Rates & Barrels - Jackson Merrill's Extension, Rafael Devers' Slow Start & The Importance of Contact Point

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Jed Lowrie makes his Rates & Barrels debut to join Eno and DVR and to discuss Jackson Merrill's nine-year extension with the Padres, Jed's trip to the season opening series in Japan between the Dodgers and Cubs, the early-season struggles of Rafael Devers, and hitters that have moved their contact point up (toward the pitcher) thus far in 2025. Rundown 1:40 Jackson Merrill Gets Paid! 6:47 Jed’s Takeaways from Opening Series Trip to Japan 16:00 Changing and Experimenting with Bats 22:43 Why the 'Torpedo' Bat Hasn't Taken Off Sooner 25:19 Rafael Devers' Slow Start to 2025 34:04 Players Who Have Moved Their Contact Point Up (Toward Pitcher) 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. Okay, flights on air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris, those gardens.

Gardens, Amsterdam, Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has car carnival. Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand. Lantern Festival. Boom. Book it.

Um, how did we get to Thailand from Prague? Oh right, Prague. Oh boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada. Nice travels. Hey, I'm Robert Vinlo and I'm from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to people

about Wordle and the Wordle Archive. Do you all play Wordle? I play it every day. Alright, I have something exciting to show you. It's the Wordle Archive. Whaaaaat? Okay, that's awesome. So now you can play every Wordle that has ever existed.

There's like a thousand puzzles. Whaaaaat? Wordle Archive. Oh, cool. Now you can do yesterday's Wordle if you missed it. Yeah. New York Times Games subscribers can now access the entire Wordle Archive! Oh, cool! Now you can do yesterday's Wirtle, if you missed it. Yeah. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wirtle Archive. Find out more at nytimes.com slash games. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Wednesday, April 2nd. Derek Van Riper, Enos Saris, and the new third member of our Wednesday crew, Jed Lauer, here to make his Rates and Barrels

season debut. You were here during the winter meetings, Jed. It was great talking to you then, but we're looking forward to having you on throughout this year. Yeah, thanks guys. Excited to do this and another exciting baseball season in store. Yeah, what are you up to aside from doing this pod now that your playing career is over? Yeah, a lot. I just got back from Japan. I was able to go for the Tokyo series and be a part of that ambassador group through the commissioner's office and getting to do a lot of fun stuff.

Coaching the kids, spring baseball and softball starting starting up here, trying to be a good dad and husband and stay involved in the game. Make up for all those years you were gone. I don't know what you're talking about. The baseball life is pretty straightforward. You probably have bedtime duty until the kids move out at this point. Yeah, literally walking them to school in the mornings and, you know, trying to squeeze

in some golf every once in a while too. So yeah, just, you know, going back to civilian life. All right, well, join the discord if you haven't done so already. We have the link in the show description for buddy out there who wants to jump in there. We got one big news I haven't talked about before we dive into some of the takeaways from Jed's trip to Japan plus a lot Of that talk that's gonna be the theme throughout the week We warned you on Monday because that's just the direction the game is going right now about this though Jackson Merrill signs a nine-year extension with the Padres hard to think about anything nine years into the future and the Padres future

Might be one of the most complicated in all of Major League Baseball right now They've got several long-term deals already a lot of questions Of course about what ownership will do following the passing of Peter Seidler whether the appetite for spending will still be there But you know I think you have to look at this and then the snap reaction is based on what Jackson Merrill's done so far in his big League career this seems like it could be a great deal for the Padres Yeah, it's a little too close to that Ronald Acuna contract where Acuna Jr fired his agent after it. I'm just a little bit worried about this one for Jackson.

The nice thing is though, he gets a $10 million signed me bonus. He's set for life. And I just think he has all the skills that you need from a young player, 111, 112 mile an hour max EVs, barrel rates, a nice tiny strikeout rate. I think he'll walk a little bit more as he comes into his own great defense speed.

I mean, I don't really know where there's a flaw in this game, which is which is why I point to perhaps him making more money if he'd gone year to year. But it's also nice to ink that big number and not worry about it for a while. Yeah, Jed, one thing that really caught my eye last year with Jackson Merrill was that he hit for really more power than he had at any point during his brief time in the minors and thinking about some of the analysis about how wide the gap is between AAA and the big leagues right now, Merrill skipped AAA entirely. How surprising is it to see any player come up and have basically a career

year as a pro in year one against big league pitching? What makes that possible? I think it speaks to the character of the kid first and foremost. And then whoever is in his ear, if that's, you know, the, the Padres coaching, you obviously have to give, uh, and their development staff, you have to give them a lot of credit. Cause here's a guy that seemingly, like you said, skipped AAA,

but came up with a very advanced approach. And I think that, you know, and he, I saw a post-game interview of him the other day and he's talking about, you know, not over swinging, right? And to me, you know, you talk to a lot of these great hitters, you know, throughout the course of history, power develops, right? You learn how to hit and the power develops. You know, this is a guy who has clearly taken that approach to the game and it's paid off very early. And obviously

with the nine year extension, you know, paid off monetarily as well. Yeah, I do think the carrying tool and he's got more than one, but the hit tool was always the best tool Jackson Merrill had by all the scouting reports he'd read too and kind of seeing everything come together that quickly. It makes sense when you have that as a foundation but yeah a lot of credit probably do throughout the organization and he was learning a new position while doing it. Moved off the dirt to play the outfield for the first time in the big leagues. I mean even that sometimes alone takes a really productive hitter and causes things to go sideways at the plate so the fact that he was able to do that while playing the outfield for the

first time, I think was also impressive. General manager, AJ Prelor told a funny story. It was totally an AJ story today at the press conference about how he was trying to watch Jackson Merrill incognito in 2020. He kind of went out into the bleachers and was trying not to have anybody see who he was, but he apparently went to a part of the bleachers where he trying not to have anybody see who he was. But he apparently went to a part of the bleachers where he wasn't supposed to be because there was COVID restrictions. So a security

guard was escorting him out. And on the way out, somebody's like, Are you a scout? He's like, Oh, yeah. And he's like, Oh, well, are you here to see Jackson? Mary's like, No, I'm here to see the picture. And apparently, the guy was like, Well, there's Jackson Merrill's dad right there. And so he ended up having like a 15 minute conversation with Jackson Merrill's dad at the end Jackson was dad's like, and what was your name again? He's like, Oh, AJ. Not the most covert assignment he's been on. But AJ just has, I think some of these deals have been have been questionable. Like I talked about the Xander

Bogart's deal, and he has penned himself into a corner with some of these deals and some of his aggressiveness has been hit or miss in the trade market. But his eye for talent, I mean, is just top end. I mean, they just just this idea that he's going out to see the one pick that turns out to be the best pick in that draft, you know, really, you know, and he, and he, and he knows it and he went and saw it. And I'm sure he came back and was like, that's our guy. So kudos to him for spotting him.

He just needs to take a page out of Theo's book now and show up in a gorilla suit. Oh, you guys in Boston, uh, you know, Theo early in his career, you know, his, his star was, was kind of of burgeoning, right? And everybody wanted a piece of him. I think there was a big crowd and he ended up walking out of the clubhouse in a gorilla suit. So nobody could recognize him. Couldn't bug him.

All right. Yeah, that would be interesting. Who's the mascot? Oh, I think it's AJ. I'm actually surprised he didn't do that. Yeah, Theo kind of laid the groundwork for that. But it's a great idea. Not at all surprising the AJ Preller was there with some kind of partial disguise, though, trying to get a look at Jackson Merrill without being spotted. Let's get to Jed's trip for the opening series in Japan. I think

depending on your your path into baseball, you might have different feelings about the season not opening here. So for fantasy players, it's this little nuisance to have two games that count that are well ahead of opening day everywhere else. You got to get your drafted ahead of time or get a peek at the stats and deal with it.

I heard something from a fan perspective too, which was like, they thought that opening day was kind of mismanaged, you know, just generally because they were like, day games on a Thursday, like, am I really good? Like some people do take their kids out of school, but like, you know, a lot of people schools like number one, so you're not, you're going to do a day game on a Thursday for opening day. And there's like, there's opening day in Japan, there's opening day here, and then there's a home opener. They were almost like, there's too many opening days. There should be just like Friday night, you know, six o'clock, seven o'clock.

Every game, everybody has an opener or Saturday day game. Everybody starts on a Saturday day game. Like why not? Like make sure it's sold out. We saw some opening day games that weren't sold out because it was cold and it was a day game on a Thursday. So like, you know, I wonder sometimes it's just how the calendar works. I know I'm not getting on the schedulers.

Schedulers have a really hard job. Yeah, yeah, truly. I think that's an interesting idea to unpack though, cause you know, you talk about the last game of the season, they moved to where, you know, everybody's first pitch is at the same time. So there's no, there's no gamesmanship in regards to that. Opening series in Tokyo, I think that I view it as a huge success

You know, Japan is obviously really embraced major league baseball with the likes of Otani and Suzuki and Yamamoto and Imanaga and yeah, Sasaki. So the Tokyo series I get that that can be a nuisance for you know, fantasy baseball players But I think for the overall good of the game I don't view that as anything but a huge success Fanatics made 40 million dollars on two games in sales of jerseys and stuff The energy there was incredible the the pop-ups I mean fanatics had stores seemingly on every corner tops had a really cool pop ups. I mean, fanatics had stores seemingly on every corner.

Tops had a really cool, you know, engagement where they had a bunch of, you know, fun cards and memorabilia. And that's that's one of my hobbies, too. And so that was fun to fun to see the tops displays. Apparently, Otani has a big collection of his own cards. I mean, like I said, and Japan is just, you know, baseball crazy. So it couldn't have gotten any better. And it seems like, like my thought was, yeah, it's an inconvenience for fantasy, but generally it seems like a great way to grow the game.

Do the players generally like it, even though it speeds up spring training? I get the sense most players don't enjoy spring training all that much anyway, so the sooner you could get out of Arizona or Florida, the better for a lot of guys. I would say nobody likes spring training, but it's necessary. And so, you know, it's a buildup process. And so I guess as you understand, as you go through it, it's not anybody's favorite part of the year, but it's a necessary part to get yourself ready for what ends up being a very long season.

You know, Japan, I'd be interested to hear the Dodgers players' perspective on this. Obviously, they did it in Korea to start the year last year. I was able to do it with the Red Sox early in my career. Actually, I was kind of on the travel squad. I wasn't on the Major League roster yet, but I was such a young guy and it was a new experience in terms of Major League baseball over there. I got to play in Japan for Team USA, but you know, I was wide-eyed, you know, starry, just so as a young player, I was really excited.

As a veteran player, that's a long trip to take. You know, there's some jet lag to deal with. Major League Baseball does a great job of building in that extra time in between when you get back and when the actual season starts for you. You get a couple more off days in the season. So, you know, I think on balance, it's something that's worthwhile. Do you think that there, you know, there's a quite a different atmosphere in Japan, in Japan, at Japanese baseball games in terms of some of the sort of planned dances and cheers that they have?

And yeah, I guess it's a little reminiscent of maybe baseball and the Dominican. You know, there's some aspects that are the same, a little bit more respectful and not quite as jubilant and sort of in your face, but like a cool upbeat atmosphere. Do you think there's any way to sort of port any of that over into America or is that just, you know,

just a unique difference between us culturally? Or, you know, just a unique difference between us culturally? Or, you know, what did you think about when you're watching, you know, because you got to watch some non MLB games while you're there too, right? Let's unpack that a little bit. So yes, I might, my hope would be that absolutely right, you know, as these you look at the Mets, right, like the Mets have their, their fan fan group that does it, the A's had the right field guys in Oakland. There are some serious guys, you know, fans that that come up that have their chance. But it's not I wouldn't say it's probably not as prevalent here as it is in Japan and and or the Dominican. So, you know, personally, I would love to

see that take hold more, you know, more fan groups getting more invested into the teams. You know, you talk about songs and dances for individual players. That would be awesome. So I, you know, I can't really say it any other way than than hope that stuff like that continues in Major League Baseball. I think there's sort of an authenticity thing to it. Our producer, Brian Smith, just put a note here. The Giants are supposedly adding a cheering section sometime this season. I think you have to be immersed to it. Our producer, Brian Smith, just put a note here. The Giants are supposedly adding a cheering section sometime this season.

I think you have to be immersed in it. I think you have to go to a game overseas and be surrounded by people that that celebrate it that way in order to just feel like, hey, let's let's do that here. Right. I think you kind of have to get a more global perspective as a fan to feel comfortable doing something like that in a lot of cases. Yeah, maybe they should have like a Japan series every year because, you know, one thing that the first time it happens, they may not have, you know, cheering songs for players because they're American players or whatever.

But you know, if they do that again, they'll have they'll have a Tony playing cheer, you know, like I think they should. I think the Dodgers should just open every year. The more that it happens, the more that Americans are seeing it on TV You know, it's just a little awkward not to see it live and to have it be in the middle of night But you know nothing really can be done about that. That would be awesome If you you know stood something up the partners in Japan, you know encourage some fan bases Or fans in Japan to create songs for the Major League players in

anticipation of that. That opening series with whichever teams are going to be there, I think would create a pretty cool dynamic that I think the American players, the MLB players, would treasure, quite frankly. If I went to Japan and showed up and the fans had created a song for me or a dance for me, I mean, that's pretty memorable. And it would start probably with Otani, but you know, it could easily come back, you know. Now you're in LA and they're like, oh, we heard this chant over there. Like, let's do it here. You know, so some part of this is just like to continue doing it, even if it is hard in

some ways. It's like if you keep doing it, you know, you're going to you're going to build a foundation there and we know that it's a great idea because you know, there was something like 80% of TVs in Japan were like on for the World Series. So you alluded to this earlier, but I was touring the the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo right there You know within earshot and I shot there's a high school baseball tournament Happening and you know in the middle of Tokyo and you're got flags and dances and I took a grainy video of it But it was pretty incredible that that even at the high school level is and this is a big high school tournament

This is not a Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not a Tuesday, you know, high school rivalry game. It's one of the big ones. But still, I mean, the fandom there and the engagement was pretty awesome to see. Got a world baseball classic coming up in 2026. So we'll get to do something like that again next spring.

Did you find over the course of your career that the interest in players being a part of that grew over time? Did it become something that was more important to be a part of? You mean like an international trip or the world baseball classic? Oh, the world baseball. Yeah, it felt like it was tepid interest at first. And now I think we have more players, at least in America, especially that want to be a part of it. It's definitely grown the interest, the quality of talent that is playing, particularly on the US side. There's more guys who are participating. I never had the opportunity to do it, but I did get to represent Team USA at the college level,

which was one of the great, great honors of my life to be able to put the USA name on the front of my jersey. So I'm all for those national competitions. I think it creates rivalry and just brings us together as a community. I mean, you know, Tony versus Trout in the last World Balling Baseball Classic. That was the best possible scripted moment you could have at the end of that game. These things don't write themselves, sorry, it's pretty incredible what happened with that.

Have you ever wondered what goes through an athlete's mind before they step on the field? Or about the secret superstitious pregame rituals? Hi, I'm Isabella Rossellini. In the latest episode of This Is Not a Beauty podcast, we'll speak to the barber responsible for the hairstyles of some of the world's greatest athletes to dig into how beauty shapes sports. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform.

This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney+. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality, with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX is Dying for Sex, streaming April 4th, only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com.

OK, Martin, let's try one. Remember, big. You got it. The Ford It's a Big Deal event is on. How's that? A little bigger. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Nice.

Now the offer? Lease a 2025 Escape Active All-Wheel Drive from 198 bi-weekly at 1.99% APR for 36 months with $27.55 down. Wow, that's like $99 a week. Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal Event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. So let's talk about bats.

It's been the topic of conversation in major league baseball around the sport for the last 96 hours or so, at least an hour since the Yankees barrage against the Brewers over the weekend. Had a great interview yesterday with Keenan Long from Long Ball Labs talking about the future of bats. And one thing I wanted to ask you about from the player perspective is just

what is your relationship with your bat maker or the company manufacturing your bats? How much conversation is there? How frequently are you trying to make adjustments to that? Because it seems that you made a wholesale change. If you went from one style bat to a torpedo bat, you never used them before, maybe you wouldn't do that in season. That seems like a pretty massive adjustment.

Yeah, personally, I wouldn't do it during season. That seems like a pretty massive adjustment. Personally, I wouldn't do it during the season unless it was one of these things where I couldn't buy a hit. But I'm still taking it to the cage in batting practice for a few weeks before it's debuting in a game, right, where something actually counts. I worked with Keenan at Long Ball Labs. But a lot of that testing went in the off season and a lot

of a lot of stuff goes into that testing that leads you up to the season. So you kind of build confidence through the you know through that process, particularly with long ball labs. And then you know for me as a as a young player you know I kind of had an idea of the bat that I like through the minor leagues, but you know as you get to the major that I liked through the minor leagues, but as you get to the major leagues and establish yourself, more avenues open. Bat makers are, they're going to go out of their way to work with you because you're kind of a walking advertisement at that point for their company.

And so I ended up working with Pete Tucci at Tucci Bats at the end of my career and Pete and I had a great relationship and we were able to text about you know anything and and really dial in the type of bat that that I ultimately used. Did you learn a lot about your bats through your work with Keenan and like you know we've talked a little bit about how your ideal bat may change over the course of your career you know like when you kind of come in with your best bat speed as a young batter, it may want just the biggest mass, you know, on the barrel. And then as your bat speed is declining,

maybe you'd rather have a bat that turned quicker. When you were testing with him and finding out about the sort of variances in your bats, did you identify a couple different bats that you might use situationally or that you'd sort of variances in your bats? Did you identify a couple different bats that you might use situationally or that you that you'd sort of grown to like that were within your specifications? So it wasn't like I'm changing to a 33 or 30, whatever, you're not changing ounces, but within your specifications found bats that like were better for you in some way

or another. I was a little stubborn on the model of bat that I used. Like I said, I spent a lot of time with Pete trying to come up with the right balance for both right and left handed. And at the time, in my mind, it was I've got enough to manage being a switch hitter that I was trying to reduce the variables. And so for me, and that's also why I ended up with the single flap or the double flap helmet, right? As opposed to two single flaps.

It was just trying to reduce variability. Yeah, exactly. Like there's just, there's enough to manage without worrying about which bat I'm grabbing or which helmet I'm grabbing. So. If you did it over again, would you change anything? Would you maybe have a different bat for right and left?

And this is where the torpedo bat is getting a lot of publicity right now, but there's really no silver bullet in any of this, right? I think it's more based on the characteristics of the hitter, and if I were looking back on how I hit the ball right-handed versus left-handed, I'm probably taking a more traditional bat shape right-handed because I hit more balls

towards the end of the bat just because of my right hand and kind of getting the barrel, releasing the barrel a little bit more versus staying inside the ball a little bit more left-handed. So more of my contact would be a little bit closer to the label, which is why. A torpedo for the left-handed Jed Lowry and a regular one to the righty.

Exactly right. Lefty torpedo. I feel like we could try this now. We have to get you a torpedo. We have to get out on the field. We've got to get the cameras. We just got to see. We've got to see how much of an impact we can have right away. Hopefully my oblique would withstand that. You famously stayed in one piece for your whole career. Yeah, no. Never dealt with any injuries. I did like Pat Murphy's quote, the Brewers manager saying, I need to want it's the magician, which I feel like is the right response if you get just smacked in the first series anyway. And just like, don't don't blame it on something like that anyway. Like just just take your lumps and move on. But it still has to be the right fit. You still have to swing it correctly. I compared it on Monday. I

said, it's probably like being fitted for your clubs in golf. Like if it's done really well, great You're gonna hit the ball better, but there's still probably some margin for error there No, exactly And I and I think that's where you know to bring it back to Keenan and all the testing that they did I was I've seen a lot of things come and go through my career and I was a little skeptical at the time, but as I went through the process and I actually saw the results matched the way I felt, I bought in relatively quickly to it.

And I think that the process that he uses to identify the bats and the dynamics of each individual bat, which that's an organic material. Everything might be a little bit different within those characteristics. So the same weight and model might come out a little bit different. And there's a lot of anecdotes about players going through a dozen bats and feeling them and they're going to pick three gamers out of the 12. What I found really fascinating is that when I shipped my bats to Keenan,

they came back. I knew exactly what I was getting based on the numbers that he had produced through his process. Your three gamers you would have found intuitively, you know, usually almost always matched up with the three that you were like, these are the best. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, ultimately, it was a process that, you know, I didn't have to, it didn't take me time and repetition to go through it. It took that during the off season, right? Where it was a more controlled environment where there wasn't anything going, or there wasn't anything serious on the line. It was more just, you know, fact finding.

And once that process was completed, I kind of knew the numbers that I was looking for that his process produced, then when I got my next box of bats, I could just go through it and identify exactly the bat that I needed. The feel part of that is what's I think really impressive, but it makes sense. It's something you've done thousands and thousands of times

over the course of your career. So trusting that, I think is just something that becomes sort of innate over time. One thing that Keenan said that I just wanted to ask about real quick. Keenan said that one reason that the torpedo hasn't taken off so much is that he said that players would tell him that just even stepping up to the plate

and hitting the plate with the torpedo bat didn't look right and didn't feel right. So we've had the puck knobs. we've had the axe handles and the torpedo. Do you think that there's been any resistance just because it's like that doesn't look right? That doesn't, that's not what I'm used to. I guess people have been swinging the bat, they've been swinging for so long, they're just used to, there's certain expectations of what it looks like, you know. There's a level of comfort, right? When you're out there and you're under the lights

and you have to perform, having something that you trust is the first and foremost thing, right? And so when there's so much on the line, if you don't feel right, which goes back to the double flap helmet, right? I also not only did it, it streamlined my day-to-day process.

I wore the single flap helmets for the first, you know, a few months of my major league career, and it just never felt right. So ultimately that that's why I ended up with the double flap helmet is that I ultimately cared more about me feeling good in the plate and me feeling comfortable versus, you know, just conforming because that's what everybody else does. That also because you had a double flap in college because you just didn't want to have two two helmets in your bag. The major leagues is the only place that the single flap helmet exists.

There's no other level of baseball. That's right. Outside of major leagues that doesn't wear a double flap helmet. It's one of these like rites of passage that, you know, guys make it to the major leagues. And they're like, oh, I get to wear the double flap helmet. It's one of these like rites of passage that, you know, guys make it to the major leagues and they're like, Oh, I get to wear the single flap helmet now. And so, so, and I, and I did it too. You guys are just a bunch of kids. I love it. That's all it is. I mean, yes, absolutely. I'm going to Japan with, you know, Hall of Famers and you know, legends of the game. And it's, you know, it's,

it's just a bunch of big kids. And that's what's fun, right? When you never have to grow up, right? And you're able to have a successful career, that's about as good as it gets. But yeah, that's ultimately what that is. It's a rite of passage. You're bestowed the single flap helmet

when you get to the major leagues. I tell my kids that tonight. It's like the visors in hockey, those rules, they go away eventually, you don't have to wear a shield or anything eventually. Yeah, exactly. Don't know about that, think I'd wanna wear the shield that I could just be used to at that point.

I just feel better, you know, having that little extra flap right up there, but I forgot about that, that it's the only place that the single flap even exists. Let's talk about Rafael Devers for a bit. There's something going on with Rafael Devers, right? Shoulder injuries, plural, I think is part of it. He had some shoulder stuff already, dove for a ball last July.

I've seen some splits since that kind of second incident. That speeds way down. Obviously we had the story throughout the spring. They had Alex Bregman, the the flap about i'm the third baseman And then he says okay i'll dh i'll do whatever it takes I don't think his struggles at the plate have anything to do with moving off of third base. That's that's my hypothesis I don't think it has anything to do with that to me. This is probably All shoulders like it just this looks like a guy who's simply not healthy at this point is there

Is there anything else we should be accounting for when we watch Rafael Devers struggling to the degree? He has struggled for this first week I'm gonna point to a couple things first Rafael Devers is one of the best young hitters in the game, right? And so I think that that's worth pointing out and I think that he's he's going to he's going to figure out I'm not I'm not worried about the production long term, but I think that there's a couple of things. We talked about spring training earlier, right? And that players don't necessarily like it, but it's necessary.

I think he had 14 at bats in spring training this year, which, you know, if you look at historically how many he got, it's between 40 and 50. So he's kind of, he's really in spring training mode still in my mind. I watched a couple of his bats the other day too. I think there is some, you know, psychology playing into this. I'll push back on your theory that it has nothing to do with the DH. I don't think that's the majority of it.

Some of the shoulder issues still could be playing into it, which causes some, you know, some minor adjustments, um, you know, biomechanically that may not be obvious on a day to day basis, but as they grow, let's speak to that know, biomechanically that may not be obvious on a day to day basis, but as they grow. Let's speak to that. We do have something out that there are some biomechanical adjustments and the new stats at Savant can actually point these out to him. You know, so he is way more open now on the left, you see where he was before and he's

further away from the plate or a center of mass is further away from the plate you see It's four inches away from the plate now and his foot is starting behind him I mean if you've watched him play he's got this almost running start It looks like he's got that he's got that stance where the front leg is really back And you can see that that foot, and he kind of runs into it. And I wanted to ask you this, like it almost looks like he's gearing up to get to his old bat speed. Like he feels like he has to like, you know,

kind of take this momentum towards the plate, you know, stand further away from playing, get this, dive, basically dive into the plate to get his old bat speed back. So does that resonate with you? Were you ever dealing with something where you looked up and you were like, wait, I'm standing in a totally different part of the plate to get his old bat speed back. So does that resonate with you? Were you ever dealing with something where you, you looked up and you were like, wait, I'm standing at a totally different part of the box

or like something has happened to my front leg because of the wrist thing I'm dealing with or whatever. You know, that speaks to the, you know, the shoulder issues or potential injury that, that's not being, I don't know if disclosed is the right way, but, but trying to play through something and those, those adjustments are happening. I think psychologically, here's a guy who clearly valued his participation on the other

side of the ball defensively, right? And he was very, very vocal about that. Obviously the Red Sox made the choice that Alex Bregman is the better option at third base, which I think that's not a hard position to take. But psychologically for Devers, now he's got all this time in between at bats. He's walking up to the plate four times, right? And when your value is now completely wrapped up in those four at bats and you have nothing

else to think about, I think that's where a guy like David Ortiz, who was able to really harness the psychology of designated hitter is undervalued. It's really hard to go from somebody who's playing third base every day and having the we'll call it the distraction of playing defense, right? Where you have to focus on another part of the game to now all of your value is wrapped up into these four at bats. And the bats that I saw the other day,

I mean, he was falling down swinging, like practically falling down. And so I think a lot of that has to do with intent. He wants to hit it a mile. That's what he gets to do today. He has to hit a homer today. Exactly. You got four opportunities to do something

and that's your value, right? So I think psychologically, there's an adjustment being made. One, two, you know, there could be some lingering shoulder issues. And then third, he had 14 spring training at bats and now he's kind of jumped into the fire. So I think there's, it's a perfect storm that he's kind of running into early in the season.

Last season of my career, I think I had nine at bats in spring training. And I've never felt so naked going into a season in my life, right? Like I was not ready, but given the lockout and the cadence of it and when I signed, I just didn't have, you know, I literally, I think I had nine at bats in a major league spring training game before the season started. So and, and like I said, I was not prepared. There's a interesting aspect to what you're talking about there where the analytics says that there's a DH penalty, there's a pinch hit penalty. Any player is 10% worse than they would be

if they were playing in the field. Now I've talked to JD Davis extensively about this and other players about just the idea that, maybe it's about being warm. I thought about it as a physicality thing. Like you out on the field, you're staying warm, you're staying involved, but they're already there, you hear it.

Like staying involved is not just a physical thing, it's a mental thing and it's distraction. I love the way you put that because if I'm sitting down there and I've just struck out, if I'm out on the field, people talk about like bring it out with you. I think that players don't really bring it out with them because they have to concentrate on what they have to do next. So they just struck out once and they get out on the field, they get to, to you know where am I? What are the outs? What's the out state? You know like what do I have to cover? Like that's the stuff that players have to think about on the field is like what's next? What happens when this happens? What happens when this happens? Where do I go? Where I throw? What

I do? You can't think about your strikeout the whole way but he's just sitting on the bench he's just like I struck out again damn it. I think they need to call Ortiz, dude. I think they need to call David Ortiz because he had the skill of being a DH. And I think it meant being top step and basically playing manager. That's what the vibe I got from him was like, he was so involved with what was happening on the field

that even if he wasn't on the field, he was like mentally on the field, you know? That was part of David's process, but there, you know, I've also seen, you know, him in the clubhouse, you know, doing other things to distract himself, right? Like there's a process that goes into psychology. It's a great idea, obviously.

David is a great resource. I think that, you know, he probably has an open line of communication with Raffy Devers, but there's no such- I'm sure I'm not the first person to thought of that. I'm not just saying like, it seems like it would be a good idea. Yeah, of course, right?

Like you're the same organization, Hall of Fame, like all of these things, right? Like that, that's the perfect example of it. But ultimately, you know, there's no substitute for actually doing it, right? You can, you can be as prepared as you, you know, you think you are, right? It's like being a parent.

You can read all the books you want, but until that baby is there, you're never prepared. And so, that's why I say there's this transition psychologically going on with Devers, and there's other factors involved, but I do think he's going through a process right now of psychologically figuring out how to DH. And I think that there will be a recognition at some point,

or hopefully there's a recognition that he doesn't have to do more now as a designated hitter than he did before, you know, physically, right? Like just be the same guy that you've always been with the bat. And it's just finding a way to do that psychologically when you have those four opportunities and really no other contribution in the game.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point and just filling that space in a different way, finding out what goes in there. Cause I think you're right, even if you're playing third base and you don't have a ball hit to you for a couple innings, you still have to be prepared for the possibility that's going to happen.

If you do make a play that probably helps you reset your brain I struck out last time I've had a nice pick man nice play started double play whatever you did something that contributed and then it allows you to reset and get past that you're not hanging on that that micro failure the same way so yeah maybe I was quick to dismiss the the not playing defense aspect from like the psychological perspective especially for Devers you know a lot of what we talk about this dismiss the not playing defense aspect from the psychological perspective, especially for Devers.

You know, a lot of what we talk about this time of year is focused on very, very granular data, because that's all we really have. And so much of the big picture stuff is weeks away from stabilizing or being predictive or being helpful for analysis purposes. And you know, started putting together a list of players that are making contact closer to the front of the plate, closer toward the pitcher. I always feel like you say like up,

moving their contact point up. It's like a little- Oh, you think like up like this. Yeah, I meant like- So some of them might think you're talking about literally up, but no, we're talking about closer to the pitcher. So you put this leaderboard together,

and before the show, I think you said, don't really know if it means anything, but it's it's still interesting to look at these types of things because these are players that are going through pretty significant early adjustments. Yes, these players like Jake Cronenworth is making contact with the ball six inches closer to the pitcher than he did last year. And that is relative to his own body. So, you know, there are other numbers in there that are relative to the pitcher than he did last year. And that is relative to his own body. So, you know, there are other numbers in there that are relative to the plate,

but that was messed up by what we saw. Some of these players were moving up or moving back in the box, and that was changing where they were relative to the plate. But Jake Cronenworth, like relative to his center of mass, he's making a contact six inches further out in front. Now for Jake Cronenworth and Ryan McMahan in particular, I actually think this is a positive

because both of those guys have been guys who spray the ball around, but they do hit the ball hard enough to have more pull power. I wanna come back to this, but look real quickly at this visual from Joshua Rodriguez. He's a coach who does analytics and he did this correlation between contact point and pull air percentage.

So the further out in front, generally, it's not actually as tight as I expected, but the further out in front you make contact, the more you put it in the air to the pull side, which is generally good for power. So if we go back to this list, taking guys that have power and haven't necessarily pulled it in the past, like McMain and Cronoworth, I'm cool with that change. I think it might be a good one. Now, I know Kauser's hurt, but guys who already pulled for power, there is the chance that they get too far out in front, which is why I didn't put coloring on this graph because I don't know that necessarily any of this is unqualified good or unqualified negative.

But I do think that within a player, if you see a guy who has hit the ball hard, but just struggled to pull it in the air, like if Cabrion Hayes was on this list and had added five inches and was making contact five inches out more in front. I'd be like, oh, he might turn some of that tremendous batted ball speed, you know, that bat speed

and batted ball velocities into more power this year because he's doing this. So I think it's a positive for Cronenwerth and for McMahon. I'm not sure it's a positive for everybody on this list. And I did want to throw it to Jed, just to talk about how he managed his contact point and how he thought about his contact point. Because I went and talked to PCA, Pete Cromstrong

about potentially making contact out a little bit more in front and he said, yeah, like I'm too early. I'm trying to, you don't have to tell me that in a number. Like I'm feeling like I'm too early. So you wouldn't necessarily track this number Jed, but you would track your timing and if you felt like you were too early

or too late on pitches. That's something that I, to me, is the basis of all success in hitting is your contact point, right? Because the swing is such a repetitive motion that you're trying to really find the perfect contact point for any pitch location. And once again, to our point, to my point earlier about being a silver bullet with the

torpedo bat, further out front to your point too, it doesn't mean success. It just means that you're trying to find the right leverage point for wherever that pitch is. And, you know, I think there's still, you know, yes, it's easy to say that pull in the air is what's going to produce the most damage. But I think intent is really what it boils down to. If you go up there with the intent of pulling it in the air, every single pitch, you expose yourself to far more swing and miss that ultimately leads to

less production. So to me, it's finding the right leverage contact point no matter where that is, whether that's pull side opposite field or back up the middle, it's finding the proper contact point to produce the most amount of exit velocity and or leverage. I would describe it as leverage for you to stay behind the ball and stay through it, as opposed to, you know, it ultimately leads to exit velocity. But I think that that's something that guys chase that can lead to negative routines or like things that you're working on that can lead to negative results. We talked about the biomechanics of the swing. You could do something where you're stepping in the bucket, kind of, you're opening up too early because you're trying to get out there so early,

right? And so then you're kind of making contact in a way where it's like maybe to right field, even though you're out early or whatever, because of the way your body's moving. And once again, I worked on this where I would find the locations on a tee, right? And my tee work, there's a couple things that I did every day. I wanted to make sure that biomechanically, I was moving to the ball, that my mechanics to the ball,

my move to the ball was the same every single day. So I had these checkpoints that I would get to. And really really what I would do is I would take that strike zone, right? Where you have the nine boxes and I would put the tee in each one of those spots, then put it in the proper contact point, right? Inside pitch, a little further out front, outside pitch a little further back, but in a leverage position, right? Not getting beat, but in a leverage position that would allow me to drive the pitch, right? To create the ideal launch angle where I can drive the ball. Yeah, it's not necessarily up in the air.

It's a ball that's driven. And so if I, over the course of my career, I was able to establish the muscle memory to get to these nine spots, right? Where I could cover the entire plate without thinking about it. So then when I'm in the box, I'm being an athlete and I'm recognizing pitch out of hand and my body intuitively moves to where my brain tells my body to go. You're saying that you had one movement to get to those but are you sure you didn't have nine? No, I'm sure I'm sure that that's what I did. I had nine

I'm saying I'm saying I hadn't yeah, I had nine swings right to cover the entire plate So nine swings in the sense that muscle memory moving to those different contact points slightly different, but I'm not thinking about that, right? I've done it so many times Repetitions off the tee before the game, that once the ball starts moving, I'm thinking about what's my timing and am I gonna swing or not, right? Like that's, once the ball's in the air,

it's a very athletic move, right? And if, to me, if you're thinking about the mechanics of the ball, there's something missing in that. I'm not saying you can't be successful that way. There's something missing in that. It's not saying you can't be successful that way. There's something missing in that. It's very robotic. You're gonna create holes. And I think the way to have a long career

where you're going to see, and that's, you know, for me, I was able to kind of see the ups and downs of the pitching trends because I was consistent, right? I didn't follow the launch angle trend. I didn't follow the like hit down to it. I think that we get to extremes in baseball and it's easy to say, oh, well, we taught down so long, let's swing up, right?

Why not just be neutral and just get behind the ball, get on plane with the ball, be behind it and hit through it, no matter where that is. I tried to embody that and I developed a routine that allowed me to have these quote unquote nine swings that I could cover anything on the plate. And then that allowed me to step into the box and not have to worry about how I'm gonna get to that pitch.

I've already practiced that. My body knows how to get to these nine spots and I'm able to account for the situation, the pitcher I'm facing, the movement that he's exhibiting, and then I know, like once I've seen where the ball starts and ends on the movement, all I'm really doing, like the movement doesn't matter. I'm just getting to the spot that I've already practiced.

You know, you're gonna make mistakes though, right? Like you're gonna see a ball out and be like, that's a fastball and it's a slider. So I guess there's a higher stakes environment in some ways. If you're trying to make, if you're trying to make the contact with a ball in front, you're trying to A, you're trying to make the decision earlier what pitch that is. If you're wrong, you're going to miss my, my more, but I had this weird conversation with Austin Riley once where Riley was talking about, sometimes he felt like he got caught in between fastball and slider, right? And he's been a guy who's mashed sliders

and actually made more of a living, I think, more of smashing sliders than fastballs. But sometimes he'll fall out of touch with that. And we talk about contact point a lot. And I said, well, wouldn't it make sense to create a swing where you're basically early on breaking balls, right? So you get the breaking ball a little bit further out in front and you can hit those for homers

and you get, and if it's a fast ball, like if you get, like let's say I couldn't tell what pitch type it was. I swung and if I was like, I swung a little bit early, I got the slider, I got to hit it out. If it's a fast ball, I'm a little bit late and I hit an opposite field double or something, right? I said, wouldn't it then make almost sense to like time to in between those two? And he's like, no, that does not work.

There's no way that you can like time to like a non-existent timing. You have to time to the fastball or the slider. You know, you have to. Is that the sort of either anticipation or just seeing it well? What, like, talk to me a little bit about being beat, actually. Yeah, I don't want to talk about that. But like, what happens in those moments when you think it's one thing, it's another thing? Is there an ideal contact point for when you are being beat?

You know, this speaks to that athleticism, right? That you have to have the ability to adjust mid pitch, right? Like these micro adjustments that happen as an athlete when you're in the middle of competition and you're in the middle of moving. You know, and that's something that I was taught how to hit was you're timed off the fastball and you adjust to the off speed.

And that's not something that I, you know, I just blankly took to the box. I actively practiced that. What do you do if you face the Red Sox and they've just flipped it on you and now they're throwing 50% sliders and 30% fastballs like they did last year? I can go to sleep at night trusting my instincts

and trusting my eyes and myself as an athlete. If a guy throws me a nasty slider and you know I end a two strike count and I swing over the top of it, personally I couldn't go to sleep if I walked watched a strike three fastball go right down the middle. So the psychology of that for me was I'm gonna be ready for the fastball and if this guy thinks he's gonna beat me with it I'm ready for it in every single pitch and I'm gonna trust the work that I've put in, I training that I've done,

the timing, the adjustment that I've done to make those adjustments mid game, right? Where I'm on time for the fastball and I'm looking for that release point so I can see the hand position and give myself the best opportunity to adjust to that pitch, you know, whatever it is. But I'm, I'm timed for the fastball. Yeah. It's just tough. I mean, I saw an at bat last night, Joey Cantillo was facing Manny Machado, I think, and he threw him two curve balls and four changeups. I mean, he walked him, I guess, man. He was looking for the fastball. He walked him, but that's the modern game too, right?

Like there are times where you're tying to time to the fastball and they don't even give you one. But once again, like if I'm, if I'm time for the fastball, I'm never, I'm never late on the fastball. And then I just have to, I have to be in a position. I am loaded and I'm strong enough that I'm able to keep my hands back and adjust to the off speed, right?

And so that's easy, easy to say, but a lot of work goes into that. And I think that's a lot of training that you do that allows you to be an athlete when you're hitting as opposed to just a robot swinging at whatever pitch. And once again, I'll say it like this, hitting is like loading the dishwasher Like everybody's got their own way to do it and it's the best way, right? But if as long as the dishes get cleaned, it doesn't matter. Do you know what I mean? No, yeah, I didn't know where you're going. Yeah, I was like, I can load a dishwasher, but I can't hit.

Yeah, so like, so like everybody's got their own way to do it, right? But as long as the dishes come out clean, right? As long as you're producing, it doesn't matter how the dishes go in there. I just feel like Hunter Pence is now on my mind. Can you imagine Hunter Pence's dishwasher? Oh, I... Just a total disaster.

But everything somehow comes out clean. Everything comes squeaky clean. disaster but everything somehow comes up everything would never teach a child to load a dishwasher that way I heard something in there about I training we're gonna save that for a future episode because we're already at a full episode for today a lot of great stuff I want to touch back on some what you're saying what it means for hitting development I'm still working on a piece about modern hitting development and we'll have some fascinating conversations about that, I think. Tons to unpack here in the season ahead with Jed and Jed, you don't do social media.

You do like Instagram. You don't do blue sky or Twitter. I think I'm on Twitter, too. I'm I don't think I've ever sent a tweet before, but I am on Instagram. I am on Instagram. What's your handle on Instagram? I don't even know. Let me look. That shows my real level of engagement on it.

I do enjoy photos and pictures. So if there is a, it's just Jed.Lowry. There you go. Find him on Instagram, Jed.Lowry. You can find Eno on BlueSky, UniceraSky.BSky.Social, MDVR.BSky.Social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. ["Rates and Barrels"]