Carlos Rodon, Team Speed, Giancarlo Stanton, Voicemails | Yankees Statcast Report

[Music] welcome to D Stadium just when they thought I was pull me back in all right welcome back welcome back Friday August 9th and I am here with Aiden bamp who is my statcast specialist here with NYY Recaps and we're going to talk about a few things today how you doing Aiden doing good doing good you think we're going to actually have baseball tonight it does not look good it's hard to say I mean it's been raining all week I actually have a concert to go to tonight and I'm like are we even gonna get the concert in so let me guess Taylor Swift Green Day Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day nice nice those were uh bands that kind of broke out when I was like I don't know 15 you know that's taken me back in the day but uh I want to talk about tonight's starting pitcher if there is indeed a game tonight and that's Carlos rodon now he had an awful year last year and I think it's fair to say that he took a major step backwards like not only in terms of his stats but in terms of his metrics last year he just got roughed up uh and I just kind of wanted to know like is he back like just from your perspective as somebody who studies this type of stuff do you think rhon is back he he started off great he won like seven or eight games in a row he had about two or three weeks there where every pitch he threw was going in the upper deck and now now he seems like he's he's rounding back into form uh just give me your thoughts on his numbers his metrics and what do you think of him so far yeah I mean it it's hard to say that you know he's all the way back cuz he's you know he's not that 2021 2022 form rhon and that's when he was so dominant he was finishing you know in the top in Sai Young voting and you know I'm not sure we're ever really going to get that rhon again he was just so dominant but you know considering what happened last year considering ing you know his age it's super hard for me to not be happy with where he's at right now considering like you said every pitch he threw last year did end up in the upper deck it felt like I mean he's been really solid all year I mean he has had you know a few blowup starts uh he had four starts with uh five earn runs or more and he's only had two starts with zero earn runs but like I said he's not going to be that Dominic guy that goes and gives you seven shutout Innings like Garrett Coen on a regular basis I mean he's not going to be that Ace but he's going to be reliable um but he's been so serviceable this year because he's finally kind of developed a third pitch that he canare with that fast ball and slider his fast ball of course isn't as good as it used to be and that's why it's even more important that he develops another pitch along with that slider and that pitch has been his change up he's needed that change up to be working and I I always kind of thought that's what he could start using more and he's got an increased usage with it this year last year he used it 4.3% of the time and now he's using it 12.1% of the time so that's a pretty big uptick in usage um it has 3.6 inches of vertical movement above MLB average and that's also an increase from his change up last year which only had 1.6 inches above average let me stop you right there so one of the things that that has impressed me about Matt Blake is how good he is at developing change ups with you remember a couple years ago when Domingo Hermon showed up in spring training he had an awesome change up Cory clubber was throwing his change up more and then you know Garrick Cole has obviously taking huge steps with his change up too so I think this is a direct correlation with Matt Blake as a pitching coach absolutely and you could even say that Rodan started throwing a cutter in spring training and that's something I I thought he could maybe get into because Matt Blake is also not just the change up specialist but he really loves his guys to throw Cutters as well with pet and pet pet is a guy who who threw the cutter too so there there's some influence there I think yeah right I mean his his cutter hasn't been super effective this year and I didn't really expect it to because it's still kind of a new pitch for him he's going to develop it and maybe we'll see him use it more next year and maybe it'll get more effective but that change up really has been like a Matt Blake special like I said it's got 3.6 inches of vertical movement above average he has a 47.3 whiff percentage on it and uh 1.63 expected opponent batting average and the actual batting average against it is 132 so he's he's pitching pretty well and um it's not just his change up too he does have pretty good stuff um there's a nice stat on fan graphs uh created by enosa surus and pitching bot Stuff Plus um it's a pitch model grading system and it takes into account a pitch's vo it's break its rotations per minute its release point and extension and the MLB average is 100 rodon slider has 144 Stuff Plus and his change up has 128 Stuff Plus those are those are well well above average and overall in the year he has 123 Stuff Plus so he does have good stuff he of course has those command issues and on Miss spots and it's really his fast ball that's been getting teed off on this year so to see his breaking stuff be so effective is really really good how does his fast ball rate and Stuff Plus do you happen to know off top of your head that's uh I don't know but let me check for you Qui I feel like the velocity is there but it still seems like that's the pitch that gets hammered the most often right I mean that could be to me a location problem too because it doesn't have a lot of movement and so like when he misses with it down the middle and he's a guy who throws at the top of the Zone too so like if you miss just a little bit low you're aiming for the top of the zone right and you miss just a little bit low well all of a sudden that's a Bel High fast ball right and he he a lot of times like a lot of Yankees pitchers do they they they throw what's called over the cylinder right they try and go up over the plate but either high or low you know uh if you're throwing the fast ball at the top of the zone and then the change up or the or the breaking ball at the bottom of the Zone but they're over the plate everything looks like a strike and so it's easier to get you know chase you chases and stuff like that so how's that fast ball looking Stuff Plus yeah so that that's exactly what you said it's it's really the location for him his stuff Plus on his fast ball is 116 so pretty well above average it's it's all just location for him he misses his spots a lot and more often than not when he misses it's kind of just down the middle I can't think of a lot of pitchers in my life who have kind of you know struggled with location despite being like a veteran pitcher you know they they stroke and then they get a lot better at hitting their spots it's kind of like you hit your spots or you don't so I kind of think this is the rodon we're going to have and he's going to have like a natural regression from here like you know he had the back injury after he left the Giants and and before he joined the Yankees like in that winter and I feel like that caused a significant regression last year he was able to with a great training regimen over the last winter kind of get back up to where he would have been you know if if last year was just a normal year and I think he's just going to continue to kind of you know take a little step back every year where he has a couple of bad starts he has a bunch of good starts and I I think if you can get like a 3.75 ER out of him this year like he's got another you know six or seven starts at least um I think you take it I think you sign up for that yeah absolutely I mean I was I was saying in the offseason if you can get like a sub 38 ER from this guy that'd be great especially in this run environment I mean it's really nice I mean like the guy had what a six ra last year you really can't ask for him to just go and have three ra again right exactly so it's I'm really happy with where he's at so let let's talk a little bit about the team speed because this is something something that I've been very interested in with statcast it seems to me like the Yankees have some really fast guys but they've also got some dog ass slow guys like John Carlos stant's got to be one of the slowest guys in baseball gabber Torres earlier in the year he was raing as like an average base runner but when I watch him run the bases he's just so slow you know John Bird's a guy who stole a ton of bases he obviously hasn't been around much Anthony vulpi you know he's got a ton of speed he doesn't steal a ton of bases but he's got a ton of speed so I just kind of wanted to get your thoughts uh what do the metrics say about the fastest and slowest guys in his in this you know on this team I mean you were pretty spot on John birdie is the fastest guy on the team and uh Anthony Rizzo is the slowest and then ston is right behind him but Rizzo is slower than Stanton yeah but it it's really not that much of a difference it's like a so that so how they measure speed on doesn't even have legs the way they measure speed on stack cast is feet per second so John bar runs 29.2 feet per second I want to say that's like somewhere in the 80th percentile and then Jazz Chisum and Anthony vulpia are right behind him at 28.7 feet per second but then when you go down to Rizzo Stanton and trino Rizzo runs 24.5 feet per second Stanton's 24.6 feet per second and then trino is a little faster at 24.7 feet per second so they got some they got some pretty fast guys but then they got some of the slowest of slow guys with Rizzo and Stan oh my goodness yeah I I I'm absolutely astonished that Rizzo is even marginally faster than Stanton I mean it must be Stanton's like uh his stride width or whatever just because he's taller longer legs because he just moves objectively slower he's he looks like Frankenstein when he's running right I mean I mean I also think he doesn't really kick it into high gear a lot that's probably like his top speed but then when you watch him like going from second to home like that he's running like 50% yeah that's true that's true yeah one of these one of these days man he's just he's just everything is going to snap at the same time and he's just going to be a big pile of meat with a mustache um all right let's talk about him as a hitter though because he's actually looked pretty good this year despite the little you know expected slump since he's come back from the iil he always has that because he doesn't do rehab games that's something we should talk about as at some point is whether or not guys should actually go on rehab games I know a lot of guys don't like it they don't want to ride the buses they don't want to eat the you know the shitty spread that they have down there but you could always buy a spread for the whole team anyway I I think that uh that John Carlos Stanton has actually impressed me a little bit this year in terms of how good he's looked offensively uh right when he went on the iil he was crushing the ball I mean he he was hitting for power he was up to 18 home runs so what does stat cast say about him we know he's a statcast darling in terms of exit velocity but uh what does statcast say about John Carlo yeah I mean like you said it's kind of it's it's hard for me to be upset with Stanton this year with you know how well he's been producing and like yeah you can say you know he he got injured this year but did you guys not really expect that the Yankees and Brian Cashman expect it they said injuries are part of his game but he is a stack cast darling he's still in the upper 90th percentiles of you can see there average exit velocity expected slug barrel percentage hard hit percentage he has the fastest bat speed in the league by 2.6 miles per hour that's that's insane that's insane uh we just lost you uh I think I think we lost Aiden he's Frozen but I'll go through the uh the rest of the stat cast so the barrel percentage in the 98th percentile hard hit percentage in the 95th percentile and you look at the spray chart he hits some of the longest home runs you'll ever see he went 483 uh at one point I mean he he's he's insane when it comes to power the bat speed obviously best in the league uh and you look at the walk percentage it's 34th percentile strikeout percentage seventh percentile you'd like both of those to improve but at this point in his career 34 years old he is most likely not going to improve so uh I just got a note from Aiden here that his power went out so we are going to have to drop Aiden from the car uh and we're going to take a couple of voicemails here since Aiden had to drop let's go ahead and start with this call the Yankees GNA do when Anthony Rizzo comes back from the injured list it seems like they want to put him back in the lineup but that means they're have to get rid of Ben rice and put him back down Triple A or set him on the bench what are your thoughts you know I I've been worried about losing Ben rice um I I feel like he you know he got off that hot start and now he's slumping a little bit but I still like his at bats better than I liked Anthony Rizzo's at bats he still got better power than Rizzo has uh and Rizzo is not much better than a 200 hitter anyway all right sounds like we got Aiden coming back here so we're gonna bring him back real quick all right let me just go ahead and bring Aiden back on screen I Aiden I got you in the uh in the green room and here we go Aiden back with us sorry my power just went out it's it's storming here in New Jersey well that's what we that's what we get for doing a podcast live during a hurricane uh great planning on our part you know but uh really more my part but I I managed to pick up the slack for a second we we finished talking about Stanton and we were just taking a voicemail the question was uh with Anthony Rizzo coming back do you think that they're going to give him the first base job back or do you think they're going to leave rice in there I've been worried about that I want to see rice continue to get it bats I think like there's just more upside yeah I've been honestly wondering the same thing and it's it's kind of a scary question um I would think that they're going to try and give rice as many a bats as possible to you know prove that he deserves that job because we all saw where Anthony Rizzo was at before he got hurt he's just not the same player anymore he got that concussion last year and he's not the same at the plate he's clearly not seeing the ball well anymore so I I think the Yankees know that Ben rice is kind of their first basem of the future I think that's what they're hoping and Ben rice and you know while he's playing the way he's playing right now I mean the results aren't exactly there but if you look at his expected numbers he's massively underperforming them still so it's only a matter of time before he regresses to the mean so I would think the Yankees are going to try and prolong Rizzo's as much as possible and it's seems like they're already kind of doing that yeah don't s don't be surprised if you hear about a quote unquote setback you know oh he felt the little tightness in his rib cage or whatever and that that's a way of saying hey uh we're looking at the numbers big guy and um we're going to go ahead and pay you to finish off the season uh as a coach you know on the bench uh let's take another voicemail here it's about Boon hey dere just miltton in um Texas I had his questions before the last two disastrous game that y play 2025 is going to be an option year for boom in your professional opinion not your emotional opinion or the fact that emotional opinion I'm big Yankee fans in your professional opinion if the Yankees make it to the World Series let alone win it does boom get a reprieve and it's offer any A Renewed contract or is this is oh is this it for boom playoff or no playoff thank thank my call bye I think only way they don't bring him back is if they collapse I mean they love Aaron Boone within the organization they're like obsessed with Aaron Boone so I don't even think it's going to take a World Series appearance for him to get a new contract I think an ALCS appearance would probably get it done I think a division title would probably get it done I think the only way that he doesn't come back is if the Yankees somehow collapse from here going forward and don't make the playoffs thoughts yeah I agree I I think it would take a massive collapse for them to fire Aaron Boon like a massive collaps where they just don't even make the playoffs I think if as long as they make the playoffs this year they're going to be bringing Aaron Boon back and you know you you can point to Aaron Boon about the Yankees lack of success all you want I really think there's only so much a manager can do at the end of the day it's about the players performing and what players Brian Cashman is giving to Aaron Boon but when you when you talk to Yankees players and when you hear them through the media they love Aaron Boone they would go to war for the guy they think he's a great Clubhouse guy has his finger on the pulse of the clubhouse all the time I mean we we get on him a lot for giving excuses for players all the time like when he gets excuses for glaber and you know while it's annoying to hear that when we want him to be more accountable I think we should at least be a little grateful that he's there to defend his guys when you go and you look at a guy like Tony larusa on the White Sox a couple years ago he would not defend his guys and Aaron Boone does that and I think that's why the Yankees love him so much yeah let's take another couple of voicemails from the rabbi Derek Sports Rabbi Josh Alman calling from the Holy Land we knew that the starting pitching was going to be a problem that's why Cashman had to go and get another starting pitcher and he just didn't do it and now we're going to see the results of that and I hope I hope I hope that we won't see the same thing from our closer Play Holes because they needed to bring in another closer and they didn't do it but those were two things that were clear to the naked eye that we all saw as fans that the Yankees needed to shore up another arm out of the bullpen closing another arm starting and they didn't do both lighter is a nice addition he's been great but that is not a closer they needed one of those guys that was going to throw the heat to close the games and they needed another starter they should have taken their chances on flarity they should have done something and now we're going to pay for it going down the stretch love the show keep it the good work yeah I I I'm surprised they didn't bring in a more high-profile relief pitcher but I think Mark ligher has done a nice job I think he could actually you know do the do the job as the closer we saw what he did against the Blue Jays the other day and we're looking at lighter and I think rabis looking at lighter in his present form you know coming from what he's been his entire career not what Matt Blake and the Yankees are going to do with him because I think there's still room to improve and change his pitch mix a little bit but um you know how how you think about the uh the Jack flarity situation uh did you I mean when I hear back injuries back or back concerns that kind of raises red flags to me and apparently it was going to cost Spencer Jones to get him so I don't know yeah I mean it's kind of one of those situations where you you're damned if you do you damned if you don't like I mean there's not really much the Yankees could have done there you you saw that the Yankees didn't take a chance on them because of you know a past injury history they worried about that and I think the Yankees have enough injured pitchers on their hands you know Garrett Cole is getting a little bit on the older side he just dealt with one of the most major injuries of his career rodon has had those back issues I know strowman has had a little bit of an injury history I think so the Yankees are really not in a position where they could take on a guy with injury history like flarity and while yes he's a rental you'd be giving up a lot for him though it'd be one of those Frankie Monas situations where oh now he's hurt in September and he can't pitch in the playoffs so it's like what could they really have done there I think you know Mark ligher was a good addition to the bullpen would I lik them to get another like kind of high leverage guy sure but Ian Hamilton and Nick birdie are going to be back kind of soon and I think the bullpen is going to look really really solid then and then you could have taken that chance on flarity I don't think it would have been a good idea to to be honest and then outside of flarity what else was on the market I don't think there's really anything the Yankees could have done to improve the rotation outside of Jack flarity yeah there's a few things that I think they're doing with the bullpen and and like you said they're kind of slow walking the return of um of Anthony Rizzo I think they might be kind of slow walking Nick birdie but for a different reason I think they want him healthy in the playoffs right and and they've seen that he doesn't last very long not only this season with the Yankees but in his career he's had a ton of injury issues but when he's pitching he lights out so if you can get his window to return like right at the end of September give him like two appearances to where he's like feeling healthy and throwing the ball well and confident and then just unleash him in the playoffs I think he could be a major factor and guys haven't seen much of him or seen him in a while so that could make him more effective same goes for Ian Hamilton I would not be shocked if they kind of slow walk him a little bit because we know how how good he can be when he's healthy the slambo is fantastic uh and he could come up big in the in the playoffs but you don't want these guys pitching for 3 weeks in September and then pulling up lame on September 26th or whatever right you want them ready to go so uh thoughts on that yeah no I I think you're spot on there I think that's exactly what the Yankees are doing while Hamilton and birdie did have some injuries that take some time to come back and heal from and Rehab through I think the Yankees the Yankees are always thinking about the playoffs they they know they're going to be in a position to make in a playoff the playoffs and when they know they're going to make the playoffs they start operating to prioritize the playoffs we saw it with Luis srino the other year he was pretty much like he felt like he was ready to come back I think it was like at the end of August or in the middle of September in 2022 but the Yankees extended his throwing program so that he would be more in line to pitch in the playoffs I think that's exactly what they're doing with birdie and Hamilton all right ladies and gentlemen thanks for watching I'll be back after the game tonight assuming there is a game tonight apparently it's raining bad enough to knock Aiden's power out but uh we'll uh we'll catch you next time on the statcast report remember to uh like And subscribe and follow us on all the platforms we're on Tik Tock now Aiden's handling all that stuff Instagram all that and we will see you when we see you appreciate game over [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]