting. Yeah,
55:29
that was great. I enjoyed this. I think this is something we
55:31
might have to do moving forward and dive into some guys. I think this
55:35
was really helpful. I learned some stuff about Imanaga and obviously how because I
55:38
did some research on this that hopefully can can help some players. I think
55:43
we give some pretty good helpful insights on both these guys. Yeah for sure.
55:49
Awesome. All right, Well that's it for this episode. See you
55:51
guys next week.