Rates & Barrels - The A's Are Headed to Sacramento, Toughest Places to Win & Changeup Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Eno, Trevor and DVR discuss John Fisher's decision to temporarily move the A's to Sacramento for the next three years (2025-2027) while attempting to complete an eventual move to Las Vegas. Plus, they examine the teams currently facing the toughest path to winning in the next five years, before resuming their pitch deep dive series with changeups. Rundown 0:54 The A's Are Making a Three-Year Stop in Sacramento 9:01 Challenges In Making the A's Competitive Again 17:00 The Rockies' Built-In Uphill Battle 21:36 Another Rebuild Coming in Miami Under New Leadership? 27:47 Loyalty to a Fault on the South Side of Chicago? 34:49 Is It All On Arte Moreno in Anaheim? 45:51 Pitch Deep Dive: Changeups 56:35 Q&A: Changeup Feel in Games v. Bullpens, Commanding Splitters & What You Would Want for Ohtani's HR Ball Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is Friday, April 5th. Derek Van Rynfer, Trevor May, Eno Saris, all here with you. It is a live one. Thanks to our Live High for joining us on our YouTube channel. Lots of ground to cover today. We had the best story of the week happen right away. Monday night, Ronel Blanco throws a no hitter and it was amazing. Read stories all week about how Blanco's history through the organization was one

that rarely leads to a guy being a big leaguer at his age and just all the good feels, all the good vibes around Blanco having a great life week just all wrapped into one. And naturally, as the baseball universe tends to go, we had the worst story of the week followed just a few days later. And it's oftentimes, it seems like in recent years, a story about the A's. John Fisher is moving the A's to Sacramento for the next three years. So from 2025 to 2027, the A's are going to play in Sacramento. They're going to

share the AAA ballpark with the Rivercats. And there's an option for 2028 because I think we all have this creeping suspicion that the ballpark in Las Vegas might not be ready by 2028 if it's ever even built at all. So a lot to unpack here, but Trevor, I'll start with you. What the hell? What is going on? Why Sacramento? I have a couple inklings.

One, I think a big way, a big thing for John is maintaining the revenue. You know, he's just collecting the profit. That's the point of him owning the team. And being close to the base still, I think maybe makes broadcast rights a little bit easier for him. And if it makes it easy for him,

like he's gonna choose that situation. Also the idea that they have an option like someone's willing to be like hey, you know We got a swing year for you. Like who gives who would give John Fisher a swing here? No, but it's someone who likes him. Yes. Did you hear there's a there's a passage in I want to get the story right but it was I tweeted out last night. That was just a casual cruelty. They both have houses in Cabo. Weird. Him and Vivek, the owner of the Kings, and they both have houses in Cabo.

And he's like, well, I don't know when we talked about it. We just were talking about it in Cabo and we decided, why don't you just play in my park? And it's like, Oh God. Yep. Do you realize how cruel that is? Yeah, that's the most rich guy thing I've ever heard. That makes a lot of sense.

I mean, Sacramento too, it's still in the same state. There's just a lot of things that stay constant that make it work. So that's probably why. It looks like Salt Lake was really excited, but they probably wanted some love. And he's not willing to give love unless he's, he's got to win the deal, I think. I think that's the way it works for him.

I think that's the way he sees the world. So it's just, it just makes sense. And I think he found a guy who's like, wants to be his buddy and wants to be in business with him. And that's where we are. That happens constantly. I've seen succession. I know how these things work.

It's going to be ridiculous though. It's such a string training park. It's a minor league park. It's 10,000 people. There's an extra 3,000 that can sit on the berm. I did see some tweets that were like, oh, you know, that that might be fun. Yeah, it'll be fun for you know, the people in Sacramento, they get to go to those games. I wish that they didn't. Honestly, I wish that they didn't go to

those games. I think that there should be some pain involved in this. And, and I feel so badly for the people who work for the A's, having to move or decide between their job and where they like to live and deciding whether or not they are gonna stay in this industry. We're gonna lose people out of this industry because of this. And I think we're gonna lose fans because of it. I don't think that the average A's fan

is just gonna be like, okay, I'm a Giants fan now. So it's I think it's a net negative for the sport. I think you just stop being a baseball fan in some cases. It's a level of heartbreak that you don't recover from on a personal level. Professional sports franchises are institutions in our lives where we have we have happy memories built around them as a fan. Right. You remember times that you went to games, you, you saw a walk off home or, or, you

know, you're, you've met your friends for the first, you became friends with someone for the first time, like all those life moments that can happen. You got someone's signature. Yeah. You got an autograph. Like there's all these great memories that are just intertwined with sports, being at games, watching them with friends and family. It's just the way that sports kind of functions in a lot of our lives.

And to see a level of contempt for a fan base that John Fisher continues to show isn't surprising to see that is heartbreaking because of all the things about being rich that should be easy, like being likable should actually be easy. When you're rich, you can do simple things when you're that wealthy that would make people like you, even if it's superficial and fake. Like the guy buying beers for everybody. Right. Like he could do that. He could do that every day for thousands of years. Yeah, but he knows he is it. Right. This is a choice. Likeaving this way is a level of entitlement, but it's also a choice to be outwardly this spiteful to your own fan base. And I'm amazed Major League Baseball has been okay with this the entire time.

It just keeps getting a little bit worse and a little bit worse. I don't know what their long-term solution is going to be if Vegas falls through, if it's going to be Charlotte or falls through, if it's going to be Charlotte or somewhere else, but that's a topic for another day. I really don't understand if you have all that money, how you can't get people to even like you a little bit. That's actually really sad in some ways, but the amazing thing from the press conference yesterday, so Fischer's talking to the media and he said he's looking forward to Aaron Judge hitting home runs there. He can't even name a player on his own team and he's excited to see. He really can't guys, he really can't. That's real. That's not that's not speculation. I know that. I actually know that. There's someone has

story of proof of that. That's all I'm gonna say. I know that for a fact. So I think he had like a little a little a little like notes for the meeting and it had like Zach Gelof's name on it. Like he wouldn't have known who Zach Gelof was. OK, you know, it's a story. He dropped a piece of paper and he picked it up and made sure to mention Gelof when he had the microphone. That's what happened.

They've been dropping a lot of paper lately. Yeah, I heard Katsue's name was also on there. So it's it's it's tough stuff. You hired him. It's what happened. They've been dropping a lot of paper lately. Yeah. I heard a Katsue's name was also on there. So it's, it's, it's tough. It's tough. You hired him. It's tough. Yeah. It's, oh my God. He names, not only does he name the most, you know, the only one he could have said that maybe more, Tony, but like he's in the other league now. So at least he knows that someone in the AL is probably going to come to the stadium regularly, but he names a Yankee?

Yeah. Like ace fans, every team in the AL is like, just don't name a Yankee you're excited to see because they're supposed to be the team, the evil empire. We're not like, you know, they've knocked us out of the playoffs so many times. They're like, why? So it's hilarious.

It's like he's doing it on purpose. But I just, I don't think it's, I just don't think he's that. I just don't think he's a troller. I just think he thinks, I don't know. I'm just imagining his parents just telling him, hey, it's you, you gotta do the thing and don't worry, don't let anyone get in your way. And that's how he was raised. And he just thinks this is like his destiny.

And it's just like, it's just gross. It's a level of indifference that's staggering. You said it's like contempt. He's like, he's so indifferent that he's crossed into contemptuous. Like he's getting really annoyed that people don't understand. Like, but he doesn't, which is, no, you don't understand.

You're the one that's wrong. Everyone else is on the same page. You are not. Like there's, you got to be able to look around and be like, oh, maybe I'm, maybe I don't get it. Well, Manfred's not going to tell him no, because Manfred works for him. Yeah, a hundred percent. My friend's a little bit like this too, guys. He's, he's got a level of indifference that he can activate too. So like they're not, they're not, they're apples that fell from the same tree. Like the whole, the whole group is.

That's why they're good at their jobs. They all have vacation houses in Cabo. Exactly. They can all tell each other, oh, this is the right business decision. Don't worry about them. They'll love you in Vegas. Yeah.

They will not. They will not love you in Vegas. And I think this actually connects really well with something we wanted to talk about on today's show anyway. The toughest places to win in Major League Baseball, the teams that are set up to be potentially pretty losers for the next five years. The cost of the way the A's have been going about their business is going to hurt them

on the field for a long time. They've been a team that hits a window, is competitive, gets to the playoffs a couple years in a row, takes a step back, finishes last a few times. That's been the cycle. The more you look at this team as it is currently constructed, the current guys in the big league roster, the coaching staff in place, everything they have around the organization, you start to wonder like, what are they good at at this point? They used to be good at player acquisition. If you look at what they turned Sean Murphy, Matt Olson, and Matt Chapman into in those three trades, I think you have more questions than answers.

That's a group of players. Shea Langelier is what you got. Shea Langelier is the best player they got back. It's 13 players in total they got back in those three trades. It's negative war from those players since they were acquired as a group. Some of those guys are in other organizations where they'll actually become big leaguers or more prominent big leaguers over time. There's the problem.

That's the problem. Right. So, I mean, I think when you start to, you start to look at this, like, obviously they don't spend money on payroll. They have zero top 100 prospects on Keith Law's list. If you are in a rebuilding cycle and you have nobody on a list like that, what are you doing exactly? Like you've, you've just lost the plot as an organization.

And the strangest thing about it, it's so many holdovers making decisions. It's people that made good decisions in the past. That's the part that's so baffling to me. It feels directive. It feels like there's been a series of conference calls where things were alluded to in corporate speak, like, hey, we're going to not do this anymore.

And they're like, what? You mean like get free agents? Like, they wouldn't say that, but we said we're not going to spend money in this area anymore. And, cause that's one thing that corporations are very good at is using the hierarchy to kind of muddy the waters, to like allude to something without ever actually saying it,

to give yourself plausible deniability. I genuinely believe, I don't know that for a fact, because I'll be honest, anything above the GM and that organization, I asked these questions guys, I did. I like literally asked around, asked people who've been there for a long time and there's just nobody like you can't see past a certain point. It's completely blocked off and no one's willing to, the only people who get across that wall, their literal jobs are on the line and you know they're mostly local people and they like to keep their job.

And Derek and I were talking about this right before we went on is like, there might be a level of comfort there to where the pressure actually to win isn't so high. So it's like, you can treat it like more like a normal job, which is something that a lot of other teams can't. It's very stressful. It might be a little bit less, as long as you don't have a Twitter,

a little bit less stressful. And that's desirable. You just come in and do your work and leave. You can come do your work and it doesn't really, you have some job security in the fact that that's what the goal is. And yeah, does that suffer literally everyone else? Yes, but if you think about it that way,

you can be a little bit empathetic, at least to the people who aren't making the decisions, who are being directed, but are staying and continuing because they're doing their best. That's what I saw. That was definitely the dynamic. They're doing everything they can within the parameters that they have to operate in without

butting heads with the people who potentially could decide on their jobs. I can't fault. I've only fault that so far. That's tough, it's really, really, really tough. What I think that the real problem is, because I think if you gave me, I don't know, $5 million, instead of signing a reliever, instead of signing Trevor May, give me five million dollars and set me loose on the minor league system,

on the coaches, on the data, the tech, and just be like, here's five million dollars a year. Like, do you think you can get me a Trevor May in one or two years? And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, I can do that. And I could probably do a little bit more. I can get you a better May in one or two years? And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, I can do that. And I could probably do a little bit more. I can get you a better return on your investment than, sorry, than Trevor himself. But, but what I'm saying is they don't, they aren't doing that.

They aren't taking the money that they're not spending on free agency and, uh, improving processes in the minor leagues. And you need to be doing that while you're losing. That's what the Mets, I mean, the Mets are like spending on the payroll and also spending underneath the hood. But like that's what, you know, like a brewer's team will do when they're not good or, you know, that's what a lot of these teams that aren't spending actually do spend a fair amount in the minor leagues.

They, they have good coaches, they have good data, they build a pitching lab. The Brewers don't spend that much on their major league roster, but they have a pitching lab. The A's are not doing that. And every year that they don't do that, they fall further behind. And on top of that, there's a culture, the culture you're talking about, about sort of coming in and doing your job, there's not really accountability. You know, like the people who've been in charge have been in charge forever. And what and if there's no accountability, you're not getting the best

people in there. And I'm not saying that people can't change and grow and like, you know, be good over time. Like there are definitely executives who've been good in different ways and have been good for a long time. Like there are definitely executives who've been good in different ways and have been good for a long time. Like for example, Dombrowski couldn't build a bullpen to save his life. The first time a couple of times he won, he's changed. He has a great bullpen. People can change. But these people that have been in charge of the A's, I don't think they're changing. I don't think that they're growing. I don't get the vibe that the coaches that they've got are that good.

And those coaches have been in the organization for years. If you look at tenure with the organizations, the A's always come out at the top of having been around forever. And I don't get the vibe from players, I don't get the vibe from other coaches that the coaching is good in the system in Oakland So that's a problem. That's only gonna that that you can't just solve in one year Other teams spend four or five six years trying to make their coaching staff better in the minor leagues trying to make their processes Like we've been watching Pittsburgh try to do it for like four or five years You know, and so the A's not only they're behind now But they're like four or five years behind if they even started doing it now.

Right. And that's the key is like you've taken every aspect of the organization and you've brought it to the basement. And that's really hard to come back from when you miss on trades the way that they did and you don't have big league talent to keep flipping, to just basically get lucky in numbers game. If you can't make players better, if you can't identify and develop players correctly, what do you have? Now, maybe John Fisher looks at all this and Las Vegas is the complete reset. That's when everybody in the front office gets changed and there's a completely new group of people brought in.

I don't trust him as an owner to get that right. Why not? I mean, he can't even make the small adjustments, right? He can't even do his homework to get the stadium built. There's all sorts of problems here. So this to me looks like a legitimate bottom five. If you had to take over today, if the three of us, they said, you three guys, you have to fix this, it's one of the, they said, you three guys, you have to fix this.

It's one of the absolute worst starting points in Major League Baseball if you wanna win in the next five years. And there's a few things Eno said that are going to be, I think, consistent across the teams that we're featuring today. This one's pretty unique. The Rockies, I feel like, have been facing an uphill battle

their entire existence in Major League Baseball, like playing at altitude the way they do just makes the game extremely difficult. They do have three top 100 prospects right now. None of them are top 50 guys on Keith's list. They spend like a mid-market team most years. They actually draw really well, even though they're not good. Their rest of season war projection for this year, dead last. Worst team in the league by that projection.

And I think some of the missed opportunities are they've had a small analytics department ever since any team had one. And they're always losing people. Every story you read about the Rockies and analytics is someone left. Someone got fired. Not only did they leave in November, this is like the third time their head of R&D has left in March or April.

That is the worst time in baseball to not have a job. Right. Like nobody's hiring in March and April. You just basically said, this is so bad, I'm willing to leave baseball. The last three guys have not even, that were the heads of R&D there are not in baseball. And one of them is a woman.

So the last three people that were head of R&D there are not in baseball anymore. They just, they hated their experience so much, they left the whole sport. That's interesting. I wonder, I wonder which, I wonder what, where the roadblock is for them. Cause that's what it always comes down to. Basically they're doing all this work and

then it's being ignored at some point. Like they're just not. Well, there's rumors of them like being asked to do laundry. That's been in multiple reports. So also giving them five different jobs to do that would also get them to go. So there's probably a combination of like, they're doing all this work and then it's extra work and then they give all this information and then that information just isn't disseminated and then at the end of the night,

they're like, also, can you help us with laundry? That's probably what's going on because there's like two of them. That would make me leave pretty quickly. So it's like, you know, who, I don't know, is Bud Black old school? He gives off the vibe for sure. You know, shout out to Bud, by the way,

he's from my hometown. So we're the two baseball guys. But other than that though, like is that it or is it GM? Or is it, you know, is it like? I think it's gotta be, like I think it's gotta be ownership level. It's something that's broadcast to everybody. It's that sort of, it's a contempt for research

and like they immediately put a new GM in it, who's their head of scouting. You know, it's like, I think that's just their vibe is, you know, maybe the numbers don't work here. And maybe they're right. But I actually think that one of the ways out, I do have a friend who was an AGM who's like an analytics based AGM, who said that this job would be his his dream job, who said that this job would be his dream job because he thinks that in order to win 90 games, or actually in order to win 82 games, the Rockies have to be a 91 team, like true talent. He thinks that's how bad their stadium altitude situation is. But I sort of agree.

Like I kind of, like I look at that payroll number and I see why all of these R&D heads have been like, and they probably had that meeting where they're like, yeah, we wanna really invest in R&D. Like we're really excited about this. And you have the meeting, you're like, yeah, we have an 18th round payroll. We have people in our park every night.

Yeah, let's do this. Yeah, I've got all these ideas, like we're gonna tandem start, and we're gonna have a bunch of guys who are sink or slider guys that we pitch at home, and a bunch of four seam guys that we pitch on the road, and I've got all these ideas, and then you get in there like, did you do the reports and did you do the laundry?

You're like, I'm the director of R&D. Why are you talking to me like this? I'm leaving. Yeah. Yeah. That's the wild part of it is the team that should be the most into analytics data and tech seems to be the furthest from it, or at least near the bottom of the list. Like they should be a lab.

The entire organization should be a constant experiment trying to solve their unique problem. And I would love to actually speak to some people who've worked in that front office to get a better sense. Maybe that's an idea for a future episode if they're willing to come talk to us because like what we think is happening and what we think is happening, what's really happening might be two very different things. I will fully acknowledge it's, I think it's the toughest place to win in baseball.

Always has been, may always be, regardless of owner, just because of the unique atmospheric conditions of playing at altitude. Other candidates for toughest places to win, and this is like a historically consistent one. I think Miami is just a really tough place to win. Usually you're running something close to a bottom five payroll. Right now, one top 100 prospect, 25th and rest of season war projections. I think they've missed a few opportunities over the years. I don't want to go all the way back to the

yellow trade and ding them for that. That was a really bad big-time trade where they got nothing back that worked in the long run. Even the Pablo Lopez trade, I felt like they threw in prospects when there should have been a prospect, maybe going back to Miami. Um, so even across different front office leadership, we have this common thread of a team that really just doesn't develop hitting consistently. They've done it in bunches at times, but year over year, it seems like this is a team that just doesn't hit enough.

Tough park. First of all. Um, yeah, the park doesn't help enough. Tough Park, first of all. Yeah, the park doesn't help. It's kind of the same thing with Oakland. You're like, oh, if a guy gets 25 homers in Oakland, you're gonna hit 40. It's one of those type places. It's, they don't draw well, but yeah,

there's something with not being able to develop a solid hitting core that it's consistent. They haven't had a core come up of two or three prospects together. They haven't had one of those situations in a while because I feel like they're just constantly trading. But they had Kim left this last off season because she had ideas and they were like, no.

And we also want to hire someone above you. Right, yeah, you got us back in the no. And we also want to hire someone above you. Right. Yeah. You got us back. We're going to ignore you and we're going to hire someone. So like, that was a big thing, but actually really no one's mentioning that very much. I'm surprised it's not being mentioned how abrupt that happened.

And then suddenly, oh, for seven, oh, and seven to start the year. Like, it's not a great feeling. Or they, they, they signed one free agent and it's Tim Anderson. And he said no once before. Like it took all off season side, one guy, um, for a one year deal. That's insanity to me. So, you know, and then we have the Loria years. So it's just like, it just has been, they just keep, uh, uh, grabbing people who are, you know, unfortunately like local to the area that,

that just like, it's just not, they, this have not had a great group of owners that have Hired good people yet and it's changing so much It's hard to it's like one of those things like it feels like the the when you're playing there Like the earth's moving underneath you and it's hard to feel secure um, it's it's it's that's kind of the the I think the trend with a lot of these places. It's just the security is feels, it feels very uncertain all the time and it's hard

to win in places like that. I will say that of all the places, this one is the one that might be undergoing the most change that we can't see right now. I do think hiring Peter Bendix, who was of the Rays baseball prospectus to the Rays to the Astros was a good move. He strikes me as a smart guy. He brought in Gabe Kapler, Oz Ocampo as AGMs and kept Daniel Greenlee, who was, I think he was already there. And they also hired Sarah Goodrum away from the Brewers. And so they've been working on personnel on the lower levels.

Oh, and Sam Mondry Cohen is there too. Yeah, and hired Rachel Belkovich to be the director of player development. So they've completely overhauled. They've changed. The front office and other positions where that group, if you'd let Kim put a group like that together, that would have been a big step in the right direction. But historically that was just a really tough one.

That was why she left I think on some levels. They didn't give her that power. And so I don't like the implications that like, you know, oh, so they got a man and he gets to make all the decisions that they didn't let her make. But separately, when we're talking about investing in coaches, investing in process, while you don't invest in the major league level, I do think that maybe the like if you had made me choose between these teams, joining one of them, I think I might choose the Marlins because I do think that that Park is okay and could draw better if they were better

And it's a it's a big town They are doing some interesting things to try and tap into the real multicultural You know nature of Miami. And so I like there's some fun things that could be done there. And I think they could they could jump all the way up to like 23rd or something in salary. Like I think they're they could like increase the salary while they're winning and be one of those teams that kind of drops to the bottom and and kind of is never a Top half, but I think you could you could make it work there. It's I don't see an owner that's as terrible as May and as maybe as meddling as the last two

I don't see Like I don't I think the park is a problem, but maybe I would just play around with the dimensions a little bit. I think I would change the walls a little bit. Cause you need to, a hitter needs to come up and feel like the park's gonna be fair to him. You know, you don't want a hitter coming up and just feeling like every hit that I make just dies.

You know? So I would play around with it to try and make it a little bit fairer. Like you've seen that in San Francisco, you've seen that in San Diego, You've seen that in San Diego. Like you've seen the places that used to be really extreme try to be less extreme. And so, and then, you know, they have shown that they will fire and hire, which is something that's been a problem for the last two organizations.

Maybe some momentum going in the right direction for the long haul, but I think these next couple of seasons are going to be tough. I mean, Sandy Alcantara coming off TJ right now. Bad news this week, Yuri Perez needs Tommy John as well, so he's probably out 14, 16 months. One of the most exciting young pitchers to watch. So the foundation for their roster is just in temporary shambles as those guys go through the rehab. And I could see those opportunities as well. You know, I think the the next two teams we put on here are bigger market teams that spend, but ownership meddling is a problem and loyalty

maybe to a fault is the problem with the White Sox. Right. I mean, they spend money at least at times when they're good. They do have five top 100 prospects right now. So Colson Montgomery, among others others kind of leading that group, but their 28th and rest of season war projection. And they went internal with their hire of Chris Gatts, making him their GM, which I think was a missed opportunity in that they could have pursued James Click.

They could have pursued Kim Aang. Like if they'd waited and just seen what was out there. Peter Bendix. Peter Bendix. Like they could have gone a lot of other directions that would have maybe helped them more in the long run. I think the question I have about the White Sox is did they do something similar to the Marlins where even if they got the GM hire wrong, relatively speaking, did they get other hires of import correct?

Like did Getz put a few good people in position that can fix some of the problems. I see this as a team that's really good at scouting and nothing else. Yeah they got good talent a lot like on paper they always have the on paper great team. They do they always do. And they never they must game plan terribly like they didn't ever play to their abilities it seems. And we've heard a lot of stuff about culturally especially last couple years Just you know, like no leader kind of coming up actually it's been like that for a long time he was in sales there chopped up the jerseys and remember all that kind of stuff like he was trying to be the

The leader like Adam LaRosha was trying to be a leader and then they were just not being treated that way and they didn't like That so then they had to lead against the front office. And it's kind of been a little bit of a battle since then. You know, the Kenny Williams, they just kept hiring from the inside. That's an interesting concept because there's certain teams, ownership groups, that only they're way more comfortable hiring internally.

And I bet you if you look at their other businesses that they own, that they do that as well. And it feels like a comfort thing. Like they're not comfort with evaluating high level talent or they're not confident in the process of getting somebody and like enacting a philosophy and building philosophy so they hire within.

If you hire within- It probably got burned somehow. They had like some high profile hire that was supposed to be, everyone said it was great and he was terrible. It was just awful. Yeah. And then, then it just scared them away at some point.

Um, it's, it's, you gotta have the right people that are doing the hiring too. Cause it's not like something that, you know, an owner sitting there and every day and the like do going and searching that he's being rep recommended people and then doing the process. It's just so, it's so interesting because you see teams, certain teams do that pretty much exclusively in the other teams only hire from the outside. And it's almost like if you're hiring internally, you like your philosophy, you just need,

like something happened and the communication wasn't great or whatever. There was something else in the way, but it wasn't the, how do we win baseball games thing. So you want people to continue on in that way. But if you want to change that hiring internally, like that person's gonna have a level of bias and a level of how things have operated

that they're going to still use. Like it's hard to get someone to do that clean slate when they've been there already. So sometimes I feel like the White Sox are a team that need a different way of approaching winning games in order to get, like you said, the scouting department, what they see to then translate onto a major league field, which is where the disconnect is.

And a lot of times that's culture and development, obviously, like you said, it's all about the development at that point. How do we, you guys come up like in the Astros, they get three new kids that came up and they're rookies this year, those kids understand the Astros win this way. Like, well, Tuve and the crew is like, this is how we do it.

And then those guys play for three years, those guys move on, and then now they're telling the next group, and that is culture. That is how you get teams to win consistently. No matter how talented the team is, you're gonna get the best version. And they don't have that.

It's not there at all. So how do you get that? And usually not from hiring within. Yeah, I think there's a deep-rooted distrust of analytics there too. I mean, that's a bit of a through line that we've had. I don't know. I don't know that that's necessarily the case in Miami. But this is now the third of the five that I just, you know, you get this vibe

that like, you know, you put a cave vest on as a hitter and everyone's laughing at you. You know, and you're like, but I'm trying to get better. Yeah. And they point at you and say, nerd, like, is that what's happening there? That's that's the vibe. That's I've heard stories like that, like where people have gone in and tried to change the culture and been like, OK, we're going to do this. And literally people being like, you're an idiot. Like this is this is gobbledygook and doesn't mean anything.

And the old school is the only way, blah, blah, blah. And like there's people think that there's no battle between old school and new school. It's still it's still going on. It's still going on in some in some of these organizations. It's it's it means old school. That battle will go on forever. I think the other question I have about the current version of the White Sox is with a nearly blank canvas for this season, did they take enough interesting shots? I mean, that's something that'd be critical of the A's over for the last couple of seasons

is like, okay, look, you're not winning right now, but when you go out and sign Jace Peterson and Ledmys Diaz, or if you go throw $80 million at Andrew Benentendi, if you're the White Sox, like are you really doing the best you can with the resources at your disposal right now? Those are the types of things, and Paul DeYoung, bringing Paul DeYoung in, feel bad if these are nice guys, it's not me taking shots at them personally,

it's more a question in the front office saying, are the players you're bringing in going to make you better in any way? Should we just give Shoemake three months and then give it to Montgomery. Why are we bothering with this other idea? The Shoemake plan, even if you don't believe in Braden Shoemake, at least you're going with a younger player that could turn into something.

Yeah, we kind of know what Paul DeYoung is already. Paul DeYoung would be a backup on other rosters, probably shouldn't be a backup on a rebuilding roster. That's the kind of stuff that drives me nuts. It's about shots. It's about shots. Take smart shots. Take advantage of the opportunities that you can give as a rebuilding team, afford players playing time who have not had that chance at the big league level yet. And just see, see what happens. Cause there's a lot of guys that get stuck as reps at short, you know, give Nikki Lopez reps at short, give shoemake reps at short, give those young

guys that you might have for more years team control that are you know younger than peak years that might you know break out see if you find something if not worst case you just lose like you're being projected to lose. What's like we said that last year like what's the worst could happen guys will lose. Go, like, you know, take the three-oh swing. If you see the pit, like just develop, continue to develop. Think about it that way. Because if you're constantly thinking about how are we going to win this game, you're going to be disappointed because we're going to lose five out of the seven, probably. It's just the way it is.

It's just, that's how it is right now. And then who knows? Maybe we look up, we're like, oh, we won four of the seven. We're getting better. Like that's what we were focused on. So you have to do that. That is so important for a team that's rebuilding. Because if you're not doing that,

then you're not actually rebuilding. You're just staying there. Yeah. So I wanted to do that. That is so important for a team that's rebuilding, because if you're not doing that, then you're not actually rebuilding. You're just staying there. Yeah. So I want to dig into one other team that I think is surprisingly difficult as a place to win. And it's the Angels, Artie Moreno, as an owner that will spend on payroll, but won't do the other things right that you need to be a good and consistently successful baseball team. I mean,

no playoff series wins with Trout. The Otani era has to be considered a massive failure. They've frequently missed in the first round of the draft. Like a lot of teams do, but they don't find a lot of talent that way. Is it just already? Is that the full explanation or is there even more going on that makes it difficult to win in Anaheim? I think it's a lack of investment in underlying structures. I mean, that's the third line for me in a lot of these places. And the evidence that we have from Moreno is that COVID happened and he just let everyone go in the minor leagues.

Like, you know, just didn't pay him. And other teams did. And that's like a literal zero where others had, I don't know, something. And so that they're behind because of that decision still. You know, that's the kind of inertia that can happen. And that's why I'm saying that the A's inertia is like so long.

It's because every year is a missed opportunity to do something. So they're not behind just now. They're getting more behind every time they don't do anything. That's kind of what the Angels are. The Angels have been trying recently. They've hired experts in the field of like seam shifted wake. And they've hired excellent coaches from driveline and tread and from these outside places.

They tried to do some of it, but I feel like that, I think it must be Moreno because, you know, they tried to do some of it and they tried it for a year. And I feel like they went like, we tried it for a year, it didn't work. And you know, they had Troy Percival be like, why does our pitching coach look at the iPad every time the guy pitches and you're like because he's looking for the numbers the movement numbers like like you tell

third fatigue you can tell how good they're gonna be that day like it's all correlated all correlates it's really simple he's not just guessing he's not playing a mobile game you You know, like, he's just, he's just like, Hey, how, how good can I predict how good some of these, how many mistakes can this guy make today before we need to make sure like, you know, how much stress is it going probably up here? How do I get this guy's pitch to be better? I need to see what it moves like and know what that's the whole idea of stuff. Plus is like, I know what a good pitch is. And if I know what, that's the whole idea of stuff loss is like, I know what a good pitch is. And if I know what a good pitch is in this situation,

then I can coach you better. Cause otherwise I'm just like, well, I don't know, I'll try a new grip and see if it works today. Is that the alternative? Yes, or you're just guessing, which is like not, we're just using science guys. It's just science this time. For me though, like half would look for me.

He knew me so well. He'd have Jeremy Hefner, he'd walk over and be like, Hey, your slider is moving like crazy. Like if I have to go back for another inning, like if I get one out, he, cause he knows that if I hear that, cause he's like, instead of saying, Hey, I want you to throw your slider more, he'll be like, Hey, your slider's nasty today. Now he knows I'm going to go out there first pitch, it's going to be a slider.

Those are the best coaches. And I know that he's manipulating me and I love it. I love that he's just gassing me up. He wants me to throw a pitch and he does it by gassing me up. Joey Lucchese, I think I told that story before. I was gonna do is gas that guy up. You just say, Hey dude, your churves gross today. He's about to throw a churve a thousand times and he's gonna probably do well. That's all he needs. I heard that coaching aspect of facing Joey Lucchese.

I heard somebody, they were facing Joey Lucchie and all these guys like what's that pitch? What I can't what is that pitch? I can't do anything with it What is that pitch and then one of the hitting coaches is just think crappy curve bad curveball Just think crappy curve. Don't worry about what he calls it. Don't worry about what it does Just think crappy curve and then they all hit it. Yeah. You gotta just think bad curve ball. So yeah, that, yeah, I take it back.

Like really, I think it is art. I've heard things, uh, the way that. Art's very LA and he's very like, like he likes to do. He's very like just, you just showed the picture of him. He's just very flashy and very sparkly and he's he made his fortune in billboards Like that's just got to understand like his brain. Oh my god Guy sells billboards age-adjusted. He looks cool. He's cool Cool, but like that just means signing one guy to a bunch of money whether or not it fits in your team or not

And I don't think he's he just he's probably not super interested in the old, like what seems to be the way he doesn't care. He doesn't care what that is. Just tell him how to do it. And then I think that I've heard stories about sometimes he gets like, he'll have like an emotional, like he'll get in a bidding war and he just wants to win bidding war.

Like, like that's happened before. Now I don't know if that was poor or any, I don't know any specifics, but like that's just kind of the way he is. This is like the way he, he runs things and, you know, you miss enough that way. You kind of get in the hole we're in. Yeah.

And I bet you Boris is like, you know, loves him. Loves him. Loves him, loves him, loves him. Sees us big old steak dinner. Owners like that, owners that just want to spend like on a player just because they want to win the player as an agent, I'd be like the first thing you're looking for. Yeah, it sucks for A's fans or A's, Angel's fans,

but I mean, for players, like you gotta like, you like those guys and I honestly, if that's the way you want to run your team though, like if that's like, you bought the team to do stuff like that, I mean, I it's not great for winning, but it's, at least he's like willing to be like, I'm doing this. And like most guys, like, Oh, I don't want to, I'm scared of everything. And he's just like,

screw it. Let's go. That's, that's cool too. In a vacuum. I like that. In a vacuum. Yeah. You get the participation trophy for spending. I see that payroll and I, and like, you know, this would be the other team that I'd be tempted to, but I just, I've had people tell me that they've been offered the GM job there and didn't, you know, didn't want to even interview. That happened with Baltimore for a while in the pre Mike Elias era. It was just a job that people didn't want.

There were people in baseball trying to become first time GMs that did not want to go work for Peter Angelos and the Orioles at that time because meddling and uncertainty about getting the support they wanted at that time, which was just. It was mind blowing. You can't find anyone who wants that job. Some of it changes. I mean, the ownership groups change.

Ardham and Randall almost sold the team, you know, and team. And then, even the way people perceive ownership changes a little bit, like I was told that Seattle was a bad ownership situation. And I guess maybe it is because it seems like they're kind of tight purse strings a little bit, like kind of corporate ownership style. But they do spend enough that you could probably win there you know and so Jerry's like yeah I mean if you give me

like a league average payroll like like let's go I think I can I can win like that so with Moreno you could just you just be betting that you could do something with that big league money and in the meantime you're hoping that he sells to team so that you could do something with that big league money and in the meantime you're hoping that he sells the team so that you can finally or like make a really good presentation about how instead of signing Robert Stevenson we should pump all of that into the minor leagues. And give me three years dude give me three. I'll turn our minor league status situation around. And don't send Troy First of all out there

looking at iPads. Just leave me, let me have three years to work on this, on this player development system. Didn't he say, he's like, I'm open to selling the team. And then like a month later, you're like, no, no, not, nevermind. He changes his mind real quick. That's just very, very, very him.

That's very him. That's what makes it tough, very him. That's very him. Yeah. That's what makes it tough to win, right? It's not the payroll. It's not anything else about the stadium or it's just ownership being that way has made that incredibly difficult. Our friend, Steven Nesbitt has a wild card arrow ranking story that he wrote a few weeks back at the athletic. He's got a scoring system.

Each season you get a certain number of points. So winning the World Series worth nine points, getting there is worth six or losing this for six. So you kind of based on where you finish in the playoffs. And then, of course, you get a point for a division title. You get penalized for prolonged losing cycles. You lose a point each time you lose 90 games in consecutive seasons. So you tallied up everything from the past 29 seasons, the Wildcard era from 95 to 20, 23.

The worst team in that scoring system has been the Pirates. They're a negative four. They're the only team in the red in that scoring system. The bottom five Pirates, Royals, Reds, Orioles, Blue Jays, which is, you know, as he pointed out in his intro, if it started just before the wild card era, the Blue Jays would be more like mid packs. They had a lot of early 90s success, but it's interesting to me that the pirates seem like they're in a much better place right now because they've been pretty patient and have had a

plan that's consistent in the Ben Charrington led front office. Like he's been there since November of 19. So if you want to count 2020 as a season, this is the fifth year, fifth season he's been there. And you can kind of see the plan finally coming together. And I think that's how long it takes when you start at the absolute bottom. And that's the sort of like patience

you're going to have to have if you're, at least the first couple of teams that we talked about today, if you're to put new ideas, new people in place and let them do what they need to do to make your organization better. Yeah, it's patience. He burns through GMs really fast. Constant churn. So it's just interesting that a few teams that are, have been really struggling in the wild card era and now teams that are kind of on the rise after prolonged stretches where they just haven't been that good. Orioles, same way, by the way.

They've stuck with their process and kept Hyde and like Shelton's just stayed with the Pirates, which I love Shelty. So I think he is a manager that will be a manager of a very good team. It's just, they're just being patient with it. He's gotta be patient with it. So I think those two teams, I mean,

I'm not gonna say they're gonna be the Orioles because the Orioles have just gotten stars all over the place right now. But it does look like that's a similar process, maybe a little slower, but still is happening that way. Yeah, so getting buy-in from an owner or an ownership group to potentially struggle for four or five years before getting back to winning and competing for playoff spots, I think that's a really hard thing to get buy-in for.

Let's move on to our pitch deep dive for this week. We kind of missed it last week because we got carried away with the wards. And then we almost got carried away with the teams. We did. We did. I kept it, kept it just barely in the window. So we're going to take a close look at changeups and it's another pitch where, well, there's a lot of different ways to throw it. A lot of different things you can do with it.

And I'm curious, what is a good changeup or what are good changeups in the modern game? What are we looking for? Movement. Movement. for? Movement. Movement. Yeah. Movement. It's a pitch that hasn't been focused on movement

for a long time. It was difference in Velo. Our technology still to this day doesn't, isn't able to get the depth changes that much. So as you can see, things are like kind of all over the place, but the softer you throw it, the less it can move. And like generally most, for the most part, like if you go really slow straight change, you're going, the less it can move. And like generally, for the most part, like if you throw a really slow straight change,

you're gonna get enough of a difference. But if it's close, which is most people, everyone's throwing harder. So it's harder to get that 12, 15, 16 mile an hour difference like the Trevor Richards we're gonna talk about in a second. The harder you throw it though, you need it to move. And one rule of thumb, I think that is going around

the league is getting 15 inches of arm side run because your change up naturally tunnels with your fastball no matter what. Like it's hard to not do it unless you throw it differently and then you just have a really bad change up. But if you have generally the same release point and arm speed, your change up is going to look like your fastball by the nature of the pitch. So you want it to move. You want it to, the difference in movement is actually proven to be more effective now than the difference in below, unless it's huge.

It's gotta be big and it's harder to do because everyone's throwing 98. Right. Yeah, and you have to throw max effort and still somehow choke off 15 miles per hour. So it's really hard to do. That's harder to do than to find a grip, especially with seam shifted wake, to find a grip that can produce movement. Now you just throw a hard and you don't worry

about the gap as much. And then it just moves. Yeah. The harder you throw it, the more it moves, which is now, now, now that speed is benefiting the pitch as opposed to making it harder to do. Also, we wanted people to be more spin efficient on their four seams for so long, that the power change is something that's been efficient. So that's like you want to turn that movement that spin into movement and so that's that'd be more like what you're doing with your fastball as opposed to like a straight change is trying to is like a gyro change up. It's like you're trying not to be spin efficient so that makes it difficult. But if you throw that chart up again, this is Kevin Gossman. And this is, I think, his change up.

So he throws a splitter. And this is this other pitch. So let's not focus on the black line so much as look at the chart. It's so blue everywhere. This is velocity differential. This is vertical movement differential versus release speed.

So you can see that these harder ones there, there's some harder ones that even have a less Velo different movement differential that are good, some red spots. But you can also see that there are just red spots randomly in different places, and there's no real rhyme or reason. Like there's no like, oh if we generally do this it'll be good.

You know, like this is the change-up plot for like difference in vertical movement and release speed. Like wouldn't you expect there to be some place where it's all red and you can aim for that? Like I think this is why change-ups have been devalued a little bit in the stuff plus era is because they are hard to study. There's a little bit of a consistency along the bottom edge and wrapping up around if at all but the harder the harder change-ups that's the harder change-ups. That's why that's why people kind of chase the harder ones because

that is sort of where the red is. Exactly and but if you do the same thing for sliders, like if you did a slider but the harder sliders, you're gonna have way more red and that's still what I was talking about. I think we talked about this when we were prepping, the Josh Caulk, I had a conversation with him in like 2018, like why is it so hard to evaluate change-ups and that's what he said. He's just like this type of, these pockets are small and kind of spread out and the trends are hard to do. And it's hard to predict whether or not we can get someone to be in those consistently.

So it's hard for me to give you an answer if it's good or not, because it really depends, there's just too many variables outside of the pitch that have to interact with it to make it good. And they don't live in vacuums very well. There is a little bit, but again, it's just kind of like, okay, along that band. It's make it good. And they don't live in vacuums very well. There is a little bit, but again, it's just kind of like okay along that band. It's not like good.

You can't be like, oh, this will be a miss. It'll just be like, it'll just be pretty good. And if your fastball's not good and doesn't interact with it, then suddenly it's not good. And that's why we're seeing like, it's like, just like barely a little bit red because there's people who throw them there

who aren't good because their fastball doesn't react to it that well. But there's guys who have perfect fastballs with it. They make it good. It's the same movement So it's like it's hard to tell you you can't predict anything. It's it's really hard to do So he mentioned power changes before I mean the Cole-Regans power change is probably the best example That's just pure pure filth and it's like there was a 91. All right. It's like what? I see a three. That's a three on that one. Geez. Like, I mean, that's a part.

It's like the Grom Groms is very similar. Yeah, that's just an absurd pitch. I want to I want to get the ball. You know, we we have splitters labeled separately from change-ups. And some people call them split fastballs, and some people call them split change-ups. I tend to think of them as change-ups.

And the reason, my reason for this is, and I may not get the seam placement right, but you're talking about like a split finger, right? Do you do it along the seams? Usually no, they want you to split a seam. So like you put a vertical seam in between, directly in between your finger and go no seams. That's how you get the whack of-

The tumble. The tumble. So that's when it becomes like a split fastball. So you're throwing it hard, but there's no spin. That's the point. If you look at my fingers like these like my weak fingers are still there and some people who throw splitters they call it a fosh and the fosh is basically it's like releasing off these fingers off the weak fingers so even though I'm holding it and you're focused on these two fingers when you watch it on release

you like pronate and it comes off these weak fingers. This finger kicks it over. This finger's your dominant finger and it kicks it over. So you get that right at the end, you go boom. And then that's when you get the tumbling action. But my reason that this is a change up is that like, if you just do a circle change, like it's just degrees of where you put your fingers.

Like this is like, with a a, like with a circle, you're just really circling off that. Like I wish you had the ball. Yeah, I've talked about having a ball and then I just dropped the ball, dropped the ball. But like this finger right here, this index finger, like there are people who throw their splitter like this, where they curl that finger, right?

And then there are people who curl it further. And now it's just a circle change. So this level of curling is the difference between a splitter and a change up. I don't think that's enough for me to call it a different pitch. Like, like you even talk to Goswami and be like, it's a fosh and a fosh is a change up. So, um, he throws both though. Correct. Uh, well, he is a change up. He throws both though, correct? Well, he throws a change up.

When I got him to show me his grip, it looked like a splitter, but he said it kind of comes off those weak fingers. Okay. And when I put it up against linticum, it looked really similar. Okay. So, and then linticum, people think of it as a splitter,

but he called it a fosh. So, any Lintzikum, people think of it as a splitter, but you know, it's he called it a fosh. So any case, I want you to put that now put the graph up of splitters and this might have something to do with why this is the year of the splitter. Boom red. It's easy. You know what you're trying to do. All you're trying to do is throw it hard with drop. That's that's what this graph says. You can draw a line and below that is good. Yeah. Yeah. That's so easy for a pitcher and a pitching coach, right? Oh, so if I get 10 inches of drop, if it gets to minus 12 or minus 10 and I can throw it, you know, 87 miles an hour, it's going to be good. Okay. I've got things. I've got goals,

you know, that's all I got to do. Minus 10 is crazy. That's a crazy splitter. Well, I've got things. I've got goals, you know That's all I gotta do 10 is crazy. That's a crazy splitter. Well, I don't know like the There's all these different movement name conventions like with with the track man It would be like if you're like if you're negative if you're like 0 to negative 4 Yeah, like if you can throw it 87 and you're like in the negative is all most guys are just going for zero If it's 90 like mine was when I was throwing it. It was like 89 90 and I was just getting like 10 which is my changeup was like 11. So it was a much different vertical movement profile. That was enough of a changeup uh, but then the slower it gets obviously you're gonna get like some guys throw them at like 82

It goes for it slow at times and that drops negative six, negative seven. Right. His is bigger, but that's his is a four. Like these fingers are out of the way and he's just, he's doing the old Jack Morris, the straight Jack Morris. Like it's like way in there. Way in there. Just sort of pops out. That's almost, it has like almost stuff in common with a knuckleball.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like a really hard, really hard to command. Just comes out and falls down. Trevor mentioned the Trevor Richards change before this is, this is a pretty nasty pitch. I've always liked that good grief. The movement, the other Trevor, the famous Trevor through the classic Hoffman,

his was more of a straight and then the older he got. Yeah. The older he got though, the more he was getting the fate. Obviously it slowed down and whatever, but he tried to slow it down more. So his actually progressed through his career. It's actually interesting to look up, but I was, Velo changed on it because he was trying to get more movement because he wasn't able to throw that. He was throwing right before we knew what it was.

So that's how his was. But I think that that's kind of the, that's a lot of people who throw changeups, inspiration at least that are my age, is like Trevor Oppmann, man. That's how I learned to throw mine when I was a kid. I just threw a circle changeup like him. But yeah, Richard threw a circle changeup,

but now he can do this. Yeah, that's more like the, has to come with Devin Williams, right? Yeah, it's probably the closest to it, isn't it? Is the ability to do that. We're all trying to do that. They can just actually do it. One other recent one is the Blanco,

like the Ronel Blanco. That was a great pitch. I'll show that one again. It's a pretty tight clip. That looks like a legitimately good change up. Now teams know about it, as we discussed earlier in the week, but I think that changes a lot for him as a guy that was so

fastball slider heavy in previous opportunities in the big leagues. I got a question for you, Trevor. We've got a piece coming out with Dan Hayes next week about Joe Ryan. And one of the things that came up was that he had a, a splitter grip that worked in bullpens at lower degrees of effort, but then when he went on the field, didn't do what it was doing in the bullpen because now he's throwing harder because he's in a game. Did you find it hard to practice your changeup

at game level intensity when you weren't in a game? Then was that important for you? No, my changeup is always, honestly in bullpens, I think my changeup was the pitch that I could throw at the closest to game speed, for whatever reason. It's just because there was a comfort level with it. Like I said, I learned it when I was 10. It was the only off-speed pitch I threw for four reason. It's just because there was a comfort level with it. Like I said, I learned it when I was 10. It was the only off-speed pitch I threw for four years.

And so it just became that roll out of bed. Like I can hold it. I loved holding changeups. So that had something to do with it. But that's very common. Cause so Joe Ryan's really interesting too. He's got the weird, he's so like hyper he's so like hypermobile and long and athletic that everything's so smooth.

Like the ball comes out of his hands so smoothly. I haven't looked at the numbers. I feel like he's very good with spin efficiency just generally. He's very consistent with his mechanics. And that's guys that are like that, that are, I don't know if it's high spin, but just efficient, really efficient spin, struggle with change-ups because it just gets to it gets so efficient

That it just turns into a really slow fastball and then when you can't take the Velo off it like he's having trouble Then it's just bad. It's just really bad So he's probably like oh I can get it to move when I'm like thinking movement But everything's so smooth in games that it just that movement project goes away but everything's so smooth in games that it just, that movement probably just goes away. Like, and it's just a straight change. The types of things that he's doing with the secondaries are trying to kill the spin efficiency.

He's throwing a spike gyro now. He's getting all clever. That's designed to, gyro sliders are designed to like have spin, but not, but kill the spin efficiency. Like have zero spin efficiency or close to it. So, you know, and the split finger thing is the same thing. It's like, it's fine if it has spin. You're just, you're using the script

to make it less efficient. So that kind of jives with what you're saying. Which is what people are doing now. That's why everyone's trying it because now guys who couldn't throw changeups are like, oh, I can throw one now. And I'll be honest, I struggled with the two. My changeup became too much of a straight changeup

to where I was like, this is my most comfortable pitch but it's the least effective because of the nature of it, which is frustrating because it's a pitch that I know I can go to whenever I want. I can throw it three-oh and I can throw it for strike. I know I could. And it's just gonna get, it's still might get pummeled because it's not very good

in terms of how the game is played now. So that's when I had the revelation about the seam shifting and then I tried the splitter. Those two things were like movement that I'd never seen before, and I really unlocked something for me. So the guys are looking for that now. It's actually really exciting for me,

because this has always been my lane, trying to figure this out, and I did a little bit towards the end of my career, and now a lot of guys are like, oh, this is something we can do. So seeing that come back and become part of the meta is exciting for me. Yeah, and I tend to think that mechanics and velocity are the two things that

put stress on your, on your elbow rather than, um, the grip that you're holding the ball with. Yeah. Um, although I will have to say that Dan Wharton, um, slider always freaked me out cause he, the way he described it was, you know, throw as hard as you can throw it as hard as you can almost Fastball like a cut fastball grip and the very end just go like And I was like ow Do what at the very end?

Yeah, and the most of people who threw it got injured so there's there's that but people have used that same mentality to say that splitters are bad for your health because there was a coach that taught everybody the splitter. Roger Craig taught everybody the splitter in San Francisco and people got hurt. And so they were like, see, splitter people got hurt. But then I went and looked at the injuries. One guy like got hit in the leg by a pitch. Another guy had like a knee injury, you know, like, I was like, these, I don't know,

this is not splitter injuries, dude. So, you know, I think people are scared of splitters and for kind of bogeyman reasons. Like I'm not sure that- A lot of it's an old wives tale for sure. It really is, I think you're right there. Yeah. Is it a grip thing? Like having to grip it a certain way puts extra stress or tension on your forearm or your elbow. It's a tense pitch.

It's a tense pitch, but like, like I said, I changed my arm motion because I wanted to get it to move in a certain way. And it's just different than another pitch, especially if you don't throw a change up or haven't thrown one a lot. Like it's your pitch you're trying to learn as a change up. It's just way different than everything else. And there's a certain danger in that. But we know enough now, there's a lot of guys

that can build, like the pitch design's getting to the point where you, seam shifting's a possibility too. So if splitter's not something you're comfortable doing, you have to change too much stuff, you can move, I literally did that. So you can do that. There's different versions to get types of, they can just design specific pieces of movement and try a bunch of things with you based on how other things come

out of your hands. There's a lot of that knowledge now, so you don't need to be as worried about it. You can throw with the motor sleeve on too. Yeah, you can do all kinds of stuff. See the direct stress on your elbow and make a decision for yourself. You know, see something that you can't even necessarily feel, you know, like direct stress on your elbow and make a decision for yourself. You know, see something that you can't even necessarily feel. You know, like direct stress on your elbow. Yeah.

Sol wants to know, are splitters actually difficult to command? Generally, just generally, in general, because of the way that they move. But if you're someone who stays over the plate, well, like Chris Martin's a great example. He's just got really good command, just in general. Like you gotta give him props for how,

I don't think, there's many relievers who've had as good command as him over the last few years. But he knows how to, where he wants it to land, whether it's in the strike zone and then where your misses are gonna be. And if you're able to do that consistently, that's the name of the game. So it's an understanding of how it moves.

So he has a good understanding of how it moves. Some people don't. And it's just cause it's new. Like a lot of times it's new. So you see like it's wildly understanding of how it moves. So he has a good understanding of how it moves. Some people don't. And it's just cause it's new. Like a lot of times it's new. So you see like it's wildly hard to command. Guys are just spiking it all day. Cause it moves differently than anything else they throw. That's what you're seeing.

And I think the natural command that they start with is a big deal. George Kirby throwing a splitter. I'm like, probably that's going to work. You know, because that's George Kirby. But Hunter Green says he's going to throw a splitter. I'm like, ah, and I didn't trust it. And he hasn't really thrown it because I don't think he trusts it I'd rather he threw a curveball because I feel like he could replicate that movement and I'm not asking him to have a third

Elite pitch I'm just asking him to have another pitch You know, so just throw a curveball that you can repeat, you know and and surprise people with it rather than So some people will if if it does become, one thing I didn't know from the sweeper thing is that if this does become a year of the splitter thing, some people are gonna throw splitters that shouldn't. And you get on the craze and not be able to command it or just be sort of naturally injury prone

and get a natural injury and then blame it on the splitter You know or or like you like you said like sort of change something mechanically You know to accommodate this new pitch and then get hurt from the change of mechanics rather than the new pitch itself, you know, so There will be there will be ramifications. What we've seen with sweepers is a lot of people who are in love with their sweeper throwing it to lefties and getting blasted and like, you know having to figure out how to Move the sweeper in like you just saw Jameson Tyon over the last year He had the sweeper fell in love with it Didn't know how to fit it into his pitch mix and by the end of the year had finally found a way to kind of

Organize his pitches in a way that made sense to him in a way that was getting outs. You know, you can't just be like, it's not as much as I talk about stuff. Plus it's not just like a slot machine where you're like, Hey, you know, this guy, this pitch has great stuff. Plus you got to throw it a ton. You know, like, you know, that has to changes your arsenal, changes your mechanics, changes, you know, how you get people out. And if you fall in love with a pitch, then people are like, he's just going to throw

me a sweeper, man. He's just been throwing sweepers you know and that's what happened with Sonny Gray in the playoffs is he threw so many sweepers and was so good that he was like I'm gonna keep doing this in the playoffs they're like sweepers coming question here from SLGS Reds is there any truth the idea that the rise of the sweeper is more stressful on the arm versus a traditional slider dr. Meister seems to think so. Yeah, he's a medical professional. And he is a medical professional

and he also did my elbow and did a phenomenal job. So I gotta give him props for that. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, so I am a little biased. I didn't know Meister was your guy. Yeah, my scar's great. So I look at this thing, barely even see it. You barely see it.

Oh, he's got the best scars in the league. Yeah, you can see everything. He's probably, I would say he's got the best scars in the league. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, you can see everything. He, uh, he's, he's, he's probably, I would say he's probably leading the, leading the charge here on that surgery. So he, he has mentioned seeing that a lot, but I think it's also very early. It's such a new pitch. It's just the newness of it. It's like you said, it's people throwing it that probably shouldn't throw it.

It's because every time there's a pitch to sweep in the league that literally everyone's throwing and that it's, and a lot of people, especially who are on TV all the time, are having success with it. And you're like a young guy who wants to establish himself and you want to find that pitch that then makes you the guy who's hanging around and getting the contract.

You're going to give it a shot. We're just, we talked about Tommy John and like the, like how scary it is. Guys are just taking the chance. You're just going to take the chance because. You'd rather be a big leaguer and about Tommy John and like the this like how scary it is guys are just taking a chance You just can take the chance because you'd rather be a big leaguer and get Tommy John to not be a big leaguer Exactly. That's exactly the trade-off and so sweeper has been in that vein You're seeing way more of them all of a sudden and then a lot of those people are gonna be people who shouldn't be throwing Them and are changing something and are not gonna know that something big has changed until they get hurt So yeah, I like what you're saying also about like you start chasing movement. You're like

you have these big movement patterns and you might change your mechanics to get that big sideways movement, you know, and when really you should just be trusting the seamstress to wait to provide the movement. It's hard to do. Yeah, even Bieber did it. Bieber changed his thing to try to get it to move differently. And that guy's probably got the best feel for a breaking ball I've ever seen. So if he's doing it, you know, everyone's gonna change stuff. Yeah, Bieber accidentally changed his grip on his curveball and he rediscovered it.

We change grips all the time. We go home in the off season for four months, don't throw, like don't throw for two months. We forget how to grip things. Like, is this how it felt? I will say that, yeah, just the last thing about that was that, you know, when I talked to pitching coaches about it, they're like, no, it's just another curve.

It's a curve ball. It's another curve ball grip. It's a seam shifted way curve ball. Like what, why are we really litigating the fact that curve balls hurt people's arms? Cause that was the thing. I think every pitch at some point has been blamed on injury, like injuries have been blamed on it. People have been blamed on sliders.

I definitely remember sliders being a thing. I remember power curves like, oh, you're throwing your curve ball too hard, throwing your curve ball too early. You did it when you were 11, not 12. In 12 you magically, your ligaments are healed and you can throw the curve ball, but not 11. Don't throw the curve ball at 11. Sometimes it's guitar hero. Yeah. It's a fun game.

You guys play too many video games. That's what the injuries are from. Ah, nice callback to Joel Zemiah. Love it. It's a fun game. You guys play too many video games. That's what the injuries are from. Nice callback to Joel Zemiah. Love it. Jimmy Spencer wants to know if you caught Otani's first home run ball, I'm assuming the first Dodger ball that was caught earlier this week, what would you ask for in exchange for the ball? I have to tell you something.

There is something really nasty about this story. Really nasty. And it's this. Teams will not authenticate your ball. Right. They don't give you the choice of keeping it not authenticate your ball, right? They don't give you the choice of keeping it authenticated at this point, right? They'll just okay fine you have to keep it and Prove it to an independent arbitrator at some point, you know, you have to prove it to somebody else You have to I don't know take pictures try to

Start recording a video right away. Like take a pen and just draw on it. Be like, this is it Here's the mark. I just put on it. You just watch me do it. Like, I don't know. There's a leverage, there's a leverage there. If they don't give you the authentication, then you're like, hmm, is this actually worth $100,000 or not?

Once you leave the stadium, then you could call an independent person, get that appraisal, and know what it's actually worth. But in the moment, the team is using what they can to leverage you in and so what they got is probably they probably got worth like a maybe a hundred two hundred dollars worth of stuff they got a signed bat and two signed balls I have to say the signatures are pretty lazy looking to like there's somebody compared them to like the singer he did for the tops card.

And like they got bottom shelf Otani signatures on top of everything. Sheesh, that's rough. Maybe that makes him worth more. The non-commercial, this is what he signs when he's privately in his home. Yeah. I mean, are you wrong for wanting to keep

something like that? No. I don't think you are either. I think if you catch it, you want to keep it, keep it. I don't, I don't, I honestly don't think Shohei would have faulted them either. Like I, because he's just like, I said, can I have it? Yeah. He said no and that's fine. They said no. All right. That's fine. I just don't think he's a, I don't think he would have made a big stink about it. There were, there's a lot of people who a, I don't think he would have made a big stink about it. There's a lot of people who would, I don't think he would have.

So yeah, I wish there was more, more for catching something like that or doing something. And then if you just wanna do it out of the kindness of your heart, because you just genuinely like, think it's awesome for that. Then get like a handshake from Otani or something. Yeah, or like meet him, like that'd be cool. Or not just like, don't just like to have a guy come like an usher walk you down

the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That that's interesting. That's interesting. Well, but she did tweet about it and she did get a lot of following from that. So yeah, Twitter followers. Do you see her handle?

Yeah. It's really funny. Pretty funny handle out there, guys. Well, on that note, I think we better go. Give us a follow on Twitter. Trevor is at IamTrevorMay. Eno is at EnoSaris. I am at Derek VanRiper.

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