Hot Take: Ben Casparius, What to Expect

welcome to Dodgers daily Casey Porter here's the glad you decided to tune in it's been a minute probably going to be the only video that I released this week but wanted to make sure and get Big Ben casparus and his promotion to the Los Angeles Dodgers covered because this is big news Ben casparus my man I I got to talk to him about two or three weeks ago what a nice young man very very talented he has used the minor league system to really Define exactly the type of pitcher that he wants to be and DOD fans are going to get to see it and I could not be more excited so let's get to it and let's talk Ben casparius Ben grew up in Connecticut he eventually went to the University of Connecticut his last go round in college started his college days at the University of North Carolina after having just a tremendous prep career and yes just like River Ryan he was a two-way player first shortstop type guy great athlete this is just like River Ryan he is an athlete first a guy that's always had stuffed us off the charts a guy that has always had breaking balls and secondary stuff that has been as good as anybody but he has used the entire minor league system to kind of Define and refine his sequences and his mix overall to figure out exactly what he can execute versus both right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters but but again back to the fact that he is a great athlete just like River Ryan two uh two-way player he was a position player first let's hear from Ben about that I mean up until about I was 21 I would say I was a I was a hitter first um I took pride in that I loved it I think you know I got lucky with having a good arm and being able to transfer onto the Mounds come by Junior SE or red shirt Junior season um but you know one of those things was I think it kind of it came to me pretty quickly the idea of hitting I thought I always had a pretty good approach and that's kind of what propelled me into you know being able to hit in ACC in college and then ultimately having to make a decision but in in high school was pretty awesome and I I um it would have been interesting to see if I was still hitter in pro ball what could have happened but I have no regrets at all it was pretty it was pretty special though drafted in 2021 out of Yukon Ben came to the Dodgers with a whole big old bag full of secondaries and quite honestly a fast ball that lagged behind those secondaries but hey this year that fast ball has jumped the spin rate on that fast ball has really really increased so now his fast ball is caught up with the secondaries here's what he had to say about his sequencing and his mix and how he has worked on that as a minor leager the adjustments you have to make per level um I think the farther you go up the less swing and Miss you're going to get the less Chase you're going to get um and just being able to refine your mix and figure out you know like especially being a starter what are your two in zone options um what pitches am I going to get away with outside of the Zone what am I going to get you know what takes am I going to get in the zone um and I just think at the end of the day it's just trusting what you do have that specific day because you're going to go out there plenty of times and not feel good or not have your a stuff um but I think I think just going through the scouting report and figuring out what's the best plan of attack per guy in the lineup especially second third time through what's going to give me the um the best chance to have success getting through the lineup two or three times um and I think this year it's definitely taken taken a huge step in the right direction one of the questions I like to ask guys who've gone all the way through the system starting at the complex to Rancho and then to Great Lakes and then to Tulsa and in Oklahoma City and have spent pretty good amounts of time at each stop is hey which jump was the most difficult for you and why and to explain all that here is what Ben had to say about that and how he had to change his mix as he jumped levels but I think the jump from I think the jump from Rancho to Hy was difficult too just because I hadn't I hadn't had a refined mix yet like it was still kind of a two- pitch mix with a third fringy change up um so I think going into going into Tulsa last year I think it was figuring out like hey I do have a really good refined mix now as a starter three or four pitch mix how do I how do I use it correctly and that took probably a month and a half or so and I think that's when I started finding really having really good success towards the back half of that year the last month and a half or so so as Ben went through each level of the minor leagues and the Dodgers minor league system kept refining himself last year about halfway through he started throwing the ball better than he ever has now here's the thing we kept telling you on our Dodgers daily down on the farm segments it's not showing up in the Box Score but Ben casparus the process of the way he's throwing the ball the way he's refined his mix and the way he's executing it is there and he is performing as well as he ever had and trust us the results eventually will follow that's exactly what happened this year and in my opinion he was throwing the ball so well earlier this year I think with all the chaos there would have been a good chance that he got CAU up somewhere in June but he got injured so that's kind of a frustrating process in the sense that you finally get the results to to to follow all the great pitching you've been doing and then right when you think you might have a chance to go up you get injured you have to fight back with that but now is in a position where he is with the Dodgers and here's what Ben had to say about that whole process I think the maturity aspect of just kind of trying to stay grounded um for me it's like it's taking care of business every single day um and I just keep telling myself like I'm exactly where I want to be in terms of my career like what I am trying to get out of being professional baseball player um and where I am physically at the moment with again like the refinement of everything that's taken over the course of 3 years um I think it's really just staying grounded and taking care of every day at hand and um you know it happens at unexpected times so that's really my goal is just to stay consistent um keep the highs not too high the lows not too lows and just kind of go out go throughout the week and um I think good things will happen Ben has always had great stuff and he's always had a good fast ball but his secondaries especially a slider that has just Wicked spin it's a great pitch he can throw it for a strike they have always kind of outshined his fast ball that is until this year so I asked Big Ben what unlocked about his fast ball um I think just trusting it in the zone I think um again like it's it kind of it's give or take with the level that you're at I think in low a we don't there's not a huge body of work so a lot of the damage that's done is random um same thing with high I think here guys are smart enough to you know sit on a certain pitch or sell out for a certain pitch at times and I think just being able to go out there and try and generate as many swings as I possibly can before getting O2 or one two in account has really helped me use my fast ball more and like having conviction behind it where it's you know I'm throwing this fast ball to put it in the strike zone not not try to be not try to baby it or be cute with it um and the more fast balls you throw in the zone one the more swings you're going to get and then you're keeping them guessing with the slider and that's what I want to get to obviously viously um and the same thing with the slider too if I'm throwing it in the strike zone I'm going to get more Chase with it out of the zone and it's going to help my fast ball play up also when I do throw it so we've heard about the fast ball that's caught up with the secondaries we've always heard about the plus plus slider of Ben casparius so I asked him about his entire pitch mix here's what he had to say about that I'm throwing a four seam a two seam supplemental a slider a curve ball a change up and I'm um working on mixing in a cutter at some and I know that some of my pitches get tagged as Cutters I think they're just kind of Sliders I throw two strikes I always hesitate yeah I think they're just pitches that I'm just letting rip and it's going to be a little bit harder than the others but um yeah I think I think the the biggest pitch was probably the curveball like when I started throwing that at the back end to Tulsa and started to get feel for it in the strike zone that's just something where it's going to protect my fast ball a little bit better having more of a vertical plane um and it again like it's something where it doesn't need to be perfect the strike zone but if I keep it on the plate it's just another pitch where they have to be honest with it they have to you know they have to respect it they have to honestly sit on it and if they do if they are sitting on it and I get lucky enough like that's going to help my fastball play Up In the Zone a little bit more too it's one thing to have all these great individual pitches and to be able to light up the track man it's another to actually be able to put together sequence after sequence after sequence that you can execute and actually attack professional hitters with and get them out that's what Ben casparus has really mastered in as far as his time with the Dodgers yes he has very much so improved all of his individual pitches all the metrics on them but really what he has really done is just figured out the whole sum of what makes him good in terms of what he can do with those individual pitches and how he can put them into practice and how he can get professional hitters out with them so here's Ben casparus he takes you through his pitch mix all of his sequencing and how he attacks professional hitters which is his go-to card for me I think the biggest mental adjustment I made from my first year was just realizing like hey you know numbers are going to say a certain thing on paper but if you go out there with a certain objective whether it's a bullpen session and and like and you know I'll touch on a little more obviously but there was so much work that went into what was going on with my Arsenal and you know how we were going to attack lineups and navigate through a lineup but that's whole thing it's all process oriented it's hey how can I use this pitch a little bit better so there were certain games where it was hey I'm going to be really precise with my fastball or I'm GNA you know fastball needs to be in zone above 55% and stuff like that so I I kind of and I kind of started realizing that you know you're going to there's going to be days where things are great and then it's like okay this wasn't great so let's get this here and here and just it's a building block of what really makes guys big league pitchers we were really taking a look at a deep dive like hey you know what like vo just it's it is how it is it helps your stuff play the harder you throw the harder it is for guys to make adjustments that's obviously going to make my my offs speed stuff which is my bread and butter better so that was a big step up for me it's just a learning game it's it's figuring out when to do what and you know taking a deep dive into the hitters and seeing you know how I can use my stuff to the best of my ability and to obviously you know disrupt what the guys are trying to do at the plate so now that you know Ben casparus now that you know exactly what he's going to bring to the table his mindset how he's going to approach hitters his stuff everything you're going to see from him you might be asking the question okay well why bring him up at this point why add him to the 40 man roster why not just bring up Landon Knack or something like that or just keep playing that type of game back and forth with your pitchers like that why add a new guy to the 40-man roster well here's the situation with Ben he was drafted in 2021 which means in the off season he is going to be eligible for the rule five draft he was going to be eligible for the ru five draft so the Dodgers were going to have to add Ben casparius to the 40-man roster in the off season or they were going to lose him and losing Ben casparius with the strides that he's made is just absolutely not an option so they were going to have to add him to the 40 man in the off season anyways you're in a pinch you need pitchers he's a guy that's throwing well you might as well see what you have with Ben right now at this point why not just go ahead and put him on the 40-man roster now instead of of the offseason you're going to have to do it anyways now if he wasn't going to be realu five eligible in the off season that would have been a tougher decision but I think that made a no made it a no-brainer combined with the fact that he finished last year with that curveball with the fast ball averaging about 95 milph on fire he started this year throwing very very well he came back off the injury well and Point Blank Ben casparus is ready so I think when you throw all of those factors Into the Fire you throw him into the oven I think it all bakes it B casparus can come up and help plus another factor to him is he's great at that piggyback roll he can start he can come in relief I know DACA said he's going to come in a multi- inning reliever he can be a guy that can come in on a piggy back and knock down four or five innings in the middle of a game and he's going to bring good stuff so there's a lot of reasons why you bring up Ben casparus I think number one is he is ready and then also some other factors are that he's real five one you're going to have to put them on the 40 Man anyway so hey I hope you enjoyed our feature today on Ben casparius one more big thank you or congratulations I should say to him and so hey Ben you have finally made it and congratulations to Yukon I know he's very proud of the huskys there in coach penders who made a Super Regional this year so until next time I hope you enjoyed our feature on Ben casparus thank you for tuning in it's a great day to be a Dodger