welcome back to the warehouse podcast everyone my name is Elijah the O took two of three from the AL West leading Mariners taking the first two in the Emerald City before droing the third highlight of the series was definitely Oriol starting pitching including the triumphant return of Dean Kramer uh the Mariners offense is not a good one quite frankly uh that's putting it gently uh but nevertheless orial starting pitchers combined for 17 in a third Innings only two earned runs striking out 20 two in the process and allowing only eight hits before we get into it too much want to thank the sponsor of this show bet online is your number one source for all your sports betting needs this season baseball soccer golf to all the top fights in UFC MMA and boxing every stat every matchup even live odds and spreads while the games are being played when the game is over head on over to the online casino get in on a game of blackjack or poker unwind with one of over 150 slots games head to the website today and get in get in on the action use promo code believe that's bav for your 50% Free Bet credit on your first deposit up to $250 bet online the game starts here so talking about the starting pitching here Grayson is good Corbin Burns is good we know these things uh the anxiety for Orioles fans really I think kind of centers and swirls around the relative mediocrity of the rest of the starting rotation don't want to say it's bad because it's not totally bad um but you know while the other three have not been terrible as a union as a unit they're definitely not what we anticipated coming into this year when we thought that Kyle bradish John means and Tyler Wells were going to be a part of this rotation over the last month by measure of Ops plus against Kade Povich has been perfectly averaged at 100 Albert Suarez has been slightly worse at 113 those two I will just let them be run prevention has really been averag to even you know solid good for both um Cole Irvin on the other hand has been Molly whopped in the month of June uh yeah so Ops plus against him 164 that means hitters have been 64% better than League average uh this is largely due to a slugging percentage of 591 against him to put those numbers in context a little bit if batters against Cole Irvin in June were a player they would rank fourth in MLB in slugging behind Aaron judge sh Otani and gunar Henderson that would be just ahead of Bryce Harper and Rafael DES in terms of Ops the 964 Ops against would be sixth in MLB behind judge Otani stto Henderson and Harper and so what I'm taking away is that the average hitter against Cole Irving in the month of June was a better hitter than yordon Alvarez and to rephrase that you know when when Tampa is sending somebody like a Jose cabayo to the G like to the plate if it's June Cole Irving on the bump that player can produce like some of the best in the game like a top 10 hitter in baseball um Irvin's ra climbed from a 284 on May 27th to a 413 on June 30th uh the gimmick of throw bunch of curveballs and have a good number of subpar pitches backing it up just it you know the gimmick is kind of up I think that we have seen uh core Irvin move to the bullpen in the past he did so with really a lot of success last year um in Ju you know just under 20 Innings had an RA a little bit over three it was really pretty successful and if Keegan Akin's performance in the third game of this series is any indication or any reminder we are ready to get rid of Keegan Aken um and Cole Irvin moving to the pen gives us another Lefty besides cenel pz uh you know given the loss of Danny kulum you think you want to keep Ain there for a little bit of length and the left-handed you know the left-handed arm uh but at the same time if we can push Irvin into that slot in the bullpen we can remove Keegan Ain and hopefully upgrade for a little bit more leverage at the trade deadline or potentially with a Chase mcdermit or something like that so but you know you need to replace Cole Irvin you can't just move him to the pen with nothing else um so you know like I mentioned McDermot the Arsenal looks really good there's question as to how reliably he can throw strikes so you know all eyes just kind of turned to the rehab of Dean Kramer and he was not particularly good in some of these rehab appearances but this weekend I say weekend you know it's the long July 4th holiday weekend but he pitched on a Wednesday uh this weekend so to speak uh we got our first taste of the new healthy Dean Kramer uh it was very very sweet I don't want to say he was sweet tasting it's a little bit weird uh but I will note that Cole Irvin has officially been moved to the pen Kramer came in and threw five innings in game two 83 pitches so he really was pretty efficient uh definitely if he was not just coming off the injured list would have come back out for the sixth had plenty of juice uh but allowed just two hits and two walks struck out eight Mariners um like I said very efficient and you know would have ended up with probably six shutout or at least a quality start if he allowed one or two in that sixth inning um he limited hard contact extremely well allowed only three hard hit balls all day uh two for outs and one single so no damage done on them and really you know when I take a step back and I say okay what did we really see from Dean here that enabled him to be effective I think the first thing that I'll say is that he was facing the Mariners and once again this is a team that has really struggled offensively I think in terms of batting average they're worst in the league if I remember correctly but uh in terms of swing and Miss they are the third worst team in the league with a 28% whiff rate that just gives a little bit of context that is a bad figure whiff rate of 28% is not good almost one in every three swings you take you just objectively miss uh that's not a great figure and so that helps you know lay the like lay the context for Dean Kramer putting up a 47% whiff rate on his four seam fast ball 44% whiff rate on his splitter uh I think both of these pitches really defined his outing they were his top two most used pitches excuse me and I I think that the the thing to like take away from the for scene was really just location um movement was very much in line with how his fast ball has looked all year there's really nothing to there's no juice to squeeze or insight to gain from looking at that um so it was really about location he kept the ball up in the zone uh he allowed it to play off of other offerings by letting that ride work I think we saw something on the order of 17 inches induced vertical break really riding at the top of the zone that was wildly effective for Dean um and yeah got a lot of swing and myths uh on on a fast ball you know that that is not usually a whff kind of pitch um once again the Mariners do struggle but great to see that from Dean but the pitch I really want to focus in on today and I'm gonna step back from just talking about his outing and kind of describe Splitters as a whole to hopefully just give some context um there were some like pretty substantial differences in the split and there was a distinct jump and Effectiveness as a result uh so I'll try to get into some of that here his splitter dropped five inches less than his League average this year and was a tiny bit more horizontal it was only about two inches um I I think when you are talking in the context of Splitters uh I think the best thing to say is that they are you know because you're doing this crazy thing splitting your fingers across the ball um that they are harder to control harder to repeat and so what I will throw out there with this horizontal movement is that the least horizontal movement of any pitch he threw during this game was only one inch arm side um and the highest was 13 inches so there is a higher standard deviation so to speak here with the horizontal movement um it is a probably a less significant uh observation that it moved about two in more to the to the arm side uh I I think that what is significant though is this five inches of um the five inches of vertical movement you know there was a tighter grouping there and there was less variance so I think it is significant even in the smaller sample size um no splitter that Dean Kramer threw in this game on Wednesday dropped as much as his average splitter across the course of the entire season so this was definitely a concerted effort to make the splitter ride a tiny bit more on top of that he also threw it a full mile like mile per hour harder on average in this start the slowest splitter that he threw was less than half a mile half a mile an hour below his League average and the hardest was over two and a half miles an hour harder so really interesting observation there in that this is a pitch that he does not want diving as much he wants to be throwing at harder and sort of to accomplish those things um or maybe you know throwing a harder is sort of the accomplishment but that the last noticeable difference is there is a 260 RPM increase in average spin rate um which is over 30% of what his previous spin rate was once again the lowest spin rate we saw out of the hand was only 11 rpm lower than his yearly average you know which is not significant when you're talking about hundreds thousands of RP PM um and the highest was almost 600 RPM higher so this is a harder splitter than we had previously seen this is a you know less droppy splitter than we had previously seen that is a crazy way to describe anything less droppy um a little bit more ride on the splitter I guess is the better way to see it and yeah slightly harder slightly smaller split finger fast ball from Dean Kramer um and so I I guess just like kind of taking a step back you know to characterize how Splitters are kind of you know operating and making a comeback in this game um I guess like you yeah so Splitters are just like so hot right now you know the uh the Zoolander meme of will frell uh League white splitter usage in 2021 was 1.6% of all pitches 2022 was the exact same 2023 jumped up to 2.2% the highest Mark since pitch tracking began and in 2024 so far it's up over 3% at 3.1 so Splitters are really really like the hot thing right now and I think to understand why Dean you know making these tweaks might have helped this Effectiveness uh it it's like useful to go ahead and talk about Splitters in the most General sense they're really really weird pitch and I think what makes them good uh is a pretty nebulous concept I I remember Einstein you know had this quote back in the day like anybody who says they understand quantum physics they're lying to you you know anybody who says they understand what makes a splitter truly truly good I think they're lying to you any Layman at least uh you know I'm sure the orio's front office is has got ideas with what they're doing here but you know it's not like a four seam fastball where you know we go in we see Felix throwing 103 and it drops like less than seven Ines on the way to the plate and you're like yeah that's a good fast ball um it's not like that you you know Cal quantro has the most valuable splitter in the game this year and trade Target for the O's go get him I would love to see it um but he is the most valuable splitter in the game this year so far it's 86 miles an hour he throws in the low 90s so it's only like a six seven an hour dip um not a huge V difference and the movement on it is slightly below average vertically and horizontally so Fernando Cruz another one of the best Splitters in the game on the reliever side this time he throws in the mid90s and he throws his splitter under 82 miles hour on average it moves only 2% more than average vertically and it moves 26% less than average horizontally so you know it's like the there's no consistent kind of speed difference between your fast ball and this off speed pitch there's no consistent like more movement is a good thing it's really at just it the splitter breaks our traditional concept of what makes a good pitch and I think that's an important thing to note when we're like trying to evaluate Dean Cramer's splitter here um so in terms of what does make a splitter good you know if it's not necess neily the the speed difference if it's not necessarily the movement I you know I won't be able to tell you in terms of movement profiles and all but I can speak in a viby sense like from what I've learned in my time in baseball and as a fan here ever since um ever since I hung up the cleats or they were hung up for me they I'm gonna be honest they were hung up for me that's fine um but you know Splitters yeah they break the common conception because they they just kind of utilize air in a different way than other pitches do something like a for seam fast ball will employ What's called the Magnus effect you know and you are rotating into the wind on one side of the ball that creates a pressure differential and pushes it one way so the forcing fast ball back spinning as that back spins the bottom side of the ball is rotating into the wind you have higher pressure and that pushes it up you don't have to worry about that too much I'm not quizzing you or anything after that but you know it it's basically rotating into the wind is what pushes you one way or another Splitters are very very effective because they don't spin very much you know I I I talked about Dean started spinning his a bit more but all in all it has about half of the spin rate of a League average fast ball or Dean Kramer's fast ball um it you know it's spinning on the order of 1100 RPM and the intent there is that you know almost like a knuckle ball obviously it's a very different thing but almost like a knuckle ball you were trying to catch the wind as opposed to kind of cutting through it and pushing into it um and you know obviously those are very very different things because like with a splitter you do you know impart some some manner of spin you do have like medium spin I guess on the on the scale of zero to fast ball you have medium spin on it and in that way the pitcher does control the directionality of the ball itself um and you know that that is an intentional thing and it allows you to direct it um but I guess like kind of the way to think about it is you know these high spin ones are kind of cutting through the air and so I i' like I think of it as the equivalent of like if a fast ball and a sweeper you know like kind of like dipping and Diving through the air or kind of like a wing suit you know you jump out of a plane you're riding in this wing suit the splitter is the equivalent of like just Free Falling for a while and pulling the parachute you you know it it like catches that wind a little bit differently probably has more drag as a result of the less consistent profile and it gives you a very very different path to the plate I think is the important thing um and and so it it does some weird things and so that's why it's not so much about like the beginning and ending locations which are what we see when I take a look at baseball Savant or something like that we you know we are not able to characterize the path of the ball on the way to the plate what baseball Savant does is it says Hey the pitcher released it here and it moved this much on the way to the plate in this direction and this much in this direction and that's all it gives you it does not say that you know it moved this much in the first 20 30 feet and then it moved this much in the last 30 feet um if it does please tell me because I haven't been able to find it anywhere uh and you know I like I think Lance brazowski he was just on the on the verge pod he's a really really great guy if you have not heard of him definitely check him out YouTube and Twitter um he he did a a video essay basically a couple weeks ago about different sinkers and how they're you know some are more effective than others despite the fact that they do not metrically seem as good and one that he pointed out was Kyle bradish um in there is a manner of deviation from the expected Spin and maybe just later movement and having you know teams having found ways to keep a ball on one steady trajectory for a bit longer and then still have it dive and still achieve what you know what it was meant to do but just do so on a different path um if you can stay within the tunnel of a forcing fast ball for longer and still you know achieve some manner of like diverting from that path that's going to be the most effective thing that's what we all want you you know like from the time that you are eight years old people are talking about late movement um even though none of us at eight years old can actually achieve late movement um but yeah so so you know the the path that this ball takes on its way to the plate is a very very different path than others um and that's why you hear the word tumbling associated with a splitter very often uh it it kind of describes how it seems to just like kind of fall off a table really part way to the plate um and you know I I I will not like sit here and pretend that you know I know exactly what the Orioles are going for in like having Dean throw this harder and with a tiny bit more Spin and a little bit less movement um I you know I I will give my best read and it it it it falls in line with that tumbling idea that you can keep something something you know on this plane on a table so to speak and then have it fall off a bit later um and you can you know pull that parachute when you want to I guess is the way to say it and so I I guess like what backing up a little bit you know Dean started throwing the splitter this year um and dropped it in favor uh or dropped his change up in favor of the split and and so like to compare the two quickly you know the split is a mile and a half slower uh has a similar vertical profile and the change ran almost twice as much to the arm side so the split is slower same vertical movement and has much less horizontal movement intuitively it just seems like a substantially worse pitch um but you know Dean Kramer also has a sinker that runs 15 and a half inches horizontally very similar to The Run of the change up last year 15.4 in um and so like despite the fact that the change in Sinker weren't the same speed the splitter kind of occupies a somewhat different movement profile that wasn't part of that repertoire last year uh being a bit more vertically oriented still you know offspeed pitch um so early returns in that shift have been really really good the change up allowed a 315 woba weighted on base average last year and the split is at 223 this year change up excuse me change up had a 27% whiff rate last year the split over 10% better at 37.7% whiff rate this year the most recent change to make it slightly harder and slightly slightly smaller definitely seems like an attempt to hide it in that fastball tunnel for just a little bit longer um I I think it's a manner of if you can keep it on plane on a given plane for a while longer and then still let it dip at the end and I think that will you know really disguise the thing and really assist in making sure that your fast ball can surprise somebody at the top of the zone and you know Assist on having players swing over the top of it that's the biggest thing and that's the key to the splitter um if Dean can you know continue to keep that fast ball up Let the splitter dive he's got the Sinker that works to his arm side he's got the cutter that you know added a couple inches of horizontal movement a couple inches of sweep this year and he's got the big breaking ball um I I think it looks really good for saying that Dean could give the O's a tiny bit of added Comfort heading into the trade deadline here uh that our rotation is not in too terrible a shape uh I think that it was looking pretty rough for a while but I think there are some measures of you know confidence that we can hold here if Dean is starting to you know have some tweaks and starting to find his form a little bit expect that he will be a really solid three or four throughout the rest of the year obviously it'd be lovely to get into the playoffs with a dominant three like we were expecting um but when you lose Kyle bradish for the year there are questions uh as to how much you pay to make sure that you do have a dominant three starter or dominant one two and three um you know I'm on the side of going in don't get me wrong I'm not trying to Advocate I'm like not trying to tell Mike Elias that he doesn't need to do anything at this deadline but if you can do things to shore up the rotation and you are not so worried about like getting a true Frontline Ace um I I think you're in a more comfortable position and Cole Irving dropping to the pen should theoretically help that out makes it a little bit optimistic um that you know as the season drags on like we will survive the terrible terrible rash of injuries that we've had um and that our depth actually did kind of hold firm the Orioles as we you know talked about on the last podcast with Jesse the Orioles are firmly in first place at this point in the AL East we are the best team in the American League we have the best offense by many measures in The Bigs we are hitting bombs left and right I don't want to say you don't want a good rotation but you know obviously if we are in a situation where we are doing all of that that it takes a little bit of pressure off of the rotation and you know you are comfortable with Kramer Albert Suarez and Kade Povich for just a little bit longer until we can figure something out at the trade deadline um that said that is all I've got for the day if you could be so kind be sure to subscribe like and follow on all of your preferred platforms uh wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube hi YouTube um we love to hear from you guys you can always reach us on Twitter at the warehous pod email us the warehous Pod gmail.com thanks again for listening apologies for the late upload go Orioles and definitely uh let me know what you think of Dean Kramer's new splitter we'll chat soon see you