Rates & Barrels - Red Sox Extensions, The Year of the Kick-Change & Adjusting to Volpe

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss another round of extensions as the Red Sox continue to secure long-term parts of their core with Garrett Crochet and Kristian Campbell inking new deals, Ketel Marte tacks on extra years with the D-backs, Jurickson Profar takes an 80-game suspension for a positive PED test as the Braves fall to 0-7, and Esteury Ruiz gets a fresh start with the Dodgers. Plus, we wonder if 2025 will be the year of the 'kick-change', and how pitchers might adjust to Anthony Volpe as his heat maps shift with the 'Torpedo' bat. Please participate in our listener survey! theathletic.com/athletic/survey25 (Three lucky entries will receive £/$100 worth of Amazon vouchers!) Rundown 1:51 Garret Crochet: Inks a Six-Year Extension with Red Sox 6:07 Kristian Campbell: Opts for Eight-Year Extension in Boston 15:09 Ketel Marte: Adds Years in Arizona (Six-Year, $116.5M) 21:42 Jurickson Profar: Suspended 80 Games for Positive PED Test 25:43 A Look Back at Other 0-7 Starts 30:58 A Fresh Start for Esteury Ruiz in Los Angeles 36:07 2025: The Year of the Kick-Change? 44:52 New Toys: Using Batter's Box Data & Bat Changes Against Hitters (How to Pitch to Anthony Volpe in 2025) 52:59 Advanced Scouts and Player Acquisition Analysts: Asking Different Questions? Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social Follow Trevor on Bluesky: @iamtrevormay.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: Trevor May Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Pair it with our new garlic bread and a refreshing peach lemonade quencher for a meal that just hits. Order on the Tim's app today. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. It's time for Tim's. Ooh. Yeah. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Thursday, April 3rd. Derek Van Riper, Trevor May, and maybe Eno Saris just fell off frame if you're watching us on YouTube. There he is! Oh, you

got a ball! Very nice. Fall ball? No, for grips. Oh, yeah, that's super helpful. Good idea. Good prop. Good prop to have handy. Lots of ground to cover on this episode. Plenty of extensions to talk about. We talked about Jackson Jackson Merrill yesterday but Garrett Crochet recently extended Christian Campbell as we were signing off yesterday got an extension with the Red Sox, Ketel Marte gets it on the party extends an already multi-year deal further into the future we'll talk about that we got jerks and pro are suspended for a positive PED test this week as three Ruiz getting a fresh start Eno wrote about the kick change for the athletic will dig into that

We're gonna take a look at how Trevor and pitchers might actually use some of the new information from stat cast Against hitters so we'll talk about that as well So a lot of places to go plus arm angle changes from the first time through the rotation for most teams We'll talk about what that could mean for pitchers who have moved in various directions So a lot to cover and some housekeeping up top you listen to us now We want to hear from you We're asking you to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast habits by going to the athletic comm athletic survey 25 3 lucky entries will win a

$100 or pounds worth of Amazon vouchers too so whether you're a long time listener or a new one we want your feedback that's theathletic.com slash athletic slash survey 25 thank you so much we'll put the link in the show description as well it'll be right there alongside the link to join our discord alright guys let's begin Garrett crochet recently extended by the Red Sox six six years, $170 million. Trevor, if I had told you this time last year that any team was going to give Garrett Crochet a six-year, $170 million deal,

would you have believed that was even possible? I would have definitely believed that it was possible if it were two or three years in the future, and he had thrown two more full years of innings. I believe he's maxed out last year at one 46. He also has no minor league innings. So it's like, there's just not a lot of body of work there with some injuries involved, so it is kind of a big risk, but I will say in terms of performance,

if you are counting on him being healthy and you're confident that he can stay healthy, that he's figured something big out, the pitching itself is definitely clicked. Something has clicked there with the use of that cutter and the, his repertoire and the way that he is getting people out. That's sustainable. I think that banking on him being successful in his pitching, it makes sense, but being healthy part, uh, I think there's a lot to be proven. They're pretty crazy to be honest. As much as he has advanced the sinker, he's throwing it 7% of the time and

still using the sweeper 6% of the time and the change of 6% of the time. You might've noticed all those numbers are below 10%. I mean, he's pretty close to a two pitch pitcher fastball cutter. It is one of the best fastballs in the game. So I get it. And I think that what I get here also is, you know, at his age, when you're older, like when you're signing like a Justin Verlander, you might get, you know, an injured guy. And then you might also, you're not sure exactly what kind of production you'll get in terms of, you know, stuff and, you know, strikeouts and stuff.

With crochet, you're like, he's either great or he's injured. And that can actually work for today's teams, I think, because of the unlimited 60 day I L situation of like, you know, just, you know, kind of rotating in a new arm and just being like, Hey, do we want a guy who's going to be great if he's in, or give us a roster spot if he's out? That seems like that's the calculus there. There's a little bit of residue of Heim Blum and the Rays here where it's like, you know, get a great guy. Maybe he's injury risk.

But if we build up enough pitching depth, it's like the Dodgers too, right? Get a bunch of great pitchers. If they're in, they're in and we're golden if they're out We just have to be able to develop guys Mean you see it in the Tyler glass now extension you see it in acquiring Blake Snell and signing him to a five-year 182 million dollar deal this offseason. Those are the comps for this deal in a way, right? Yeah, it's Nels 32 Garrett crochet turns 26 in June So you're talking about a guy that because of the injuries doesn't have a lot of mileage

on his arm. One of the injuries in college was a come backer off the jaw and that was a 2020 season too so he didn't get a chance to even come back and log in at the University of Tennessee. So there's some kind of bad luck fluke injuries in there, lost development time to the COVID year. I think you can look at this probably as more of a glass half full or even kind of like a win win sort of deal. Given what crochet has dealt with health wise, I can understand why he'd want to go ahead

and get this money prior to reaching free agency, which would have been after twenty twenty six. And I can understand why the Red Sox would say this is a guy that could actually on a per inning basis hold up as well as scubal or Wheeler or anybody in the game right now. So you take that risk and say if he breaks down one time during the deal, you're still probably coming out ahead as long as the stuff comes back post whatever injury there is and he just had Tommy John a couple years ago.

So hopefully that UCL is actually in good shape. Good point to point out that like if he does throw, you know, 350 innings over the next two seasons, then he would have gotten a bigger number than this. Right, right. So there was a chance that didn't happen for a variety of different reasons, but I like this from the Red Sox perspective. I think it's smart to lock up Garrett Crochet

even at these terms. Getting Christian Campbell for eight years and 60 million is another one of those deals. I think it's even tighter than the Jackson Merrill one because you don't have one year on the ledger. You have one week on the ledger at You have one week at the big league level for Christian Campbell. I could understand being in his shoes and saying, I'd like to get that guaranteed money locked in right now.

This to me feels like the Alex Anthopoulos approach to roster construction, trying to get your core locked down even beyond the club control years for an affordable price. They did it with Brian Bayo too a year ago, and they did it with Sedon Rafaella too, but I think Campbell has a chance to be a lot better than Rafaella. This to me is like a snap, absolutely would do it 10 out of 10 times

if I'm in the position of Craig Breslau or any sort of decision maker in Major League Baseball. If you're Christian Campbell, is it just as simple as saying I'm young enough to actually still hit free agency again at the end of the deal and get an eight figure payout later on? He's 22 right now. So there's a good shot that if he's the player we expect him to be the foray into free agency,

even though it's pushed back a couple of years, we'll still be fruitful then too. And hey, $60 million is nothing to sneeze at. So how do you feel about this deal overall, Trevor? I love it for the Red Sox. You mentioned the Anthopolis strategy. Everyone should be trying to do that strategy because it's not easy to do by all accounts. He kind of just approaches guys and he pesters them

a little bit, just keeps saying, hey, what about this? What about this? What about that? We take this, we take this. And he's gotten a bunch of guys who've bought into the, to being on that team and want to be there and then see that other guys have done it. So it's a snowball effect.

So they can get that going in Boston. That that's ideal because in the longterm it is cheaper. If you're signing your homegrown talent guys are more bought in. You're showing that you're committed to them and they're generally, you have to pay less money overall for them. You know, Christian Campbell that could turn into like a, like an Aussie Albies situation. I mean, I obviously that is a extremely cheap contract, but by all accounts, if he plays

as well as he wants to play, he's going to be worth more than that. But like what you mentioned, being 22 in eight years, he's 30, that's not that different than his normal free agency would have been had everything gone perfectly, which it rarely does. Who knows? It may have taken him seven seasons to get to free agency because of some up and down stuff. So like now he's kind of hedged against that stuff.

He's guaranteed to have $60 million. So I like it for him. A team friendlies are more palatable for me in this situation when, you know, it's only a year or two of the actual free agency being accounted for, and then you go look at the numbers, it's like 13 and 16 million for those two years. So he's getting, it's backloaded anyways. So even those years he's getting paid the highest highest So it also makes more sense for him there everything else factored in he'll still hit free agency and have that Like participate in the market in the way it's put together

Almost exactly the same way so it kind of kills two birds there where it gets him an early payday and doesn't like ruin the market for Second baseman because he signed so early. Jackson Churio, same thing, right? He signed before he even got to the big leagues. He's going to have another free agency come up and the team locks him down and lets him get comfortable quickly.

It's more of a benefit in players than maybe team friendlies that are signed with two years left before a free agency. Right in the sweet spot. As far as performance and multi-year projections, you know, how do you look at Campbell based on just a limited, very limited run in the big leagues? We're projecting off of mostly upper level minor league performance from a breakout 2024 season. Well, he's already hit the ball 112.

So we know that he's going to probably make good contact in terms of the swing strike rates and minor leagues, even what he's done in the first month. You can look at swinging strike rate, you can look at contact rate, you can fold in some of spring. And I think if you can say, hey, he's going to strike out around 20% of the time, he's got a max CV of 112, these are things that, and he has defensive value. Those are your three things that you can say, I think pretty well.

Rest will sort of fall in around that as he grows and obviously has upside. But if we just use those things as your pillars for a comp, 112 defensive value, strikeout rate around 20%, you get an interesting set of comps. Wyatt Langford last year, Marcus Simeon last year. And I understand some of these guys have different ages, but you know know Marcus Simeon, Freddie Freeman, Francisco Lindor and you know not too far from Gunnar Henderson and Corey Seeger. The worst name that I can think of that sort of fits on with these three pillars is actually JJ Bladay and actually he's he has a lot in common Jackson Turio. Jackson Turio hit the ball 111.6 had a

21% strikeout rate last year, and has defensive value. So if the worst comp is J.J. Bladay, I think you're in a good spot. In fact, Jackson Merrill is a decent comp. Yeah, and if they'd waited a year, it probably would've cost them the Jackson Merrill deal plus a little bit more to get a deal done

with Christian Campbell. If he did all that Jackson Merrill did, but just based on this limited stuff that we can that we can kind of compare him to comps, the comps are good. He has the bat speed. He has the contact and they, you know, as an organization, the one thing I really admire about the Red Sox as an organization right now is that they have their KPIs, their key performance indicators, their things they believe in, and they make decisions based on those, and they are aggressive based on those. So their player development is really aggressive based on those. They just have their North Pole in all cases.

And it's something like, it wouldn't surprise you, there's a lot of driveline over there. Jason Ochart is the former director of hitting, is now their director of hitting. Kyle Bodie is a high advisor there. And it wouldn't surprise you at all to say bat speed and stuff plus are basically the North Poles of the Red Sox right now. And who do they sign? Christian Campbell plus bat speed and Garrett Crochet plus plus stuff. So they're doing it at the major league level and they're doing it at the minor league level in terms of how they develop guys. Jim McCaffrey has been doing a great job covering the Red Sox for the athletic. She had a report to indicating the Red Sox are also pursuing extensions with Roman Anthony and Marcelo

Meyer too. So they are really trying to push chips in. There are some scouts that think he really has a whole loan to zone, you know, on breaking pitches and stuff like that. And they doubt his approach. There's other scouts that wonder if he is a shortstop. Even the Red Sox have talked about playing him all over. But the thing is, as an organization, you sign all these deals and one of them doesn't work out and one of them pays for the rest of them.

I mean, the Astros signed, you know, John Singleton to one of these deals and it didn't work out, but it didn't stop them from taking, you know, it'sleton to one of these deals and it didn't work out, but it didn't stop them from ticking. You know, it's also- And he still has. Yeah, did not matter. That was seven years, 10 million. Yeah, right. That was a pretty small one.

A little bit different. Yeah, about as small as I get. There was another team that's done this. I mean, I can't think of the team, the one that the Braves messed up on, but you know, the idea is you do these three or four times and maybe one doesn't work out, but the other two pay forves messed up on. But, you know, you the idea is you put you do these three or four times and maybe one doesn't work out, but the other two pay for it. Evan White, Evan White was. Yeah.

And Kingery. Yeah. Yeah. And those were really aggressive, but even smaller totals than what we're seeing on Christian Campbell. And I think even even if you believe in those players at the time, I think they had less prospect hype, less juice. It's a good point. Big League regular sort of scouting reports, whereas Campbell has been in the last year especially clearly projected to be a well above average big leaguer.

Yeah, but it's a good point that those numbers were smaller. So you are pushing it if you start signing $60 million deals, $80 million deals. And more than just adjusting for era to sit down. Rafaela said they did. So Raffaella, you know, we'll see, we'll see. I don't really like the approach, you know, if he ends up being utility guy, that could be sort of the Kingery pathway. Right.

And that's 50 million. What if it's a down Raffaella gets DFA over the course of a $50 million contract. Didn't he just walk last night? If the first time I had 250 at bats, he did walk last night. He hit two hard hit balls too. People can change. Say I know Perez who doesn't walk a ton of people either now just four-pitch walk to a guy who you got maybe he got up there. I'm not swinging I'm not One last note on Campbell by the way, he was the youngest Red Sox player to debut on opening day since Joe LaHoo in

1968 there's some trivia for you. How on opening day since Joe LaHoo in 1968. There's some trivia for you Yeah, I could you forget about you, right? Joe LaHoo One more extension to get to could tell Marte gets six more years and a hundred and sixteen and a half million With the diamond backs this one, you know reminded me a little bit of the Zander Bogart's deal with the Padres, not in the sense of the terms being one to one equal, but more in the sense of why exactly did they feel like with years remaining on Marte's deal, they had to extend him. We're talking about a guy who's quite a bit older than everybody else that we're discussing. He's 31 already. He's had an extensive injury history and by underlying numbers like yes

I can get excited about a career best barrel rate in 2024 But we're looking at a long track record where he hasn't hit the ball that hard over full seasons before So what do you think compelled the Diamondbacks to go out and do this with Kitell Martell? I don't really know. I don't really know and there was that time where they couldn't stay healthy and You know even now He's had two seasons where he's more than 600 plate appearances. He doesn't offer plus defensive value I mean, I did just say Campbell has defensive value He does have defensive value, but he's not a plus second baseman and he's 31. So at some point he's gonna be their DH

You know, I think in the life of this contract, they must've just liked the number because that's what you sort of point out. It's not the Xander Bogart's number. So they must've just liked this number. I mean, if you do an AAV on that, it's below $20 million a year. So maybe it's the idea is if we're going to hit up against the luxury tax, you know, over the course of steel, we're going to be happy that we stretched them out. It's almost they have this concept in basketball where you stretch, you stretch a veteran to change his cap number. And you know that it's going to hurt at some point, but it helps you get more players in the meantime.

So you keep this guy who obviously has plus plus bat speed and makes contact which is a theme I think I think teams really love players who you know have that combo He was like a borderline MVP candidate and you're getting from 20 million dollars a year I think it's just a oh he wants to talk extension. Oh, that's a reasonable number Yeah, we can do that, you know as opposed to like being really worried about the the top-end number 160 million Yeah, yeah, it's not the being really worried about the top end number, one hundred and sixteen million. Yeah. Yeah, it's not the most interesting part of the analysis here, but I did notice that it it brings down the year to year salary

just a little bit in these next couple of years with Arizona being the team that kind of surprisingly went in on Corbin Burns. Maybe it's just staying a little further away from the tax or something along those lines internally that also kind of made them pursue this even though Marte himself really wasn't that expensive we're talking about a couple million each year for the next couple seasons 20 million dollars a year you know in that over that extension you basically in today's environment you could be a league average player Zip says he won't even be a league average player until 2027 so So and that's a two point three war prediction.

So, you know, that's still still like five more years after that. But, you know, I was also not it's not a science that is really dialed in where you're projecting guys out for five years. And I guess to say some nice things about could tell Marta he's an underrated player. Like I will not walk away from the conversation Like a terrible deal. It's more just the timing was a little strange to me It just seems like the kind of guy that you did a good job getting an extension on could tell Marta

You're getting surplus value. Why give some of that up and take on that future risk good for him It's always good. I'm always excited to see players get paid Trevor. What's your takeaway on could Katel Marte? How well do you think he's going to age as a guy that's done a good job tempering whiffs and as you know, said does have that plus bat speed. I think this combination how this thing got done is one, he was a seven war player last year. So that's that's exciting. You can you can throw that up, especially if the teams like, hey, you know, maybe they were like, hey, what it was talk extension that what would you be willing to take a like said, shave off a little bit here in the short term and will an exchange will add some on to the end in terms of years and stretch out. So you have security, but you're giving us a little bit more flexibility to continue to build this

team into a perennial winner. That could be a conversation. And it's just rare. We're all kind of surprised by it because it's rare that the player and the teams on the same page here and they both want the same thing. That's not happening. We don't hear about that very often. This reminds me, I remember after 2015, Phil Hughes set the strikeout to walk ratio record, refused to throw an extra third of an inning to get his $500,000 bonus. People said it's because of the ratio. No, it's just because he's lazy. I didn't want to pitch again. No, it's just cause he's lazy. I didn't want to pitch again.

And he's his words, not mine. And, uh, and then he got extended for two more years and there was this snow, he had another year in his country. There was no leverage for the team to do that. And he didn't really have any leverage and they just kind of, it was kind of like throw them a bone and let's lock down one of our guys that we can count on. And you know, that didn't really work out for the next few years, but like, it made more sense the longer I thought about it and saw kind of what the point was and how you build teams. You want to know who the heck's on your team a little bit and the twins at the

time were doing a lot of that stuff so it feels like hey you're our guy you've been our guy you've performed well you know maybe there's a way that we can get some added benefit here to make the continue to make the team better because we we are confident that you're going to be a contributing player for a while, even if you become a DH, even if like that war number starts to come down and defensively you're not amazing. We're covering everything else pretty well on the team. The team's pretty well rounded and if you do this, we can make it even better. Rwanda would give them more opportunities.

I think that's what it came down to. So I like it in that way. And then at the end of the day, it gets $160 more million. So I'm sure he's like, oh, I don't have to worry about this again. Even at the I don't have to worry about frequency ever again, probably. Awesome. So it's a win win. Maybe a year to year guy by the time this deal runs out, if he's still got something left in the tank.

And I guess if you think back to Marcus Simeon's deal a few years ago with the Rangers, that was seven for one seventy five. And that was entering his age, 31 season. Semien's durability versus Marte makes them very different players but when you think about how hard Marte hits the ball maybe things are actually a little bit different in terms of how these two guys are going to age even if Semien plays second base for the duration of that contract and Marte moves the first or DH still probably a good player at the end. Many think of beauty and health as disconnected, but beauty and wellness are really two sides of the same coin.

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Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. Alright, let's talk about this Atlanta situation. Jerks and Pro-Far suspended 80 games for a positive PED test. I don't even think it's that interesting in the sense that Jerks and Pro-Far landing in Atlanta was kind of a ho-hum, like, oh, they did something, sort of move for me. I think it's a reminder that when you see something that doesn't make sense or something that seems too good to be true it probably is right? I mean and I'm talking about Jurks and Profar adding bat speed last year and unlocking this new level at a point in his career where a lot of players

really don't increase bat speed that much. So it's a blow for an Atlanta team that's off to a miserable 0 and 7 star. But does this really change the way you feel about the Braves in 2025 in a significant way, Trevor? I'll be honest, I know that the sign profile and in my head, I was like that was probably more likely an outlier than a indicator of future performance. I didn't expect him to be better this year or even probably as good as he was last year. And I think the Braves weapons are, he was probably the fifth or sixth biggest weapon

anyways. So like they need Olsen, Austin Riley, they need a Cunha back and then it all be to hit like those guys have to hit because if they don't, Provar is not going to make up for their production. I didn't see that coming. So in that way, I was just like, you know, I mean it hurts because they it's a blow to your hope as a fan base, especially when he's the only guy you really signed. So like then you're over the same team that that ended miserably last year at the end. So this doesn't feel great and we're gonna have less of a bullpen.

But that said, like a lot of interesting circumstances around that thing. I know we don't know exactly what happened. It was kind of casually mentioned in the first article written about it that I read that spent a lot of time working out in the off season with the Tattises, which I'm like, that doesn't seem, why is that not being, why are we not talking more about that? That's interesting.

But you know, the one thing we know about Fernando Jr. over there, both great hitters. So like that makes a lot of sense. But like, you know, I don't know what happened. It is blowing. It's kind of like the torpedo bats, right? With the Yankees. It's a huge story because of the timing. Like the team has just started way more miserable. No one would have guessed this because it's not even this. There's no way this is predictable them being on seven now and then to lose a guy that way that then calls into question and the team's like, did we get tricked?

Like it's extra controversy on top of the team truly not able to finish the game right now with a win. So I think it's blown out a little bit there, but I just, I don't think that in terms of, I don't think he was gonna be as big of a contributor to like in war to to this team's win total as he was he was to the San Diego Padres last year even if everything was you know he was fully healthy and whatever I just a lot of stuff went his way and he to have a

career year I don't think it hits him as hard that way than it does more in the controversy like you know the feeling in the clubhouse probably is hit more than the actual productions. Then starting out on seven is not good. And it just makes all the narrative go in a certain way. Like, like you're saying, it spins the profile situation a certain way. And it kind of just puts a certain tone on the beginning of season that you kind of have to work hard against, you know, as a team to get out of in a way that going 0-7 in July may not do.

The Dodgers had times last year where they weren't good. And I don't know if they'd lost seven in a row, but there were times where we were looking at them and saying, I don't know, too many injuries. I don't think they're going to do it this year. And they got it together. I read an interesting piece by Neil Payne on a sub stack where he was saying that the average team that starts out zero and seven wins 69 games.

Now, I don't think the Braves are the average team that starts out 0 and 7. They're a better team than that. If you look at fan graphs, they've still got an 88 win projection. The Phillies at 89-6, the Mets at 86-7. So they're still in the mix they were north of 40% to win the division now they're at 33% to win the

division they're still at 69% to make the playoffs but that is not nice if you're a Braves fan because those are all lower numbers now than they were before Payne ends his piece saying that according to ELO ratings which is just it's another kind of projection system, basically, he thinks that the Braves will be an 82 win team. And he thinks that feels that feels about right. Not 69, not 88, 82. That would be a disappointing year.

But it is in the realm of possibilities because Strider is going to be coming back. He may come back to full strength or he may have a year where it looks full strength sometimes and a dozen other times. And I would say the same thing about Okunya. So maybe the Braves are just the team that are going to be better next year. You know, there are teams that kind of ebb and flow and the Braves themselves have won a World Series recently and also looked pretty bad in subsequent years. And this may not be their year.

I mean, I hate to jump off the bandwagon at 0 and 7, but it's not a good start. And, you know, the pieces may not just be there this year. Well, yeah, it's easy to feel that way. And I think when it's the first seven games, it feels worse. I did run a stat head search. This Atlanta team is the 20th team in the expansion era since 1961 to start oh and seven only two went on to finish above 500 but I don't think when you lose seven games matters that much. I think it's more Instructive to look back at teams that have just lost seven in a row at any point and see what they have done

I shortened up the search to just a wild wild card era since 1995 because it's easier to make the playoffs with more spots now. There have been five World Series winning teams that have had a losing streak of seven or more games. Most recently, the twenty twenty three Rangers actually had a seven game losing streak and still went on to win the World Series. I don't think it's not good. There's never never good to lose seven games

But you have the 2011 Cardinals the 2006 Cardinals had three Seven plus game losing streaks in the same season still won the World Series the 05 White Sox and the 2000 Yankees are the others So like it's just one of those things it feels awful right now in Atlanta But if you believe in this team a week ago, you should still believe in this team now. I think those first win projections he threw out there are just a reminder. It's going to be a tight division. We talked about that last week on our season preview.

We expect the NLEs to be a battle with those three teams up top all season long. The Atlanta Braves just made it harder on themselves with the way this season has started. They also had a tough schedule to begin, you know? And they knew that there might be a slow starting team with the Strider and Acuna situation. Getting walked off on Shohei Otani bobblehead night, man. That's another kick in the beans. Oh, and what a star he is. First pitch, walk off, like he's just, mm.

He understands the assignment, I'm sure. Right, like him versus Trout, you know? Like he's like, he's ready for all this, you know? Yeah, it's so funny how like, when people ask him direct questions about that stuff, he's always so like, I don't know. And you're like, you know, you know. But maybe it's just natural.

But let's not forget about the Braves. And I was there and I watched this happen. They did win 71 of their last 100 games in 2022 to win the division. It seemed like they were just, the kick at the end of a 400 meter race and they just, you know, no matter how hard you're running, they were just, they're still getting closer to you. So this is the same way that this stuff happens.

This group can also rattle off 12 straight wins. Like it's nothing too. It just, it's, you know, there's not a lot of teams that could do that. They're one of the teams that have been in this position before or have played exceptionally well over a prolonged stretch as a core together. I mean, Houston, I think, has that sort of benefit of the doubt even when they were struggling beginning of last year. Maybe we were a little quick to say there is over, but they they managed to find their way back into the postseason

despite a disappointing start on the flip side of this Dodgers at 8. No, 12 teams have started eight-0, including these Dodgers. Of the previous 11, only two went on to win the World Series, the 84 Tigers and the 90 Reds. Six missed the playoffs pre-Wildcard era, only one in the Wildcard era, the Oatsby Royals, started 8-0 and actually missed the playoffs. Yeah, in the Wildcard era, I feel like an 8-0 start is like, okay. It's a big deal.

You're going to, like, even the Padres won, it's like, okay, you's a big deal. You're gonna like even the Padres won It's like okay You're gonna be you're probably gonna be a wild card team this year Probably gonna be a playoff team if you start 7-0 8-0 in the wild card era last Dodgers question for you It's three Ruiz fresh start getting out of the athletics organization coming a Dodger Terrible for a story is great for the Dodgers because he's got options He's just there pinch runner now. He's up and down extra guy that may have to wait a little while But what type of player can Ruiz actually be in a different organization?

Fresh set of coaches getting into his ears What should history Ruiz be doing obviously tons of speed? He fits a little better in the corner than in center. Probably good enough to play center in a pinch. I think it's probably the right way to describe his theories despite the speed. But can he put all the pieces together as a hitter? Trevor, you I mean, you've seen a lot of Ruiz. Like, what should he be doing? What would optimize him as a hitter?

What could the Dodgers tweak with him? It's interesting because I was always trying to figure out what his like what his intent was what he how he saw him saw himself and I think that there was just a lot of like you know wanting a little bit more juice out of his bat with Oakland which is understandable especially if you wanted to be your center fielder and that felt like it might have got forced a little bit especially like having him be out there. Cause he has, he's athletic enough to play center field. I think that's not the problem.

It's just the actual skill set of tracking balls. And he's got good enough arm too. It's just, it's just gotta put him in a place where it's a little bit easier to take better routes. I think that, yeah, putting him in a position, maybe corner outfield a little bit less presser to be the middle, up in middle, you know, star type of guy.

He was trying to force this power in the Coliseum of all places. So like, it's only going to tell you, you have no power even more than most places. I think if it was staying into the, staying in the gaps, getting your, getting your homers, maybe getting a double digits if you play all year and just. Your number one asset is your legs, stretching extra base hits, stretching singles into doubles, stretching doubles into triples and stealing bases. I mean that is, and then just being serviceable in the outfield and not striking out that much, which I feel he, he got jam, he got like off the barrel a lot, but he was making

a lot of contact. He fought in a B's. He didn't walk up there and just swing three times and walk back. Like I saw very few of those from him, which told us, you know, it's not that his strikeout rate was really low. I believe it's still a little bit of an average, but our entire team was pretty high. And then I think it's more of an approach thing or what we're trying to do.

I think he has the natural skill to put the ball and play a lot more, not just chop it on the ground and try to beat it out. Like that's a little bit of an old school thing that I heard sometimes with him and more of a, you know, try to get the barrel on the bat or get the barrel on the ball early in the bat and then just, then just try to get the ball and play because he he's got that type of run speed and you can be a nine hitter, go play on a, on a team all the time and be a, be maybe a left fielder or, or, or utility types player.

But I just think that his legs are just too good, man. He led the league. And one full year up he was as a rookie, he led the league in stone bases. And then he's just like out of the league again. Like the guy just disappears and usually those guys are around for a while. So there's something there and that's something that needs to be in the big leagues. And it's not just a Terrence Gore situation. Like he can swing the bat a little bit and he's got, he's got more tools than that.

So like, you know, said earlier, I don't think that the Dodgers are the place that that's gonna all come together. He's gonna be more of a Terrence Gore situation for them. They're probably going to use them more like Terrence Gore. But I do think him being around Tommy Edmond might be interesting because Tommy Edmond doesn't walk a lot. Tommy and makes contact Tommy Edmond hits 50% ground balls from Tommy Edmond is not trying to hit homers. You know, at this point, Tommy Edmond hits 50% ground balls. Tommy Edmond is not trying to hit homers, you know, at this point.

Tommy Edmond is just trying to make contact and hit line drives. And there's a lot in common there where he could, on the upper ends, replace Tommy Edmond or be a Tommy Edmond where he can play all over. Maybe not the best, maybe not as good as Edmond, but he could play second. He can play corner outfield. He can play center in a pinch and Make contact and be he could be the next Tommy Edmund by the end of this contract So that's the upside but I fear it's more of a gore usage in the meantime

Fourth organization in four seasons now in the one hand teams are trading for him because they want him on the other hand It's just been a bit of a revolving door for him the last couple I said that team teams love like, you know, really high contact high bat speed guys. He's he's not really either of us Yeah, I wonder I wonder what they can do But I've got to wait it out a little bit of triple a before he gets an opportunity to take an injury or maybe a bad Slump from Andy Pahe's before Ruiz probably finds his way onto that roster. Let's talk about Eno's recent writing get your story about the kick change up on the athletic. Is this going to be the year of the kick change? I think we've kicked this question around a little bit

in the past few weeks because it seems like a lot of guys tried to pick one up this spring and are we seeing a follow-through? Like we talk about new pitches every spring and then they disappear on opening day Because the the feel or the confidence in those pitches isn't necessarily there But are we seeing the same sort of interest from spring carry over with this pitch so far, you know Yeah, I think so landed an act through some in Japan champs and tie on his thumb and both of his starts Jack lighter threw some in a Cincinnati start Hayden burnsnsong will

throw some when he gets in. And Davis Martin with the White Sox has already thrown some. When I looked in the database, I had already over, I think, 200 kick changes thrown this year. So it's happening. It is a circle change, you know, where you've got the circle there, but you've you're kind of you're tent-pulling this middle finger here. And I think the way it's been explained to me, or at least I think it was Jack Leiter was talking about it, and maybe Birdsong, was they are slider guys, they are supinators, they are these finger dominant,

and the circle change can take the pointer finger off the ball, but then a lot of guys find that they are still, this finger is still dominant for them, slider guys. So when they throw this, this ends up commanding the pitch and almost as well as their index finger would. So it ends up basically pulling it on the seam.

So by tent pulling this, now you're taking your two dominant fingers off of it and it kind of allows it to kind of squirt out You know and come out in a way that changes the axis It's not it's not like you're breaking balls anymore and it kills the spin and so it ends up being a pitch that drops it does not have sideways and It has a lot in common with the splitter, but it's even harder. It's basically a power change that doesn't go sideways.

So, Grankey's power change went sideways. It had some similarities to a Sinker. King Felix's power change went sideways. These are power changes that go straight down. 90 miles an hour is the average kick change right now in baseball. I think a lot of people are breaking ball guys that can't even because even with a splitter, I think you can get in trouble because you're still using your two

dominant fingers, you know? And so splitter is not the answer for every guy who's like a, a slider guy. You can still, it can still come off and it can still be high spin sometimes, you know, like it's hard to choke spin sometimes when you're a spin guy, you know? You're like, my best thing is I have spin. Oh, you want me to throw a pitch with no spin? Okay, how do I do that?

It's really powerful and it's spreading quickly and it's coming a little bit from tread athletics. So it has a place where people are learning it. If you look through the different players, they either all were at tread, you know, or were like met somebody or saw somebody or play with somebody. So that's how the grip is spreading really quick. I mean, Andres Munoz is throwing it and he said he just saw it on Instagram.

And I couldn't even, he couldn't even tell me who he saw it from. He was like, just some player. And I was like, I'm pro player. And he's like, no, it was a minor league player. I was like, okay. It was the tread video. I know exactly which one he's talking about. I did it on my show, mid-eight, like we broke it down, like what the kick

change was, it was a college guy who throws really hard, a guy that throws like 97, 98, I think he was one of the, like a big guy who's going to be a first rounder and he was like, they were working on the kick change, getting the finger out of the way is a big guy who's going to be a first rounder. And he was like, they were working on the kick change, getting the finger out of the way is really interesting to me. It basically for, for all intents and purposes is splitter movement. It's a splitter without the splitter grip, but that you're getting the same dynamic movement and it's actually more consistently down because even

splitters have sometimes you get one finger that you mentioned. Yeah. Like a strata is like crazy slow. And we liked AJ Smith, Chava splitter. And a couple of those went like flying towards the right-hander. Oh my goodness. He was a guy who was going to say, because there's some great slow mo video of his just absolutely just devil pitches from the other day.

He threw into Manny where Manny was like, what was that? And, and be honest, this shower was like, I got away from you a little bit. I didn't want to be that nasty. But if you watch it in slow motion, it spins in that supinated, like even the splitter gets the spin supinated. It's like almost seam shifted, slowly seam shifted spinning. I think that's part of what the kick is. People don't know what the kick is.

It kicks it off access. That's what it's for to give you the some level, like the finger. When you release it kind of Like it actually does some of this you not I don't think that the pitchers are actually like thinking flick But I think that we're gonna it just actually does it because what happens would you have a ball in your hand and you Release it like it's like it's your pants are gonna flatten out Hey, I'm Robert Vinlo and I'm from New York Times games and I'm here talking to people about wordle in the world archive

Do you all play wordle? I play it every day. All right. I have something exciting to show you This is new. It's the Wordle Archive So now you can play every wordle that has ever existed there's like a thousand puzzles what day would you pick? Let's go back to my birthday. My first guest is gonna be birth because it's my birthday What made you guys do an archive? It's one of our most requested features. A bunch of our other games have archives. Like the crossword puzzle?

Yeah, exactly like the crossword. You know, you can catch up if you missed one, which is pretty cool. Wordle Archive. Oh, cool! Now you can do yesterday's Wordle if you missed it. Thanks so much for coming by and talking to us and playing. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wordle archive. Find out more at nytimes.com slash games.

My default word is always bread. Why? I like bread. What it actually does is when you release it, the last finger it touches is that finger. Ah, so it's the getting the finger out of the way more. So then now it's your ring finger that's the axis as opposed to your two fingers.

Which is why everyone used to spike curve balls because they struggled to get this finger out of the way. So when they tried to spin it, it would hit that finger and mess up the spin. And so they would start to spike it, get that out of the way so they could use their middle finger to roll it off their middle finger. Tyler Duffy was a big one who showed me that like he rolled out of bed and was

like, I can open my eyes. The first thing I do is start a curve ball. I can do that. That's why I taught, I taught my kid the knuckle curve and it's looking pretty good. And I had the same reason, but I used to put fully put my knuckle flat on the ball, like Pedro Martinez did. Evidently that's to slow it way down, which is I was, I didn't want it slower.

So I tried to throw a spike that couldn't. And then I put my finger on because I didn't have that problem. And so I was always trying to spike thinking I had that problem. And I didn't maybe for 10 years was throwing a pitch that but it speaks to how quickly things go too, because the first time I ever heard of the kick change was Hayden Byrne song last August, because I was talking to Logan Webb and he's like, oh, you'd like grips. You got to go talk to, you got to go talk to Birdsong, you know?

And then I'm like looking at this thing and be like, what the hell is this thing? And then, you know, the next spring already like 20 big leaguers are throwing it. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it isn't really in the grander scheme of things. Like sweepers took over the nation and sweepers like four to five percent of you know pitches that are thrown. But you know the way I wrote the story was like when do you like when is a pitch a pitch like when does the kick change become a pitch and you know maybe it has to do with how often it's thrown how many people throw it but also the thing that will keep this maybe from ever being its own pitch type is that with the sweeper you will probably throw a slider too.

And so the catcher needs to put a sign down and the analyst needs to know is that a sweeper or is that a gyro? These are different things. Whereas with the kick change, I think it's another type of change up grip. I don't think there's going to be a lot of people throwing kick changes and another change up. It'll be just that's their change up. So it won't be a pitch. It won't necessarily become a pitch classified as a separate thing by

stack cast. We're not going to get the, we're not going to get the green light from my Petriello and the Splinker. We'll see. The Splinker is a little bit more like you might actually throw a Splinker and throw a sinker or throw a Splinker and throw a splitter or something. Like you might actually do that and that would be terror on the catcher you know if you called one and got the other even like a model like stuff plus kind of would probably rather dial those in than just

put all splinkers in one place with you know or not even know where to put the splinker all right let's move on to another topic. We started to wonder with the shiny new toys that are available at StacCast. This year, it's like positioning in the batter's box. And we looked at it yesterday. Here's the graphic we talked about on the Wednesday show with Rafael Devers came from Red Sox stats on Blue Sky, showing just how different Devers stance was now to begin this season compared to the summer of 2023.

And I guess thinking about this in the same context maybe as knowing that I got like Anthony Volpe is using a torpedo bat. Like how are you using new toys, new information like this against a hitter Trevor? Like what would you do? How quickly would you want to change your scouting report and your approach? We'll use Volpe as a very specific example. Like would you want to change your scouting report and your approach? We'll use Volpe as a very specific example. Like would you start pitching him differently right now compared to the scouting reports and books you had previously on him, given the changes he's made? I think there's two kinds of categories that you look at and you make decisions

based on, and I actually didn't, hadn't made this distinction so much. I think I was just doing it intuitively when I was playing, but like there are unconscious things that got a player does, and then there are conscious things. So like you think of, is this showing me some change in intent, what these guys are trying to do in certain situations? Or does this demonstrate a change in like natural swing path ability, ability to handle a pitch that you weren't able to handle without thinking about it? Like, and try to determine which one of those two areas,

any of these data might point you to. So like, for example, the feet thing, there are certain hitters who drastically change where their feet are in the box. Uh, I'm going to use an old school example of this because it was blatantly obvious when it was happening. And unfortunately, I think this guy might've had help when he had this year, but Brett Boone, when he used to open up with two strikes, that was an intent thing.

That would tell you he's trying to do something different and opening up allows him to do that with the bat and not strike out, probably continue to hit the ball harder. And then as a pitcher, you then go, okay, he's trying to not miss the ball, so let's give him something to hit really soft, right? That would be the give and take there. He's telling you something.

So if he's moving, you know, not, not chase the whiff. Yeah. Allow him to have it, make him think he's getting what he wants and he's not. Right. And don't try to go for the thing that he's actively going against because he's aware of that. Paul Karnurko told me that he would shift and he's like, it was after he stopped playing, so I can tell you now, you know, but he would,

he basically, instead of being his back foot being parallel with his front foot perpendicular to the plate, basically, he would shift his back foot so that it was like pointing more towards the catcher. Basically he would be lined up for opposite field. You know, you know, if you saw that, if the catcher saw that, he'd be like, oh, he's trying to go to the opposite field.

He's trying to see the ball longer. He's trying to fillet it. He's trying to go over there. That's the two strike approach. Your catcher might see that though. Something pointed out about the difference in today's game from just five, 10, 15 years ago. You know, I remember Buster looking down at the catcher's feet one time and changing the call. Do you think there's in the arrow of the pitch clock, there's as much ability to kind

of look at a, at a pitcher's at a batter's adjustment in the box, Oh, he's closer than he was, or he's further, or he's back in the box or he's turned his foot and then change your pitch call. Especially with nobody on base. No, it's impossible. Cause you can't call time. So there is no time call. So I actually know this for a fact.

There's a conversation I had with Manny Penaena in 2023 and he said one of the biggest frustrations He had from the clock and that he didn't like is because one of the things he did was always pay attention to guys feet He played for the Reds for a long time. They played against Chicago Cubs a lot He played against Rizzo Rizzo's big and we've seen this I don't know if you're aware of listeners, but you can go find this really easily He's but blatantly obviously moved way up into the box when he thought a breaking ball was coming sometimes. And he did it a few times last year, and nobody could do anything about it.

Even if you saw it, he didn't need to be sneaky at all, because he's like, you cannot call time out with nobody on base. But with somebody on base, you've already put the pitch comment. The pitch comment is notoriously much slower than signs as well. It just is. You need time for the thing to be like, say the full pitch. And so some people have switched to just being numbers, a little

bit two, one, two, it'll just say a sign, which is faster. But you can't change the sign. And if someone is on base, you got to use one of your step offs. Now guys on second, they might do it more often, but now there's much less opportunity to do that. Pay attention. So hitters don't have to be as sneaky about it. They can, they can blatantly tell you what they're trying to do. So that was one frustration he had because he's like, I felt like I was good at this and now 90% of those situations are gone, which stinks. And that's something that not a lot of pitchers I think see, intuitively, but if they have a catcher who does, they're willing to change the thing and you got to get more creative and got

to be really on top of it if you want to do it. Like, no, you got to have audibles or something. If that's something you do regular people do to you because you throw a big slow curveball and you throw hard, but you throw something slow. That's something that might happen to you more often. Then you have to plan for it, which there's only so much time and it's just extra stuff to remember. And there's probably very few people doing it. So yeah, that's tough. And when it comes to like, let's touch on Volpe real quick. When it comes to the bat and things like that, I would say I would start looking at approach more recently and try to weigh that against things that happen long-term. So it's gonna be hard here at the beginning

as usage happens for a little bit of time and figure out how his intent has changed based on this knowing he's using this new bat and if he's making different swing decisions. And if that's the case, then you gotta figure out a way to get off the barrel another way. The nice thing is avoiding the barrel is still the name of the game and the barrel is still the same size and it's just moved it a half inch. So it's like, yeah, it's not like a ton and it's not like you were thinking in terms of having either, but it might say, you know, maybe

I'll go, maybe I'm more likely to hit if I feel comfortable throwing my sweeper. Now that's a half inch farther off the barrel. What he was hitting towards the end of the bat, it was more barreled. Now he's not barreling those near as much so that might be a pitch to use. It's not going to show up in the data for a while. So you might have to do and not like a lot of guys are super confident and be like, well, if this is happening, this might happen. So I'm just going to try it in the

middle of the game in the eighth inning of a run. Like, it's just probably going to have to play itself out. You don't get hurt. Yeah. The stakes are too high to be wrong. I was going to say it's just going to change. I think where your hotspots are in the zone, like you're going to do damage in different places with a different bat, it's going to change things about where you set up and things you can hit well and things you don't hit as well.

That's my first guess as to what's going to happen when you tweak something like that and maybe you make yourself overall more dangerous in places that you would get frequently exploited by making that adjustment but there has to be some kind of trade-off. There has to be something that does not work as well. It's just the laws of how space and everything works. That's what our bat expert said was like, if you are a guy like Juan Soto, who's turning the bat very fast and wants to spray the ball to all fields,

then maybe the torpedo is not for you because you can hit the ball, you know, away from the sweet spot towards the tip and still maybe hit it out, you know, because you have that plus bat speed. But I think this also sets up a classic dichotomy between wanting enough sample size to believe in a stat and then also wanting to move fast enough. Like it's there's like advanced scouting and player acquisition analysts

probably see the game very differently. Advanced scouting is like, what has he been doing the last two weeks? You know, player acquisition and? Player acquisition analysts are like, how good is he really? And those two things are impasse sometimes. Because if you just look here, Anthony Volpe's heat maps. So first are Anthony Volpe's heat maps from all last year. Big sample. You've a middle middle to get power, maybe middle away, right? He makes contact middle and low. So I see these heat maps. I'm like, yo, I am throwing him high cheese, you know, for whiffs. I'm throwing him inside cutters and I'm trying to set up breaking balls out of the zone, right? Because, you know, even at the bottom of the zone, he can maybe make contact with those. And I see a classic guy who has a bit of a scoopy swing and, you know, just don't

want to miss middle and, you know, miss in on him and miss down out of the zone and up out of the zone and, you know, bust him in on the hands. Well, there's a bust of me on the hands and he took it the other way. Yeah, opening day against Freddie Peralta. Yeah. And then the cutter, the cutter there's a bust of me on the hands and he took it the other way. Yeah. Opening day against Freddie Peralta. Yeah. And then the cutter, the cutter swing like this one, that's not even in the zone. So then, you know, just setting up what, what Trevor was talking about.

This is this year's heat maps, but the sample is 98 pitches on the left. Yeah. 98 pitches just generally. His contact zones have changed. He now makes contact better away from him. And he's still, I still get a bit of a scoopy sense. You know, he's got that down. It's middle and down.

And of course, if you're looking at a heat map, there's two homers up there, but there's not that, it's 98 pitches, but he hasn't put all these pitches in play, so you're talking about like he hasn't put all these pitches in play. So you're talking about like maybe six, seven, eight balls and play like that's going to change your heat map and make it obscene, I guess. Yeah, it really is. I apologize to anybody who's taken off guard by that. That was a pop on the screen. Oh, yeah. Oops. No, it's not our fault. That the map says if you're a pitcher right now, like, and we're doing it like a, how to pitch

and they've all be segment and I come to you, Trevor may like, I've got these two heat maps, which one are we looking at? The first one, honestly doesn't really talk about right down the road. Don't pitch in there. I get it. Right. Uh, which is an issue. I think a lot of people, when, when Volpe would go dry, he couldn't hit much

outside of down the middle. What that's telling me right now with his contact away, but his power in like now his ability to hit pitches has like and hit them hard. That range is much bigger, which is exactly what they wanted. He's hitting more types of pitch. His harder. He also struggled. This has been something they mentioned about him. And when I prepared for him, it's something you could see too. He struggled to pull the ball with authority not pull it he could pull the ball is just hard He is he is a guy who lets the ball travel deep and kind of has one of those like right center Natural kind of swings. It looks like he's trying to go right center

Not necessarily that he is trying to hit it up there But guys have you can tell guys like East act Paredes have like a hook, like he breaks his hands, the moment he starts moving his hands, his wrists are already breaking, because he wants his barrel facing the left field wall when he hits it, or the pole even. I played a lot of these guys who would just constantly wrap the ball under the dugout over here.

It's just been naturally how they were, both piece the opposite. And that's kind of like LeMahieu, Prime LeMahieu is kind of like right center. And they're like, you gotta be able to pull the ball with authority as a right-handed hitter in Yankee Stadium. You just do. And he's like, well, how can we get that

while not sacrificing this natural ability to get my barrel to cover the cover of the zone and hit that pitch up and away hard? And it looks like the Torbito bat's their answer to that. Now I don't know if he's moved closer to the plate, I don't know how that's gonna happen over time if guys are gonna have to go farther and farther and farther in there,

or if he's just gonna keep going closer and taking it away completely, which would be my guess because the barrel's helping. It looks like it might help him just, outside of just hitting one type of pitch better, one location better, it looks like multiple positions is covering the more higher percentage of the plate and all.

And if that's the case and you have to like force yourself to try to figure out how to get him to chase more or something, that's a losing proposition over, over time, the longer a guy hits in the big leagues is they tend to learn how to chase less. So if you're having to rely on chases, that's exactly what Anthony Volpe and the Yankees want. And it seems like that early indicators that possibly happens. Like that's the gap sometimes between

Average and good or good and great is getting to the point where Basically a pitcher has to make you chase to get you out if you're doing that you're hitting stuff in and out all over And around the zone you're a dangerous hitter It's interesting. He hasn't really changed his X and Y location in the box But he's changed his angle as he closed go off a little bit Yeah, it closed off a little bit? Yeah, he closed off a little bit, which I guess would augment your ability

to use that torpedo bat. That, and if you remember in the playoffs, both him and Wells had super leaky hips, and neither one of them would hit, they were going early, they were just missing everything. Two different adjustments, yeah. Yeah, which then they just happened to parallel each other and make, and make sense. So he's not pulling off balls with that approach.

And if you pull off balls, not only are you going to not hit anything hard anywhere, you're going to miss a lot more. And so close off with that kind of approach is like the super close stance, right field lasers, you know, Chas McCormick, super close stance, right field lasers, you know? Exactly. So, yeah, I guess, you know, Chas McCormick, super close stance, right field lasers, you know. Exactly. So yeah, I guess, you know, there's also the philosophical question as a hitter, do I change my stance to, you know,

improve my bad parts or do I change my stance to, you know, augment my good things, you know? And it seems like he's been like, well, if I'm gonna be, I'm kind of a right field guy, then why don't I close my stance off? And then maybe I use a bat where the harder part is a little bit closer. And then, you know, what I'm making contact, the contact heat map away from me, yeah, two doubles to, to right field.

But maybe I'd still have the turn and burn because I'm closed and I've got this bat that the sweet spots a little bit closer to the handle. This is no longer a hole. It's something that I can work with, but this is still my bread and butter. But it's so easy to look back at the previous heat maps and see what the Brewers were thinking with those fastballs up and in. And then to go. This is why it didn't work. There's no red in the top third of the zone.

It seems like this is a guy you can definitely pitch up on zone Yeah, so nice adjustment for Anthony Volpe. We'll see what kinds of counter adjustments are to come But it looks like a better version of Volpe is certainly possible at the start and changes He's made so far as I said up top be sure to take the survey It's in the link in the show description to jump on there join our discord as well You can find us on blue sky You know is you know Sarah stop be scott at social Trevor is I am Trevor May that be scott at social So jump on there, join our Discord as well. You can find us on Blue Sky. Eno is enoserus.beescott.social. Trevor is imtrevermay.beescott.social.

imdvr.beescott.social. Thank you to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's going to do it for this episode of Raids and Barrels. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. I was doing a lot of toe pickling.