Rates & Barrels - Balancing Present Needs with Major League Development

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Eno, DVR, and Jed discuss baseball's annual celebration of Jackie Robinson Day, before examining the Cubs' decision to demote Matt Shaw at Triple-A, the challenge of balancing present needs with long-term player development, and expectations for a trio of fast-starting starting hitters - including Ben Rice, Spencer Torkelson, and Tyler Soderstrom. Rundown 1:44 Baseball Celebrates Jackie Robinson Day 5:53 Matt Shaw Optioned to Triple-A 10:10 An Unusually Closed Stance & Foot Position 16:52 What Is Fixable at MLB Level, What Requires a Demotion? 22:00 Cam Smith & Aggressive Timetables 31:05 Player Development Is Not Linear: Ben Rice v. Tyler Soderstrom v. Spencer Torkelson 49:05 Best Bet for Long-Term Success? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Jed Lowrie Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cashback, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Uniqlo, Best Buy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Rakuten.ca. ["Rakuten Theme Song"] Welcome to Rates and Barrels to Wednesday, April 16 16th, Derek Van Riper, Inosaris, Jed Lowry here with you.

On this episode we discuss Major League Baseball's celebration of Jackie Robinson Day, that went down on Tuesday. We are going to dig into player development in the sense of getting timing right and filling your needs as an organization with young players, trying to decide if they're ready, if they can solve their problems in the big leagues. And we planned this show before we knew that the Cubs were going to send Matt Shaw down to AAA, although Jed had an inkling that Matt Shaw might need a reboot when this season began. We'll dig into that in just a little while. We also have a trio of young first basemen putting together great starts to this season.

We're going to dig into how they got to this point, what kinds of changes they've made and try to figure out how sustainable those adjustments might be. I feel like I've been promoted to the big leagues, Jed. I'm wearing AirPods. I don't have two flaps anymore. I don't have the giant headphones I've been wearing for the last seven years. I don't know how to take that, right? Because I feel like the double flap was my signature in the last seven years. I don't know how to take that right because I feel like the double flap was my signature in the big league so I don't know if that's a direct affront to me or I'm happy you've stepped into the 21st century. I've never thought about the flaps until you mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. Yeah you're right it is a single flap league it's

just just the way it goes but that's how those details go sometimes but yeah I do feel like I'm part of the 21st century now. I'm feeling really good. So of course, April 15th every year is the day in which major league baseball honors Jackie Robinson for breaking MLB's color barrier back in 1947. And I've used this day for the last several years just to read different stories, to learn more about Jackie's life and his career. And I think every year there's some aspect of his life that I learned something about.

I read a great piece from Justin Tinsley of Anscape yesterday about how this year's Jackie Robinson Day has been a little bit different. And Justin did a great job making the connection between Jackie's military service, which I had known about. I know he's court-martialed and was acquitted. And I didn't realize that the timing of the executive order that integrated the armed forces was a year after Jackie's big league debut. Right. I just had never really made the connection of that timing and history before. So that was something that that I had kind of learned from reading Justin's piece.

But, Jed, you had a chance to play on several Jackie Robinson days. And I imagine of the days in which you stop and honor people in baseball history, that has to be one of the most special days putting on that number 42 uniform. No doubt about it. I looked forward to it every year. I try to think about the situations that he was put into as a man and as a as a baseball player. It overwhelms me sometimes to think about the things that that he had to endure to, you know, be ultimately the guy that that we will remember as the guy that broke the color barrier. And just like I said, it was an honor to put on 42 every year.

guy that broke the color barrier. And just like I said, it was an honor to put on 42 every year. I was reading a story by Mike Ryoko about his time as a kid in the fans. And he was there the day that Jackie Robinson made his debut in Wrigley. And that's the only part left that, that Robinson actually played in. And he just had a little vignette. I mean, some of it's just about being a fan and what it was like to be in the stadium during that time. And he ends up getting a grounder,

getting a foul ball from Jackie Robinson and giving it to, or selling it to this black man that was really touched by the moment. But this is, I tend to think a lot about what it must've been like to be the only black man in baseball and this thing stood out from microcos piece for talking about. Robinson played first and early in the game a cub star hit a grounder and it was a close play just before the cub reached first he swerved to his left and he got to the bag he seemed to slam his foot down hard at Robinson's foot. to the bag, he seemed to slam his foot down hard at Robinson's foot. It was obvious to everyone that he was trying to run into him and spike him. Robinson took the throw and got clear at the last instant. He was saying as a kid, I was shocked. That cub, a home

time boy, was my biggest hero. It was not only an unheroic stunt, it seemed a rude thing to do in front of people who cheer for a foul ball. I didn't understand why he'd done it. It wasn't at all big league. That's the kind of stuff he had to endure. And that was day in and day out. You know, that was just the first day. You know? And then, you know, extend that to the verbal, you know, abuse that he likely endured.

And not likely, like did endure, right? And so not only was he fighting on the field, he was fighting off the field for what was the right thing. Like I said, it really makes me stop and think, and like I said, just an honor to put that on, to give tribute to a man who means so much to more than the game. And hopefully a day that will continue to grow

in importance each year as we continue to celebrate every year on April 15th. Let's move on to some other baseball news you should know. The Cubs optioned Matt Shaw to triple A on Tuesday. I didn't know you had a prediction going into the season, Jed, but you had some concerns about Shaw's ability to stick right away as the Cubs' primary third baseman. I've seen a lot of people wonder, like,

okay, this is a really busy swing. Is this going to work as it is currently constructed? Unless you were grinding minor league video, you maybe hadn't seen Matt Shaw swing a bat in person before or on video before his arrival to the big leagues. He was part of that Tokyo series. You know, I mentioned he was hitting fifth for the Cubs in those two games, got dropped to the bottom third of the order in the few weeks since then. And we're going

to play the swing if you're watching on YouTube you know it's unusual for a lot of different reasons you visually will see it but we noticed a few things like for as busy as Matt Shaw's swing is it's more than two and a half miles an hour slower than a league average swing in what we've seen so far we're talking about 88 competitive swings, but just quantifying it. You see feet that are very close together, 19.6 inches apart, league average is 30. Two degrees closed stance, league average is 10 degrees open. It's one of the 15th most closed stance in the big leagues.

It's one of the 10 furthest from the plate. So he's setting up further from the plate from anybody, more closed than anybody. And that becomes pretty immediately, actually something you can see. You know, he's very closed and very far from the plate. And Tango actually came out with some stuff saying that closer to the plate was good,

but almost the closest you could get to the plate. That was almost a linear relation. It was like, the closer you were to the plate, the better. almost the closest you could get to the plate. That was almost a linear relation. It was like the closer you were to the plate, the better. But of course that's a little bit different. If you're Elliott De La Cruz, who's one of the other guys who's furthest from the plate, Elliott De La Cruz is six foot six. Matt Shaw is five foot 10.

So he should probably be closer to the plate. I don't know. There's a lot of things that I see that stand out, but what were you saying about Jed about his shoulders in particular? That swing, right, and that pitch in particular, I think it is important to point out that none of this stuff happens in a vacuum, right?

And so that slider right there is set up by a lot of other pitches. You can tell by his reaction, he's thinking about guarding the fastball in right there and then the slider away he just becomes more more vulnerable to. And I think it is important to point out that this is a guy who is highly talented, highly athletic, and has found a way to perform at every level. And this is the hardest part about the big leagues, right? Is that the execution rate at the major league level

is the best in the world. That's the whole point. And I think that he got exposed to major league pitching and he has the opportunity now to go down, make some adjustments, the swing in and of itself. You know, I think it's more of a setup Timing and you know commitment than necessarily a full overhaul because I think you know Once you start once you start, you know pushing at one block, right?

Like this is this is Jenga the whole thing could crumble down, right? So I think it's I think it's minor adjustments that he has to make I think I would love to look at a few more swings from the side and see how much momentum he is creating as opposed to torque. Just based on that slider swing, I would assume he would say that's not his A swing. But I do think that he's creating a lot of momentum towards the pitcher with his hips as opposed to creating more torque with his core which I think is a far more efficient and repeatable swing to have positive production day in and day out.

We have some evidence of what you're talking about here. Here's his stance, how his feet are. So you can see how closed he is. And then the red is where his feet are when the ball intercept happens. And that just to me looks like, first of all, his center of mass is drifting forward 10 to 12 inches, like a full foot, because you can see the red line

is where his center of mass is to begin. And just by doing the math, you can see he's moving forward, his center mass is moving 10 or 12 inches forward. So that's a big step forward. His foot in between is going almost over the plate. So it's this large sort of rotational, drifty step forward. And I don't know, like if you just put your feet down, like the way that they are in red on this, and try to cover the outside part of the plate plate I think you're just always lunging at the outside part of

the plate. And I would say you know the foot pattern here on that photo I think is could be telling but I also think that it really it highly depends to me on that like the hip movement and how much how much he's committed to the swing before he's actually recognized a pitch right before he's committed to the swing before he's actually recognized a pitch, right, before he's even seen the pitch. That sort of foot movement alone is not problematic necessarily. It could be, right, but once again,

like these things aren't in a, to me they aren't in a vacuum. And I think the timing of it is important, and I think it depends on how much he's committed his center of mass before he's decided to swing, right? And so I think it's a large stance, so the risk is really high for him to not be able to control that momentum moving forward, right?

Because once that momentum is committed forward, it's really hard to stop your hands. So I think that if he's gonna have a big stride like that, which I think you can have success that way, and I think you're gonna create a lot more bat speed that way, but it has to be done to me in a way that is creating torque to create the bat speed as opposed to momentum.

Because I think if you're just creating the momentum, you are exposing yourself to fastballs in and sliders away. And I think if you look at the last few weeks, as this is played out, any pitch that wasn't a fastball on the black or in off the plate, or a slider that started middle away and ended off the plate was a mistake.

And so I think that with his swing, the way it is and the timing of his swing, I think that he's starting to feel exposed and I think that that is showing up in the swings that he's taking because he feels exposed based on the execution that's happening at the major league level because these guys just don't miss as much over the plate

as they do in the minor leagues. I have to say, I'm a little worried that there's this combination of this large step and things that you might say would be to create bat speed. It's like if I saw somebody that had a big bat rap, you know, so he has ninth percentile bat speed. It's like if I saw somebody that had a big bat rap, so it's like, you know, pointing the bat really forward to the pitcher, making a big long swing, right, to get more bat wrap. So it was like, you know, pointing the bat really forward to the pitcher, making a big long swing, right? To get more bat speed. And they still had ninth percentile bat speed,

then I'd be worried, right? So it's like, when I see this big step here, and that's ninth percentile bat speed, it doesn't look like it. I know that looks like a fast bat to me. But like, you know, when it comes down to actually tracking swings, that's where the worry comes for me. That's something that we don't have access to if we're trying to analyze prospects, teams do, but we don't have access to bat speed. That could be a crucial part of the analysis, I think. I'm not saying that bat speed is everything, but when you put the bat speed here in the

context of a large swing, you're like, uh-oh. What are you doing this large swing for if it's not giving you the bat speed here in the context of a large swing. Totally. Uh-oh. Yep. What are you doing this large swing for if it's not giving you the bat speed you need? Or is it getting you this much bat speed and it's gonna be worse if you quiet it down? That's the Jenga, right? What if he starts quieting it down

and now I have 65 mile per hour bat speed, which is not viable in the major leagues? I think where the scouting comes in though is something that Jed was hitting on. It's the wasted energy, the wasted momentum, right? Correct. I think it's very hard for me at least to sit here and say, ah, he can't generate bat speed without that leg kick, without that movement.

I think based on the way Shaw has been described by scouts, he's often described as twitchy and explosive. That to me suggests that he has enough strength to generate maybe even more bat speed than he has. And this could be the mechanical flaw causing that bat speed to be as low as it is rather than functional athleticism. To add on top of that, I think it's a mentality too, right? Like I talked about being exposed.

And when you feel exposed, you become more defensive. And when you become more defensive, your bat speed goes down because you're just trying to hit the ball, right? You're shortening up or whatever. Shortening his swing now because he feels exposed. And he's like, I just got to hit the ball. They're not missing, right?

Like it's like, he's likely used to seeing more mistakes over the plate that just haven't happened, and they won't happen at the major league level because if that pitcher doesn't execute, he's being sent down, you know? And so the execution that happens at the major league level, it's like nothing he's ever seen before. And so the mistakes that he's used to being able to dominate, he's not seeing anymore. And so I think that for me, it's a reset in, you know, mentality.

It's like, all right, take a deep breath. Let's get more efficient with how we're going to deliver the power that he clearly has, right? Like that. You don't fool somebody with the, you know, production and or athleticism that you have at the minor leagues or even in amateur baseball. But now it's about being able to deliver that

in an efficient way every day at the major league level. You know, I think what is interesting, the cryon is telling me something. It's saying what is fixable at the MLB level and what requires a demotion. I think in this case, I think a demotion was the right move because this may be the first time that Shaw has struggled like this. Now it's not the same for everybody because Wyatt Langford, I was just talking about this

where I was like, you know, you won the perfect game home run derby. Like you were the perfect prospect. Like you were, you did everything. You went to the big college and you destroyed college pitching and you never really struggled until you got to the major leagues and last April and that was the first time you got punched in the mouth and even then he was like, he was still like, you know, walking and not striking out. He just wasn't hitting for power. He found some tweaks. He stood more upright. He made some changes.

He made those at the major level. And they must have spotted something in their conversations with him or their aptitude for making changes, his willingness to make changes. So you will have guys who come up and have been coached by their father or by their college coach, whatever, have

only had success, tear through the minor leagues. And then I don't want to say they're uncoachable, but they just they're like, Hey, man, I know what it works for me. You know, it's worked this whole time. They get to the major leagues, they get punched in the mouth and they maybe say, Okay, now what you got? They're like more of a susceptible to the coaching after that. The only characteristic that I look for or that I, even as a teammate, right? Like watching a young player is resilience because you are going to fail at the major league level.

Nobody goes out, nobody goes through a major league career or even a season without failing and having a year where you feel like you're doing everything the same and you're not getting the same results, right? Or you come up and you're not ready or there's an execution and fewer mistakes that you're used to taking advantage of.

And so to me, the resilience of the player, of the individual is important as almost anything else. Like I said, you are gonna get punched in the mouth. You are going to fail. And to quote my college coach, anybody can play this game when it's going well, right? And you find out who you really are as a person, as a player, when it's not going your way.

How do you balance that idea of resilience with what I was talking about in terms of being open-minded for coaching? Like, couldn't you be almost too resilient where you're like, nope, I'm cool. I've been doing it this way for, you know, 10 years or six years or eight years. I've been successful all this time.

I know this, this is just a short term pain and I will come out victorious on the end. You could be too resilient. Is that possible? Like just be like, there's nothing I need to change here. There has to be a moment where you're like, maybe I need to change something. How do you manage that moment?

I would say resilience is different than stubbornness, right? Where like, if you are so stubborn that you're not going to, you know, face reality and look at things that you have, you need to do, right, to get better, then yeah, like this wouldn't be the first time that that's happened, right? Where someone, someone, you know, has gone and said like, no, this is the way I've always done it. I'm not going to make any adjustments.

That's somebody who, you know, you wish, wish them the best. But I think resilience to me is different right? Resilience is like even if you get knocked down it's getting back up right? So it's the willingness and not only the willingness but the ability to recognize when you have to make an adjustment or when you have to make a change that will give you the opportunity to produce. I would view resilience as different than stubbornness.

Resilience is more to me like a willingness to go through the process and know that whatever happens you're going to address it. And that's where I always got my confidence. I knew that I was prepared for whatever today brought me, but tomorrow I knew whether the outcome was good or bad, I was going to be better because of it. I was ready for the moment, but I was always forward thinking. And that's what gave me my confidence is I knew I was going to take whatever lesson, good or bad or indifferent from today and be better tomorrow because of it.

I think that becomes even more difficult though when you get to the top level, especially if you're there for the first time and you know you're being judged on a day to day sort of basis. We're talking about 68 plate appearances for Shaw to be demoted. And we're gonna expand the conversation beyond Matt Shaw.

I mean, we talked all spring about Cam Smith and Christian Campbell and guys that have been pushed pretty aggressively. Campbell played well at every stop last year, so I think his ascent to the big leagues is more in the current prove it at every level and get the opportunity. Whereas Cam Smith and the Astros are doing something we've seen the Angels have done. They're being very aggressive. This is a guy that was drafted last summer, barely played in the minor leagues. They acquired him in the Kyle Tucker trade and now he's out there. I would

say holding his own. I think how you define success is going to vary depending on the point of the career you're in. For Cam Smith, he's 47 played appearances in, 25% K rate, 214, 298, 333 line, 89 WRC plus. He's surviving. you can have a player like that in the bottom 30 year lineup as long as you like the quality of the at bats like the swing decisions you don't feel like he's overmatched and losing confidence and I think that's probably the difference is if you feel like that player is grinding and not coming back with the right mental space to get back into their old productive ways, then I think that's when you make that demotion decision. So how do you balance the patience that you want to have, like getting the timing right of a promotion and team needs because the Astros clearly needed to give Cam Smith an opportunity to begin this season. I would say so far it's going well enough to keep going with it.

And this is a guy that they traded one of the, you know, better hitters in the league to acquire Cam Smith. They're clearly building their future around this kid. And by all accounts, that's a smart decision, you know, for a 22 year old to come up with a total of, you know, how many at bats in the, you know, in the minor leagues to expect him to come out and Be a dominant force. I think that would be unfair by all of us to expect that out of him

If it happens, he's you know, it's like savant right competing against the best in the world as a 22 year old In and of itself is impressive and you know, kind of holding, you know, holding your own. But once again, I think it's it's taking the lessons from today and finding a way to improve them to, to be even more prepared tomorrow. I would say that, you know, Cam is doing a good job. I have, I need, I should probably watch some more of his at bats, but I just think, you know, objectively looking at the numbers, I think he's showing

that he's got the ability to do it. He's obviously done that in in spring training at the minor leagues. He's a young kid that's going to have to continue to make these adjustments as well. And we talked about this, it just depends on where the organization is and the timing. And you know, if they're going to let you know how confident they are in the kid's personality to let him fail, how does that affect the kid and the mentality moving forward? Yeah, I mean, it seems like things have changed so much

though since you were coming up in Boston. I'm looking at your minor league stats and, there was no reason to slow you down. I mean, your first level above league average right off the bat at 22 in high a 2007, your 49% better than league average, but you still got 408 plate appearances in AA. I feel like in today's game, that's when you debut is 2007 after, I don't know, 200, 300 played appearances a double a where you're 49% better in the average and then major league team is like hey, what why is he there?

Let's have him up in the big leagues But no you finished 400 played appearances in 2007 and double a then started triple a got 177 and then you got another 234. So you got 400 plate appearances at every level before you debuted with Boston. And I just feel like, you know, because the minor leagues is smaller, because of some of these rules that incentivize, hey, if you are, you know, in the major leagues and you get a top three finish in the rookie of the year, like there's incentives for the teams, you know, because the minor leagues are smaller, just in general, I think that we also think that we can like know how good a player is a little bit better, you know, because now we say, oh, we're tracking his bat speed, we know this, we know this. It's

like with pitch grades, we know his stuff plus, so you know, he's ready for the big leagues or he's not. But you know, I do see some players, especially on the pitching side, I see young pitchers come up who've, you know, all their stuff, all their stuff plus is optimized, but they don't really know how to put together their arsenal in a competitive environment where the win is all that matters, you know? So I do wonder, there's this balance between like, developing them, but they're developing in a space where the win doesn't matter. So they're developing sometimes in a space where it's like, hey, how good were my exit velocities today? How good were my launch angles?

Did I get some blasts? You know, all that stuff. Did I do the right stuff? Plus, you know, and then you get to the big leagues and it's like, no, you have to battle. So I wonder if you think we're losing something a little bit by rushing these kids or if really the big leagues is where you need to figure it all out anyway. What isn't, you know, wrapped up in those like overall statistics is my first year in double or my year in double a the first month of the season.

I think I was hitting 150. And so I went through a period of like, you know, objective failure, right, where it was like, I remember specifically my double a manager, Arnie Baylor, having a team meeting and talking about, you know, where we were. And, you know, we were not performing well as a team either, right? And I think Arnie was very much a guy that he wanted to win. And so I think there was this balance, more of a balance then too, of you know, winning at the minor league league level and especially with the prospects that we had on that team.

It was like learning how to play together, learning how to win. And I remember specifically in this meeting, he was talking about the quote unquote scholarship, right? Where we had some bonus babies on that team and I think that bought some of us more runway to fail, but I remember specifically, and it felt like he was talking directly to me, even though it was the group, where it was like that scholarship doesn't last forever. So like I said, I remember, I don't know how many at bats it was to start the year,

but it had to have been at least 100, maybe a few more, where I was not in a good place. And you know, thinking to myself like, gosh, I don't know if this is right for me. Like I don't know if I'm good enough to do this. And even in A-ball, right? Like I remember looking in the mirror a couple times, waking up like, I don't know if this lifestyle

is right for me. I don't know if this is too hard for me because you go to your first even minor league season and you are playing every single day. Yeah, it's not like college at all. College is like, I play on the weekends. Literally, and you're like going back to your dorm and hanging out with your buddies.

Like this is, you know, minor league dudes who they're all there because they all, you know, have the opportunity to play in the major leagues and, you know, make a career out of it and do something very cool and very fun. And it's ultra competitive. Like I said, I had multiple moments, particularly my first full season in Wilmington. And then the next year in AA, I got hurt and missed a fair amount of time my first year or my first full

season. But I remember specifically, like I said, I got hurt and missed a fair amount of time my first year or my first full season But I remember specifically I said I don't think I'll ever forget that team meeting where you know Arnie was telling us that you know, your scholarship doesn't last forever that you have to start producing You know, I work through some struggles in the minor leagues Learning how to perform day in and day out. That's just a good reminder that player development is not linear. I think we want every player to come into the minor leagues, figure out each level, be above average, well above average at every level, come to the big leagues, and figure it out quickly. And that's not what happens. The fail points are all over the place for a variety of different reasons with extra variables like health folded in.

And I think minor league injuries are still pretty under reported. Not a lot of full time beat writers covering teams in the minors. So that information ends up staying between player and organization. Maybe in some cases players are keeping to themselves because they're just trying to survive every day. Yeah, there's a Stanford player who had surgery that it's not been reported. Nobody knows that there's a Stanford player who's had surgery. I don't even know because he's from Palo Alto. It's very strange.

It happens sometimes, right? So I just think we all need to continually recalibrate our own expectations. And I think what happens to me at least is when I see a great group of rookies Come in a couple guys that hit the ground running figure it out quickly in their rookie season I think it can subconsciously elevates Expectations for the next group and it's not fair because everybody is on their own timetable So we're gonna take a look at three hitters that I think kind of illustrate this pretty effectively.

We had a mailbag question earlier in the week in our discord. We're going to fold a bunch of names in here. We want to talk about Ben Rice, Tyler Soderstrom and Spencer Torkelson. And you have two first rounders, a guy and Torkelson went 1-1 and then Rice being the completely unique player of the bunch, just the late rounder out of Dartmouth, he was a 12th round pick in 2021. A guy that by where he was drafted rarely makes the big leagues, right? Expectations are about as low as they can be once you're a 12th round draft pick. And all three of these guys are clicking right now.

Torkelsens had success in the big leagues before second half of 2023 was phenomenal. That whole season was solid overall, but he really kind of figured it out. It seemed like then took a step back in 2024. Looks like maybe he's made some more adjustments. So where do we want to begin here? You know, who is the most intriguing to you of this group as far as changes they've made since we saw them a year ago? You know, to some extent I was surprised when I was looking at the stats for these guys that they haven't really, as a group, done anything that's really obviously different.

Like their ground ball, fly ball mixes are not that different from last year. Their chase rates are not that different. If anything, I could say that they've gotten a little better at hitting the ball hard in the air. One thing that two of these guys have in common though, Ben Rice and Spencer Torklson both opened up more. And I wanted to ask Jed about this

because if you look here at Spencer Torklson's feet with the stance tool that they've got, he's further back, although the back foot is, that's illegal, but he's closed his stance up a little bit and he's more open. You can actually click when you're, you should check this stuff out. It's kind of cool. But if you, if you click along, you can see the feet move and for both Torkelson and Rice, their feet end in the same place they did last year.

It is beginning a different place. And so I wanted to ask, you know, Jed, like what do you think of like when somebody's opening up but they still sort of landed in the same place, what are they trying to do? Are they trying to put more eyes on the ball? Like are they trying to just see it better? They trying to create momentum one way or another?

What do you think of when somebody's opening up just generally? There could be a number of different reasons why you would do it, but, and this goes back to that, you know, the Jenga block, right? There's all these interconnected things that like you make one adjustment and it affects something else. But I think with Torkelsen in particular, I got to imagine that, you know, he probably feels like a little bit more of an open stance, in my estimation allows his hips to clear a little bit more, right? And so as long as, as long as he's able to stay on plane, right, meaning create a good, you know, entry point

to the ball and like be efficient to the ball. If you can clear your hips a little bit more and create more of the torque, then you're going to increase your bat speed. You're going to increase the time that you can actually let the ball travel. So you're seeing the ball better. Your chase rate in theory would go down. Like I said, there could be a lot of things and speculating, it would be, you know, to open up would be to clear your hips a little bit more and try to create a little bit more torque for Torkelson. Aptly named. But you know, one thing that's true about all these guys is premium bat speed

that they've sort of capitalized on better this year. So it's tempting to want to like be like, ah, this is the thing that made them break out, you know? And so, you know, I want to be like, oh, they both opened up, but you know, Soderstrom didn't open up. He's got the same stance that he had before. And to some extent, I think it's maybe maybe it's about like finding the A swing time to do the A swing. So some of it might be anticipation of like, oh, I know now what pitchers are trying to do to me.

And so therefore I know when to put the A swing off because all these guys have premium bat speed. And to some extent, this was predictable. Torkelson to me, I don't know what your read is on him, it's just been really up and down and it's been streaky to the, to the nth degree. I mean, he had that great second half in 2023, where he ends up with 31 homers and then 2024

he hits 219 with 10 homers in 381 play appearances and it's just seems completely lost. And I, I don't know how someone can look as good as he looks at times and look as bad as he looks at times. This as bad as he looks at times. This game is hard and it's constant adjustment. I'll refer back to my point of resilience, right? And I think there's a maturation process, right? Like he comes in in 2023. Granted, you know, 2022, he had a lot of at bats.

He clearly made an adjustment to be able to hit more home runs. But you know, still, it's not like he had like he had, he still got, it looks like he got on bases, his on base percentage relative to his batting average was good, 313 OBP versus a 233 batting average. So still walking enough, but I think a lot of this is a maturation process where he is learning at the big league level what he can and can't handle, right? In terms of like, to your point, getting your A swing off,

knowing situationally when the right time to do that, but then also recognizing the pitches that he's able to do that on. So I think that process, you know, that I talked about me in the minor leagues doing it in A ball and double A, he's doing it the big leagues. You know, he's at 23.

I think I made my debut just before my 24th birthday. So those adjustments that I was making in the minor leagues where, you know, I'm 22 and 23 years old, he's doing it at the big league level against the best pitchers in the world that are going to execute better than anybody else. We might actually have some evidence about this idea of multiple swings and figuring out when to do it. I think it comes with Ben Rice in particular.

Here are Ben Rice's swing charts. So last year in 2024, he's swinging dead red, right? He's just like, if it's down the middle, this is already, I like it a little bit, right? 2024 on the left. I like that a little bit. That's saying, Hey man, this guy's got a great sense of where the zone is and he's, he's pretty disciplined and he's just going to swing it middle, middle, basically, right? Maybe with two strikes, he'll, he'll, he'll swing low just to foul something off, but he wants middle middle.

I kind of like the 2025 swing chart a little bit better because now he's got two swing areas. And what that says to me is probably he's got an A and a B swing. He's got the A swing. What I'm reading off of this is he's got the A swing where he can pull that inside pitch for homers, right? And he's got the B swing where he's gonna push that outside pitch for doubles, basically.

And I see a maturation of process that comes out in these heat maps. And I wonder if you see the same thing when you see something as simple as a swing heat map like this. What I see is the guy on the left is hunting mistakes, right, and waiting for that pitch that's right down the middle.

And, you know, at the minor league level, you're gonna get those mistakes. You're gonna get those pitches over the plate eventually. The big league level, there are times where you get, you go through an entire game and you might not get a pitch that you could drive that day. Like you're just like, that pitcher is executing against you. Maybe they're game planning against you. And you're not gonna get a pitch that you

can drive and so you know I not every single pitch in the major leagues they're setting you up to right so like they're working through at bats like we talked about earlier at the minor league level when you're developing you know that's the same for the pitchers too they're trying to work on their pitch mix and how they can execute at the big league level They're trying to set you up for the next pitch and there's times where quite frankly You're not gonna get that pitch that you're waiting for and so if you're sitting there waiting for that mistake Down the middle of the plate you could be standing there with your bat in your hand for a long time and strike out

I want to put the Torkelson heat map up here too. And I think what's interesting for me with Torkelson is when he was going good in 2023, he was handling fastballs kind of the same way he is right now. Something changed with fastballs, probably where they were being located last year. Maybe mechanically something fell apart on him too. But it's interesting. It seems like he's doing a lot more damage away right now Or at least trying to do more damage away, which is his pull rates really up. So he's calling those pitches He's pulling those outside high pitches which then makes me think okay

What would be the adjustment if you're pulling outside pitches more consistently? What did you get closer to the plate? Like what kind of other adjustment could make that possible? You know, when you talk about opening your stance like that, like we did, like clearly he has the ability to handle the outside pitch in that, like especially with that heat map. And so by opening a stance,

he's also giving himself a better chance to get to the inside pitch more efficiently. If he's naturally able to get to the outside pitch, which I think that if you look at that deep map from last year and even this year, his tendency is to be able to take that pitch middle away and do damage on it, but where he may have been more exposed

is on the inside pitch. So I see a guy opening up as a way, as I said earlier, create more torque to get to the inside pitch. So I see a guy opening up as a way, as I said earlier, create more torque to get to the inside pitch. Yeah, I'm looking at his strikeout rates inside last year, down and in 35% K-rate, up and in 26%. He's not getting beat there early on this year. It's always hard to take a few weeks and say, okay, is this a real adjustment that's sticky and sustainable or is it just what a hot streak looks like? I mean, there's always the possibility of the latter,

but this does look like some pretty conscious adjustments that have helped him close up a hole and made him a bit less vulnerable. Tyler Soderstrom, probably just the best case of all, where it's just building upon what he did last year. We talked about him during draft season as a guy that made a ton of hard contact, was striking out less. He's doing that even more.

Like I think when you're looking at the Fangrafts page, the Savant page, it's easier to tell yourself the story of Tyler Soderstrom's early improvements being maybe the most impactful. I'm curious if what we see with our eyes sort of matches what we're seeing in the numbers so far with Soderstrom. Soderstrom just like, you know, he's a little bit different than the other guys. I could not find like a stance change. Watching him, I thought he looked about the same.

But there is something going on. He's the one who has improved his chase rate. And he's improved his chase rate by just swinging less. He was swinging 50% of the time, basically, 23 and 24. Now he's down to 42% of the time, and that has taken all of his numbers down. This is selective aggression, I think. I think it's working really well for him. Now, what we've found is that chase rate by itself

is not super predictive at a lot of stuff, but zone minus chase is predictive. And what's interesting is just by swinging less, he's swinging less in the zone and he's swinging less outside the zone. So this is not just an unqualified like, oh, he's got better at the plate. It's just, he's more passive and it's working out for him.

It could be used against him if they fill him up with strikes, but if they fill him up with strikes, that's what he wants. You know, like he'll eventually get the pitches he wants. So I just think this is maybe a maturation of approach in terms of just swinging less and waiting waiting for the right pitches to swing at and maybe having confidence in himself.

You nailed it, right? It's selective aggression. I think we have to remember that, you know, baseball is inherently reactive, right? We call it offense, but it's the only sport Outside of cricket where the offense doesn't control the ball the pitchers the one with the ball. They're dictating The game as a hitter. We're more of the the defensive back, right? Like you're covering the receiver. So it is inherently a defensive

or reactive athletic endeavor. And so at that same moment where you are reactive, you can't be defensive. And so that's where this selective aggression comes in, is that if you're just going up there swinging as hard as you can at every single pitch and hoping you hit it, it's not a recipe for long-term success. But you also pointed out if you're going up there it's just standing there you're not gonna get success either. And that's my point right like that's where the

aggression comes in is and that's where these young players are learning what pitches inside the zone that they are able to drive and they're starting to execute on that and understanding what they are capable of as players in terms of pitches. Like you're just, if you go up there, you think that you're gonna hit a home run on every single pitch, you're gonna be wildly disappointed.

I think that's reflected in Ben Rice's numbers last year. Like I think he's the best example when you look at that heat map of going, wait, he was just too patient. You have to find other ways to do damage. You have to have multiple spots in the zone where you can do something, because if you're only looking for the long ball, that might be an oversimplification of Ben Rice's approach.

Maybe it was simply just working the count for the ball he really wanted to drive. It was just being too patient too passive, not saying I can do something else here if I take a swing a little earlier. I think that's what was happening to him last year. I think recognizing to a pitch that when you do get that mistake or when you do get, you know, something that's over the

plate that you're ready for it. But at the same time, not standing there looking to walk. I've never played with a successful major league hitter that steps up to the plate looking to walk. The walk is a walk at the big league level is a byproduct of you being aggressive and quite frankly, scaring a pitcher out of the zone because if the pitcher doesn't respect you enough to go out of the zone, he's just going to pound the zone until you prove otherwise, right? enough to go out of the zone. He's just gonna pound the zone until you prove otherwise,

right, that you are capable of doing damage and that they're gonna be more cautious with you. And that ultimately when that, you know, that mentality gets to the point where the pitcher gets too concerned about it, that's when they make their mistakes. But if they don't respect you, if the pitcher doesn't respect you,

then they're gonna be more aggressive. They're gonna let it eat more and be even more aggressive against you. As far as these three guys go, if you're trying to rank them, long-term success is a hitter based on what you've seen up to this point in their respective careers.

How would you rank them one, two, and three? I'm gonna go with Soderstrom first, I think. I agree with that. And I'll say that just from an age perspective too, right? Yeah. And draft pedigree. I mean, yes, Tokusen has that draft pedigree, but Soderström also has draft pedigree.

May that shouldn't matter with Ben Rice. Maybe Ben Rice is just a collection of attributes at this point. We don't need to worry about where he was drafted or what his backstory was. He's closer to his peak, just by version of age. So there's not a lot of growth potential necessarily left past what he's doing right now,

because he's 26. To me, like, I agree wholeheartedly that in terms of like where you're peaking, and then it's just a matter of sustained, right? It's just being able to sustain an approach and really identify who you are as a major leaguer, right? And Ben Rice, you know, could be by all accounts, a very productive major league player for a very long time.

If he figures out who he is in any given year and is that player, right? Cause at the end of the day, if you're a manager writing a lineup, you wanna know who you're putting into that lineup every single day. If I can trust you to be that guy every single day, at the end of the season,

I'm going to look up and know that I got the production that I expected. That honestly, that is what tempts me to maybe put Ryce second is because I just feel like Spencer Torkelson has really struggled with his identity as a player. You know, that's what I've seen over the years, you know, so far. A lot of those are probably personal expectations, right? You're drafted one-one, you're coming,

you make your major league debut as a 22-year-old. Like, he probably thought that he needed to step in and be Miguel Cabrera as a 22-year-old, right? And so a lot of that is personal expectations. So I think he's failed enough at this point that he has the confidence, I would assume has the confidence to know who he is as a player now. And I assume he'll continue to refine that approach and understand it even more intimately. And if he does, I think he can continue to be a very,

like continue this type of production that he's had early in the season. But I think it's really about establishing that identity and understanding who you are as a major league player. And I think the main thing for me, very analog analysis on the way out the door, Tyler Soderstrom getting that K rate down under 20%, that's something that I'm not sure

Spencer Torkelson's ever going to do. I think that's the separator between those two. I think it's interesting that Eno is entertaining Ben Rice versus Torkelson as more of a toss up though in the long run. I think that might surprise a few people out there. But thank you to Met for suggesting that question in our Discord.

One thing that all three of these guys did that stood out for me when I was looking at last year was they hit the ball hard last year. So this was about, you know, the things that we were talking about or small stance refinements when it comes to maybe adjustments in their approach, what they're swinging at, what they're trying to do,

A swing, B swing, It all comes from a foundation of they could already hit the ball hard. So when I look at, just to bring this full circle to some of the other guys we've talked about, when I look at Cam Smith right now, it's not super exciting in terms of some of the component, oh, he's striking out a little bit too much. He's not barreling the ball.

Why isn't he, he's hit the ball 111 already. Cam Smith is already somebody that could take this leap next year. We may not be this year but maybe next year when we're talking about what's going on with Torkelsen and Soderström and stuff maybe it's next year we're thinking this about Cam Smith and I just I did a real quick thing where I looked at guys under 25, 25 and under who've hit the ball hard and have struggled.

Jordan Walker did that last year and now Jordan Walker's kind of showing us a little bit more of what he can do. Guys who haven't really put it together yet but could in the future that could be in a future episode like this for us, I think are John Kensky-Noel who obviously hits the ball super super hard, obviously has strikeout issues, but could be an adjustment away. Brett Beaty has hit a ball 113. We know that he's had trouble lifting the ball, but if you hit the ball 113, maybe you

just focus on hitting line drives. I think there could still be something in Brett Beaty. And then finally, nearer to the bottom of the list and a surprise entry on this. Graham Pauley has hit a ball harder this year than Spencer Torkelson and I know that it doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere but he's also going to get a lot of runway in Miami this year and I wouldn't count Graham Pauley out completely. My final thought on all this is ultimately

is just pitch selection, right? If you're swinging at pitches that you should be swinging at, you know, and you're coming from a place that has this high upside, then the results, I could buy into future results. But I think the basis of all this is pitch selection for production at the major league level. That's a puzzle. Takes a lot of guys plenty of time to solve it. As long as you keep getting those opportunities, you can have that chance to be even more of those late breakout players as we

were discussing a little earlier in the show. We are going to go on our way out the door. Reminder, you can join our discord with the link in the show description. If you do Instagram stuff, Jed's over there, just Jed Lowry. If you do blue sky, you know is, you know, saris.bsky.social, imdbr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. There's dropping left and right, dude.