Rates & Barrels - Do Hitters Set Up Pitchers With Swing Decisions?

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Eno, DVR, and Jed take a spin around the league as April injuries pile up, and take a deep dive into a matchup between José Ramírez and José Soriano from Friday's Guardians-Angels matchup. Plus, they answer a mailbag question inquiring about team's patience with switch hitters despite poor splits, inspired by Elly De La Cruz. Rundown 1:06 Jackson Merrill to the IL; Early Exits for Fernando Tatis Jr. & Jake Cronenworth 6:50 The Long-Term Maintenance From Previous Injuries 10:20 An Update on Victor Robles' Shoulder Injury 17:19 Other News & Notes: Matt McLain, Ketel Marte & Pablo López 23:30 Should Every Monday Be an 'Off-Day'? 26:40 Octavio Dotel Passes Away Following Nightclub Collapse 27:56 Did José Ramírez Set Up José Soriano? 37:59 Hitters Facing Pitchers Over Time 44:42 Why Are Teams So Patient with Struggling Switch Hitters? 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. I'm Dane Brugler. I cover the NFL Draft for the Athletic. Our draft guide picked up the name The Beast

because of the crazy amount of information that's included. I'm looking at thousands of players putting together hundreds of scouting reports. I've been covering this year's draft since last year's draft. There is a lot in the beast that you simply can't find anywhere else. You can get the beast and all the great coverage my colleagues do by subscribing to The Athletic. You can do that at theathletic.com subscribe. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Wednesday, April 9th. Derek the Rhymer, Enos Serres, Jed Lowry here with you on this episode to get you caught up on a lot of injuries around baseball. A trio for the Padres,

we'll talk about their depth and the implications of some of those injuries. Some longer term ones for Ronaldo Lopez and Victor Robles. Also saw something that happened on Friday night that we're going to dig into with Jed. We know Jose Ramirez is an elite hitter. Future Hall of Famer most likely. Is he out there playing 4D chess? We're going to dig into why that came up in just a little while We had some questions from our discord as well including one about why teams are so patient with switch hitters struggling from one side

Of the plate so we'll dig into that and some unusual park factors as well Gentlemen, let's get to it because this is a big rundown I feel like we talked about Jackson Merrill to start last week's show because of his extension. He leads off again this week because he was placed on the IL with a right hamstring strain. Not a major injury, but just the kind of thing that piles up on a team like the Padres because I think of all the things you worry about for the way this roster is constructed, you know, is it's very top heavy. If the Padres are going to win the NL West or be a playoff team and be a dangerous team in October, part of it is having at least an average, if not an above average health

outcome for the key guys in that lineup, like Machado, like Merrill, like Fernando Tatis Jr., who we'll talk about here in just a moment. Yeah, I mean, just to grab that string that you that you left hanging there at the end. I mean, Fernando Tatis took a swing and felt something in his surgically repaired shoulder that he had labrum surgery on in 2022. Jake Cronenworth got hit in the in the ribs and felt something tug or cramp in the same place. So that was like a triple whammy for them in that game. You know, Tatis and Cronoworth think they'll be back out there and without IELTS we don't know that

for sure right now. But when you look at how they ended the game they've got Oscar Gonzalez who they've called up you know with the Jackson Merrill injury. Oscar Gonzalez, like, went out and had an error, like, his first opportunity in the game. Then they've got Brandon Lockridge. I guess Tiasso Ornelas could come up at some point. These are not names like Jackson Merrill, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. So they're hurting a little bit there. I have a Solution for them. Yeah, what's the solution? Well, I'm just putting together yesterday's podcast. What's today's podcast?

Masataka Yoshida Okay, another suitor for Yoshida, okay I mean that the key thing with San Diego, I think is that they don't want to get over the lux tax. So money would be part of the question. But since Yoshida hasn't provided much value defensively in the field, he may not cost as much as people expect. He is a good batter. They could just use a good batter, play sheets more in the outfield. You know, just stick him in at DH basically and Have fewer sort of spots to fill plus. He's a pretty good hitter. I mean, I think as a hitter He's a good hitter so may not cost that much in money may not cost that much in prospects May be the kind of roster spackle they need right now

I could sign off on that day I can imagine a scenario in which the Red Sox eat a large portion of the money still owed to Yoshida in order to make it happen. And maybe the Padres are willing to give up some young far away from the big league's talent to get it done. Jed, do you share our concern about the position player depth, especially for this Padres team?

And OWest has been off to a phenomenal start so far. Padres actually a half game up on the Dodgers and Giants as play begins on Wednesday. But is that a potential flaw in the build of AJ Preller and company? Everybody is bound by, you know, the resources that they're provided. And I think to be competitive in arguably the most competitive division in baseball, you're going to have to have that top end talent. And then it's the secret sauce of trying to keep everybody on the field.

So yeah, I think the Jackson Maryland hurts, obviously you're coming off of the excitement of signing the extension. Hamstrings can be tricky. So, you know, I think they're gonna wanna get that right. And you know, the other guys obviously very impactful. You know, know, I think they're going to want to get that right. And, you know, the other guys obviously very impactful. You know, Fernando, anytime there's surgery involved, you know, it makes you a little more nervous.

Cronenwerth, if it's a hip-by-pitch, I'm not nearly as concerned. Obviously, that's probably more of a day-to-day thing. But, you know, with Tatisse, obviously, they need to make sure that he, you know, is doing everything that he can to to keep that surgically repaired shoulder strong and stable. And then they just got to get the hamstring thing right because these guys are top end talent that not only are they going to produce but they're going to people tune in to see these guys play.

Yeah, I mean, then they can play at MVP levels, which is really important for a roster built the way this one is built that he's off to a great start So far this year's got a couple of homers five for five as a base stealer Striking out less early on just doing everything that the Padres need him to do if they're going to hold that sort of position In the division for what it's worth Tatis in Denison story did say he'd felt this before while working out. So maybe, you know, labrum surgery just produces outcomes where there's always like a little bit of weakness or a little bit of, you know, potential pain there and you just have to step off of it

for a couple days and, you know, do your flexibility exercises, do your band work and try to get back in there. Yeah, I mean, Jed you've dealt with plenty of injuries over the course of your career, and I think it's a larger bucket than many of us on the outside assume of things that require maintenance, things that don't feel right, even though they're fixed, even though they don't put you back on the IL necessarily, they're still occasionally barking,

they're still causing you some kind of problem on a day-to-day or at least a week to week sort of level. So is it fair to assume that's something that Tatis is always going to be dealing with in some capacity given the severity of that procedure? Without question, there's going to be a maintenance routine that he's going to have to, you know, stay on top of, you know, the club obviously will have a plan for him. They're going to have a lot of experience dealing with that type of injury, but without question and that's something even today that I deal with. Yeah, what do you deal with today?

What still hurts? Yeah, exactly, I mean, you name it, right? Like whether that's my sublux left shoulder or my surgery on my knee or my left wrist surgery, my thumb, my tore ligament in my thumb. So yeah, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of little things that, you know, if you don't keep it moving and keep it strong and stable, you know, then you're just encouraging, you know, more uncertainty and more potential damage.

Yeah, hopefully this will turn out to be a precautionary small thing with the early removal for Tatisse. And as he said, Cronenwerth, it was a hit by pitch. It wasn't like an oblique or something like that where it could turn to something more serious. That's probably day to day as well. Injuries biting teams around the league, not just the Padres, though we learned that

Ronaldo Lopez will be shut down for 12 weeks following arthroscopic shoulder surgery. So they're still hopeful he'll get back at some point. Did they say what it was? I just saw arthroscopic shoulder surgery in the one update. So usually with the scopes, it's a shorter timetable than that. So they got in there and found something to use a medical term. But it's also 12 weeks is not quite like they didn't repair a labrum.

No, definitely not a labrum at 12 weeks. Yeah. And I mean, the scope is, you know, really just the incision is smaller. Right. So it's less time for that. The actual, you know, cut to heal. And if they didn't announce what they did on the inside, you know, 12 weeks might be it. The good news for Atlanta, though, is Spencer Strider is scheduled to make his last rehab assignment before activation.

Could go 90 pitches in that outing, so they will get one of their aces back. If he's got 90 pitches, I'm throwing him in the big leagues. You're not even giving him the rehab assignment? Just like, you're done. We're going to throw you back in. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that one. That seems like an odd choice.

You want to build a guy up, but 90 pitches. And the stress at the major league level is much different. So 90 pitches at the minor league level is, is different than 90 pitches at the big league level. It's just the eyeballs of the nation of the cameras of, you know, the major leagues just weigh a lot more. You're also just going to try and throw harder, right? I could get behind the idea of sending them to the minor

leagues for a 90 pitch start, just to make sure you have that the actual workload built up. So once the environment, the stress environment of the major league, major leagues gets added to the equation, at least you have that baseline of, of, you know, pitch count work, you know, work build up to go from. Good news though, for Atlanta, that he's back soon, at least a little earlier than expected to, I think late April was the previous timetable they'd thrown out back in the spring when Strider was starting to ramp up. We learned that Victor Robles is out at least 12 weeks.

He suffered a small fracture in the humeral head of his left shoulder, made a fantastic catch against the Giants on Sunday, but paid the price in doing so. And we were talking before the show about this jet. I mean, some of that is just completely bad luck, right? he kind of fell into the netting and then hit the wall after that and it's one of those things where the safety barrier there to help people not get hit by fatted balls ends up being a thing that causes a problem for a player in a very unexpected way because You jump into a net kind of expecting one thing to happen and something different happens.

I would say that he launched himself into the net. I don't think if that's brick with padding on it, he's going after that ball in the same way. And so, you know, I unfortunately, once again, highlight catch and you know, everybody's gonna be talking about it, but you know, Derek, you said it, he paid the price for it. And, you know, I think his his approach to that catch

was changed probably by the by the netting as opposed to being a fence. Yeah, it's one of those things. I think it's like just maybe we have to think a little differently about the edges of the field because we've seen occasional fleet. You can't prevent everything. I think the worst one I think of is the Dustin Fowler white socks injury. That was a bad fluke.

He when he ran into like an electrical box on the side of the field or something even judges toe like the base of the wall. I mean some of these seem like unforced errors like come on if there's some meant somewhere like don't do more than put like an inch padding around it. They go that'll that'll do it, that's fine. Somebody's toe will find that.

Yeah, exactly. You can't prevent everything. Those seeds, that netting down there, I get it. And you just, it's just one of those unfortunate events where the player probably felt, he was probably at less risk because of the netting and being able to jump into it and it and it backfired. One thing I do think about though is Jackie Bradley Jr. once did this thing I think was

on MLB network about how to make like highlight reel catches. And one thing that he said was, you know, when you're in the air, you have to relax, like you have to jump and then just sort of relax your body for impact as opposed to, a lot of the way we break wrists, I know I think about this with the kids and like some, one of my kids broke his wrist, is like you put your hands out.

You brace yourself, you put like, especially with skateboarding and skiing, you put your hands out and then you break your wrist. And so Bradley Jr you put like, especially with skateboarding and skiing, you put your hands out and then you break your wrist. And so Bradley Jr. was like, don't put your hands out. Don't put anything out that like sticks out in a weird way. Don't brace, like just turn into like a sack of balls, you know, and just like, you know, get that ball and then just sort of relax into yourself and fall down. I think like that sort of reaction, you could maybe train or you could hear him say that

and be like, oh, I could maybe think that. It could be a cue for you, but it probably doesn't work when you're running out of net because your brain doesn't know. It's like good and bad. Like the net that we see through the net is good, you know? But then it is a thing. So like your brain might be like, there's no net there, like I gotta just go,

and then the last minute is like, oh, there is a net here, or the brain is like, there's a net there, it's gonna catch me. Those outfielders, they're out there during batting practice, or they've played in those stadiums hundreds of times. They know what those surroundings are, and that's why I say, you know, if that ball happened, you know, is hit at Wrigley Field

and there's a brick wall there, he's approaching that catch very differently than with a net there. And so, or the potential to make that catch. So I think the net was accounted for. So yes, in the moment, you know, he's thinking to himself, I have this net here, basically. It's not a brick wall, it's a net. And I'm sure that that was accounted for in his decision to go after the ball the way he did.

Situation in the game to critical point in the game. Yeah. Also probably playing in and going all out on that one. For now, no surgery necessary for Robles. If that changes, he will end up missing the entire season. So we'll keep an eye end up missing the entire season. So we'll keep an eye on that in the weeks ahead. You mentioned being on the field during batting practice. Spencer Arigetti fractured his right thumb.

He got hit by a line drive while playing catch in the outfield on Monday. There's your other bizarro freak injury. I think he was shagging fly balls. Don't shag fly balls, pitchers. You're not that good of an athlete, but the position players do that. Yeah, they got to do something, though, you know, otherwise they're just sitting in the clubhouse playing cards. Yeah, that's true. Well, next time we'll probably just choose to sit in the clubhouse and play cards.

That's just a bad break. A little bit like the Padres question, too. This is a time right now they've got so many injuries, I guess rehabbing back from long-term injuries like McCullers, Christian Javier is far away, Luis Garcia had a setback. The Astros don't have that depth right now. This could end up being a pretty costly absence for Arrogati too, just depending on how long this actually goes. I don't know what they can do.

You know, I guess they could do some bullpen games. Ryan Gusto has some interesting pitch shapes and has been good so far in low leverage multi-inning outings. They got some guys that they can do, but what they really need is Lance McCullers to pitch better because he's close. He just had like a two inning rehab stint, but he ended up walking like four guys against a strikeout or something. So you know, there's kind of surprising amount of eyes on nice McCullers next rehab start. I think I got a name for both of you. Miguel Lola. He is just spring injury left early in the spring breakout game

Just pitched yesterday on Tuesday at triple-a went a couple innings. So maybe a week or two from now Miguel Lula is getting that shot. This is 60 great stuff 30 great. That is the profile. I like to bet on really interesting to I like to bet it's really interesting to Yeah, easy easy for you to say Safe in this situation We did get some updates on some other injuries Matt McLean goes on the IL with a left hamstring strain that had slowed him Down in recent days. So Santiago Espinosa plays a bit more Gavin Lux may play a little second base as a result of that. You could tell Marte out a series of weeks just use a number a series of weeks with his left hamstring strain so more Tim Tawa and Garrett Hampson for the time being.

I think a series of weeks is long enough for Jordan Lawler to get. Manager talk right there. He just he just trying to just pull a new word and he said series of weeks. For a length of time. And Haroldo Perdomo moves up in the order a little bit for the Dbacks. Zach Efflin we talked about yesterday, it's an IL stint for a lat strain. It sounded like no big deal. Left early pitch six innings last time out, nope IL, lat strain.

So he's going to miss at least a couple of weeks and we're also keeping an eye on Pablo Lopez who left in the fifth inning of his start against the Royals on Tuesday with a hamstring injury. Awesome. Yeah and lat strains are they're actually pretty bad for a pitcher. They're in the shoulder region. They are sort of below it. They're not in the like well I don't know what the like the joint you know so it's not like a labrum situation but they're bad and shout out to B Smith. I was talking to somebody and he said, is your producer the legendary B Smith from KMDR? And I was like, yeah, yeah, he is a legend. So shout out to B Smith.

He sends us the note that Justin Steele is on the 15 day interlister to tendonitis in his left elbow. He's been dealing with that. So that's not great news for them. They don't have the most amount of depth either. I guess, is that where Colin Ray ended up? Maybe Colin Ray, maybe he steps into the rotation.

There's a little bit of news here that's kind of fascinating. Otherwise, Oh my God, Wyatt Langford is on the, like, they're just, they're just dropping left and right, dude. Wyatt Langford with an oblique strain he left that game early. It's really hard to kind of react to each of these because you just you gotta look at the depth chart and try to figure it out. None of these guys is replaceable you know. None of these guys do the teams have something going. I mean does Evan Carter come up that might be somewhat interesting but here's a fascinating side story related to lat strains and injuries. Hans Krauss, a pitcher for the Angels yesterday,

was on social media talking about how he was told by the team that they were releasing him and then after they told him that they were releasing him, they told him he had torn his lat. So how is that supposed to go Jed? Is that you supposed to communicate the injury information ahead of time and then just I know the player or like what is that a gray area? It seems bad. Are there rules about this sort of thing? I don't know. I would imagine that the union is going to get involved into that situation without knowing any of the, you know, specific timelines or, you know, diagnosis. I'm in the room.

I would, I would not want to comment. I would, I would just have to say that I'm guessing the union would, would like to see the fact pattern on that one. Yeah, we're going to flag that as a suspicious story that we'll keep an eye on as well. But yeah, man, you said Evan Carter could come up. No, Evan Carter got hurt on a bunt attempt at triple A. So probably not Evan Carter. Maybe we found that tipping point

of where the expected output is actually higher than what's possible in 162 game season. There's something to be said and valued in availability. We can talk about potential you know, potential and sprint speeds and exit velocities and swing speeds all we want. I mean, that's a, you know, those are real, but availability ultimately is what's gonna win. You gotta play the games, right?

The show must go on. And so availability eventually has to be valued again, as opposed to just the pure output. I think we're seeing actually some potential changes in behavior that might be related to this. I'm just looking at the velocity charts and there are some really hard throwers that are throwing at a smaller VLO this year. You know, somebody like Mason Miller,

but there are some other, you know, some really hard throwers that are down a couple or down a tick and, you know, I think some of it might be on purpose. I mean, Mason Miller going down to 99.5, you know, that probably doesn't affect his outcomes that much, but it may affect his availability outcomes some. And I also think about, I think it was in his contract year, Bryce Harper, there was

this whole thing about how he wasn't diving anymore. And he, you know, it did affect some of his defensive numbers, but he was able to stay on the field all year in a platform year. So you wonder if there are some toggles about going all out. It's really hard though, like if you don't have that contract yet, you know, and you aren't necessarily Bryce Harper, what if you're the 25th man on a roster, you're probably going to go pretty hard when they let you play, you know, because, you know, that's how you've been developed and how how you know, you're being evaluated

You know, I think all these all of these players are incentive incentivized by you know maximum output and you know I get it. It's very you know, it's very entertaining and it's easy to easier to project that but like I said at some point Availability has to you to return to the equation. One thing we've kicked around on this show over the years, Jed, is having a built-in off day every week. What if Mondays were just an off day throughout the entire season? It was a travel day, a rest day.

And if you had 154. Yeah, get down to 154. There's a few ways you can try and tweak things. But even, I think you could still probably get to 162 if Monday was just a built-in off day and if you had a nagging injury coming out of the weekend Sit Sunday Monday's a rest day. Maybe you're back at it Tuesday Maybe some of these shorter IELTS things could go away or maybe this is actually just a function of load management and teams realizing Hey, we do have to get these smaller injuries to calm down as opposed to trying to wait

for five days and grinding back out there and risking the possibility of a setback and turning a grade one strain into a grade two strain, for example. But from a player's perspective would just every Monday off, is that something that you think the league could ever reasonably entertain? Would it actually be good for player health from From a player health perspective, I would- Mental health too. Yeah, I mean, from just overall, right, like player health perspective,

I think it would be good. That's something that there's, it's never as simple as just saying that, right? Like there's other considerations from a business perspective, the number of games that you have to, from the owner's perspective, you're losing four home games in that scenario.

So there's more than one way to look at it. But from a player health perspective, yeah, I think the majority of injuries and, or historically, I should say, have been from overuse. And that's where I said it earlier, but if we've kind of crossed this threshold where now you're talking about more, you know, I don't know if traumatic is the right word, but more, you know, single instant injuries because the output is so high,

because guys are bigger, stronger, faster, as opposed to the wear and tear of a season, you know, cause we're what, two weeks into this season. It's not, it's not like we're, you know, in the dog days at this point. I think it's a double edged sword. Yes. I think that there for player health, having an off day would be beneficial, but then I'd also like, I'd still think availability has to be a part of the equation moving forward because you know,

do players now go even harder if they know they have an off day on the other six days. Right. So, you know, nothing is as straightforward as we want it to seem. Talking about availability and valuing that, I think, is where, you know, the the discourse should probably go. And the training and how that could be impacted. And yeah, there's a there's a ton of ways to pull on those threads. More topics for a future day I think, probably a good off-season conversation. It's very sad news out of Dominican Republic, a roof collapse at a nightclub, 113 people

have passed at least at the time of this recording including former big leaguers Octavio D'Otel, Tony Blanco, I believe the sister of Nelson Cruz, was one of the victims of this tragedy as well. Just a horrible situation. Just a nightclub dance party that just turned into a tragedy. Yeah, it really, really sucks. So, D'Otel was a really kind of upbeat guy. Did you ever cross paths with him in Oakland?

I think he was there twice. No, I never, yeah, never as a player as a player, but I, you know, against him and, you know, I'd never heard a bad thing about him. I mean, any anything, anything like this is a tragedy. And then when it includes, you know, the baseball family, you know, obviously, it just just a heartbreaker. Saw that Octavio Dottel was one of those guys that was in demand in the league. Right. Played for a lot of teams. Teams always trying to get him, trying to trade him, trying to bolster their I saw that Octavio Dottel was one of those guys that was in demand in the league, right?

He played for a lot of teams. Teams were always trying to get him, trying to trade him, trying to bolster their bullpen with him, and very popular in the clubhouse as well. And just a really, really sad story. So all the best to the victims who lost their loved ones in that one. Just a terrible situation. Moving on to some other topics, though, that we had on the rundown for today. I was watching the standalone, it was the only game that was on Friday night.

The Friday schedule was a little strange last week because of home openers and all the different things. There was some cancel or there's the built-in off day for Thursday home openers. So the Guardians Angels was a game being played kind of in isolation. So that was the game I chose to watch I tuned in right as Jose Ramirez hit a homer off of Jose Soriano and we're gonna just gonna watch it if you're watching on YouTube So first he takes a hack a 2-1 hack at a down-and-in slider next pitch another down-and-in slider Homers off of it and this is something you see Jose Ramirez do from time to time Pitcher good picture tragedy

It was a great frame hole. It was the second homer of the game that Ramirez had hit I had not seen the first one But I'm watching the Guardians feed and the Guardians booth starts talking and saying hey Did Jose Ramirez set up the second slider by swinging at the first one? And it got me thinking I'd love to believe that I mean Jose Ramirez future Hall of Famer phenomenal player Sure, like of course that could that could have happened and I want to believe that happened Is that what happened Jed? Like can you even make that call based on the one pitch before it? Because if anything, I feel like you have to look back maybe even further

if you're going to get to that sort of level of of setting a pitcher up to give you a pitch that you want. You hear a lot of stories about this from, you know, guys of of yesteryear, right? Setting guys up. And it seems like a lot of the even even spring training, right? Like setting up a guy and spring training So, you know that I'm gonna swing over his breaking ball. So I get it in the season the amount of times That that Soriano has faced or vice versa that Jose Ramirez has faced

Soriano I just I really I doubt it and if you look at the you know Where the pitch the first slider was intended to go the catcher set up outside He was not intending to yank there to throw that in that spot. And so I think he just had a little bit more spin He yanked it it broke more probably than Jose Ramirez was anticipating and then you look at you know You look at where the next one is The other home run that he hit there, one's a fastball, one's a slider. It's down over the middle of the plate.

This is a spot that, you know, I know, I literally the exact same spot as a left-handed hitter. I don't know why it works out that way, but the low pitch for the lefties is generally a wheelhousehouse and so, you know, you're talking about two pitches that are in the exact same spot. And so, you know Maybe Jose Ramirez. He's he's certainly talented enough to set a guy up So I I can't speak definitively but I think given where the catcher was set up and the ultimate outcome of that first slider and Just having it be yanked the way it was I I would highly doubt that he was setting him up

you know, Soriano just made a mistake with the next one and You know Jose made him pay, you know, I think you were on the Occam's razor side of this one, too Right. Well, yeah, I mean put up the heat math that I've got so this is the heat map of homers by lefties off of righty sliders, right? And so you see middle, middle, duh, but you also see what Jed's talking about, low ones, right? However, it kind of gets lighter

when you actually back foot it. So righties throwing sliders to lefties are playing a tight rope game because they are trying to get where that first slider is. You see that little, you know, the yellow four there, that was the fourth pitch that they had that. They're trying to get there because that's where they get swings and misses. But if they get where the fit, where the next pitch was, that's where homers are.

So just according to the way the league goes, if you can backfoot it and you can actually bury it, great. If you do what Jose Soriano did on that second pitch, not so great. And then from a shape perspective, hitters tend to get better at shapes the more they see it. So it's not that much of a stretch to say he saw the first slider and then the second one was the same shape, but in a better location. And it's, I didn't even notice this that you played the other Homer. The other Homer was the same story.

He saw the first fastball down and then the second fastball was in a very similar location. So I think Soriano really should work on, you know, mixing up the, the, he shouldn't be patterning the same way. He shouldn't be doing things where he's going to throw to the same spot with the same pitch twice in a row as much. I mean, especially not maybe to Ramirez, who's just like, Hey man, I just saw this bitch and this one's nice. Yeah. I don't know what the, what the thinking was for, for like Logan, Oh hoppy, I think was behind the plate for that one. Like what would cause you to throw Jose Ramirez

of all people the same- This worked last time, so let's do it again, right? I could get it on the slider, but in that first homer with the fastball, like that seems like a really dangerous choice. It ultimately comes down to execution, right? And if you look at the second at bat that Soriano had against Ramirez,

I think that he have success, right? With all the backdoor breaking balls. And this is exactly where Ohapi is set up. And he gets away with a fastball there, but everything is away. And then he finishes him off with the splitter away. And if you look at the third at bat in particular, Ohapi is set up in that same spot.

So I think both of those pitches are just a matter of execution. And so I think that he ultimately, he just has to execute. So Ohapi set up away on both of those pitches. He misses one down and in, yanks it, the one that Jose swings over the top of, which like I said, I think just because of where it ended up, it broke more than it normally does. And then the next one, he was trying to go away and left it right over the middle of the plate. So I, to me, I think, you know,

Ohapi had a very different idea of where both of those pitches were supposed to go. Pitches were supposed to be. Yeah. Right, yeah, so Ohapi didn't necessarily call those exactly. That's right. I would have a hard time believing that Ohapi would be calling a slider in

and setting up a way. Yeah, that's not good, no. That's a good point, but from the other point, pitchers do miss on execution a lot. So one way that you can kind of get out from getting into this is call a splitter. Call a completely different pitch type. So if Soriano had a four seam,

or if he trusted his splitter more, he might be able to avoid situations like that. Well, I mean, he got the strikeout on the splitter, right? So I, you know, and it's easy to sit here and play armchair quarterback on this, but I think the more, especially with a hitter like Jose Ramirez, the more he sees the pitch,

the more advantageous position he's in. And I think that he had had eight or nine bats before these and had success. I think, what'd we say, he had one home run prior to the game today. But it was a modest success rate before this. But like I said, the more a pitcher, the more a hitter sees a pitcher, the more advantage they're in.

And then it really just comes down to execution. And I don't think that Soriano executed either one of those pitches that he gave up homers on the way that he intended. So I think Ramirez had more of a visual database to go on in terms of pitch shape. And then a lack of execution led to, you know, bad outcomes for the pitcher. Yeah, I think there's a gap between the natural command of Jose Serrano and stuff that's pretty wide right now.

I don't know how much he'll close that over time. So a lot is going to hinge on. He is the guy who's missed a lot of time for injuries. So, you know, it's not like he has as many reps as. Right, so maybe there's still some room for improvement, but I do think game calling becomes much more important when you're dealing with that particular flaw. Yeah, maybe even though Hoppy knows that like,

I can't go to the back door breaking ball over and over again with Soriano against lefties because he will yank some of them into the happy zone. So that's something I can do a little bit, but if it's somebody as dangerous as Ramirez, maybe call something else. So Hoppy's gonna learn, I think some too, even though you're bright,

he did not call those exact locations and pitches. He's gonna learn over time where the misses are. Exactly, and that's, you have to account for that, right, as a catcher. A good catcher will account for what the potential miss is, right? And so, as you showed with that heat map, if the danger zone is missing over the middle of the plate,

the miss has to be in the dirt, right? Like you'd rather have the guy hit him in the back foot than give up the homer. So the backdoor slider, which they had success against, if the execution is in, you know, to the level that it's going to be and the miss trends towards the middle of the plate, you gotta account for that as a catcher

in the game that you're going to call. You brought up a good point about the, the bulk of the interaction. And you were talking about like, you know, in yesteryear, there were more stories about this and we do know that pitchers to hitters today, see a lot more pitchers, just more of them and see fewer, like fewer have fewer at bats against them. It's just the balance schedule going against AL and NL. There's more pitchers every year like we're using 900 pitchers and you know, 10-15 years ago, we were using 600 and 700 pitchers.

So you don't get the same volume of Rolodex one-on-one. But I did have this example from a story I used to do and this is Zach Granke against Paul Krenerko. They had 73 plate appearances against each other. They were in the same division. It wasn't necessarily a balanced schedule. They saw each other a lot and Granke said to me once, he said, Paul Krenurko you change stances all the time but this is one time you know I'd quick pitched him and there's this one time he came back at me and he had this new stance where it looked like he wasn't ready at all

And then all of a sudden he'd go and swing and this is it. Look, he doesn't even actually look that ready He looks like he's gonna take it Look looks he hit that to the upper deck like folly hammer. He goes looking at it and cranky's mad and he's laughing He knows what just happened and I was like cranky. He he quick pitched you like he like he made happened. And I was like, Greinke, he quick pitched you. Like he made it look like he was gonna take it, he wasn't ready, you know? I asked Kinnurko about it and he laughed and he's like, yeah, maybe.

But he also said, I used to be too tense, too tense too early before the first pitch came. So sometimes I wait to see how long I could wait, how long I could be not tense. And I was so ready to hit that it didn't help me. So even in this occurrence where there might've been some gamesmanship between them, there was, Kurnurko was actually doing something

that was a little bit more self-focused. Like even though it seems like he was really just effing with, was that cranky there? He had a reasoning that was more hitter-focused, which was, and I think that's what ends up happening. And I don't want to speak for Jed, who actually played in the game, but I think that you're a little bit more focused

on your game plan and what you're looking for and seeing the ball than you are necessarily about all the other stuff. I mean, Joey Votto would famously do this thing where he would look out to the outfield and do these weird things with his eyes. And I asked him why he was doing that. And he's like, because the pitcher needs to be a ball release machine.

I don't need to see him looking at me. I don't want to see, think of him as a person. You know, we might be on the same team later or I like him or I hate him. I don't want to think about any of that. I just want him to be a ball release machine that I know just all I want to do is find that location where he releases the ball and see the ball out of the hand. That's mostly what the focus of the hitter is not necessarily what did you know, what did my last swing look like or what did I set him up or any of that stuff?

Just to kind of cap this off to like I do think that there is you know something entertaining about the chess match against guys who kind of know their own playing styles, right? Like they know each other really really well and you know that my guess is fans appreciate that too, right of you know Not just seeing guys facing each other for the first time But somebody who's faced each other 73 times, right? And that there's so much history wrapped up in And there's so much history wrapped up in that. There's so much drama wrapped up in that, that in, you know, in any given at bat moving forward, it really becomes more of a chess match and how you're managing the stress or where you are in the season or all these other factors that go into it. It just creates a lot more levels that the

individual matchup as you get further into your career becomes compelling. Yeah, I think for a long time there's been these debates about the value of batter versus pitcher data, people trying to predict outcomes for a variety of reasons, daily fantasy, whatever, but even just trying to understand what's happening. I think the samples are so small they're never predictive. I acknowledge that now I said, but there's no way they're meaningless because you would see shapes You would know tendencies you would learn something about someone you see often and even if you don't see him 63 times which is the most you ever faced somebody who'd you face the most jet? Do you remember off the top of your head? No idea King Felix actually

I should have just gone out of the limb on that one I knew I'd faced him a lot and I could probably visualize the movement of every single one of his pitches, you know, today. I always love those at bats because, you know, it felt like, you know, it felt like it was me up against this guy. First of all, is probably going to be a Hall of Famer. And, you know, I got to see him early in his career. You know, we kind of we faced each other at every level of our career.

And I always loved that because it felt more of a chess match. And I had more fun in those at bats, particularly late in my career. Well, A, he wasn't throwing 98 anymore. But we were both these known commodities. We had this long history against each other and Every single one of them just it felt a little bit more elevated and more fun to like step into a box Against a guy that you know, you had a long history with yeah And that's the interesting part of those samples is that they they change both people in that change the pitchers stuff is right The hitter has various experience might be stronger might eventually lose bat speed

All those things are are moving parts. I think that's why they're not necessarily predictive even though they're very in they're just very like How do you do? How did he do? Yeah, how did I do for homers? You know, I think he got me early in my career, but I I caught up to him at the end I got a few homers off him. I know that. It's 16 for 61. Looks like a walk and a sacrifice fly. So that's how you get to the 63 plate appearances. 14 Ks against one walk. Four homers. Four homers, yeah. Four homers. Kept you to a 238 OBP. Okay. 697 OPS. You know, you don't make your money off the Hall of Famers.

That's right. It's a good way to think about it. Let's move on to another question we had from our Discord. And it was focused on Ellie De La Cruz, but I think we can broaden this to just switch hitters in general. And the question was about why are the Reds so patient with Ellie De La Cruz letting him hit from the right side against lefties when those splits are not nearly as good as what he does hitting from the left side against righties. So effectively, why not just have him hit lefty against lefties? Like what would be the downside of that?

So Jed, what do you think gives teams patience with players who are switch hitters that do struggle initially upon arrival, at least on one side of the plate. Let's be clear that, you know, I think Elie De La Cruz is probably in a class of his own in this. You know, you're talking about a guy who has, you know, world class abilities athletically. And so if you're the Reds, you gonna be extremely patient with somebody like Ellie de la Cruz because of the you know We all know the the benefit of the split right of hitting righties against lefties and lefties against righties So you're kind of working with two players in one and in that regard

So the patience really just comes down to the the organizational priorities and where they are in their in their winning cycle if your if your expectations are to be winning right away, then then there might be a shorter leash on a guy to switch hitting but I think the benefit of having that two hitter in one is Well worth the investment in time if the player can figure it out. I know personally it took me four years about of time where I really honed in on a routine that I knew I could count on to produce every single day. The first few years of my career it was a learning experience and I was trying to refine

that, but learning how to be a big leaguer, learning how to produce day in and day out takes time. I think that really falls on the player first and foremost, but then the organization to help support that and really refine what that approach and what that routine is going to be to prepare yourself to have the best possible outcomes and produce on a day in, day out fashion. Your two swings are different, right? Pablo Sandoval was telling me that he was a little bit more scoopy from one side, a

little bit flatter from the other side, and that that's something he always had to manage. So just how different were you from each side? I tried to simplify it as much as possible, and I tried to make the mechanics of the swing as close as I could just from a simplicity standpoint. But the way I thought about it is my triggers were different.

Like when I decided, when I recognized a pitch that was a pitch that I should swing at or that I can do damage on, like what's my trigger, right? My finger's on the trigger. What is it that's in my mind that makes me pull that trigger? And for right-handed, because I'm right-hand dominant, it was my right hand to the ball, right?

Like, so I'm going right hand to the ball. Left-handed, because it wasn't my natural swing, and I would tend to get a little lazier with my legs just because it wasn't the way I was wired, I would actually focus on my back leg. My back leg actually initiated my swing when I was wired, I would actually focus on my back leg. My back leg actually initiated my swing when I was going well. And so, you know, I, and my hands just kind of moved

to the ball from there. So, you know, yes, there was no way, I was fooling myself if I thought that my swings were the same. So I just had to be conscious of what my triggers were from both sides. What allowed me to efficiently move my bat to the ball and without bogging down my mind with multiple thoughts.

Do you think you probably had the same bat speed from both sides? I'm guessing I had a higher bat speed from the right side. But I think I had. You had slightly more power from the right side. Yeah, I think my raw power was higher from the right side. Just because when you're top hand dominant, you're more likely to kind of whip the bat through,

which creates more speed, quite frankly. But I think that I was probably a little bit more accurate with the barrel from the left side. You know, just to go back to this Ellie example, I mean, Ellie himself is kind of an example of why you might stick with it, because in 2023 when he comes up, he has a two mile an hour difference on his bad speed. And we start talking about how different he is from both sides.

Right. And then in 2024, he has a three mile an hour difference in his bad speed. He has his fast swing rate is twice as high from the left as it is from the right. And we're really talking about it. Well, this year, his fast swing rate is higher from the right. His bat speed is higher from the left as it is from the right, and we're really talking about it. Well, this year, his fast swing rate is higher from the right. His bat speed is higher from the right, and that speaks to your talk about investment. Here, he's not on this list.

I have a list here of the biggest bat speed differences between the left and the right, and he's not on this list anymore. He's off the list. So, you know, these guys are older guys where you kind of, you may want to think about, you know, these guys are older guys where you kind of, you may want to think about, you know, quitting it. However, if you're Cattell Marte and you're 73 miles an hour, bad speed from the left and

77 from the right, you're not going to quit cause 73 is still good, you know? So that's why I color coded these cause you can be like, Oh, most of these guys are actually pretty good for both sides. Yes, there might be a difference in the Odi Tavares' output versus lefties. He's a 73 mile an hour guy, and he's 69.8 versus lefties. I mean, versus as a lefty, he's below.

So, what ends up happening is, I think the teams are aware of this, and they'll let them switch hit, but you'll start to see them sometimes sit against the side that they have less bat speed. So we saw this a little bit with Tommy Edmond in St. Louis. Now the Dodgers have been like, whatever he's an everyday player,

but there were times when Tommy Edmond was more often in the lineup against lefties than he was against righties. And I bet it had something to do with their knowledge of kind of the mechanics of his swing against each side. But if you are on that list and you're really struggling, let's say Tommy Ebnon was not good, they might come to him and say, "'Hey, your bat speed is three, four miles an hour higher

when you bat right-handed. It might be just better for you to have that bat speed than it is for you to see the ball better. I mean, because those are two things that are kind of different, right? Like if you were talking about different skills, like one is kind of seeing the ball well, that's better if you switch sides,

but one is the mechanics of getting the bat up to speed. Yeah, and I think there's probably a commensurate level of bat speed that you have to, like to your point with Kettle Marte, even though he's on that list, both sides are. Great, yeah. Exactly.

And so, but if you have someone who's just not able to produce the bat speed that is commensurate to positive results, that's a much different conversation. Like Jake Mangum, he's 28 and he's 64 miles an hour as a righty. Maybe don't do that. I mean, you're also trying to hang on in the big leagues,

just being able to get to 68 miles an hour with the bat as a lefty, it might be good enough. You get yourself a platoon role out there. I think that's the platoon role of it too, is just that might, to your point earlier with, you know, the way that St. Louis approached Tommy Edmond, is that, you know, sure, you might be listed as a switch hitter, but we're gonna play you

as a platoon player anyway. Right, yeah. And Kavett Ruiz is a catcher, so, you know, if he's 63 miles an hour as a righty, maybe put the other catcher in against lefties. You know, you're gonna sit him sometimes anyway. You know? Find those matchups that, you know,

he'll be in a more advantageous position. And you know, I think it is, it's probably not as simple as just saying, hey, just, you know, Tommy Edmond, face right on right. Anecdotally, when I started switch hitting in high school, that basically means I haven't faced, I didn't face a right on right at bat since Babe Ruth, right? Till I was in when I was 14 years old or 15 years old. And then left handed in my life, I have never faced a left on left at bat in my life.

And so, you know, are you going to do that for the first time in the big leagues? And you think you're going to get positive results from that? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. How much of a freak are you, I guess, is the real question. How quickly can you see those shapes and make those adjustments? That seems like it'd be really difficult to do if you're talking about a five

or 10 year or some kind of longer layoff than that, where you haven't even been in that situation at all. I mean, the Cedric Mullings example, I think he was like, like Jed, you're actually a little bit late to switch hitting if you kind of started in high school. I feel like, I think so. Yeah. I feel like I've seen some guys in juniors and seniors that are, that are already doing it. So I think Cedric Mullins was, was even later than that, or was it just also just a late adopter of the switch hitting.

So they were kind of like, your distance to not switch hitting is not that far. So, you know, like you can try it, you can remember it. You know, the other thing that I think is fascinating, there's actually a link between this conversation and one we had earlier about batter versus pitcher, which is, you know, if we are gonna get to a good batter versus pitcher, which is, you know, if we are gonna get to a good batter versus pitcher stat

or predictive batter versus pitcher understanding, other than just like, you know, this is what happened the last 10 bats between these two guys, I think it's more about the stuff we're talking about now. It's like, what's his bat speed from the left and the right? What's his bat shape from the left and the right? Is he scoopier from the left?

Is he scoopier from the right? Is he scoopier from the right? That's where we're headed for teams right now, where they're making these high level matchup decisions. Now, maybe during the season, some of these you don't emphasize as much because who's healthy? Who can play tonight? Availability.

Right, but sometimes in the post season, if they're making a lineup, or as in September, if you're making a lineup and you're really thinking about who's pitching tonight, and I do have two options, sometimes you may go with the right on right. If it's the scoopy guy, you know, against the ground ball pitcher, as opposed to, you know, your switch hitter who's flat from that side, you know, so you you I think that's where we're headed in terms of doing batter versus pitchers kind of looking at the components of the swing Yeah I think that will continue to evolve scouting reports and make life even more difficult for hitters trying to solve It's not hard enough yet. We got to turn the dial up a little bit more if we can

Let's save weird park factors for next week because that gives us more time to dig even further into those I don't want to cut that conversation short. A few reminders on our way out the door. You can join our discord with the link in the show description. Jed's on Instagram, just Jed Lowry over there. Give him a follow. Loves photography. So you can find us on Blue Sky. I'm DVR.B.Sky.at.Social. You can find Eno, EnoSaris.B.Sky.at.Social. Thanks to our legendary producer B. 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.

They're just dropping left and right, dude!