Rates & Barrels - What Makes a Pitcher Role Change Work & Who Might Be Next to Move?

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Eno, Trevor and DVR discuss an all-time no-hitter jinx, Willson Contreras' injury and the sharp increase in catcher's interference around baseball, pitchers going through role changes in 2024 -- and who they would like to see make a switch in the future -- plus their game plan for hitters facing Pirates pitcher Jared Jones. Rundown 1:30 An All-Time Great No-Hitter Jinx? 5:48 Willson Contreras' Injury & The Rise of Catcher's Interference 15:05 Maybe Just Stop Erasing the Batter's Box? 19:48 Is It Time to Regular the Sliding Mitt? 25:41 Switching Roles Between Starting & Relieving 31:41 Adrian Morejón & Needing to Fix Splits Before Becoming a Starter? 36:00 From Long Relief to the Rotation (Bryse Wilson) 40:53 Luke Weaver's Success in the Bullpen 52:06 Game Planning to Hit Jared Jones Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IamTrevorMay Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper 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: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Raids and Barrels, it is Friday, May 10th. Derek the Ripper, you know Sarah, Trevor May here with you. It's a live one if you're joining us. Thanks for being part of the Live Hive today. On this episode we dig into a bunch of different topics ranging from pitcher role changes, what is working so far this season, pitchers moving in both directions, some becoming starters for the first time in a long time, some guys moving to the pen for the first time have a lot of success and we'll talk about some guys that could be making role changes in the future that should pay off if those role changes come to fruition. We're gonna talk about

the injuries suffered by Wilson Contreras earlier this week as part of a growing problem around the game. Catcher's interference happening quite a bit more than we've ever seen before, so we'll try and dig a bit into that. And we're going to try and solve a very complex puzzle. How to hit Jared Jones, the task in front of the Cubs, on Friday night. What do you do against a guy that's got everything working the way Jared Jones does right now? You know, Trevor, how you guys doing today?

I'm great. Doing good. I'm just glad it's Friday. It's time. It's time for another weekend. I need it badly. If you haven't jumped in the Discord, by the way, you can do that from the show description. I want to start today in a little bit of a different way.

We saw MLB Networks' Greg Amsinger wake up the baseball gods earlier this week in a way that you don't often see. And this is, we're just going to run this clip for a minute because it is fantastic. Don't take this the wrong way, but we are already a no hitter alert. Yoshinobu Yamamoto before he throws a single pitch tonight against the Marlins. We have a no hitter alert. OK. Enjoy what could be a no hitter

from Yamamoto. You know Jass when your first pitch right here on MLB network for Harold. They see why I'm Greg. We have a no hitter alert. Enjoy this game live on MLB Network.

This boy it's in the major leagues to establish himself as that guy. Dodgers looking for a six straight win and a 13th out of their last 15 after they took the first game six to three last night. Yamamoto comes home and off we go. And the aggressive Marlins get a first pitch swing and a high fly ball and a home run for Jazz Chisholm on the first pitch. I just love it.

I love the extreme jinx because it's the one thing you're never supposed to talk about. We heard it in the studio, Jazz's swing in first pitch, because that's what Jazz does, and Jazz goes yard on the first swing of the game, which is just a ridiculous sequence of events. And I saw people around the baseball, Twitter sphere, Reddit saying this was the greatest no hitter jinx of all time. And there've been a few, more than a few.

At first, Greg Amsager deserved solo credit, but then Eno fessed up to it. There are receipts. Emily Network tweeted this because Yamamoto had a 15 inning scoreless streak going into that start They said predict his stat line and our hero right there says no hitter What does that Twitter account, the moments preceding an unfortunate event or whatever or the freezing cold takes freezing cold takes?

Yeah, that's that's one hitter after that happened. Yeah, there's like a score. Yeah, yeah, you should definitely just one hitter right after it happened. But it's always like guys got to score a streak. He's going against a team that it just isn't very good and cannot hit. And everyone's like, ah, this is a no hitter, easy. And then first pitch like, or first hitter, it ends.

And you're like, oh, well, okay. Throw that out the window. It sucks as a starter. I can tell you that much giving up a first pitch homer because you're like, ah, man, I hope today's scoreless. And then you're like, well, I think it's fun. I mean, he settled down and had a great start.

Yeah. You know, how many times have people thought, you know, going against the A's, you know, oh, no hitter alert, you know, and you still got Shay, you still got someone going to take it. I think Harold was the funniest. Harold reaction was perfect. He's just chuckling the whole time. And they knew, they knew there was absolutely no way it was going to happen as soon as it was brought up

and they ran the graphic over. No, no chance. I think this is one of those things that even, we know a lot of ballplayers are superstitious. We've talked about that on the show at least once before. Even the guys that aren't that superstitious probably still abide by the don't talk about a no hitter rule. Like that's still like, don't do that.

Just do not do that. I don't even like unwritten rules. Don't talk about no hitters. I know a guy who does it, who pokes the bear. And then he gives a disclaimer of time he says Trevor Williams. He'll be like, guys, he's still got a no hitter going. And we're like, dude.

And he's like, nothing I say matters. Nothing I say is gonna affect this at all. That's stupid. And if you don like, dude, and he's like, nothing I say matters. Nothing I say is going to affect this at all. That's stupid. And if you don't believe it, then it's not real and we're like and it always continues for a bit. So it never happens immediately. So I'm like, maybe you have to say that second part in order to say I'm aware.

I'm not it's not my hubris. I am surrendering. And then they go, okay, then we'll allow it to continue. Golden moment though earlier this week. Let's move on to some other topics, though. Wilson Contreras suffered a fractured forearm get hit by the swing of JD Martinez earlier this week. And as I was reading about this, I was starting to realize

this is a much bigger problem around the game where catchers keep changing their positioning, trying to steal low strikes. At first I just saw a tweet from John Denton, he covers the Cardinals for MLB.com and he pointed out the Cardinals were instructing Contreras to do that and I saw the reactions to it and they were kind of similar to mine. I didn't tweet anything back, I just saw people saying, what's dumb? Why are the Cardinals doing that? The whole league is doing that. MLB sent out a memo to all the teams back in the spring that they need to basically stop doing that or be less aggressive about doing that so Even though we didn't see anything catastrophic happen until this Wilson Contreras injury

You know you started digging into the numbers a little bit. This is actually an increasing problem around the game. Yeah, I mean from 2000 till 2010 we were looking at you see at the bottom there about 0.007 catchers interferences per game. In 2024 we're at 0.061 so like almost 10 times. I mean it's it's still not a ton per game but you know once you start getting to one every 10 games that'll be blowing out what has been done in the past and well beyond ten times what we did You know just 15 years ago. So this is a really big problem as you can see

It's kind of a meteoric rise where it was kind of coming up during you know Hawkeye and and the right the rise of Hawkeye and so maybe saying, oh, look at these strikes that we can steal. But it's even worse this year. It's almost like they looked at the memo and said, oh, well, that sounds like a good idea. So teams that weren't doing it aggressively started to do it more because they realized they may have been missing out on an opportunity.

Oh, we shouldn't be doing something. Wait a second. I mean, in 2022, through this point of the season, 2022, we had half as many catcher interferences as we do now. That's crazy. That's a hockey stick situation. It's funny. I was, I was just doing some research on this and like, okay, like what, what

else happened around these times? It looks, if you look at that, it's 2019 is when I feel like the biggest spike happened and that's when I feel like the knee down thing, I don't think the knee down is actually causing it. I just think it's, both things are part of like, how can we make catchers better and they- Stealing low strikes. Yes, a league wide commitment to it.

They're just gonna correlate without being necessarily attached to each other, I feel like. So that makes a lot of sense to me, but it's funny. I'm researching and I've got my iPad here and I got to the Mariners game on and as I'm typing in like something into Google to try to follow a thread Ryan Jeffers gets a Catchers interference call like as it's as I'm like well

This is this is definitely a thing the twins are a team that they're Tanner. God. What's his life? Oh Yes, he's Washington guy too. I know him well. And he's in he's at the Yankees now he's at the Yankees now and he's he's was one of the leaders of this movement and I mean, we've seen how the Yankees catchers to have have gotten really, really good at it over the over the years. So it's like, it makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense that getting strikes but again, this

is just a this is a simple Swanson. Yeah, Tanner Swanson. Yes. Thank you. Check this out. Related number. I was looking at called strikes in the bottom of the zone. And what I did was I looked at the attack zones. So kind of that's in and out of the zone across the bottom. And I just wanted to look at called strikes there. When I looked at all pitches,

yeah, 2024 had the highest percentage. But when I looked at breaking pitches in the bottom of that zone and sort of in that in that gray area around the bottom of the zone, it really popped. So if you look at breaking pitches in 2015, 7.2% of breaking pitches in that band of the zone were called strikes. And this is on takes. So 7.2% of them were called strikes. In 2024, that's 12.3%. So you're getting close to doubling the amount of called strikes you're getting there.

And that's the difference between getting 7 know, getting 7,000 called strikes down there versus 4,000 called strikes. I mean, you're talking thousands of called strikes. That's why people do the one knee down despite I'm not really willing to give that it's really that much worse for blocking. I have Tanner in my ear. I have Jerry from the Rockies, who's it, Jerry Weinstein in my ear. They have studied this. They've looked at it. They are big proponents of one knee down.

You also see across baseball, more people doing one knee down, but that's why you see one knee down. That's why you also see them getting closer to the plate, is to get that breaking ball. And people talk about like stealing strikes and make it sound like it's nefarious. What you're trying to do is to get that breaking ball and people talk about like stealing strikes and make it sound like it's nefarious. What you're trying to do is just get that ball before it moves more and makes it look

like less of a strike. You think especially of sort of a 12 to six curve ball coming down through the back of that zone. If you can just catch that a little bit closer to the zone, it doesn't look like it hit the dirt. You know, if you catch it in the dirt, even if it did go through the zone, the umpire is a little bit less likely to give you that call.

So, you know, you get on the one knee down, so you're closer to get that call. We've seen that called, we've seen that the called strikes have gone up because of one knee down, but I think this is part of the story too. And we also hate, I feel like the public discourse anyways, we hate umpires more than we've ever hated them ever,

right now. And there's, all these catches are being missed. Catchers are getting really good and making it look like a strike. Like you just said 12 six curve ball. There's a human like a human eyes. If it's going straight down, there's no no person on the planet could be able to tell how high it was when it like it's a guess for in all intents and purposes, you're going off feeling because you're not seeing right. And umpires are actually getting better because they're they're doing actually something similar like what pitchers do when when you train in front of the track man you're trying to put together what the feel with the numbers right and that's what the umpires are doing is

like they're they're adjusting where they called strikes because they look after the game and go oh all right this is how I'm being evaluated And so that curveball even though it looked like a ball to me I now know where it actually is a strike because I can check the machines later I can check that machines are grading me So, you know, you can also like look up at the board see movement profiles because a lot of times They know that like that move probably farther than I think it did. Yeah Glances everyone's were like that was gross, what was that?

Sometimes, I mean, I'm sure there are guys that are just interested. Yeah, right, I mean, they like baseball, I mean, we hate them, but they like baseball. They do, they do. They would not do that if they didn't trust me. You have to love baseball to do that job. There's no way. It's a grinding job, it's a thankless job that is being hated by 30 40,000 people around you at a time plus everybody watching at home Is that fun if there's 40,000 people there like?

39,500 have no idea if that was a strike or not have no no possible way of seeing it Is there anything to be regulated here? Or is it just one of these things that polices itself because the clear hazard was on full display earlier this week? Like the, oh, okay, we can't get that close because that might happen. Like, does this sort of stop catchers from getting any closer and pushing harder to steal more strikes? Like, have we plateaued? Have we hit the limit?

The incentive is still much higher to grab the strikes and the chance of that happening because like JD Martinez too, he's got to's got a he lets get deep like he's got a swing that the bat stays back there a long time like more than most guys. He also stands pretty far back in the box. He lets it get ready and he stands way back there yeah. You could try to enforce the back of the batter's box. That would be what I would say would happen first. Yeah, I hesitate to offer new rules and new painted lines on the on the on the field because I know that there's a portion of the population will just hate it. But I don't know why there isn't a catcher box.

I mean you kind of have you have batter box. Why don't have a catcher box? I do. I wonder then if like, oh, we're gonna like we'll find like guys with long arms because you make them sit there and the guys with longer arms can reach out for others. We'll have like a like, oh, we need a tall catcher who's on one knee. You really get his long arm out there.

It's got a 72 wingspan. Yeah. Well, maybe maybe you could have a catcher's box where they can't put their arm out. I mean, there's I think want. Maybe you could have a catcher's box where they can't put their arm out of it. I don't know. I mean, there's... I think the bear's box is the best. Stop erasing it. They can be like, hey, move up. Hey, move up.

Unvires can look and see. I think that'd be the first thing. That'd probably cut down a lot. At least guys getting hit in the elbow. Do you think the crew could get out there and redraw the batter's box in the third inning or something? At least put the back line on 100%. They could redo the back line between every half inning. How

long would that take 30 seconds? They're pros. They would get what they would do is they get one of those little boxes and run out and just box and knock it a couple times and drop it and then run back like they would just like place it. Again, we're now we're making more work for people who you know, get paid too much. But still like, you know, something about enforcing the current rules could be put in there.

And then, I mean, a catcher's box should be something they consider, I think. Yeah, but if you don't want to add extra boxes, just enforcing the existing box would be a really good place to start. While we're at it, even though Eno's not feeling particularly litigious right now, do we need to cool it with the jumbo sliding mitts?

Is there going to be a point where those are absurd? Like I grabbed a snapshot of some some different ones and we have what Bobby with jr. Wears which I would think of if it's more of like the old Nes power glove it looks like a normal batting glove on these fingers are coming out of the end of that Huh? Yeah, it's got a lot of cushion and stuff in it But it's not like the full-on mitts that you see from Kittel Marte and Ronald Acuna Jr. And it's like Acuna's looks like it goes past his fingers like two or three inches. Oh, go way past his fingers.

Yeah. So like the two on the left, like the left and center, like Witten Marte, you're like, OK, those are fine. Those are two different styles. Wear what you're comfortable with. You can look at Kittel Marte's other hand. It's balled up into a fist. And you can see that the hands are still about the same size. That's totally fine. Acuna wearing one of those Nike sliding mitts has one that covers the entire back of his batting helmet in the picture. So I don't know, I remember as a hockey fan growing up in the 90s, pads kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and when you have new equipment, eventually you have to regulate it.

So is this an area where the league needs to step in? Did they regulate it for hockey goalies? They finally, at some point back in the 90s had to make some changes because it was insane. Like the pads were just- That'd be hilarious, it's like hockey goalies just come out there and just- They were walls, they really were.

Like everything went flush when they went close together, like literally a flush, all the pads were like flush together I like a transformer Crazy it looked like a couple years and then they cracked down on it, but it was crazy for a couple years for sure Yeah, so I think we're gonna have some kind of small crack down on the elbow guards a little bit too, right? Like Barry's elbow guard was huge, right? Yeah, and I think that I think then the current elbow guards have to be smaller and they're not they're not as big as they used to be. You just got almost like body armor.

He had a chin guard on his elbow. Like, he was like, I dare you to come in here. I'm gonna like I don't want to throw any pitches to you, man. Like you don't. Trust me. I'm not, you know, I'm trying to get as far away from you as possible. Did you ever face him? No, no overlap. No overlap. It'll just take someone to take it even further. I mean, like just have someone who's like, you know, when they put their hands down, like they're sliding, it goes past their knees, you know, like I have a two foot running out there with two foot swords. I think we've added enough stolen bases with the new rules where I think it's time to go ahead and cut that off somewhere and say, okay, we've we did stolen bases with the new rules where I think it's time to go ahead and

cut that off somewhere and say, okay, we've we did what we wanted to do. We increased action that fast of the game. Now we've we've hit our limit as far as what these what these myths should actually look like. There's probably a dusty old rule attached to like equipment you wear on your hands or batting gloves or something that we just haven't had to enforce in forever. Well, yeah, this comes up like you saw the Peacrow Armstrong thing where he's sliding, he takes his helmet off and he's safe because he's got his helmet on the base. I kind of like that. And well, it turns out, you know, in the time they called him safe, but it turns out if you look at the rule, it says that like the piece of equipment that's making you safe, like the piece of your

equipment only counts as part of your body if it's on the right place Off with the club on her this helmet on yeah, I can't do it within his hand So I could I could believe you that there's some part of the rule book They can just circle and be like see because of this I mean they seem confused when they call them sit there like is this okay, and everyone's like Never arcane part of the book. We're talking old Testament here.

No, but also, when we modeled stolen bases, we know that stolen bases went up with all the rule changes about 30% year over year. So, we can say with some certainty that stolen, like the rule changes gave you 30% more well I would say the throw overs is probably 25 of those 30% like I think the throw over rule really was the source of a lot of it because once you throw over once or twice then you're you don't want to ever throw over again and you then here is

the if you've got two throw overs as the hitter you're like I'm going like they're not gonna throw it again so I think the throw overs is probably the biggest part of that. But we know that the bases being a little bit bigger was some non-zero part of that 30% increase. Let's say it's 5%. Let's say it's 6%. Now as a hit as a base dealer, if you can, that means that an inch could be changed your outcome 5%. So if you're making a glove, you're like, well, you know, I'd really like to be 30. I'd like to be 30% safe 30% more often, you know, like three inches sounds like see what happens. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, why not? I think that, you know, not for nothing,

I think the NFL could have its own sticky stuff crisis at some point because they have gloves made by Nike that are super, super sticky. They're like fly paper, yeah. Have you tried to throw a baseball in one just messing around? No, but that's a great YouTube video idea. Yeah.

Yeah, sticky stuff versus NFL sticky gloves. Just messing around? No, but that's a great YouTube video idea. Yeah. Sticky stuff versus NFL sticky gloves. I think the reason that it hasn't become a crisis in the NFL is that's mostly a pro offense thing. If you think about it, it allows a receiver to do these crazy one-handed grabs we're seeing, which usually means, you know, sports center highlight play. Whereas the sticky stuff in baseball was anti-offense. Yeah, no one cared about the cool nasty pitch. It's like cool as many times. It really is.

I get it. It's pretty repetitive. We saw during the sticky stuff era, the nastiest breaking balls we'll ever see in baseball. In my piece with Sonny Gray, I don't know if you saw this, Trevor, but I did this interview with Sonny Gray, and he admits to using sticky stuff in the interview. And in such a, like, banal, like, you know, oh, well, I threw this great sweeper

with sticky stuff, and then after sticky stuff, my, like, it really slowed down. I couldn't throw it as hard, and it was popping around my thumb, and I couldn't get it as hard and it was popping around my thumb and I couldn't get the same kind of action without the sticky stuff. So I had to change my grip and change my attitude and like, I don't know how many people noticed that

but I was like, well, okay, that's just like a bygone era that we can talk about now. It is way more common than people think. Yeah. And it was rare. It was rare that you had a guy who was like against it. Seth Lugo is a guy who's again. He was like, you don't need that.

I don't need that stuff. Like did you? Yeah, exactly. You're the spin machine, dude. In the league. Shut up. Right. I'm glad you don't.

You know, I'm glad you feel this way, but shut up. Well, with Walker Buehler coming back, we can see a really big difference in the vertical movement on his fastball from here and check his stuff. Oh, oh, that's that's a good extreme one to 500. And just on every pitch, gone, just gone. And I always noticed with Karen check the way he would get ready between pitches. He had to keep tossing the ball to keep it

from getting like to make sure it's the right amount of. Yeah, he was battering chicken right amount of stick. That's exactly why that was that. That's where that came from. That's what you do. You like snap your fingers and he kept snapping the ball up and snapping his fingers to see, oh, there it is. And then he'd be ready to go.

And then, then he'd have rosin in his hair, which was legal, right? But rosin in his hair, and he'd go to that all the time. He'd go to his hair over and over and he had long hair all of a sudden, because he needed some tack, which I understand as well. But then, pitch clock made it so he didn't have time. Where is he now?

So like, honestly, there's a part of me that feels for it because I'm like, he has to make massive adjustments. And when you taste being that good, and then you're like, now I can't, I mean, it is his fault at the end of the day, but like, I would still be, there'd be a level of frustration, like, I had it, like I had it figured out,

and now I have to figure it out again for the third time. It sucks. Yeah, the way that Sonny figured out, the way that he figured out out of it was, uh, I can't get the plus plus, uh, horizontal movement and the plus Vilo. So I'm just going to focus on the Vilo. Just going to throw my sweeper harder. And he moved his thumb out of the way. He kind of, his thumb was in the way and it was kind of popping around his thumb. So then he kind of put the thumb on the side of the ball and their sweepers are crazy. They throw them, they throw them with a Tanaka, Tanaka's sweeper. It's like this.

Oh, that's the Brad hands split, split finger sweepy thing. Yeah. It almost looks like a split and it, they don't have any seams. So probably just slides. Yeah. It just slides behind it. It just slides this way. And then he, his finger, he had to change where his thumb was. His thumb was down here. I guess it was popping. Yeah, it just slides behind it. And then he his finger he had to change where his thumb was his thumb

was down here I guess was popping the other way. So he put it on the side. And so now when he throws it, it just goes that way. Yeah. Interesting. Tanaka apparently one of the OG sweepers. That's a lot of people have learned Tanaka's grip. That's the Yankee sweeper basically. If you're as obsessed with basketball as I am, then you know there's no better time of year than the NBA playoffs. Hey guys, this is JJ Redding.

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We had a few nice ones already, but we want to talk about moving between the rotation and the bullpen. And I think that's becoming a little bit more of a two way street than it has been. Like traditionally, right, if you don't make it as a starter or get of a two-way street than it has been like traditionally right if you Don't make it as a starter or get to a point in your career where you can't start effectively anymore You become a reliever have that second life and you know, that's the whole story

We had a handful of guys this year Make them move back so far to pretty high levels of success, right? Jordan Hicks and Renalda Lopez two examples of guys that are making it work as starters, both were starters before. Hicks more in the minors with the Cardinals, Lopez during his time with the White Sox before a shift to a short relief role. I wanna start with Hicks, just for the broader question here.

The only reason I think people were generally skeptical of Jordan Hicks as a starter was command, right? He didn't have enough command to absolutely maximize his stuff in the bullpen. So I think the skeptic said, well how could this possibly work trying to go four or five, six innings at a time if he's as inconsistent with the quality of the stuff that he has in short relief. So Trevor, I want to throw this to you first, like why do you think it's working so far for Hicks in this new role? One interesting thing is I think establishing first

is how the word command is used and the difference between no control, control, and command. In my eyes, it's like when you go along that list, it's the more advanced of pitcher you are. So your target gets smaller. Your ability to get crosshair, your target like targeting gets more and more precise. And I think that as a reliever, you know, throwing 103, like there's just something violent, so violent about your delivery that there's only going to be so much repetition can

do even Mason Miller, who's doing it too. He sprays the zone pretty well, too. It's not like he's just dialing a half of the plate. He just throws so hard that it doesn't matter. And that's what iticks kind of played on. The problem was he got to no control to where none of it was in the strike zone. So guys, it moves so much that he couldn't throw it in the box at all. I think as a starter, he has better control. He's throwing 95 instead of 107 and it's moving like crazy. He's always had like stupid movement on his stuff, honestly inexplicable at times. And he's just throwing it in the box more and guys are having to swing because it's going to be a strike and the movement is taking care of it.

So like that's kind of what he's doing. He's just kind of gotten into the control realm. I feel like as opposed to command, but the nice thing is about a starter is the longer you go and the more in the groove you get, the more in the zone you feel, the more often you're confident, you're getting confidence from success, then that command starts to come where you're like, oh, maybe I'll just try to go away

with this breaking ball through lefty. Like maybe I'll try a backdoor guy. I think I can do this. Do it once, you get confidence, and you start to do it all the time. A lot of times it's just the commitment to the pitch as opposed to the physical, especially when he's been around

for as long as he's been around. Like he knows how to throw the ball over the plate. It's just what is his brain telling him he's going to do. And it's different as a really starter. And sometimes that transition like plays up big time. Seth Lugo is another example of a guy who's very easily makes that transition. He goes into that mindset really, really easily. And it looks like Hicks does it pretty well too.

I think mindset is an interesting idea. I mean, you're talking about throwing at your max versus stepping off that max and thinking about how to get through different innings. So I do think that you need to have a wide enough arsenal to do this. And so Hicks, Lopez, and AJ Puck, who were kind of our three. Oh, and Crochet, right?

That's another player. Yeah, Crochet. Those are our players that are kind of our guinea pigs this year all four of them i think have a wide enough arsenal in terms of enough pitches that they could get lefties out you know a lot of times it's a reliever they can hide you against certain handedness and in this case you know each one of these four showed you know know, at least, you know, kind of a splitter slider combo that's puck and Hicks.

For Lopez, it's kind of a slider curve combo. For crochet, it's the slider cutter with a change up. All of them showed a wide enough arsenal. But I would say that if you're looking for the future, I do think that there's a level of command that you need to have. And you know, I have this measure location plus, if you look at these guys last year, all of them at least were able to do above average locations with one of their fastballs or the slider.

So Lopez locates his slider well. Hicks actually, even last year, when we thought he didn't have much command and he was just this wild, you know, fire breathing reliever, his fastballs, four-seam fastball was in above-hours locations. And even his sinker was 98, 99. It wasn't like a really low,

it was like, Roldes Chapman has really low location numbers. There's no way that Roldes Chapman has really low location numbers. There's no way that Roldis Chapman could be a starter. Even though he has a wide arsenal, he just doesn't have a pitch that he can get in the strike zone when he needs it. These guys all have one of those pitches. I would actually say that, you know, one of the reasons that it didn't work out for Puck, you know, I think there was a real reduction in his stuff and there may be some sort of injury component to it. But on top of that, he didn't really have good command of any of his hard pitches.

And I think that's something unique going in. I'm looking at splits too, and trying to decide if we can see wide enough splits from a reliever where they have too much of a struggle against lefties or righties. And you say, okay, even though they might have enough pitches, even if they have the command, they have such a major flaw working in that short

relief role that they can't overcome it. So my guide that I thought when I started digging around for some guys that could be starters, Adrian Morrejon by some of the criteria makes a lot of sense. That's my guy. That's what I was gonna say. He's a great candidate to be a starter. So I thought that too, and then I looked at his career splits and it's small because he's been heard a lot of sense. Oh, that's my guy. That's what I was gonna say, he's a great candidate to be a starter. So I thought that too,

and then I looked at his career splits, and it's small because he's been hurt a lot. It's only 51 and two-thirds innings against Wrighties. So he's faced 238 Wrighties in his career, but they're hitting 317, 370, 541 against him. So I'd be immediately in this position of saying, no, we can't try this until he has a better solution against righties.

Because then if you put him into a starting role, he's going to get just destroyed in the current form. There might be ingredients there to keep working on it, but my concern would be the level of struggle against righties. He's fine against lefties. he's great against lefties. He looks like, at the very least, he's a good late-ending reliever, but how would you get him from here to there

to make it happen, given that he ticks some of the other boxes? You know, I'm excited about him because, really interesting fastball, 97, good slider that he throws a lot, and so so as a reliever, it works. I guess, you know, as a starter, the theoretical, like the stuff plus on his curve ball is good. So I would have him be working on that curve ball. The stuff plus on his split finger isn't good, but one of those two pitches would need to

be his change of pace pitch, his pitch they use more against lefties, because I don't think that slider is necessarily the right thing for him to get righties out with. Over and over again. I think he would at least need to have something else to show them. The other thing I would throw this to for Trevor is this, if you wanted to make this happen, you wanted to try Adrian Marjolene as a starter

down the road, do you move him into a long relief role first and try to have him troubleshoot it in games without the full move, but to be in a role where he's going to be tested a little bit more often? Is that a logical way to go or can he stay in a short relief role for two or three more years and in his late 20s, possibly make that adjustment. Can he, can he learn what he needs to learn working basically one inning at a time against big league hitters to eventually make that leap down the road? Probably not just because some of the things that come along with that, like

when do you have that role, especially on your team, like your manager's not going to be like, well, I'm going to, we got to get three outs here, but I'm going to, I'm going to give him a righty to fit. Like that's, he's not gonna be like, well I'm gonna, we gotta get three outs here, but I'm gonna give him a righty to fit. Like he's not gonna get the opportunities at all to like see if he can throw any of these pitches that can get them out. He's gonna be like, my job is to get the lefties out and that is what I have to do.

And you're not thinking about expanding that job just in case in your head. It is a commitment thing. But I think if you have it in your mind that you might face a guy twice in an outing that could change that could start to shift those things in your head and especially for him like if he isn't able to get the ball up and in for example the righties like that's kind of the classic hold the four four seam up and in especially if you have a little bit of like cut or if you throw a cutter the Wade Miley just

throw cutters up and in cutters up and then cover like you if you have a little bit of like cut, or if you throw a cutter, the Wade Miley, just throw cutters up and in, cutters up and in. If you're not able to do that or have a wrinkle like that, that is an inside pitch, because the slider isn't doing it, then he needs to be able to throw that at some point as a wrinkle, like getting guys off the barrel, getting jam shots, getting guys to thinking about it up there. And you're just not gonna do that as a one-in guy, especially when you throw that hard.

Like he's gonna be given opportunities to throw in leverage just because he's got that swing and miss stuff. So like, you either gotta be like, especially when you throw that hard, like he's going to get, be given opportunities to throw in leverage just because he's got that swing and miss stuff. So like, they either got to be like, Hey, you're going to throw, you're going to have to get six outs or more every time, or you're going to, let's commit you to being like a guy who throws 98 from left side and go punch a couple of ticks it's later in the game.

I think those are the two options. You got to pick one. It's kind of hard if you're in the middle, they might never ever do either one well. And that's's I think that might be a little bit what's happening I'm like timing wise to you saw it hurt a lot. So I Hope that he can find You know somewhere lean one way of the fence, but I think if you're sitting on that fence It's it's gonna make it harder and harder to make him a starter later

one other type of role change that we're seeing right now is The starter reliever starter. We talked about it with Ronaldo Lopez as one example. A current one that we didn't really expect to see it from necessarily was Bryce Wilson in Milwaukee. He made 20 starts two years ago for the Pirates, so it wasn't that long ago that he was a starter. What I'm surprised by watching him this season is the strikeout rate is actually at a career high as he's kind of changed roles again. And I think I threw this out there a week or two ago.

I have this belief that being a long reliever gives you a better chance to come back into the rotation because you have to do what we were just talking about with Mara Hillen where you have to face everybody. Even if you're not in leverage, you're still problem solving. You're starting to keep your team in a game. You're trying to make sure a game doesn't get close. Those things matter. It's still facing big league hitters. So what has been the key for Bryce Wilson

to get to this new level? Is this the Brewers doing some raise stuff, like another Zac Littell type, kind of an unheralded guy that had the stuff all along and just needed to be in the right organization or have the right people working with him to unlock everything? Maybe his stuff goes a little bit of an uptake

and you know, probably has a little more information. Probably he gets a little bit of uptake and stuff being in the bullpen, but he seems like a guy who hasn't given up on the dream of being a starter. Like we had Trevor Williams in 2022. This is very similar. Like he's like, I want to be a starter. I'm going to be a free agent student.

I want to be a starter. He made going to be a free agent suit. I want to be a starter. He made eight starts, but they were all spot starts. And then he threw a bunch out of the pen but he treated it like a starting role. And that seems to be a little bit like Bryce Wilson is like, got to keep the team in. But I also might need to go a little bit longer than even most long guys do.

And so it seems like that's something he's keeping in the bag. What is he, like 24 or 25? He's really young. Like he's way younger than a lot of people know. I remember being blown away when he first came up at like 21. I was like, this kid's 21? What? Because he didn't throw 100.

He was kind of a crafty guy a little bit. So yeah, I think that's a little bit to do with it. To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of him pitch this year. I haven't caught it live, but that's usually what's going on. He's probably holding onto that idea that I can still be a starter and keeping the arsenal kind of fresh. And there is a way to do that job, I feel like,

with that mindset. Yeah, and with Bryce Wilson in particular, in terms of his group of pitches, is I don't think that any of his pitches, even if you added two or three ticks, like I mean, he's like 93, nine, if he was sitting 97 out of the pen, then maybe his fastballs would be slightly above average. Like they're just not they're not great shapes. They're not great fastballs. He really would have to push the VELO really

hard to be a good reliever. But as a starter, what he does is he throws three fastballs. And you know, not only does that mess with your ability as a hitter to sort of keyhole any one type of hard pitch, you can't be like, oh, you know, if it's hard, then it's going to be the four seamer and it's going to be high. You know, you it could be a high cutter, you know, he could even throw a high two seamer. So, and those are going to have really different movement patterns. So he's playing his fastballs all off each other in a way that wouldn't really work that well, I think out of the pen and none of those fastballs would be plus. Like Lance Lynn, like Lance Lynn couldn't be reliever. Exactly. He's kind of, if there is a,

if there is video I would give him, it would probably be Lancelin because he's got, he's only got one secondary. That's, that's any good. It's a pretty good curve ball, 81 miles an hour. And the cutters at, you know, 88, 89. So he does have a band there from 89 to 93, 94. And he's just trying to take the hard ones and play them off each other in a way

that makes it really hard for hitters. And I think it's something that can work. I don't think, you know, like, Lin had like a better career than I would expect out of Miller going forward. But, you know, the way that Lin is now is something that Wilson can do, I think. It's interesting too, because I think there's a perception for a lot of folks that a failed starter will always be a good reliever that even even if Lance Lynn doesn't have enough stuff to be a starter anymore, he can definitely be a good reliever. But there are guys that sort of fall in between. We've seen that as that's not always the case.

I mean, definitely in season, I think that it's you know, you don't just get the extra two miles an hour and they're a great reliever, you know But we're seeing with Luke Weaver a little bit if you give them the offseason and if they come in training for shorter stints That you can see a pretty big Velo bump. Yeah, what have you seen from Weaver so far this season Trevor? You mentioned him in one of our meetings that he's just he looks like a completely different guy now than he has really at any point during his time in the big leagues. He reminds me a lot of some other transitions I've seen. A guy who like he's got nine years, like he's been around for a while. And he's had, I think, stints where as a starter, like this guy's got really, I think it was universally known that his stuff was really good.

Like he's got, there's tools here and why isn't it getting put together? And when it starts to get put together, there was be an injury or something. And then he missed a bunch of time in a row, like two years. So it's like, you know, what, what, maybe this is profiling more as, as, as a reliever, but he could run it up to 96, 97 as a starter. So it was there. So you see all this stuff. I know the Mets kind of mess around this like Tyler McGill. Like, is this something like if he goes out and throws 99 only for an inning,

can he stay healthy that way too? So this is something that's always in someone's mind. One thing that though that has stood out to me is he's always had a good change up. And now it's a power change up. He's got a seam shifted. I don't know if he knows that he, that it's that type of thing, but he's a supernator like similar. He's a lot of what he does is similar to what I was doing and the way he would

pitch will be similar except for his sliders a little bit smaller and more of a cutter. Um, but he's got a really good power change up. And I saw it the other day against the Orioles. So you saw 97, 98, and he's a guy who would sit like 94, 95 on good days as a starter, and like 93, 94 normally, which is a pretty hard throwing starter.

Him adding five miles an hour is not surprising at all. He's still kind of throwing in the long roll, so here's something to pay attention with him. I would not, the more success he has, like he's got a.7 whip, right? No one's getting on base. So, that's a big deal, especially late in games. So if a spot opens up for a seventh inning,

or they need an eighth inning guy, he might get those opportunities more and more as the season goes on, because he profiles as a guy with that type of like swing and miss stuff. Now if he could just throw a breaking ball a little bit more consistently, I think they're not competitive a little bit more,

or maybe learn a sweeper or something, that can get more consistent swings and misses than his strikeout rate will increase. He's at nine per nine. It's not like he's not striking anybody out, but fastball changeup just isn't the way. You see the VELO. You see that his changeups turn from like a heavy fade thing to a really hard changeup that still has 15 plus arm side movement, which you're looking for in a tunnel with your fastball, and then you're throwing 98. At that point it doesn't really matter, you know, about Carrie.

He's got a little bit of Carrie. Not he's not time. I think it's slightly above average and it plays up. But like these are things that he was trying to throw to seem trying to throw stuff as a starter. Now he doesn't worry about that. And that's kind of what happens. I think he had some similarities, like a walk up where he was like a,

you know, four seam change guy that was always looking for a decent breaking ball. And I've talked to him plenty of times over the years about like finding that decent breaking ball. And what's interesting about this year's version is that the breaking balls haven't changed at all in movement profiles, but they've gotten better because he changes fastball. And it's not normally the story. I think the fastball is gotta be the hardest thing to change. It's the thing you've thrown the most, but he added two inches of ride to that fastball this year and the Velo and also cut some of the horizontal movement.

So he really, you know, made it a truer fore seam. And what that does is it emphasizes the horizontal movement on the change up and the cutter and the curve. I absolutely think he could be a starter and it might be one of his best years as a starter because he's done the starting thing in the past and this fastball is making his breaking balls play out better. And he always has that change up. The change up is like, you you know the best thing going for him. What what he's doing now is because he's such a drop-and-drive guy and he's getting the best ride of his career, Stuff Plus loves his fastball. It's kind of like

Iman Naga in a way just from the right in that he's getting low and then throwing a pitch that stays true. And given that the arsenal is fairly wide and the command is pretty good, I think Weaver could could go in either direction, really. Is it fair to bring up Kevin Gossman and his kind of winding road to becoming the starter he is now? He spent time in the bullpen in 2019. I think people sort of forget he that here he split between Atlanta and Cincinnati the time he spent in Cincinnati was almost entirely as a reliever I think he only made one start for the Reds comes back the next year the shortened year with the Giants

Kind of goes back to being or turns back into this guy that he's been for the last five seasons now Is that possible for Luke Weaver? I mean he's bounced enough It's one of those things like where's the opportunity at And once you're not with the organization you were with, so like the gospel was like, it was kind of a, you know, in the words of my father, this is his favorite saying, crap or get off the pot situation. He likes the PG version. Yeah, you either got to you either got to be the guy or figure it out or just take whatever opportunity you have and just do that as best you can. And it seems like he's just like, I'm going to make the best of this situation. It's nice to know, because there's probably uncertainty

like, am I a starter? Am I in this? Am I constantly working or fighting for a fifth spot? And am I healthy? That's just what's been in his mind for years, probably. And so now that he is, the Yankees might give him a chance to start because he's proving it with them. Or like the Rays or like a team. So that opportunity might present itself because of what he's doing as a reliever. And I think the same thing happened with Gosman. They're like, he has the pedigree

and he has done in the past. All we need to do is look for some change to show us that he might happen again. Someone took a flyer on him. He threw really well and here we are. And then he's been very good ever since he figures something Out on and there might have been a health component Maybe he was dealing with something a little naggy and went, you know in the offseason remember when Verlander had the hip thing

And it was like and he had that bad. Yeah, well Berlanders, but he's been around for a while He's probably it's probably Towards the end and they went got it fixed figured it out figured it out on his own and then came back and he's back There's old self. Sometimes that stuff happens too. I think there's a little bit of that with Gossman and it could be the same with Weather because he's around and people like he has nine years. That's not nothing. Yeah, but one thing that's that also stands out to me is that so I've talked to him a lot about, you know, he's like, he'll like get the rap Soto. And then he'll talk to the rap Soto people and get like targets and things he should do for his pitches from the rap Soto

people and I was like there's a failure here why isn't your team and and so part of it was he's bouncing around so if you're in between two teams you don't have a team to go to and be like what should I do you know and then part of it also and I hate to just kind of throw anybody under the bus, but like he wasn't with good teams that are good at doing this. He was with St. Louis when he first came up. We know that I've had people tell me they don't even think the machines were plugged in in those years, you know? And then he goes to Arizona, who's they are trying to change things around. But you know, this is pre who's there now Strom.

It's pre Strom, you know, Arizona. And that's when I'm talking to him and he's and he's getting the rap soda and doing stuff on his own. Then he goes to the Royals. And then the year when he finally goes to some places that were people might have, you know, been able to do stuff, Cincinnati, Seattle and New York, that's 2023. He's bouncing around so much in the season. He's getting 13 innings with Seattle.

Like how much how much can you get done with a pitcher when he's just arrived in the middle of the season and you're trying to win games and you're and Luke's like, what should I do? And you're like, ah, I don't know. Try to, you know, like, you could tell. I tried. He started against us. He started against us. You could tell he was trying to do Mariners ball.

He was trying to do. Yeah. He's like, I'm not like I do. I got to practice a little bit like on the things up here. I got to practice. So what happens? He ends up on the Yankees who are pretty good at this sort of stuff. And it doesn't happen right away. It happens when they say go home this offseason and please do A, B, C, and D. These three things, these four things, he

does those things he comes back and he's good. I mean that's, that's, it's partly coaching. It's partly coaching and and lining that coaching up with the right timing and the right opportunity I mean he had 13 innings with Seattle with Seattle last year. They're pretty good coaches. He had some time with Cincinnati They have pretty good coaches, you know, they have pretty good coaches in New York It took the offseason and that's what I was sort of saying about sometimes relievers Transitioning to to start his transition to being relievers if it's in the middle of season They can't do the things that would make them

a great reliever right away. Unless the team sucks, frankly. Or they can send them out if you have options. Like the Mariners were like, they came back the whole time. They're like, we need a fifth starter to go deeper. We can't have one. We just need you to, we just need an arm.

We need an arm that's more consistent. We can't spend, yeah, we can't spend a bunch of time trying to change your pitches in the middle of this. We just need you to go We need an arm that's more consistent. We can't spend, yeah, we can't spend a bunch of time trying to change your pitches in the middle of this. We just need you to go out there and give us like three or four innings of decent ball. The results, the worst year was really, for like, it was 2020, 650 ADRA, but 2020 was 2020. Like we don't count that for most people.

It just, it happened, but it doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Injuries were a big part of it in 21 too. And then 2022 and 2023 were bad, but like. But it was all over the place and the skills were there. The skills were intact. Like you could look and see glimmers of hope. So this was actually a pretty sharp lottery ticket

sort of signing for the Yankees. And I would imagine if he pitches well all year, I mean, we're going to see some other team put in more significant investment into Luke Weaver for 2025. This is a league star for pitching. And that's why I think we are going to see more creativity in where starting pitchers come from. And we see it sometimes now in the draft.

We'll see relievers get drafted and be converted into starters. A lot of organizations have the consent for that. Christian Scott. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Will Warren, I think, was one. Coming through the Yankee system right now.

Ryan Nelson was a closer at Oregon. And I would look for stuff that is good enough that if you could subtract five to 10 points of stuff plus, they'd still be 95 plus stuff plus. You know, like you saw that with Ronaldo Lopez. He had great stuff plus numbers. They are much worse now, but at 95- you can you can survive if you have a large arsenal and command of one of your hard pitches So that's that's my rubric large arsenal stuff that can survive a downgrade and and command of one of your hard pitches

Yeah, I think a lot of that does explain Jordan Hicks to like just Crazy good stuff across the board. It's easy to see it in the model. It was a really good way to visualize it when the Giants made that signing in the off season. Onto our big challenge of the week. How would you game plan against Jared Jones if you were instructing the Cubs hitters,

if you were trying to come up with a game plan for tonight's matchup, using the hitters in that lineup against the guy that's been just phenomenal so far this year, striking out more than a third of the batters he's facing, it's not walking guys right now either. There's just so little give in Jared Jones, maybe you'll get lucky, hit a homer, a little bit of a homerun problem, but that's picking Knits in what has been a fantastic start to the season. Well, that's what I'm going for though.

It's you're, you're just trying to beat him with the long ball, but what's the weakness right now? What are you trying to do? The only weakness is that he has two pitches. That's the only weakness. So you are, if I'm in, if I'm him, I'm key holding one of those two pitches. He throws the high four seam and the low slider. That's, that's the, that's the game plan. And unfortunately, I looked at comparisons of comparative 96 plus with great ride,

four seamers high in the zone. And I looked at the Cubs hitters over the last two years. So Ian Happ and Nico Horner sit four seam fastball high in the zone, use your flat-ish swings to stay on top of that ball and try to do something. Everybody else is hitting zeros against those types of fastballs. Cody Bellinger has seen 25 of this type of fastball and his slash line is 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. Christopher Morrell, zeros. Mike Tocman, zeros.

Patrick Wisdom, zeros. Matt Mervis, zeros. Bush has had a little bit of success. Those three guys, Bush, Horner, and Happ can sit four same. The other guys, and I don't know, I'd like to hear from Trevor if this is at all viable. The other guys I think should sit slider. So Swanson slugs 700 on sliders like Jones

in the bottom of the zone. And Christopher Morrell slugs a thousand. And Cody Bellinger slugs 571. So do you think that's viable, Trevor, sit the slider? That might be viable. So here's how I think about it. Here's how I approach things like this. I would say I want to know what Jared Jones does most.

So like there's an archetype thing going on. I won't go way into that, but like there are guys that do certain things. You know, he's right-handed, he's slider-forcing, fast-able ride guy. So that tells me he's a tunnel guy. He's not like good Eflin who was crisscrossed and not like a Bassett who's crisscrossing all the stuff across the same tunnels. It's the other way.

He's throwing out of the same spot. I mean, we saw it with the terrain, the overlay was perfect. He's trying to make you think it's always fastball and then one of the fastballers up. The bright string at bat that overlays exactly, exactly where he wants to throw the pitches every single time, except sometimes the sliders are over the play for strikes.

That's it, but like just closer over. So he works glove side, he throws four seams up and into lefties and up and away to righties most often. Sometimes it leaks middle, which is something to pay attention to, but that's where he's going. He's using that glove side tunnel is what I call it. Then he throws a slider off the same thing

and it's gonna be in the zone or then he moves a little out of the zone. That's what he does. He throws a change up every once in a while, it's not great, and he'll going to be in the zone or then he moves a little out of the zone. That's what he does. He throws a change up every once in a while. It's not great. And he'll flip over a curve ball first pitch every once in a while to a lefty. And the reason you do glove side tunnel is that against lefties, your breaking ball hits their back foot instead of, you know, sitting.

It's a low risk, high reward situation to both righties and lefties. He's never going to get hurt there unless it leaks over the plate. So he's getting around it a little bit more where, where the strengths of the other guys come. So I'm like, Hey, here's what we know. He's going to go up and up and in to bellinger and half, and he's going to go down, down and in to back foot with the slider, depending on the count. So then I'm like, okay, when, when does he do these things? So, uh, there was some interesting things.

I have a, I have a report that I had that tells me what pitches he throws in every single account percentage wise, which now he's faced enough guys were a month in to where you can get a kind of idea of what he's thinking about when he gets in certain counts to certain guys and he's young. He's a rookie. So like I would be like he's a rookie. So like this these patterns are probably based on what he's thinking, not just based on what's happening in the moment. If it were an older guy, I would think maybe he's, he's, he sees. He hasn't figured out necessarily.

Like he hasn't seen these guys. Oh, he's probably doesn't know these things at least as clearly as I would. So, uh, for example, for two, a righty he's, uh, uh, three, two, he's throwing 70% fastballs to change up some one slider, which is weird. I'm like, you've thrown two changeups, three, two to righties. So, uh, I'm looking for something straight. That's like a sinker ish. I'm like, you've thrown two changeups, three, two to righties. So I'm looking for something straight. That's like a sinker ish. Like he's trying to maybe he's using it like that. Or maybe he's just like, they think a fastball is coming because

I throw so many. So I'm going to get them with a changeup, which is something that I, I would also go with them there. I would look for something straight three, two from right-handed hitter and two, two, 63% of the two, two pitches thrown thrown righties are fastballs, but it flips one to one to it's 66% sliders, which is it's kind of conventional, which is pretty conventional. Once he gets the two strikes, he wants to throw the slider, you know, when he needs a strike, he kind of throws the force. Yeah, he knows the slider is the best pitch when he gets to two and that's even now it's fastball time.

Again, I something I've thought a lot. And so those are things if you're Nico Horner you can count on because he's a guy who jumps pitches anyway so this is very much how he approaches it so then we we I'm gonna use Nico again as an example what does Nico hit well he probably knows this stuff too close to him he gets it close to him really well fastballs that leak up and into righties he hits that better than most righties do so now there there's a tunnel, there's two tunnels, one glove side, one arm side. He tries to throw glove side all the time, but if he throws arm side, that's

playing into Nico's strengths because he hits sliders down middle, not down in the way down middle. So if you see, if he sees a tunnel of a pitch coming up towards him, that's when he should get excited to hit because he's either going to hit the fast ball or he's going to get a slider that stays more of the plate. He can hit it. Both pitches he can hit, naturally. Anything that looks like it's closer to that means

he's using it. But if it looks like it's away from him, I would say either try to spoil it because he's Niko Hohner and he covers that box really well. You could maybe spray it to the opposite field over or just foul it. And he's okay just flipping it over. If he's like, okay, well he's not gonna miss. He hasn't missed today. So I'm gonna see if I can keep fouling off to get that miss, or I'm going to see

if I can just poke it and that's the best I can do. And Bellinger hits the up and in now, not guys who throw this hard, but he does have a, he can cheat and get a fastball up and in not a way because he pulled off. And he's seen this approach against him so often. He's going to get the same time. He's going to get the up and in and the slider down and what, and he can hit both of those pitches. He just has to be right. So that's what he's gonna get the same time. He's gonna get the up and in and the slider down and what, and he can hit both of those pitches, he just has to be right.

So that's what he's trying to do. So I think, you know, if I'm advised, I'm like Bellinger, just guess. Yes, take a shot. Guess the F out of it today. Take a shot early in the count. Just guess. And then spoil and try to get a mistake late.

He's gonna have to cheat a little bit and guess and be, and you know, another word for guess that's not so offensive to some hitters is be like, Predict. Attentive, what's it, yeah, predict, you know, another word for guess that's not so offensive to some hitters is be like, predict, yeah, predict, you know, sort of anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. Yeah, yeah. So anticipate and up and in fore seam and kind of get through fast and get those hands in. You can drag them back to the zone and at least fell off a nasty slider or, or get a barrel on it and just let let your swing get there. But a slider that's low but not out of the zone, a low and in the zone

slider is actually Bellinger's wheel hop. Exactly. That's his that's his best swing. So yeah I think Bellinger and then just going off of past results I think Hap, I don't know why, seems to have a swing that works for both of these. Maybe Hap has seen this approach a lot and has built a swing that can handle this. But I think today the biggest hurdles for Jared Jones will be actually Hap and Horner. That's going to be my call. But Ballinger could touch him for a solo home or if he's lucky there's somebody on. Yeah, one last interesting thing too from a lefty from just Ballinger and Happ.

2-0, he's six out of eight of his 2-0 pitches have been sliders to lefties and three of the five, three-one have been sliders. So there's something about fastball counts to lefties. So tell that to Ballinger, that's a great time to guess slider. Exactly. Because you can miss it and you're still in the count. You are sitting dead red heater. That is what he's thinking. That's why you only throw sliders.

Blake Snell had this after in 2018, he wins the Cy Young 19 2-0 change up sororities. He just could not stop throwing them. It was like one 100% rate. We were in June. So it's like 100%. He's like that or it's like 96% of like a 100% rate. We were in June. So it was like a hundred percent. He's like, that's like 96% of like, yeah, so I mean, you're happy to guess on something when you start seeing six and he gets Crohn's a big, like, no, if I see

a 90% or I'm sitting on that pitch, he sat on a two, Oh, change up and took him back way back for three run over. He's told me at the games. I told you I was like, you don't get stuff that that's that that that's clear. But if you can find one, just pick. I remember that two, oh, he throws 80 percent slider. I'm just going to guess. Why not? I think if I think over 60, you can start it.

But like, yeah, if it's over. Yeah, if you're in the 70s, 80s, that's just that's like written in red on your card. You're like, remember that the two or three ones from him to lefties if he gets behind. But he hasn't been behind a ton. That's the thing. They need to get spoiled. They need to spoil some of his good pitches. Like perhaps got to be able to follow. Belly is like sort of anticipate up and in fastball early.

That's happening early. That was right away. If he misses to if it's too far up, like take take. If you get to two, then take a swing on a slider low. You know, I think for habits, it's look for the high fastball because it seems like he can do something with that. And then for Horner, yeah, I like that idea of anything that's moving towards the body. Look for this tunnel as opposed to that tunnel.

That's why I would tell him. And it still might not work. Well, we got a plan for three hitters. I think the rest are cashiers. Everybody else figured it out for yourselves. Yeah, Morell actually looks like he can hit the low slider, so I might actually tell him just look for low slider. Look for a slider in the zone.

If you want to say something. If a few guys can spoil high heaters, just stow them off. Jones will be like, what the hell? He will. Just a few more pow-pows. Producer Brian asked if I'm calling for a no-hitter, and I think I'm going to leave that for somebody else this time. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Don't do it. We saw how the show started. For what it's worth, at least with a two-pitch guy, you know these numbers that Trevor's spitting out, it's easier to find an 80% or 90% if they're only a two-pitch guy. Can I throw a change-up in there? Now I don't know, guys. This is why we called for Strider to, you know, to throw that third pitch. And this is why I think eventually Jones, you know,

this stuff plus loves his change. So like if he can command that pitch, if he's going to be an ace, you know, every year, then it's going to be because he starts, you know, folding that change up and put throwing the change up in counts. You don't expect and, you know, playing with the anticipation of hitters. It's it's very rare to be a two to pitch pitcher for you know, for very long periods of time for success. Yeah, all the other part of the gameplay and just follow them

off. Just stay alive. Just make them work. Just keep following on. Just like one extra pitch off. That's huge. Because he's like one guy. That is literally what they let's make him throw one more pitch. That's a win. Get him out in five pitches. Also, he might not have a ton of pitches. Same thing with Skeens. When he starts throwing, I'm out there just like trying to make him throw a lot of bats.

If he's nominated. We want to see somebody else. We want to see Luis Ortiz or somebody else. You guys want to make a prediction for the Paul Skeens debut? We didn't do that yesterday. Innings? I would say he gets to five. They've been really trying to stretch him out.

I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. I think he's going to die. You guys want to make a prediction for the Paul Skeens debut? We didn't do that yesterday. Innings? I'm going to say he gets to five. They've been really trying to stretch him out.

I think he's going to dominate. So I'm going to go five, makes one mistake. So like maybe a solo homer, like six strikeouts, two walks, solo homer, one run, five innings. Only a solo homer. That's really good. I'll throw four hits total too. But that's literally exactly what I was going to say. Like, everything you said was, I agree with a hundred percent.

Some mistakes somewhere. Some mistakes, yeah. Like a couple, a couple of six hole ground balls on fastballs run over. Who's he starting against again? Gubs. Oh yeah, duh. Yeah, no, I think that, I think that's, that's a good call.

But maybe someone gets them for a solo shot for sure. Yeah. Six, seven strikeouts and five innings seems very reasonable though based on what he's had so far Jimmy Spencer disappointed that we're not trying to call a no-hitter for the Paul Skeens debut But we would never do that to someone making their debut. Oh Saturday's gonna be great steel versus Skeens Nice. This is a great series for this point of the season this point of the year I think this is fun. And for the Pirates, they started so hot. And this is what was kind of missing last year. Last year they just fell apart.

This year they can say, well, now we've got Skeens. They're calling up Nick Gonzalez, who has seemingly changed some stuff. And they still have O'Neal Cruz. And O'Neal Cruz, by my numbers'Neill Cruz by my numbers has seen some of the best pitching in the big leagues this year. And the difference between O'Neill Cruz and Ellie De La Cruz in terms of the quality of pitching that they've seen by Pitching Plus is actually one of the biggest differences

in baseball. Ellie for some reason has seen poor pitching and O'Neill has seen some of the best pitching in the big leagues. Weird for two guys playing the same division but schedules can be pretty erratic for the first six or so weeks of the season. And we're not as divisional heavy as we used to be. That's true. Should be a great weekend of baseball. A friendly reminder being that it's the Friday of Mother's Day weekend if you have not picked up gifts, cards, things.

Go get something quick. Maybe get on that. If you got to take care of that take care of that but Lots of ground to cover this weekend looking forward to watching that debut and watch this whole series I think you're right, you know, I think Pirates of Cubs will be a good one throughout the entire weekend You can give us a follow on Twitter You can find Trevor at I am Trevor May find Eno at you know Sarah's find me at Derek van Riper You can follow the pod at Rates and Barrels. As I mentioned up top, the link to join our discord is in the show description.

If you got future questions, you can also email them to us. Rates and Barrels at gmail.com. Big email mailbag coming very soon. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to smash the like button on this video and give it a subscribe to YouTube channel. Do it one o'clock Eastern live every Friday. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday.

Thanks for listening.