Rates & Barrels - Build-A-Pitcher: Our 2024 Pitching Traits Draft

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In their final regular season livestream of 2024, Eno, Trevor, and DVR have a draft of pitcher traits, in hopes of honing in on the most important qualities for a pitcher to have as foundational skills. Plus, they discuss Kumar Rocker and 'The Death Ball' and whether the Splinker is actually a real pitch. This week's show will also feature a special edition of 'Name That Dude'! Rundown 1:31 The Brewers Clinch Their Fourth NL Central Title in Six Season 5:55 Craig Kimbrel DFA'd By Orioles; Is He Cooperstown Bound? 15:42 Does Kumar Rocker Throw 'The Death Ball'? 28:18 Are Splinkers Real? 40:00 Build a Pitcher: Our 2024 Draft 58:26 Name That Dude! Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IAmTrevorMay e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Thursday, September 19th. Derek and Rhyper, you know, Sarah's Trevor May. It's our final regular season livestream of 2024. We got a good one lined up. We've got some news to get to off the top. We've got some questions about unique pitches. Kumar Rocker, does he throw a death ball? Splinkers, are they real?

Do they actually exist? Are they their own pitch? Are they just something else with a new name? We'll dig into those questions. And we've got our first ever build a picture draft inspired by one of our listeners, Ben Johnson, sent us a great message on Discord with a whole bunch of different traits

the pitchers could have. We're gonna draft those traits and see who actually builds the best pitcher. We'll see if I can even build an actual pitcher. I'm not even sure I'm gonna get a functioning Major League pitcher out of this draft, especially dealing with you two guys. We could get some people from Discord telling us who we think, who they think

we drafted, like after we get a guy, like they'd be like, and I'll try to see if I can, if we actually, if somebody fits, if we had this a comp for who we did, or if we just all figured out a way to pick Pidge or Martinez. Uh, that won't happen. I'm pretty sure that can happen based on the way the draft is set up. So we'll have that in just a little while. We've also got a special edition of Name That Dude that Trevor cooked up for this week.

So we'll get to that a little bit later on in the show. Let's kick things off. Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. I mean, it's already a party. The party started last night. The Brewers. Oh, you're already happy with the first item. Look at this.

Who put that there? Who did this? Who made the rundown? The Brewers clinched their fourth NL Central title in six years. I never thought this would happen as a kid by the way I grew up watching this team in the late 90s and early 2000s and they were bad Consistently bad. It's amazing. I like baseball at all. Let alone that I stayed a fan of this team. I have a dog Goldendoodle she's seven years old She's seen the Brewers win more division titles

in her lifetime than they've won in the rest of their existence. That's a pretty big deal, right? So my dog is charmed, my team is playing really well. I think people have a lot of questions about the quality of starting pitching in the postseason, how it's gonna hold up, but the run they're on right now is amazing for this franchise.

No questions about that. I think what's tricky now is they're in this stretch for these last three series where everything still matters as far as trying to get a first round bye. That's still within reach, right? The Dodgers and Phillies are at least reachable for the Brewers, so they can't just coast

for the next 10 days. Thursday's lineup might be a little bit watered down following the celebration. I did see they had a stroller full of non-alcoholic beer in the clubhouse for Jackson Churio because he's 20. So nice work on that all around. But all right, like is it okay that I'm celebrating division titles as a fan?

Is it cool to be happy about this? Because it's a grind. It is a grind to win division titles. It fan. Is it cool to be happy about this? Because it's a grind. It is a grind to win division titles. It's hard to do. You should. You should celebrate everything. Every time there's any sort of accomplishment that should be celebrated,

because you just never know. I hear Trevor Plouffe talk about this a lot, how he never had a playoff AB. And it's something that he just like, it drives him nuts. They can't speak on that at all. One of the biggest regrets I have for my career is 2022 not being able to, so we didn't celebrate at all.

We went 101 games. We didn't have one celebration because it was just, the timing was weird. And when we clinched, we had just lost the division and it's like, you know, they don't want to celebrating cause we just got, we were going to make the playoffs no matter what. So, um, and then like the, when we clinched the playoff spot, it was got, we were gonna make the playoffs no matter what. So, and then like when we clinched the playoff spot, it was like we were going into the brave series. So it was like, we couldn't celebrate

and then we just got beaten the first round. So it sucks because I think baseball players, the players themselves anyway, we tend to say, okay, what's next? I hear Shaq talk about this a lot. Like he, there was really no milestones for him. He's always like, okay, so what's the next thing? Like I'm supposed to do these things. And that just made enjoying having successful hard when he was playing. And he's since had come around to like enjoying it

later, but he wishes he would have joined it more than. And so and then I think that applies to fans too. I think you should take every little victory. Yeah, of course, you know, save the big celebration for a World Series Championship. But say, you know what, there's an accomplishment and you guys went into the division, it's been a really fun season to watch. So we're gonna be happy for a bit, but it might just be a day or two

and then we're gonna go, we're gonna get back on it. But don't be afraid to be happy. It's so weird. It's a terrible way to live your life. It's like to miss milestones and to not celebrate them. And I think it's the existential question of what's next, the bigger the achievement. If you're asking that question instead of enjoying it,

you've missed it. You've absolutely kind of like failed the lesson of enjoying part of the bride. Yeah, I remember growing up being a Braves fan, there was a lot of like, oh, they're not actually that good because they haven't won at all. They're not a dynasty and all this stuff. And I kind of railed against it being like, no, man, I've seen a lot of really great baseball. I've seen

hall of fame pitchers. I've seen clinched divisions. I've seen, and finally, you know, the mountaintop, you know, eventually, but you can focus on the negative in baseball so easily because there's, it's a game of failure and it's day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day

to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day

to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to day to Now, the less fun news of the day on Wednesday, Craig Kimbrel was DFA'd by the Orioles and I think we're at the point now where contending teams are finally going to stop expecting vintage Craig Kimbrel. We've seen him run out of gas in a few post-seasons. That's kind of been the story of the last few years of his career. My question for you guys is looking at him compared to other recent great relievers and all-time great relievers, is there actually a path for Craig Kimbrel to make it to Cooperstown or does he have a resume that fits more into the hall of very good? Where do you fall on this one, Eno? I tend to think that relievers should be judged against relievers and that, you know, it's sort of like should kickers be in the Hall of Fame for football.

I don't want to wade into that discourse, but I think in baseball that relievers are a big part of the game. They pitch half the innings in any given season. So not having X amount of relievers in the in the Hall of Fame doesn't make any sense. You know, it's like they are an important part of this game I know that it's hard to have a long career as a reliever. So we should celebrate this again It's like celebrate the flowers when you got them, you know It's like when you have a reliever who makes it through a whole like long career and becomes one of the ten best relievers of All time then maybe you should put him in the Hall of Fame

So I think I don't know what that number is though Ten is kind of a funny thing to throw out there because right now then maybe you should put him in the Hall of Fame. So I think, I don't know what that number is though. 10 is kind of a funny thing to throw out there because right now, Craig Kimbrell is 10th all time in Reliever War. Now, the top five are in the Hall of Fame. Mariano Rivera, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Raleigh Fingers, Lee Smith, boom, roasted.

So we're cool with five. But are we gonna do 10? Because Billy Wagner is seven, Kenley Jansen is six, Aroldis Chapman is eight, Doug Jones, who's never gonna be in the Hall of Fame, is nine, Craig Kimball is 10,

Tom Henke is 11, Dennis Eckersley is 12, Joe Nathan is 13. So you start to see like, okay, so where is that line? 10, 13, 15? The line has to increase as we have more baseball, you know, as we play baseball.

And as we have longer periods of time where the relievers are pitching half the innings in the game. I did see a tweet from Sam Miller that, you know, maybe this last 18 games has cost Kimbrough his Hall of Fame thing. And I can see it a little bit, because if you go by like ERA 259,

you know, Billy Wagner was a 231 ERA for his career, you know, but Trevor Hoffman was a 287, Goose Gossard was a 286. So I don't know. It's borderline, but I lean yes, because I think probably the top 10 relievers of all time should be in the Hall of Fame. Ha, I'm shocked.

Maybe we should put 10 total relievers in the Hall of Fame over the last 120 years. Sorry, that was still condescending. I didn't mean to be. No, I hear you. Like, I totally understand, and they're all closers. So if you're not a closer for 15 years in your career, you have no chance.

It's the same thing as if you're the best setup guy ever, you're not gonna closer for 15 years in your career, you have no chance It's the same thing as if you are a setup if you're the best setup guy ever You're not gonna make the Hall of Fame and you're probably gonna make one all-star game And that was the year your closer got hurt. Who was the setup guy for for Mariano? He was really good wetland Probably yeah, I mean he had a punch that passed over time But I mean I thought Rivera took the closer role from wetland if my memory holds up, right? I was a kid, but I think that's how that played out Dave Robertson did it for a bit tried to be Mark Melanson was gonna be the next Mariano Rivera at one point

There was a long time where people thought he's the prospect coming up to the Yankee system. He's going to replace Moe He's gonna be their next elite closer. Yeah. Well, it's the cutter Everyone was like if you can throw a cutter, we love you, Mo. The thing is, we have Mo who was almost, was he was the one who got, he got one no, and then it was almost unanimous, right? He was him, and Jeter was unanimous,

and Griffey was unanimous, are those the two unanimous we have? And Mo was really close, and he's a reliever, and I mean, he was amazing, but like, it's not to the point where he's almost unanimous then there's no Mariano was the first player to be elected unanimously or he was unanimous so I was here was 99.7 was one yeah yeah Greg Maddox received the highest total number of votes yeah okay so for example last year last week last year's

inductions Billy Wagner not getting in was, I was like. But I think he still will. I think he still will too, but like, the thing is we're having these like, oh, they're like, I don't know, and his numbers are just ridiculous for like the number of things he's done for his year. And the way we're waffling here and there,

and but like Joe Mauer played with him, but he was just like, he's in. So it was like, I was like, it's not that big of a difference, like it's not that big. It's, they're different type of players and War is different, but War just doesn't do anything for relievers.

And I get it, cause War is like your contribution to the win. And so I get why War does that, but we should maybe just make it their own category. Just be like- Yeah, compare them to each other, cause we can't just have five five relievers or six total is that Chris Lee?

Yeah, he's in. Yeah, so there's like seven like all time, which is nuts. That's crazy. I think that doesn't pass the sniff test for me, man. I think Kemperl is because he is that number. And also his first like seven or eight years were he was ridiculous. Like they were incredible. And also his first seven or eight years, he was ridiculous. They were incredible.

He has a stretch in there where he was unhittable for a thousand days. That's insane. He did what Zach Britton did for five years in a row. Oh my God. His first five years with the Braves, his ERA was like one two. He had a one two for five years. That's incredible. And Ken Lee's going to get in two, and he absolutely should. And he's up there in the totals. He's approaching these guys. But I think that maybe they're not going to be unanimous,

but it shouldn't be that long of a conversation. But I think Ken Roll's definitely probably on the lower limit. I just think longevity too. he's been around for a long time, he's not that old, he got up really young and did it right away. If we're asking guys to like go get 450 saves, it's just not gonna happen anymore, unless you're class A. He almost did it in three years. Let's use Emmanuel Classe as an example.

He has to do that seven more years. Right, and you'd bet against it because he throws so hard and most likely he's gonna break or he's not gonna throw his hard. Like a hundred things are gonna happen between now and seven years from now to Emmanuel Classe. That makes it almost impossible for him to be as effective as he is today.

If we're going by the current standards been set, yeah. We only have two guys with more than 500 saves, you know. And you know, if we make the line 400, then there's eight. And the only person who won't make it into the Hall of Fame with 400 saves probably is John Franco. There you go. Which I think that's fairish you know I think 400 saves could be like the 500 home runs of closing. And that's eight years of 50. I think that's pretty good. That's a lot yeah. And I think more like you know ten years of 40 is you know that's that's a ten

year career as a closer. Kimberl has 440, and Kennedy Jansen has 447. Lee Smith is 478 and got in mostly on his saves total. Yeah, I think that's sort of your in the hall comp in a lot of ways in terms of how Jay Jaffe's Jaws system calculates the value of relievers. So I think it can happen. I don't think it's a lock, but it makes a lot of sense.

And I'm with you guys. Short relievers are an important part of the game. You should have a corner of the Hall of Fame for them. And it's even hard to compare modern relievers to guys from the 70s and 80s because the usage is different, the volume's different, and war is volume driven. So if you're limited to simple three-out appearances,

and you do that for 12 or 15 years, and you're pretty dominant for most of that time, that's probably going to still fall short of the war numbers you see from the relievers of previous generations. I wonder with the current sort of velocity injury equilibrium that we've found. I don't think we're going to even get a John Franco with 1250 innings, you know, Lee Smith and John Franco at 1250 innings, Kenley Jansen, 866, Kate Kimmel, 8,

809, even Francisco Rodriguez, 976. You know, getting to a thousand career innings seems like, you might be asking too much of just like, the way players are used these days. It's kind of thinking of like, oh, you need 300 wins to get it. Well, dude, then nobody goes into the hall of fame anymore because no one's gonna get 300 wins anymore. Yeah, you have to adapt the calculations of greatness

for the era, like what's really possible? What are the actual limits based on usage that are in place? The limits are completely different now than they used to be, and as Uncle Ted points out on stream, you can't win a World Series without dominant relievers. You're not going to win in the playoffs consistently with a bad bullpen.

That doesn't happen. You gotta have at least two guys, you know. Yeah, and they gotta get hot, Rangers. Speaking of the Rangers, let's talk about Kumar Rocker for a bit. Does Kumar Rocker throw the elusive death ball? And even let's back this up a little bit. What exactly is the death ball?

How does it fit into the broader portfolio of pitches that are out there? How should we define this pitch? There's a great piece by Brian Menendez on baseball prospectus if you want to read up. But my basic explanation is that it is a seam shifted wake breaking ball that where the seams keep the ball more vertical and give you unexpected movement in terms of you would expect more horizontal movement than you get. You look at Kumar Rocker's slot and he throws, you know, a sinkerish fastball.

You would expect to have a two plane curve ball come out of there. Instead, he throws this. So that's a death right now. See, you think you look at that slot and you think, oh, it's going to go like this. And then it just goes. So that sort of just one, it's going to go like this. And then it just goes. So that sort of just one. It's like a one plane breaking ball. It's just straight and down. The good news out of the death ball is it's it's different than expected,

which is always good in baseball when you're pitching. And then it's it's also a more platoon resistant because it doesn't have movement that kind of goes away from one side and towards another. It's just always down the middle. So this is from Brian and Edda's piece. I took the average death ball and Kumar Rocker is right there.

It's harder than the average death ball, but it has similar vertical movements, similar active spin, similar spin deviation, and just it's one game of whiff rates. That might slow down a little bit, but it looks like the death ball to me. Yeah, the whiff rate was actually pretty good in the minors as well. I know he only has 45 total innings, but it's pretty inflated. The interesting thing about this is active spin. And so if you're thinking from a physics standpoint, that number being lower is basically, I think about it as a looser spin. Meaning, classically when you throw a slider,

everyone think try to get the bullet spin, try to get the dot on the back of the ball when you see it when you're pitching. And that dot starts to spread out and become a circle. So it's like what you would have considered a bad slider in 2005. But the thing about it is that you can throw it harder and it moves like a curve ball without that tumbling action. So it's spinning in a way that doesn't make sense for the movement.

And I learned about- Slider spin, curve ball action, but not curveball horizontal. But also harder too. So it's like, it's moving like a curveball, but it's a hard, like, so this is the way to throw a harder curveball. A lot of guys like would spike their curveball

and then pull the spike off to get it to be faster. And other guys struggled to do it, I did. And I started to throw like a slider and they're like, that's basically your curveball just way harder and better. Which it's funny, based on Savant now, I don't have my numbers like that. So bear with me here. But when I started throwing mine, this was in 2020 when I had it dialed in, I switched

in 19. So it's kind of a muddy numbers. But in 19, the drop was 42.7 inches of drop and five inches of horizontal, which is below average. But 42 inches of drop is like, it's smaller than a curveball, but that's big. That's about where I think I found the death balls were right around there. And the minus five is just a tiny bit more, but a lot of these guys are zero to two. Yeah, zero to two.

So his is one of inches and it's 42 flat. So mine was 42.7, his is 42 flat. Our Vila, mine was a little bit harder. It was 85.8, his is 85. And I had a little bit more horizontal. So like that was the difference. I just had a little bit more horizontal, but not a ton. Still well below average. What were your difficulties with that pitch? Because I saw him, I thought I saw the shape vary a little bit from pitch to pitch. What were your difficulties with that pitch? Was it hard to replicate? Same thing actually, because when he was throwing it,

trying to down it into lefties, you have to change your release point because it doesn't have any horizontal. So it looks like a ball the whole time. And so you could see it was getting a little bit more horizontal, but not a lot, like an inch or two, which wasn't enough to get a chase.

And it looked a lot different. That's why you see left, I saw like Cal Raleigh, just full spit on it. Just like not even remotely close to swinging at a pitch that wasn't that far away from the zone. And that is one thing Kumar's not gonna do very well with the lefties is be able to throw back foot. But he will be able to throw below the zone

and guys will chase it over the plate. That is where it'll be good. And I struggled with that for a long time. Throwing balls off the plate and it's just like this far off. He used to throw them low and low and away too because that low and away too. Yeah, he should just stay in the bottom rail of that zone and just like stay over the plate and it's just like this far off. He just throw them low and loan away too, because that loan away too. He should just stay in the bottom rail of that zone and just like stay over the plate

because of the depth is what's playing it. And so that is one thing he'll struggle with a little bit because he has to literally change his his angle to the plate in order to get it off the plate a little bit. And that just looks like a ball the whole time. And it's also it's probably something that he got coached, you know, coming up was back foot your breaking ball lefties. Absolutely. Yeah, and then he's got to go away from that old coaching I think and a little bit. Yeah, this is not gonna be consistent Are we some guys that chase down there just because they swing but it will never be a strike the ball

Pitch unless it has more horizontal. That's where Charlie Morton throws his two-plane curveball back foot because it's it's got that big two-plane action But his is a little bit different This is actually really close to what Kakuchi learned when he went to the Astros because the Astros were having him throw his gyro Slider the Blue Jays were having him throw his gyro slider back back foot But it's a gyro slider that's very close to gyro sliders and death balls are similar ish Where they're tight and they're small and they're one plane. And so they had Kikuchi actually throw it low and away to righties instead of trying to go low and in.

And that's been a big part of why Kikuchi's been better with the Astros. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of the hunt. But are you getting the thrill of the best deals? Rakuten, shoppers do. They get the brands they love with the most savings and cash back.

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and how people might approach him in 2025 for fantasy drafts, he throws the four-seamer a lot more than the two-seamer right now. I think both of you have raised some questions about that four-seamer. Does he simply flip it and throw more two-seamers next year? Does he try to add a cutter? Like what's the ideal outcome for Kumar Rocker

to sort of maximize that arsenal and be the most effective version of himself that he can be? I don't know if it's as simple as a, just throw the sinker more. He has a good sinker, so the rule of thumb, especially, I use Savant here mostly because a lot of people can just go check it out as well. But the negative 15, the arm side run, he has that.

He says negative 16 arm side run. So he has the arm side run you want for a sinker. If you don't have a lot of depth, his normal depth, it's, it's like a nine inch for eight inch for like, that's kind of a high inch. It's, it's a two seam. It's not really a sinker. It doesn't sink much, but it does run a lot. So that's good. That also sets up a change up.

If you throw the same thing, his change up also does lot. So that's good. That also sets up a change up if you throw the same thing. His change up also does that. He just never throws it. So it'll be interesting how those things work together, but his sinker and his change up, I think profile a little bit better. And the problem is he's got a death ball. So a rising fore seam would make it,

like those two together would be unhittable. Fairbanks is up with the fast ball and then the death ball, yeah. Yeah, and the death ball. And Fairbanks is anotherhittable. Fairbanks is up with the fast ball and then the death ball, yeah. Yeah, and the death ball. And Fairbanks is another guy with the weird, it's kind of a loose spin that just goes straight down and he throws so hard that it works really well. So that is what you want usually.

So his arsenal's a little, there's something missing and it's gonna be interesting to see if there is a cutter option or if he just struggles to get the ball to kind of stay, any vert on anything really because it's pretty clear that vert is very much side to side with everything so Maybe it's it's a function of throwing the death ball and some sort of sweeper or something That's more horizontal or so cutter might be the option and then he uses these all together to move them away from the same He can tunnel all those pitches together. He just, it's a, it's like a 13, 13, 14 fastball on average. Like that is dead center and dead zone. Like that is, you're not really close

either way. Right now he's outvelocating it, but I think, I think this is a little bit more concern as he ages and as the, as people see him more often. We did see him give up two walks to lefties and that's because they're just looking at that two seam and if he tries to throw it inside then he has to get it perfect to do a front door and if he doesn't it's either in the happy zone or it's a ball and if he tries to get it outside they see it forever and it goes strike to ball and they just can spit on it. That's Cal Raleigh was like not biting on any of his four seams.

And so maybe he could just throw the sinker to lefty some even, where he throws the sinker up and away and he throws the four seam up and away and he plays those off each other. Cause then you have a ball that goes more strike to ball, the sinker, right? You could throw that and they take it. And then you throw a ball that goes more strike to ball the sinker, right? You could throw that and they take it and then you throw a fore seam in the same place and it stays in the zone And they take a called strike

So if he can get a little bit better even just with the fore seam and sinker just playing those off each other There's an opportunity for him to be fine. There are other pitchers that are sinker slider Passable fore seam Michael King is a totally different pitcher. I'm not trying to say the same pitcher, but Michael King's best fastball is a sinker. He throws a four seam that's just good enough to throw that off his sinker, and he plays the sinker and the four seam, two lefties,

and he plays them off each other. I wonder if Rocker has that feel, but again, if you look at his minor league walk rates It looks like he probably has that feel so I'm gonna take Rob Lopez another guy does that yeah exactly Yeah, his his foreseam is not ideal in shape and not great by itself But he can play it off of everything he uses so I'm gonna take rocker over lighter Just because I think rockers feel is closer lighters Has a little bit of a lack of feel for me.

It's a little bit all over the place. Although I love lighter stuff and by stuff plus he's the better pitcher, but it requires feel to be a starter. To get through the lineup multiple times to kind of play out these things off each other. It requires some feel and lighter could end up being a closer I think.

I think I like rocker better because the slider, the death ball is just so nasty. Like if you have that to start with, that's a good floor, right? And then I guess my related question for both of you is, if the four seamer remains a dead zone four seamer with the extension that Rocker has, does that give him a little more leeway to get away with it?

Cause it's kind of part of the velocity thing. Even if he loses a tick, if that extension is upper end extension, it's still going to play up a little bit more than it would otherwise, right? Yeah, I mean, Edwin Diaz is a good example. He's got such a low release that he got a lot of run on his fore seam. So it runs a little bit like a two seam fastball and he's just got incredible good extension and throws hard. So you can get away with it that way and things look harder when you have extension. It's funny, but like the dead zone movement does the opposite.

It makes it look softer. So it's like you're kind of playing two forces against each other. One is creating the idea that it's harder. The other one's creating the idea of softer. So it's going to play pretty true to form. And at 97, it's just like, even if you know 97 is coming, it's tough to get on top of. So it'll be interesting. But I agree on the field thing.

I think that we haven't seen even scratch the surface with adjustments He's gonna make and he seems like he's got pretty good feel for for for those things It's just a matter of staying healthy, but if he stays healthy I think he's got pitch ability that he's gonna find a way and he does have one elite pitch So that's that's a good sign big leagues start number two about an hour away as we have this stream So it'll be against the Blue Jays for rocker. We'll see how that looks in just a little while While we're talking about new pitches are splinkers real. Is this just a thing people made up? Do they have their own unique characteristics?

What are we what are we really talking about when we're talking about splinkers? I don't know I I dove into the numbers and if you first is here, over on the left here, you've got Paul Skeen's, Durin, Ben Joyce, and Mason Miller who have sort of have named it splinkers and have and are sort of been in our consciousness as throwing splinkers. They all throw super hard. What's interesting too is none of them have great IVB on their foreseams. So they are sort of set for this kind of pitch I think. And then their splinkers are super hard. They're you know the average 96 I think on their splinkers. And so if you look at their movement,

their vertical movement, it's a small vertical movement. But now if you go down to the league Splitter you see well, they look pretty much just like really hard splitters The only caveat I'd say here is that none of only Mason Miller of the guys Throws a league average foreseam in terms of vertical movement so the difference between a splinker and Foreseam is smaller than this this chart makes it seem. And so what I did was I looked at other pictures that had a velocity difference that's bigger than you would expect from a two seamer

and a vertical movement difference that's bigger than you'd expect from a two seamer and maybe smaller than you'd expect from a splitter. So that's what a splinker is. It's in between the sinker and the splitter. It's harder than the splitter generally. It has less drop than the splitter. And so it's definitely one of those sort of tweener pitches.

I think the official stance over it, MLB, Savant right now, is that these are all sinkers, but they do have plus movement. So I tried to find a bunch of pitches that were close. I think they're all changeups. These are all split finger changeups. None of the sinkers I looked at got close. The closest might've been Jack Flaherty,

whose sinker right now is changing, and it looks a little bit like a splinker, but generally these are harder split fingers showed up in our splinker list. I don't know if any of these guys really, you could call them splinkers, except for maybe Chapman and Bednar, who might fit in with that group as throwing splinkers.

But all these pitches are really highly rated by Stuff Plus. It's a good pitch no matter what it is, but being in between a sinker and a splitter is a space that, you know, like Savant says, maybe it's not worth splitting it out. Maybe it doesn't actually exist as a pitch. But yeah, it's really good, as you can see with Paul Skeens' Splinker, right? I mean, it's just a nasty, nasty pitch. And I'm curious, is the interaction between, Skeens has that splinker and then the low ride fastball, like does that make the fastball better? Because you have to think about this pitch

and the different ways they're gonna move. Like, does this help offset the lack of ride on the fastball ultimately? Yeah, 100%. They're also, sinkers sometimes are much more like we were just talking about with Kumar, much more horizontal. Guys pick up horizontal better than pick up the vertical,

but this is a way to get the vertical killed a little bit. And here's something that's been common in baseball for a really long time, ever since I grew up, since I was growing up. The pitch that most people struggle to add is a change up like always like especially in pro ball guys that were in college were just hammer slider fastball trying to learn some sort of change-up it's like a 20% success rate most guys just get rid of it or just have it you hear all these

stories but guys you're in the minors I need you to throw 40 straight change-ups Dan Staley had to throw 30, he was like, I'm just gonna throw 30 in a row then. Trevor Bauer did that, started the first inning, every pitch was a change-up. And we were very confused, struck on the side, and everyone was like, what's happening right now? I think he only changed-ups. The coaches told him.

Coaches told him, and he was being him. So, and throwing it in their face, because that's what happened. So, that's what was happening constantly, and I was was fortunate my dad didn't let me throw a breaking ball I was 15 So that was my natural pitch and I'm glad that he did that and I'm gonna do that for my son if he wants to pitch For sure And so now we're finding now guys who and then especially hard for guys who threw through hard

Like getting that because it was all about V lo difference and they couldn't throw soft They really it was like not it was against their nature. They couldn't do it. And so people started messing around with like, how do we, let's start with a fast ball and then start moving towards different grips and see if there's something in between. Are you familiar with some Splinker grips? Have you seen them? I mean, you know, so you're the two seams, you're kind of like throwing along the two seams. Is a Splinker just sort of following those long into the horseshoe They move start moving it up and sometimes guys will stay inside the seams Yeah, like maybe have like so you're inside or so like they go so so so skeins like right where you are now

He's a little bit higher up and both fingers are inside the seams But they're split out as pretty much yeah as far as you can be without being on the outside of the seams So that feels really close to a fastball But when it comes off your fingers, you don't have a lace and stuff You can get that weird the spin slows down and you get like a splitter type of action or starting to be a splitter But it's still really hard and they can keep their arm This it's not like I need to keep my arm speed up but slow it down or whatever You can just throw it like a fastball and you get a slightly more command of it

I mean the one of the things that one of the like the things that kind of goes but in between the weeds sometimes with pitch design and like people throwing nasty things in the offseason and You see like the video coming out on the on, you know, oh my god Look at Matt brash is new whatever it is, you know And it's and it's on Twitter is that you actually have to be able to command a pitch to throw it in the big leagues. You know, like my story is always Carlos Rodon has a great change up, but like, you know, he never throws it because it's got too much movement and it's just, he can't really, you know, harangue it.

Well, all right. So we're landing on, it's real, but it may not get classified as its own pitch by Saban. It doesn't need to be called a splinker. According to Mike Petriello, we're not calling this a splinker because it's too much work and no one else needs to know that except for the pitchers. It's super important, though, for the Stuff Plus model. And we're trying to think of ways to get past this

because if you call it a sinker, it's probably going to do better in the rankings because you're not considering it against other changeups. And you're like, wow, look at this sinker that has plus plus sink, it's amazing. And maybe that's fair. But if you put it up against splitters, you'd be like, it's a really hard splitter,

doesn't have as much drop as other splitters. And so, splinkers are basically stuff plus model breakers if you, depending on how you, how you name it, because anything that can switch between a fastball and not a fastball is really tough. And so we're trying to think of different ways to consider anchoring. And that there was that that piece at Sabre Sem seminar that was like, hey, let's consider every pitch in your arsenal, the anchor pitch and like run the run the model over and over again and be like a fastball against the curve fastball against the slider fastballs against change slider against the change slider against the curve and run it over and over again and then sort of put it all back together. That is one sort of philosophy that people are having the problem I have with that is I don't know how often hitters sit on your third best pitch. If they're sitting change up on Trevor May and then Trevor May throws them the slider, does that happen a lot?

Especially not with me, no. Even though you threw the change up a lot. It's mostly because you can't, the change up, sitting on a change up makes you, makes a fastball unhittable. Makes it vulnerable to everything else. Yeah, that's why people mostly sit on fastballs is they can maybe adjust to the other stuff, maybe, but they, you know, if they go the other way,

they're just no chance on the fastball. So that's why it's generally not done. It is interesting. I love that you bring that. It's almost like we need to get to the point where we need to, I think, buying into like a way of subcategorizing. Like, okay, throws a slider. Okay, now what kind of slider? So there's another drop. It's like music genres. He makes rock music. What kind of rock music? This is important. There's a lot of different kinds.

Just for the sake of you being able to make your models and things, I think that makes more sense and having an understanding of what it is. But does Splinker need to be on the broadcast when the guy throws a pitch? No, it doesn't. It doesn't need to be said on a broadcast. I think that's kind of where the thing, the sweeper problem was. Like broadcasters were getting really annoyed with having to figure out when to throw sweepers or not. And they were the jury still out whether or not a fan knows a sweepers coming is relevant.

Yeah it's super important to the catcher and the pitcher you know they need to know it's a sweeper of the gyro if you have to you know it's super important to the modeler the the nerd it's super important for advanced scouting but you know I see this you know announcers will still do this where they're like I just heard this last time on a broadcast they were they were doing like oh, oh, and here's the home run. He hit in the third inning because you can't you can't do the replays anymore right after because the pitch clock. So like two batters later, they're like, oh, and here's that home run again. And they he just recited the launch angle and eggs of lost and I was like, what? And he's just like, I know the hundred and eleven degrees at a 23 degree launch angle. And he's just like, no, hundred eleven degrees at a twenty three degree launch angle

And he was like no, which is cool back game. We don't care about it on that level Nobody cares even me the nerd doesn't care about on that level. I did hear one announcer be like oh 25 degrees that's a really good launch angle you get a lot of line drives a lot of home runs there and I was like Okay Well, at least you gave me a little bit of context But I would say you know a of the stuff needs to be left out unless you're telling a story and you're like, you're telling the story of how Seth Lugo has nine breaking balls. Then you can be like, he has a sweeper and a gyro and a this.

Here's why. Yeah. And here's why they're all that one. Here's when he uses this one. Yeah. But if you're just just using it to be like, and he throws a sweeper, it's like, okay, yeah, he threw a slider through frisbee. There's a lot of different words you can throw in there. Did you just say nine breaking balls? I mean, he has nine pitches. I think he throws five. Technically, there's five on Savant. Yeah, that's true.

He has some that he thinks are not on Savant. Of course he does. He says, yeah. He's like, I got one between those two. And he just can't accept, I love you, Seth. I know you're listening to this. You love stuff like this, definitely listening. But he just cannot, like, if you're like, hey, I love you Seth, I know you're listening to this, you love stuff like this, you definitely listen to it. But he just cannot, like if you're like,

hey this happened, well actually, like even if he's eager, he just can't fully agree with you. I love that guy, I love having conversations with him, but man. I had him hooked as soon as I said, I got seven pitches. Can you just say yeah, I understand. He's like nope.

Actually it's 10, okay. So we have a new exercise, a really interesting thing that was put together. You know, when I was talking a week or so ago about what attributes of a picture we would draft, and we were kicking it around kind of in passing. And one of our listeners who joined the Discord, Ben Johnson, actually took all of the qualities

that you could possibly draft, or at least many of them, and turned it into a giant draft board. So there are a ton of different traits. We are going to do this where we each get eight traits, but they come from five or actually six different buckets. So we have pitch qualities, things like fast ball velocity, fast ball shape, breaking ball velocity, breaking ball shape, then off speed velocity and shape, all separated. We have pitch

arsenals. So you could have a three pitch mix where you got two above two standard deviations, but you're prone to splits. You can have a four pitch mix where you got three pitches that are above one standard deviation. Other pitches are league average, no platoon splits or a six pitch mix with two above one standard deviation. Everything else league average. You could get a Seth Lugo out of it. You could try to make a Seth Lugo out of this, right? And then there's some physicality traits where you're just gonna get two of these. Pitcher could be left-handed,

they could have plus plus extension, an uncommon release. Think of like a Josh Hader. They could be a pronator, a supinator, or they could have a feel for spin, which I think when we were talking in the meeting is more like backspin dominant is what you guys were referring to there. I don't know, I think that's a little bit like

the Lugo thing where it's like, feel for spin is the ability to spin different breaking balls. There are guys, like Charlie Morton, you might say he has a feel for spin. I would say not necessarily. He spins the ball, but does he have a feel for spin? Because if he had a feel for spin,

I think he'd have a slider and a cutter and a, that's the Lugo thing. So I think feel for spin is a little different than being a supinator Which is somebody who can throw a really good breaking ball So feel for spin is like sunny gray Seth lugo guys who have multiple breaking balls can just Distinctly do the different things with spin. That's what I thought of with feel for spry So it's a little more broad even than that. Okay, that's that's that's probably a very good trait

Then the pitcher archetypes that are in here, we each only get one of these. There's the command artist, picture that can limit walks, the workhorse, high-endings pitched, or the equalizer, a picture that can limit hard context. Hard contact, there's contextual factors. You could have like a very picture-friendly park. Oracle Park is the example here, that'd be your home park. Above average team defense or above average framing catcher. And then for fun, there's one we've got to take out of this category, either have a pitcher who skips PFPs, one who refuses to wear throwback jerseys, or one who's always at risk for sticky stuff ejection.

So again, thanks to Ben for putting this together. He says Seth Lugo was the inspiration for the six pitch mix guy. I guess having a nine pitch guy as a archetype. So it just means like, it is Seth Lugo, like you've drafted, or maybe Darvish. Darvish probably would say he has nine pitches, right? So we ran the draft order. I did a randomizer a little while ago.

Eno actually gets the first pick. We'll do a snake draft though, so it's gonna go Eno, me, Trevor, but Trevor gets two at the end, and then Eno will get two the second time he picks. And of course, there are some limits as to how many trades you can get from each of these buckets so we'll try to see what picture we actually build at the end of all this

so you know of all of these qualities what is the thing you want the most the board is yours I'm a basic be a fastball velocity come on down I had a feeling you're going to say he gets hurt a lot you know I get fastball velocity, come on down. I had a feeling you were going there. You didn't say he gets hurt a lot, you know? I get fastball velocity without, I might even get the workhorse later. So yeah, baby, I want fastball velocity. All right, you're taking the,

yeah, someone should just take the workhorse. You can't have the workhorse, then it puts the injury bug on you in a big way. I thought fastball velocity was a good call for the first pick. I was thinking about the first rounders when I was walking the dog earlier today. I am probably going to screw this up. I expect to lose and have some kind of mutant picture that isn't very good at the end of all of this.

But if I don't have premium velocity, I actually want plus plus extension because I think you can get some of the benefits that you would ordinarily get from fastball velocity by having plus plus extension because I think you can get some of the benefits that you would ordinarily get from fastball Velocity by having plus plus extension. So I'm gonna choose that as your Tampa Tampa has entered the chat. Yeah. Oh good I'm Tampa. That's not that bad So maybe a little bit of a surprise, but that's what I want since fastball velocity is gone. What's your first pick Trevor? I'm gonna do fastball shape. Then I think you can get way with, you can get a lot of the,

you don't necessarily have to have the highest velocity in order to have a really good, hard to hit fastball, i.e. Bailey Ober. So, you know, I think that having a good fastball shape, it's kind of tough to teach that. And if you have a really, really, really high ride eater, uh, Emanaga type thing, then that's what I want. All right.

You get a second one. Landon Nack sits 93 and he pitched really well last night. It's not necessarily great IVB, but it's great fastball shape above expected. Uh, and he's done really well for the Dodgers. He might be the Dodgers, uh, third starter in the playoffs. So there you go. All right, second up. Give me uncommon release with a good fastball shape.

Ah, yeah, that's gonna be a problem. My guy's funky. Now we're talking knack a little bit, yeah. It's all right, Trevor's building maybe a better version of landed knack. And landed knack's not bad to begin with. I'm gonna take another physicality trait here, I think. I wanna pair the feel for spin with the plus plus extension

because now I can do all sorts of weird stuff. What kinds of weird stuff? We'll learn a little bit more as we get a little further into this draft. I think you might be making a mutant that doesn't exist, which is actually gonna be interesting in the end. I can't think of off the top of my head plus plus extension plus feel for spin. Yeah,'t think of off the top of my head, Plus Plus Extension plus Feel for Spin.

Yeah, when I looked at the Plus Plus Extension leaderboard yesterday, I mean, Logan Gilbert, Freddie Peralta, there were a handful of names that popped out, guys that I like, and I think you're right, like the Feel for Spin wasn't the thing that kind of went with that. So I don't know if this picture can function, but if the rules are that everything will work because this is Fantasyland then I feel like I'm off to a nice start

Okay, so second I'm going workhorse We let him have workhorse Trevor And I think I'm building a weird hybrid Garrett Cole Seth Lugo because I'm gonna take six pitch mix, baby Oh, man, who do we have that has has top-tier fastball velocity is a workhorse and has six pitches. I love it Yeah, I mean, I don't know Pete Corbin burns and even have that It's a nice combo I'll take the four pitch mix off the board since I'm gonna need it since I don't have good fastball velocity or shape having

Three pitches and it's with the feel for spin at least you throw like three breaking balls yeah it's the only way you're gonna get away with having neither of the quality fastball things that you need so back to Trevor for two well I'm gonna have to take the three pitch but just leave it there may I just leave it there until the end I'll take the equalizer limits hard contact and then give me breaking ball shape. Did we already do that? No, breaking ball shape is available.

What did you start with? You had uncommon release. Uncommon release and... Shape, fastball shape. And fastball shape. That's all shape and breaking ball shape, nice. All right. You're making a funk, you're making a funkster here.

So what you guys. Yeah, I got Paul Seawald so far. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Seawald. Nice. The freebie you guys gave me, you each took an archetype already, so now I've got the command artist for free.

So I don't have to take that, I can leave that alone. I can go to the contextual factors or I can go to the for fun Hmm Or I can sneak in one more pitch quality I should probably get some other pitch quality because I'm gonna be in trouble if I don't get something in there. Let me take breaking ball velocity Little below at least get it on the breaking balls Even though I don't necessarily have it as a above average on the fastball gotta have something for V lo right oh man. I wanted to

You would have been over. I think if you know got that ah Geez okay, all right all right. What am I gonna do now? I'm gonna go off speed shape All right off speed shape. All right, off speed shape. I wanna have a good off speed. If I'm gonna have six pitches, I wanna have a good off speed.

And then, oh, and then, oh, I've got off speed shape. This is fun. I've got off speed shape, and I'm going to take supinator. Okay. So, somehow I'm throwing really good breaking balls and a really good change up in my six pitch miss. Yeah, who is this pitcher that you're building right now? Who is like this guy?

It's kind of close to Garrett Cole. He just doesn't throw his change up much. I bet I probably should get one more of the pitch qualities before they're all gone. I guess that would be off speed velocities the last thing left. So my breaking and off speed stuff is good Velo. I just have low fastball velocity. This might work with four pitches in a field for spin.

I'm starting to think I've got something here. Yeah, we're making some interesting guys here. All right, so then Trevor's got two again. Hmm, well I already have the three pitch mix. Trevor's got two again. Well, I already have the three pitch mix. Ooh, I want a left-handed supinator. All right, so you got the lefty. I took supinator. Oh, you did take supinator, pronator then. Trevor's got the left-handed and the pronator

for those last two picks. All right, so Eno and I, we both have righties then, based on that. I'm basically down to, I think, the contextual factors and the four- Oh wait, no, you can only pick two of these. You can only have two.

You can only pick two of these. Were those my two actually? I didn't pick any of these other ones, did I? You had uncommon release. So you could have one more from that group. So I'll take pronator left- I'll take left-handed then, not pronator. Pronator's still out there.

So I'll take a lefty and then his home games are at Oracle Park. That's a real, real good landing spot there. Soft contact, avoiding homers, funky. All right, so that means lefty and pronator are both still left from the physicality group? No, he took left. He took he took lefty pronator's up there Yeah, I got feel for spin uncommon release is gone

Plus feel for spin plus pronator would be interesting. I think I don't think that exists thing. You're definitely making somebody doesn't Oh, yeah, I'm definitely under that. I think it's Now I'm gonna leave that there I I want, I actually want an above average team defense for my contextual factor. I want that more than a framer. My reason is I don't have premium fastball velocity, so my fastball is going to be getting crushed, and if I don't have really good defensive options

all over the field to help offset that. I'm gonna be a babbit machine. All right, well I am gonna have a good framer. I think I picked Supinator and, wait, what's left in physicality? Pronator's still out there. And I have Plus Plus Extension. The only one I have is Plus Plus Extension on my team. So I have Supinator and Feel for spying. I feel for spin. I'm sorry. I have two out of that group

So I couldn't take pronator. So you have pronator. I have supinator and pronator That's you both hey, oh, I know who I am. I'm Pepe. Oh, you're Ryan Pepe. Oh, yeah He told me that the rays tested and he's both a supinator and a pronator How many guys in the league have that? Not many. I'm going to and because I'm stuck on pronator and the framing catcher, I'm going to skip fielding practice I'm gonna be so good. No balls in play, dude Okay That's fair.

I'm gonna choose for my for fun trait, always at risk for a sticky stuff ejection. Is somebody keeping track of what we're choosing? Yeah, yep. Okay, good. So I think my last ones are going to be Framing Catcher and Pronator. I think I have no choice here. Yeah, that gets you catcher and pronator. I think I've known no choice

Yeah, I could get you down to eight. Yep. I go framing catcher first Yeah, and then that means my last one was the command artist That was the that was the freebie I got cuz it was the last left of the group And I think that leaves Trevor with the refuses to wear throwback jerseys Three pitch mix is that a bad trait in a person? I think so. I love throwbacks. They're just generally not agreeable.

I would hate that guy. I'd be like, why do you care? Why does anyone care? That would be just one of those things that would just be like, dude. I thought the refuses to do PFPs. I was like, is this person gonna want to keep working hard? Like that just seems like a basic annoying thing

that you just have to do It's part of the job. It is I love it. I love it guys like nah I'm actually I'm actually pretty close to pepio. I got fastball velocity and off-speed shape, which is pepio I just need a couple more and a couple more pitches off the six pitch mix. Is he a workhorse yet? I'm like some sort of pepio Garrett cold mixture Doesn't seem like a bad combo. I'll take it. I got Brent Souter.

You made Brent Souter? Hahaha! Souter's very likeable. Yep, diamond dodge him. Funky dude. Souter in Cincinnati, I know that's like home for him basically. That is wild to me. That's like the last place you'd wanna have him.

So you put him in San Francisco, you fixed it. You took the biggest thing that you'd be worried about with Souter and you took care of it for him. So what do I have here? Plus plus extension, field for spin, four pitch mix, good Velo on the breaking balls and the off speed, but not the fast ball, and always at risk for the sticky stuff ejection, but also a command artist and an above-average team defense behind him

pre-enforcement Walker Buehler pre-enforcement Walker Buehler okay pre-enforcement Walker Buehler was like a Cy Young candidate like that that's pretty good I think he had good extension did you really build Brent Souter Trevor I mean if I'm kinder to myself what did I? It's like a starting Paul Seawald. It's like a starting the three pitch mix is the issue like I would like Max Fried but he throws six pitches like I I think Fried's like the really good version of this. Oh and you're a lefty aren't you? Yeah I'm a lefty so I'm trying to think lefties and there just isn't how many pitches does LaDolo throw?

Now he throws hard. Sean Manaya. Manaya. That's pretty good. With the new release point. Yeah. He's got a funky release point, his pitches aren't moving like normal,

and he's throwing like high sinkers. I take Manaya. Manaya's had a phenomenal year. Yeah, I'll take Manaya. What is he, like third among lefties and punchies? That's pretty good. Behind Sale and Crochet, or in Scoobble, sorry. It's a good company.

It's a good place to be. I'll take Chaminade all day. I think the real question you always have to ask yourself, especially in 2024, is did I do better than AI? And I think all three of us did better than AI. I mean, this is a pitcher with three arms, with the extra arm coming off the glove hand at the elbow. And also is holding a ball, right?

You've got two holding a ball. He is holding two balls. Three arms and no working hands somehow. Yeah, yeah, AIs struggle with hands, continue. But I guess if you were allowed with that third arm to have another ball and only throw one, that would be a pretty big element of deception. You know, your deception plus numbers

would be off the charts, good. So. Which hand is the ball gonna come out Real question is where's the rubber? Yeah? Whoa? What's going on there? Maybe maybe it's like more extension and the rubber is just off the shot I don't know, but yeah, I think we all did better poor poor mechanics Yeah, very very poor. That guy doesn't throw hard Thanks again to Ben Johnson for putting that together

We add a little bit to the categories to make the draft run a little longer. And let us know in the chat and the Discord, who did we actually build? Who are we trying to build? I was trying to build Freddy Peralta. Yeah, you were with extension. I was trying to build Garrett Cole. I was trying to build Garrett Cole. I set a reasonable expectation for myself.

Who are you trying to build, Trevor? I had no plan at all. I had no one in mind. I was just like what would be what would work together what's gonna be available and try to get something that works with it and I just went with funk which was tough but I like I like the Manaya comp. I think that's Manaya or Jamie Moyer I think was thrown out there by Perry in the live hot. I mean yeah more Jamie Moyer pitched forever so I think that's that's success as well So we got a special edition of name that dude for today I'm gonna just hand the wheel over to Trevor because he came up with something pretty great for us. Yes, so

Recently it's been brought to my attention how elite that Korean baseball fans are at giving Major League players and their own players and Korean players nicknames. And they are imaginative, to say the least. So what I would like to do, there's a couple here that I'll give you the translation of their nickname into English and then you can start to guess. Then we'll probably have to do some hints because it's kind of hard to do that. But so much of these are like their name sounds like a Korean word.

You're not going to know that. So just to preface this, like here's some good ones. We talked on the show, I'll just give you a couple because I have 50 of them here. Mike Trout's nickname is translates into pigeon. Nice. So instead of fish, he's a bird. The reason being that there's a lot of nines on a stat sheet and one day to pronounce the number nine in Korean is goo. And so they called him goo goo goo goo goo, which is what the sound that pigeons

make. So they just make like a pigeon sound. It just like snowballs. The big famous one, the one I brought up with you guys was Chano Park, Doom Runs to Fernando Tatis Sr. in the same inning. They called him Hanmandu, which is Hanmandu dumplings. It's like a staple in Korean food, but it directly translates into two Grand Slams in one inning. And that's what they used to call him up until this day, which is super funny. And young Tatis, when he was there in Korea this year,

was eating a plate of Hanmandu and posted a picture of it. And Korea went crazy trying to figure out if he was in on the joke or if it was just complete accident because it's really common. So that got me going. So here are the here's two that I think you guys will be able to get and it's not like it doesn't just like look like a Korean word. This person's translates directly into living legend. Oh man.

Shoei Otani. They don't do that for Japanese players. They don't do it for Japanese players, okay. No, they don't like Japanese players. Okay. Gotta brush up on your Korea versus Japan history here. That's too nice. That's too nice.

Too nice. They might think it, but they won't say it. Okay, so I'll give you a hint. I'll give you a hint, because you could guess forever. We'll give you two quick hints. He's not playing anymore. So he's no longer playing. He played recently.

Barry Bonds. And he's gonna be a Hall of Fame. Albert Pujols. It's Albert Pujols. There we go. It's Albert Pujols. I was like, there's probably like five maybe that they would go with. Yeah, it's Albert Poulos. They called him living legend.

And here's another one. This guy's, this guy, same, same kind of time of playing. And his translates into teacher of walking is it not one so no this person does not play anymore I don't have a guess yet. Still thinking it through. Joey Votto. It is Joey Votto. Yeah!

Good poll. Teacher of walking, Joey Votto. Great nickname. This one's great too, the Chris Davis. It's Q Day, just an abbreviation since Korean syllable based when making acronyms. Basically just, it's Davis. And then Chris Davis with a K was Jeok-day,

which is fake Davis. And then when Chris Davis fell off a cliff, they switched them. And they gave them a different nickname. So they've rotated, which I love it so much. But all of these are like based on, they look like actors in Korea and Kimbril Kimbril's names is testicles

Kimbril is balls. Oh, that's how they got there in Korean. So they just like they just call them testicles Which I think is hilarious, but oh and this is my favorite one. Here's a bonus. All right. Tiebreaker. If you can, if you can, if you can guess this, it'll be crazy. This guy's translated into college hitter. College hitter. Hmm. Miguel Cabrera. Madison Bumgarner.

No, think about it this way. He was a guy who really good hit college and it did not translate into the profession. Ben Grieve or Matt Laporta. Not that far back. I think this person, I think he was drafted in 2009. He's not Brett Wallace. That was a good guess.

Dustin Ackley. Oh, God. They call him college hitter. And you got to remember when it comes to Korea and like like guys who are obscure a little bit like that, probably a Mariner. Yeah. So just remember. Yeah, they they follow Seattle closely because Asia does because you know each row and they historically have a lot of Asian players so but yeah actually was a big they were very excited for him and then college hitter

I remember being pretty excited for Dustin Ackley no that's awesome that's that's that's the kind of way but my brain sort of works like that so I feel like I can wait into that world and start making up nicknames and people that's so baseball that's how nicknames happen. Like, guys have nicknames, you're like, I have no idea how we got there. We tend to like slide into some boring stuff where we just like take the last name

and put the first initial on it. Oh, like hockey nicknames? Or like we do a lot of throw a Y. Jay Rod. Yeah, we throw a lot of Y on the end of things, you know? I need Julio to have a better one. He does need a better nickname. Jay Rod Squad is not the King's Court.

Yeah. The methodology here is similar to what Pat Murphy did in Milwaukee. They were keeping track of the nicknames throughout spring training and you'd see them at first, like what? And then you'd like think about it or they'd explain it and you go, oh, okay, I see how we got there.

Exact same sort of vibe. I think that works. I think people find that to be endearing more often than not. All right, well that was the last name that dude of this regular season and it ended in a tie because I don't think Eno and I were gonna pull Dustin Ackley out of thin air, but Brett Wallace, no one. That was not bad.

Nobody woke up today thinking they'd hear Brett Wallace's name on the pod. So I feel like we maybe made a lot of people laugh and hopefully had a good time The draft was a lot of fun. Tell us who you think we built again. I'll admit it I was trying to build Freddie Peralta, but you all knew that anyway on our way out the doors the few reminders You can find Trevor on Twitter at I am Trevor May you can find Eno at EnoSarris Find me at Derek VanRyper find the pod at rates and barrels Thanks to everybody from the live high for for dropping in on our livestream throughout the

season. This is our last livestream of the regular season. We're going to have some playoff shows. Those will not be live. Maybe we'll run one live one like closer to the World Series, but nothing on the schedule right now. So keep an eye on the Discord for details on that. You can join the Discord with the link in the show description.

If you've got a question for a future episode, send them there or email us, ratesandbarrels.gmail.com. Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. I'm a basic biatch. College football is back like never before. I'm David Ubbin and I host Until Saturday, the athletics leveled up college football podcast. Three times a week you'll hear me and my co-host, fellow athletics senior writer Chris Finini and two time national champion Damien Harris embrace the sports new madness with you. We're also just going to have a ton of fun enjoying

all the things that make college football great. Check out the brand new one till Saturday, every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday this fall. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.