Unveiling Bryan Woo's SECRET to Success

Brian woo has had a very strange 2024 season he's found himself on the injured list multiple times with frustrating ailments but when he has pitched he's been one of the best starters in the game after a middle- of the road 2023 rookie year the 24-year-old woo has shown that his All-Star upside is real and he's been dominating for most of his 17 starts this year in the Navy and teal that rhymed I am the Dr Seuss of the Mariners but Brian mu's journey to pitching in the show has not exactly been easy which makes it even easier to rude for him and it all started in the Bay Area as is true about every player in The Bigs Woo's love of baseball began at 6 years old playing t-ball Brian grew up mainly playing the infield but would occasionally pitch it wasn't until his high school days playing for alamaa high school in the Bay Area that he began to pitch with frequency in an interview with Seattle sports Union woo admits that he didn't even consider pitching at the time and only did so because of the team lacked in pitchers woo was already a talented switch hitting shortstop who fired the ball to First with the same motion that he pitches with today a heavy upper body twisting with three4 arm slot although there is not much information on his playing time in high school we do know that in his senior year he posted an 8-2 record with a 1.48 ER while hitting for a 422 batting average this would earn him West Alama County conference MVP that year and led his team to the CIF North Coast section division 2 Championship woo highlights this achievement as his best moment of his high school career mentioning the championship was as big as it gets in the Alama area per a 2017 Scouting Report done by baseball Factory woo had 50 grades across the board on his hitting skills while also posting 50 grades in his pitching skills as well one portion of his Scouting Report read on the mound Brian shows a repeatable delivery and throws strikes consistently his fast ball tops out at 86 mph with good arms Side Run showing Brian's ability to control the Zone with a plus fast ball early on in his career in 2019 woo became a red shirt sophomore for the cowply Mustangs baseball team this year wouldn't go all that well sporting a 9.13 ER and pitching in 23 and 2/3 innings in 14 games most of his outings though would be as a reliever the 2020 season got short due to you know what and in 2021 he would only mildly improve his 2019 numbers having a 6.11 erra in 28 Innings pitched his 2021 season would end early but not this time due to a pandemic but to having Tommy John surgery with the 174th pick in the 2021 MLV draft the Seattle Mariners selected Brian woo by the end of 20122 wo made it through the Arizona complex league and low a Modesto and up to high a Everett he posted up a 4.11 erra in 16 games in all of 2022 2023 saw woo stay for a whole year in Arkansas posting a very good 2.05 ER in nine games a performance that would earn him a very quick call up to the bigs when Marco Gonzalez went down for injury on the big league club normally an MLB debut is one of the best moments in a baseball player's life years of grind and grit finally payoff and you get to show what you can do against the world's best on June 2nd 2023 Brian woo was finally going to make his debut in the glorified aircraft hanger that's called Globe Life Field unfortunately Woo's debut did not go to plan he gave up six earned runs on seven hits against the Texas Rangers and only lasted two innings a rough welcome to say the least thankfully Woo's mentality is what helped him to overcome such a rude awakening in the miners woo set out to be a sponge and try to learn from everyone he could and he used this not as a disheartening moment but but a learning moment for the remainder of the 2023 season woo stayed on the 26-man roster and he did have some blowup starts but largely he held his own pretty well he ended 2023 with a four and five record starting 18 games he garnered a 4.21 er a 1.21 whip 93 strikeouts in 87.2 Innings pitched a pretty decent statline for a rookie who was on a pitch count limit for pretty much the whole year and going into 2024 hopes were high for Brian woo and realistically the starting rotation as a whole woo was going to round out this star studed rotation which was going to be one of the best in baseball however Woo's body would work against him and he would miss the beginning of the season with elbow inflammation with woo having already had Tommy JN once in his career the Mariners had a very watchful eye over his health especially with the elbow inflammation because normally two Tommy Johns can be a death sentence for some pitchers but in late April Brian wo would complete a rehab assignment with the Tacoma reers and would make his first start of the year on May 10th against the Oakland Athletics where he threw a very solid 4.1 Innings pitched of one hit ball and fanned three batters and on May 21st W would face the New York Yankees which at the time had one of the best records in the major leagues for his first big test of the season and he had to go against two MVP candidates in Juan stto and Aaron judge thankfully the lights were not too bright for ran woo as he dazzled in the Bronx one of the games that put his name on the map he would go six Innings of only two hit ball gave up no runs or walks and struck out seven batters after this woo was still on a pitch count limit and the Mariners were still keeping a watchful eye he was starting to have some issues notably having difficulty recovering after starts and long Innings on June 24th he had to leave a start against a Tampa Bay Rays early after only three Innings of work but not due to his arm this time due to to a right hamstring strain he would have to get put on the injured list however a nice conversation with catcher Cal righ who pulled him aside said how important he was but that he needed to grind and put in the preparation to keep his body healthy so he can pitch as often as he can and since then woo has done just that and at the beginning of August the pitch count limit went bye-bye at this point in 2024 he is currently sporting a 2.30 erra and 94 Innings pitched and a 6 and2 win loss record for the month of August August woo led the leagues an inning pitched going six plus innings in all of his starts and reaching seven in three of them and the stats speaks for themselves that Brian wo has been one of the best pitchers to throw when he is healthy this year when we look at MLB starters through their first 17 games started this year woo ranks sixth in ER fourth in hits allowed second in earn runs allowed third in walks allowed and first in base runners allowed and just generally for starters in 202 four with at least 70 Innings pitched woo also ranked sixth in batting average against ninth in FIP first in Whip and first in strikeout to walk ratio to Showcase Woo's dominance even further I wanted to look specifically in Mariners franchise history and how he shakes out in his 2024 season and when we're looking at the parameters of every starter and Mariners franchise history through the first 17 games of a season with a minimum of 70 Innings pitched wo ranks fourth in ER second in hits allowed second in base runners allowed second in earned runs allowed third in walks allowed second in batting average against 13th in FIP third in strikeout to walk ratio and is first in whip earlier in this video East Coast M mentioned how even in 2017 Woo's fastball was already notable and to dive into what's been working so well and W Arsenal I'm going to turn it over to pint size analyze you might be asking what makes Brian moves fast ball so effective 73% of his pitch mix is dedicated to his four seam fast ball and two seam Sinker his four seam is not overbearing as it only averages 94.7 mph which ranks in the 61st percentile per base while saon usually throwing a middle of the- pack vlo fast ball at such a staggering rate isn't effective however Woo's fast ball is still performing as a Plus+ pitch a concept that will help explain why Woo's fast ball is so good is pitch shape when a pitcher throws a baseball it can be physically manipulated both horizontally and vertically normally pitchers don't put too much focus on the horizontal manipulation of the ball when it comes to for seamers but vertical manipulation can make all the difference ivb or induced vertical break is when a ball is vertically manipulated in such a way that it defies gravity instead of going downward the ball actually rides upwards in its path from the hitters perspective they expect a fast ball to either remain on the plane or have some sink to it but with ivb the ball ends up being a few inches higher than expected the more IV the better with 18 in of ivb generally being considered the Benchmark for good for Brian woo he actually registers a fairly pedestrian 15 in of ivb but there are other factors that make the ivb or minuscule amount supposedly in woo fastball work per the pitch leaderboard V6 from fangraphs writer Alex Chamberlain he makes mention of Woo's arms slot being the game changer The League average release height is 5' 8 in the 6'2 Brian woo release height is is a measley 5 foot the fifth lowest in the league against pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 5004 seamers this year another acronym to throw at you is vaa which stands for vertical approach angle which measures the baseball's path on the vertical plane most Vaas are similar which leads to hitters developing an intuition on when and where to swing the bat when a pitcher comes along with an outlier vaa it can cause hitters to struggle When comparing all pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 54 seam fast balls this year Brian woo vaa is the third highest in the league although still a negative angle because of the downward trajectory of the ball only being beaten out by closer Craig Kimbrell and Minnesota twin starter Joe Ryan Woo's vaa is actually a whole degree higher than the league average which may not seem like a lot but it can be the difference between a hitter swing a couple inches too high or a couple inches too low to decrease the quality of contact with the addition of Some solid secondaries this year this has made the fast ball all the more effective and the best part the 24-year-old Woo is just going to get better it's interesting that last year both Bryce Miller and Brian woo debuted for the Mariners at the time of Bryce Miller's call up he was known for his fast ball and what's really interesting is it feels like Brian Woo's fast ball has almost became more prolific than Millers overall I think Brian W has a very exciting career to look forward to I certainly hope he is a mariner for the long term we'll see how that goes but shout out to both East Coast M and pin siiz analy for contributing to this video it was really awesome to do more of a group collaboration in this of course their links are going to be down below in the description I urge you to go check them out on either Twitter or YouTube as always thank you for watching I appreciate you for stopping by if you want to like the video that helps me out a lot you can also subscribe it's free and that helps me out the most I would appreciate it comment down below how you think Brian wo is doing in 2024 and what you think is going to be happening for him in the future that's going to be it for me in this one and I will see you in the next