The Fast Adjustments of Jackson Merrill & Jackson Chourio

Intro Starts [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to rates and barrels Thursday August 29th it's a live one Derek V rer EOS serus Trevor May we're here Against All Odds technology conspiring against us dead wasps fire alarms everything you can imagine that could make a live show C your cash ladies and gentlemen clear your cash yeah set a little calendar reminder once in a while clear your cash seems like it's a good thing to do if something's not working so that's our Tech tip of the day but on this episode we dig into oio Cruz's move from Short Stop to center field we'll talk about the broader implications for the Pirates as they try to take a bigger step forward in 2025 at least by winds 2024 looks a lot like 2023 but of course the arrival of Paul skines among other things making this team a bit more interesting we're going to talk about the fast adjustments being made by the Jacksons specifically Jackson Merill and Jackson Cho how have they found success so quickly against big league pitching when a lot of other rookies have gone through prolonged stretches of struggles we're gonna take a look at swinging differently in different counts as well and try to dig into that got some questions as well in our Discord about Corbin Burns and why he struggled in the second half and we were wondering where have the ks gone for Corbin Burns in recent years so we'll try to unpack that plus a question about Logan web and the possibility that he develops a pitch that can help him generate more whiffs so as you can tell a jamack show lined up for us on this Thursday we'll start at the top with the news O'Neal Cruz making the move to center field which Oneil Cruz Moves to Center Field will probably be more starts at DH down the stretch before playing center field in 2025 it takes time to learn a new position especially center field not as easy as it would seem to just move from the dirt to the Outfield there's a lot to unpack here first there's been some improvement with the bat this year overall of contact is as good it's ever been a 16.7% barrel rate 54.7% hard hit rate Cruz is striking out a bit less against Lefty striking out a little bit more against righty so we're still seeing a 30% K rate from him that's been a problem all along defensively though A minus eight defensive runs saved minus three outs above average at Short Stop this year the concern all along with O'Neal Cruz has been he's 67 like list the six7 Short Stops in baseball history go I'll give you as much time as you want want right they just there really aren't any so you have this guy that is an incredible athlete taller than usual for the position great arm 99 percentile in arm strength 86 percentile in Sprint speed I think the possibility of this happening has existed for as long as O'Neal Cruz has been in professional baseball right this this is not a shocking development it was more of a let's try him at shortstop and see if it works and if it doesn't we know he'll be a very good if not a great Fielder down the road is that a fair assessment you know well yeah I mean just we had in our last episode this really interesting uh piece or on the Monday episode we were talking about Rob Arthur's investigation into racial bias in the minor leagues and I know like that this news came down like sort of right after that and um you know was kind of hard to parse you know like oh is this another instance a racial bias I just you know I think you want to be careful being very specific about that sort of stuff and then also you know what we were talking about was the minor leagues and you know black players being pushed to the Outfield in the minor leagues and I think the Pirates gave him a lot of chances you know he played shortstop all the way through the minor leagues and he played into the major leagues and they gave him multiple tries in the major leagues so um it wasn't just like they looked at it and said uh that was your one you made an error you're done um it was multiple errors and i' I've been watching a fair amount of Pirates games and you know some of them are just I don't know concentration or something like you know there there plays he should have made I think sometimes you you Ellie de Cruz Ellie De La Cruz talks about this where you know he's so he can throw the ball so hard and he's so athletically Superior that like sometimes he has to slow it down but he it's almost like what what Trevor talks about with Jake der Grom like he starts slowing it down and then you're not moving optimally and now all of a sudden you're making errors because you're thinking slow it down you know and like I I think most athletes want to like do everything as hard as they can all the time because that's how you win like you you you you're doing throwing the ball the hardest you know so it's kind of weird to be like I'm now going to place this ball to first base and now you're screwed up so I think there was uh things that were started to seam roll and started getting his head and it didn't look that good frankly and the numbers don't they back it up and I think this is the right move yeah I agree um I think it comes down to tools at the end of the day like guys who have really good arms and who can run are are are gonna be given a shot in center field um because you tracking a ball in the Outfield is something that it's kind of assumed is more natural uh for for or like a skill that can be learned uh easily um we were talk just talking on the radio right before this about um show otan like what if he didn't have to pitch um what would it look like if he was just uh what position would he play and we're like center field like he's got a of an arm and he runs like a deer so like yeah like that guy's a center fielder like there's no yet could he play short probably showy Otani but he probably profiles as an outfielder because he can throw 100 miles an hour and he could throw that from the from the Outfield so body too he's really big big guy um you know when you're that tall and you're got to be close to the ground all the time and you got to feel the ball and then you gotta you know he's he's got the arm and all that stuff he had everything but it's just comes down to range is gon to be limited um there there's just other other kind of body types are are a little bit better suited to play that position it's just it's just that simple I think and uh but it also comes down to like he also profiles really well in that other position so might as well give it a shot especially if it's not when the numbers shake out and you know like you mentioned he's been at short for it wasn't like a month he's had a couple years and now they feel like there's uh they haven't another option that they can play there they can do a good job and so now they have the luxury of of giving them a shout out there yeah as maton in the live stream points out it might be routine plays that are the problem right you can't make a lot of mistakes on routine plays and that seems to be the bigger problem for Cruz because of his arm he can do extraordinary things because of his agility he can get to balls that a lot of Short Stops couldn't get to but I think my point was the height was the concern when he was a a prospect people just thought ah he might not it might not work he might just be too big he might sort of never fit the position because of that I don't know if that's you know a different type of bias entirely where you say oh well we can't put this guy here because it's just not going to work to be too awkward maybe we'll see some great six seven Short Stops someday I think a lot of six seven players just end up in other sports like that's it's part of why it's such a small group of players to begin with a couple things are interesting here you know Matan talking about uh the the routine play it's like are we GNA get more out of Cruz when he's not as as engaged because he set Fielder sometimes just hanging out you know like may not get a ball for a while uh W would this would shortstop have helped keep more engaged and would he have gotten better at routine plays at over time like would tatis have gotten better at routine plays over time tatis had the problem with the routine play and was pretty good at the ex at the at the exemplary play so I think these are interesting questions and the other thing that U that Trevor said that that that Stu out for me was um Centerfield is actually a little bit easier than the corners in in in a certain regard when you're behind the pitcher you can see not only the movement of the pitch sometimes km says he can see the the uh the catcher signs which I guess is out the window now but um you know you can see the movement of pitch going in and then you can see the the movement of the ball coming out like you can't actually see slice as well from the corners you know like the way the ball the way the ball is moving horizontally you can't see that as well from the corners but in center you can see that ball moving and so in and I know it's a more difficult position in terms of tools and what round you have to cover but there are some things that make center field easier than the corners I do remember when Aaron judge moved out of the corner into Center I think people kind of laughed at that they thought maybe it would make him more susceptible to injury for one reason or another maybe it wouldn't be a smooth transition I think he plays that position a lot better than most of the Skeptics expected at the time right he might actually stay there a little bit longer just based on other Personnel they have available I think that's the other wild here I think as far as what Cruz has done as a hitter you can look at what he's done this year he's got to a 117 WRC plus you think about him being completely healthy for a full season which was not the case a year ago one more step next year is possible I think it comes down to slightly better swing decisions which come with experience a lot of times he can live with a high strikeout rate because he does so much damage so you could project another step forward I think from Cruz as a hitter I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation at all so what do you think the the ceiling like and how close do you think we are to that ceiling for O'Neal Cruz as a hitter Trevor yeah I think there's definitely just just judging based on his Improvement since he's come up he has made incremental improvements over time the whole time so uh that tells me that that you know the we haven't hit the limit yet um you know it's not like he's out of his mind uh with the season he do he's having a good season and it's the best one he's had but it it's is there potential in there still yes because he has that kind of power um that if you just he he's a guy who can hit 15 home runs in a in a month if if he gets super hot that that's possible um and he hasn't done that yet so you know I would love to see him have two of those months that where he goes off and he has a truly special season I think that is uh entirely Possible's he's a left-handed stick he's got you know um when it comes down to like that kind of strength and that kind of power and it's a strikeout rate situation usually you know you're cutting that strikeout rate by 2% 3% can make all the difference in the world like look at like Brett Rooker and how he's changed his he still strikes out a lot but he's dropped it by about two and a half percent and we've seen his Ops consistently be 100 points higher because he has that kind of power so like those when it's that little adjustment not I don't want to say it's a little adjustment when it's one little thing clicking turning him from a good highquality hitter to a like a great hitter for a certain amount of time I think he has that potential um that maybe other guys don't have yeah I think he could do like a 275 3030 season or something yeah yeah still has that in there still a guy we're excited about from a fantasy perspective Still A Guy Pirates fan should be really excited about even with the shift to center field Brock Tua weighing in in the live stream sell the team directed at Bob nutting who I don't think is a fan of rates and barrels but hey you never know Bob if you're out there listening drop us a note especially if you're in the live Hive we'd love to hear from you Who’s Next at Shortstop for the Pirates? what what do the Pirates do at shortstop though I think the interesting about the timing of of announcing this decision is there's still runway for this year where they could have let Cruz have another month if they wanted to they didn't go that route Isaiah ker FFA great defender doesn't seem like a long-term solution maybe he's the stop Gap until you find that franch short stop yeah so like you have your safety glove first option there what's next for the Pirates both at shortstop and for other parts of this roster if they're going to really turn the corner next year and be a contender at least for an NL Wild Card if not for the NL Central aside from shortstop what has to change they need to figure out that infield I mean if you if you tell the if you there's a story to be told where grien Hayes is healthy next year has back surgery or figures the back thing out um you know between Henry Davis Joey Bart and Andy Rodriguez they have a good catching tandem um Nick Gonzalez plays short kind of FFA backs up this is I'm tell I'm telling the like everything comes together story okay uh Nick York is a above average regular at second and they go out and if not Rowdy toes then they go out and maybe they can you can actually afford to buy in free agency um first basem sometimes like an like an old first basement like what they Paul goldm is he in he agent why no don't shop in that bin like try to try to get move up one bin little less slight I know Paul like what if you had a Resurgence season with the Pirates then then you have this like and then you add together the fact that their starting rotation is going to be really good their Outfield is going to be really good I think and uh you know you just need David Bednar to figure things out and and find a reliever or two I mean I that but I did tell the story of everything coming together and what is the likelihood that each of those things I just said happened is 1% especi the Paul C Mid part probably I mean that that might be the most likely thing of all the things described I think because it might be a year for Six Million kind of like the the old Carlos Santana deal or something along those lines you know what Carlos Santana is it's this is a little bit of trivia you know you know what he is he's the only person in baseball over 35 that's going to be an above average regular on the hitting side hey he's 300 yeah he's got over a thousand of everything over 300 home runs we don't talk about that guy enough yeah he's pretty amazing but also it it reminds me of what Joey Votto said in his retirement speech or in one of his retirement things he said it's a young man's game not a young man anymore it changes quickly the other thing that's interesting just as a kind of a flya away idea Tamar Johnson moved up to double a he's been playing some short stop this year kind of splitting his time between second base and short stop so I guess you can't really rule out the possibil ility that if if there's some growth there over the course of the winter and into next season that maybe maybe Johnson ends up being the the next longer term option that gets a look at the position if they stop Gap BR his batting averages are not good but by by WRC plus he's been really really solid and he he's got to be getting closer right he's in double A now I mean that's just got there that's what the thing is I think that next year they have to go between they have to do this quickly too go from sorting between the options to these are the options you know what I mean and so between Nick York Nick Gonzalez and Tamar Johnson they need to find and like a good second baseman and maybe even a short stop it might be a combo of Veteran and free agency you know trade big trade where you trade some of your young pitching or a young infielder they do have Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harington so they might have like a pitching Prospect to trade right and then finding a third like finding the third guy might be as much as you can put on the group of non prospects that they're trying to shuffle through right now but I think you could see it you can at least tell yourself the story that 80 wins plus are a possibility in Pittsburgh with the right adjustment still a nice long-term up Arrow there even though this year might be flat from a win total perspective let's move on to the Jacksons we want to talk about some young hitters who've made some really Jackson Merrill & Jackson Chourio’s Fast Adjustments quick adjustments over the course of this year and Jackson Merill and Jackson chrio have both done that I mean if you look at what these guys are doing right now go back to basically May 1st forward throughout their first month and in case of Jackson Marl the first month wasn't bad you're gonna see top 30 top 40 production from both of these players they're doing it with very little experience at Triple A Merl's doing it while learning a new position which I think makes it even more impressive but let let's start with Jackson Merill you know when you start to look at what he was in day one as a big leager and what he's starting to show us throughout the second half of this season especially what's changed the most yeah I have these heat Maps here for for Jackson Merill which um kind of showed that you know on the left is his isolated slugging so it's slugging heat map for early in the season and this is when he was a contact guy that didn't have that much power uh very Oppo when I see that I see a guy who has kind of a Scoopy swing he can hit the low pitch uh and he can kind of inside out the the pitch on the outer half and that's that matches up with my eye test now you look on the right and he's figured something out in terms of pulling the ball hitting the ball middle middle in um and I had a a stat I think for for you that was um you know for March uh April and May uh he did not have a single double or Homer that was middle or middle in um and since then he has 16 so uh he is a guy whose strength is Oppo uh who has added the ability to you know pull or or or go Center but like you know do something on the inner half um and uh you know there's something there where I see that first heat map and I say you know what do I do I really think this guy will never slug middle middle and then you fill in middle middle and you get that second heat map you know what I mean it's like you see that first one it's actually kind of hopeful to me it's like if you can do two things why not add middle middle to that and that's that's going to be a a theme for me with the with the two uh Jacksons that have really broken out yeah what do you think about that Trevor if you see that when you're kind of looking at a young player or any player and you see that that gap between two spaces where they handle pitches really well do you start to assume that the space in between will become a dangerous spot to pitch them uh possibly or you know it might be an example of of being in between some pitches so he's he's hitting a type of pitch one place and hitting a type of pitch in the other place um and also that's pretty indicative like you mentioned the scoop swing if you're looking at these that you can tell the angle like look at the angle of the red the angle the red on the left is is steeper than it is on the on the right so it look like he has uh maybe made a slight change or maybe it could be a mindset thing and that has flattened his ability to flatten his swing out a little bit more and still get to that pitch down down and Away um has been the the key but uh I went and looked at his heat map and especially like his expected numbers uh in woba and slugging and ISO and he handles like the middle pillar I keep calling I've been calling it the middle pillar of the of the Zone the stuff that's in the center and not on the edges um those would be considered mistakes but if you can hit them all the way down and all the way up um that's usually a pretty good example of of your ability to to take advantage of mistakes that most guys make so they have to stay on the edge once you know you have to stay on the edges you become harder harder to pit you this is something like Jose Altuve has done so well in his career as he's hit really well really high and really well really low over the plate now and not chasing off or in too much is when he's going the best right now he's chasing off and in too much but when he wasn't that when he was the the the best version of himself and Jackson Merl seems to have made that adjustment like the East and West is not something he's having an issue he's not chasing that those those ways he's just chasing within that pillar that he hits hard so like when he's making a decision to swing he's making a decision to swing at something that he knows he can handle a little bit better and that is something that's changed over time and that's what that tells me so if that's the case then I'll be like okay now let's pick let's let's try to approach him in a way that that where the pitches we're choosing are always moving away from the middle of the plate because you know if you're trying to back door something guys who try to back door come off the plate on the plate and stuff are probably guys he is he is abusing at this point um it's the guys that where you can get the edges that are moving from the middle of the plate into the edges that are probably having better success now I can't verify that but it usually does happen that way so that that's what it tells me and to be honest the next guy we're talking about Cheerio has also made a similar type of adjustment not quite as well as Merill has but it he is definitely starting to hit that middle pellar Wells as well yeah and and and check out his heat Maps like he he has two spots it's not quite the Scoopy swing it looks like you know he he he was able to hit High um um and and middle in um and then he just sort of filled in the gaps a little bit and it to some extent I wonder how much anticipation has to do with this to me if I see two strengths I see two swings right yeah at least and if or two approaches or two sort of tweaks he can make so on the left he can block that high pitch and maybe that's like going Oppo or or sort of Center Oppo you know in the air and on the on the left it's maybe sort of uh you know pulling that one for power like I I see two areas of strength I think maybe he has two swings and when I look on the right which is Cho since June 1 uh or maybe it's May I forget exactly it says at the top there that one's that one's actually June the meril one was May but the Cho one's June but but uh you you look at the right he kind of filled in the gaps and so I wonder if it's more like he already had the tools the the in order to like do what he did on the right but he just needed to see how pitchers were going going to pitch him and now on the right he's putting the right swing on each pitch each time he's just sort of filling in but again what you see is not amazing middle middle out before and now uh he's he's he's better middle middle so like I I just don't think you become a hot Prospect a top prospect and you aren't good middle middle you know middle middle often is a place where you can just you can see someone's career is near an end they start not being able to handle middle middle but if a guy comes up and has two strengths and middle middle isn't filled in yet I'm into it yeah you're willing to bet on that and just thinking about cherio I know I knew more about cherio before he debuted than Merill just because being a Brewers fan following more people on Brewers Twitter I remember a lot of clips from last season from Kurt hog the Brewers writer at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of Trio home runs off fast balls that were high in the zone like either at the top of the zone or above and I know we talked spot up there yeah the zone is different but even some of them were like high 90s fast balls at doublea the occasions that he wouldd get those he was still driving those pitches out and that to me gave me some confidence of like okay he's got plenty of bat speed so unless there's a low problem where stuff down in the dirt you know below the zone and then he comes up and he has a low heat map too like a a strength low you're like okay he's got two spots I don't know this is all in opposition to Jackson holiday which I was surprised but Jackson holiday only has one strength uh middle in and uh they've been filling up the outside part of the corner he has one hit one hit on pitches outside like low and outside and it was a pulled change up that's his only hit on the pitches on the outside part of the plate so from a game planning perspective right that that area filled up yeah you're going to get filled up there until you show can do something with that right yeah yeah I mean I'd be more afraid if he feted that into the Outfield because i' like SLA it down the left field line you know now he's adding the Jackson Merill right like he started with the the other part and now he's gonna add the Jackson Merill I'm gonna scoop this into left field but I don't know if he has that ability he might not yet um but he I it's he's a kid that's true and his b ball skills his so far in the min has been very very good so it's like he doesn't strike out a ton he walks as much as he strikes out those are good approach uh he's got the the head on his shoulders to have a good approach so it's only a matter of time before I think he starts to figure that type of stuff out but again it comes down to like what's he trying to do still trying to juice things still trying to be a power bat um which he doesn't necessarily need to be yet uh it's it's it I think it comes down to maybe intent a little bit with him and well there's some there was so much pressure and hype and especially with is and stuff there's just a lot of like noise that once it settles and we've seen it settle a little bit after the first stint and he's had some success yeah he's had a lower those same low Peaks or the so same valleys in the roller coaster but like he's coming back up a little bit more and supposed to just staying there um but yeah him him picking it up right away I think maybe he had the highest expectation out of all of them and you know who his dad is and there's just a lot going on there so when that stuff kind of settles down I I I would be more I think uh willing to to come like kind of put a stamp on on the type of guy he is but I think you're right though showing the ability to kind of take that pitch away and just take your single away it doesn't seem like he's it's something that he's willing to do yet um but I'm still hopeful that he will yeah maybe I I'm assuming he can't it's more maybe willing it's I could see the approach thing but as a pitcher if you're facing a guy that has sort of multiple you know bright red spots on the heat map that's scarier right because he it also just means fewer places you can you can put the ball right yeah and he doesn't just have a swing type that that is bad against a certain pitch you can just keep going to the well if you need to because he it doesn't matter if he knows it's coming he can't change the way he's swinging uh to do it and those guys exist as well um and some of those guys have success because they only hit the the pitch that's a mistake every time like uh Adam Duval or Hunter rro are kind of like a couple of those guys just waiting for the mistake yeah yeah throw that fast B down the away I'll never hit it but if you throw a slider and it goes right down the middle I'm going to crush it and I'm never going to that's to keep me in the bigly so um but I don't he's not going to be one of those guys I I I do think and you're you know what to be honest maybe intent or like willingness and ability are connected and he's like not willing to yet because he can't do it yet so like trying to do it isn't going to make him better yet um but I I think that just based on how he showed how he can handle the bat and has bad to ball skills just kind of naturally uh up into this point that it's completely with than the rumble possibility figures it out figures it out quickly yeah and we've already seen since he's returned it's been like 26 games since he he had that first stint five homers K rates under 30% you know it's it's trending in the right direction it just might not happen overnight because it usually doesn't and even in the case of Chio he looks so much different from June on than he did in those first two months but that's to be expected for these guys especially the guys that come through the minors as quickly as this entire Trio has to this point and I think there are people that are getting frustrated even with Wyatt Langford and Langford played college ball and was supposed to be a little bit more polished but I think the injury that Langford had earlier this year also explains a lot about why he hasn't quite hit the ground running the way people were expecting back in March I think there's tons of reasons to still be excited about a lot of guys in this rookie class even if they haven't clicked quite as quickly as Merill and chrio have yeah I think you're right also to point out the uh excellent swinging strike rates that he had the minor leagues I just did a quick little thing where I look at um you know doublea players under the age of 21 since 2021 with excellent swing strike rates and Power in the minor leagues um and you've got a really short list I mean without power you've got Bryce turang Xavier Edwards Mason WN you know uh with power you got Roman Anthony Anthony vpy um you know Tristan C so uh there's uh there's there's a lot to say with just he's demonstrated uh the ability in the past and you know just needs to kind of figure it out the big league level and holiday will by far be the least costly of the three Jacksons when you're looking at your 2025 drafts no matter what happens in the final month there will be a gap between maryn chrio and wherever holiday is going it might be a large gap too depending on how things play out the rest of the way we had one more uh talk that Eno saw at at the saber seminar Is It Good to Modulate Your Swing by Count? last weekend that we wanted to dig into and it's about if it's good to modulate your swing by count and this one had a fantastic visual too so you know tell us a little bit more about this presentation and and what walk us through some of the different things that we see on this particular visual he did some this is from Scott Powers uh who is a a a professor that used to work for the Dodgers used to do their run their analytics department and um if you look at the xaxis it's how much the batter reduces their swing length by count um and then if you look at the y- axis is how much they reduce their bat speed by count if you look at the shape of the graph you notice most people in the major leagues do reduce their swing length and swing speed in two strike counts I have another thing from uh Josh Rodriguez who's at coach Rodriguez 2 um this shows how much uh people reduce their bat speed look at that with in three counts the Major League average bat speed is 74 miles an hour uh in O2 counts it's 67 miles an hour so uh that's a huge difference and um and so back to the the powers graph what you see is um in the red those are players who are performing better in two strike counts and so you can kind of assume to some ENT that the changes that they make are beneficial and so Julio Rodriguez is really one of the best case scenarios there he reduces his his uh swing length a fair amount uh in two strike counts or in as the strike goes as the count gets deeper he does not reduce his bat speed much and um then you have adley Rutman who's in the blue um who has costed himself by uh reducing his bat speed a lot but not reducing his swing length and I guess that makes sense you wouldn't want to have a long swing that's slower um you know in two strike counts and part of my reasoning is and this is where I really wanted to get um Trevor in on it is in two strike counts the league throws 43% fast balls in one strike counts it throws 45% fast balls so you in the modern day baseball I don't think you're expecting that different of a pitch mix in strike counts largely because pitchers know you're reducing your swing length you're reducing your bat speed I'm going to throw you a fast ball so if you are Nico hor or Anthony Rizzo who reduced their swing length and bat speed a ton I feel like I would just I would I would be likely to throw you a high forcing fast ball in two strike counts and I wonder uh how uh I know that Trevor watches a lot of jul Rodriguez and I just wonder what he would think as a pitcher if he saw you know an adley Rutman step to the play or in two strikes or Julio Rodriguez in two strikes wouldn't that affect the way you pitch them as well yeah actually it's funny that I I was I kind of just had a realization while you were while we were starting that conversation and uh then you hit it and uh so the interesting thing with like adley rushman I would if his if his swings gets or or is slower but is the same length fast ball like he's now going to take more time for the barrel to get where needs to get to hit the fast ball hard jul julu Rodriguez on the other hand when he shortens his swing and then it's the same speed his Barrel is going to get there faster so breaking ball like just breaking ball which if you have I've watched a lot of Julio that works really well the the reason and then also on top of that the fast ball is generally hit harder more often and can turn into higher production SL homers um and to get run value hitting a bunch of homers on a pitch that's a great way to get that run value up on that pitch and which which he's hitting two two strike fast balls Julio is but like when he gets when he gets the break strike out a lot he's striking out a lot on stuff that's not that pitch and so that's the that's the tradeoff but like you would still take that because every once in a while he's getting it as opposed to adley who's not really putting himself in position to e hit either pitch well maybe a change up but even sliders if your bat speeds long still and slow you still can't get your Barrel to to hit to match the movement of the slider so he's probably still not hitting the slider hard either it's probably just change UPS which don't profile as a great pitch to him anyways so less guys are throwing him and relievers don't even throw him at all basically so it's like you know he's not putting himself in position to hit a pitch he's going to see a lot either so that's probably the biggest difference but that's how I would use it the thing with like niik horer or or uh you know Rizzo and I I think honestly Rizzo's thing is just kind of coming with him him aging a lot um but that kind of keeps both of them open and you you can basically just say either way I can do this either way because it's just generally slower um and that that's how I would use that like I'm not worried about heavy damage to those two guys later in account because of the way they're going um Julio I'm still kind of weary of throwing that fast ball and uh but selling out like ad's kind of doing an old school way of approaching it and I don't think he needs to and I think you're right there there is a good question from jump shoot in the liive does adley being a switch hitter matter I know we've seen with some of the early swing data Switch Hitters do have pretty different swing speeds sometimes from the left and right side his his stats by the way his ops's from the sides have completely flipped from his rookie year like crazy actually how much more damage he's doing from the right side this year as opposed to left side and then vice versa when he first came up with much better Ops Wise from from I think it's just really I think it's really hard to have to be a switch hitter like two swings I mean imagine being a switch pitcher you have to maintain two whole deliveries you know it's like a just mechanically I I think that maybe and he's also one of the youngest names in terms of like smallest sample on this list so it's like maybe this is just a part of him figuring it out but I can see over his career uh the pitch that he hits the best with two strikes is the curveball and that actually sort of makes sense if you keep if your swing is still long but slow that's the one that you're GNA actually be able to hit the best that makes sense many people are throwing two strike curve balls sadly Rond though I mean like some some people that's their best pitch but I'd be going fastball slider against them so the give and take here thinking about it just what a hitter's trying to do is avoiding the strikeout right but to the extent that you slow down and shorten up your swing like you can overcorrect and get to the point where you're not doing damage anymore right then it's I didn't strike out but the best case scenario was a sack fly a softly hit ball in play maybe a productive out but now we're getting to the meat of it I mean because there's all the people that are yelling there is no two strike approach in the big leagues and I just showed you that you know we they modulate their swing there there their swing speed and in fact I I hate to be a hot Taker and I hate to fight that battle because it's ongoing you'll never win it I would say that maybe the problem is the two- strike approach I would say you might get a you're not going to get a lot of fast balls you might get a fast ball on any count like you need to be able to modulate that and it needs to you can't be you can't be swinging seven miles an hour slower in two- strike counts like I'm sorry I just don't think that's a good approach well it's almost like the two- strike approach is too vague like who's pitching what do they do what are their strengths like you would handle a two- strike situation differently based on how you expect to be pitched by whoever you're facing too right and and the team you're facing I mean scouting reports were there teams that you were on that were a little bit more into two strike fast balls than other teams oh yeah oh yeah the like that was the big thing with the with the twins when we first started to to everyone throw the sliders we were like kind of going backwards we were trying to get the fast balls we had we had the guys with the type of fast balls that could get the swing of Miss late too but you know the high fast ball was it still is a very high whiff pitch it's just higher you know uh high risk High reward so um yeah I it really does matter about this stuff I think that a lot of the gripes about the no two two strike just to kind of go back to that the no two strike approach comes down to like you know Chipper Jones brought this up other day it's like the the two- strike approach in that like you're okay grounding out to second in order to get the guy home from third that has gone like where that's the intent guys are like thinking if I get out here I would like actually to get out here because I don't have a chance like that's that might be gone Modern Baseball does not want to give up bouns like we're just like out to your currency don't give up guys don't think that at all that's not even going into their head that that's possible which is good and you know has its mer and doesn't U it just depends on your choosing your spots but you can't just go to I'm gonna slow my swing down so I don't strike out with two strikes because like in adley's case for example you know Gunner's on first or whatever now now it's a double play and now strikeout would have been a better option and he doesn't run super well either so like that's something you have to think about and when you slow your swing down that much the chances that you ground into a softly into a double play are High um you're so like it's it's situational I know it's baseball and we say that a lot it's almost always situational but overall um maybe picking those spots more less but having the ability to do them and just like fing a ball if you need to play it every once in a while is I think still valuable but a guy like Julio like maybe it's just not in the cards for him because slowing down like we talked about O'Neal Cruz slowing down his Bat makes him changes it some way that makes it like not a viable swing anymore might still miss just as much yeah yeah might be missing more just as much you don't know how many guys are are that's the effect as well but um you know it's a it's it's an interesting thing I just uh got have to take it Case by case love yandi Diaz on here he just he doesn't shorten up slow down he just rips it every single time but he doesn't strike out that much so it kind of works for him I'd also say this question uh from Frederick Weaver uh from the live Hive is the lower swing length on two strike counts evidence of a deeper contact point and opposite field approach being ideal this this is another reason why I don't love being a hot taker I don't want to say that people are doing the wrong thing because our information is still a little bit incomplete and what we might find is as we study this better and as we add contact point to our swing length and swing s speed discussion we discover that some people are modulating their contact point and are going the to Oppo and covering more of the bag and doing what old schoolers want them to do and some people are just slowing down so there is a difference because you know contact Point changes the measurement and so you know um if you don't have as much if your bat doesn't get it out in front and you don't have as as far to go then you're not going to get the same bat speed measurement and you're not and you're going to have a shorter swing but I think that we seeing a little bit of that on the graph where you're seeing that people who reduce their swing length but not their swing speed do the best you know that's I think one way to read this this graph um and so if you reduce your swing length and not your swing speed what you're doing is I'm swinging just as fast but I'm letting the ball travel I'm gonna I'm gonna wait on this one I'm going to watch it a little bit longer yeah and that might increase your contact rate which is what you kind of want in two strike counts in in general uh interesting thing about that question yeah to answer like to kind of touch on a a point he made generally if you hit the ball deeper and like either some if it's before you break your hands because you got to remember hand break time also changes where the barrel is it is in in but hand breing is where is for most guys where you turn your hands over that's where you're peaked in in your your bat speed that's where the it's going the fastest usually that's what you want so you want to hit the ball when that happens when it's at its fastest speed if you're hitting before you break your hands you're not going to have as much power because the bat's not up to speed yet so like in the case of adley he might be hitting the ball deeper in the deeper into the into the zone as well before he the hands have broken to get the speed up as well so like and then once you hit it like there's no reason to speed up anymore so like that's that's a problem too so you want to give yourself a chance of continuing no matter where the pitches and what it is by shortening the swing up and keeping the V the speed up you're giving yourself the best chance to get the barrel out in front every time still so you're still going to hit the ball hard and it's still going to be you're going to be hitting it at the peak speed if it's a shorter shorter uh shorter swing so like that's why shorter swing as opposed to slower slower bat is the better option because you're giving your CH chance uh to get the B Barrel to a place where it can still hit the ball hard I think I think that's at the end of the day so like dragging the bat through is not a good intent anymore it's more like you want to keep the Barrel in they call they call it like keeping the the the bat in the zone longer it's not technically real uh in the way that's said it's like pitching to Contex not like real no one's like hit this like but uh it it is in reality like it's in position longer um it's in the right position longer not necessarily in the zone but just in position longer if you do it the way Julio does it versus freshman is the answer right in the middle of the graph with Juan stto I mean like if you're gonna mimic anyone as a hitter Juan stto seems like a pretty good choice because there's a slight shortening up there a slight drop in speed but kind of just happy medium does that actually kind of fit as what you think would be ideal Trevor that might just be something natural for him and that's what tells me the way that it's so little and minute is rare um and it and almost sounds like it's not conscious like it's something he just is he just does and so I I think that like with Julio that's very clearly an intent thing he's I I I do that I shorten now I think I think Juan may just kind of shorten it up a little bit naturally as the as the ab goes on it gets longer because he knows he can still hit the ball hard and he keeps it within those ranges um and that's really hard to do I think doing what what what Jose does is actually really hard to do with intent and with practice and a lot of that is intuitive um there's a lot of guys there but again the same thing could be guys are just going off intuition and not really having the approach as well and you would see the same thing but he has the approach and that intuition and that's what makes him the hitter he is yeah kind of just unconscious feel for hitting that seems to be just a elite historically great sort of level for Juan stto well let's move on I'm not sure what happened to Eno given the tech Corbin Burnes’ Second-Half Struggles; Long-Term Decline in K issues he was having before I'm not even certain he's coming back at this point we had some great questions in our Discord one of them came from stinky stinky want to know if there's anything different about Corbin Burns since the All-Star break we just saw a start from Burns against the Dodgers on Wednesday night shoh Otani took him deep like pulled a ball that was outside that I don't I it was kind of defied physics for me watching that home run but have you seen anything Trevor with Corbin Burns in the second half of this season that's notably different in terms of stuff you vo movement anything that would would lead you to be able to explain why Burns hasn't been his usual self in these last seven or eight starts um one thing that's interesting is there there really isn't a ton uh I think in terms of like movement like everything's about the same he's still throwing really hard he's not like he's not lost any movement on any pitches uh maybe a slight you know slight changes at times because it's late in the year and there's fatigue and he's thrown 164 Innings like that's a lot of innings um but it it is odd his decision making slightly different and uh he's throwing it looks like he's going to pitches that are hit a little bit harder not hit harder hit more often not swinging Miss pitches um as much he's thrown more change UPS this year he's got 11% change up rate um his his Sinker usage is is I don't want to say it's up but I feel like he's used it a little bit more he's trying to use it into the righties and get the ground balls kind of maybe go for a double play a little bit more often um and something we haven't seen him do in the past he wanted to strike out double digits right um and you know it could be a function of the nature of how their starting rotation is put together right now and he's he's being being asked to do a lot right he's like we need you to go throw seven because our Bullpen we we can't use everybody every single game we need a guy that eats a bunch of innings and he could be taking that to heart I know he is a guy who cares about eating Innings um and that that little adjustment could could point to him not missing bats as much making decisions where he's not worried about missing bats as much because he needs to go deeper into games which is hurting him because when he tries to miss bats he gets those uh those those things but uh I just think there's a it might be a little bit more bad timing and these things are just he's just not having he hasn't had a couple great outings in a row and it just happens to be at a time where they need him to and we're just noticing a lot I I tend to lean that way a little bit more um because I haven't been able to find a ton but you know we got Eno back and he usually has some great stuff I'm glad because I want to hear what you have to say well I you know he you're right the there's nothing that I I can't find a smoking gum when I look at the movement of the pitches or like it it looks like it's all there um I did watch last night and um you know my general theory and one of the the question was we have another question coming up later but you know with Corin Burns I think my general theory is like just the league sort of knowing him better you know like so he goes up against tasar Hernandez and he throws curveball curveball Sinker which was a ball and I you know tar didn't even didn't even blink at it curveball which now tasar has fouled off I wouldn't I would there's no way I would have gone back to a curveball he does a slider which which tasar fouls off and then he puts a curveball back where the last one was fouled off exactly in the same spot and tasor goes yak yak and I just feel like what is this approach In This Moment here because in the next at bat couron Burns goes up against yosar herandez it's all cut and Sliders and he strikes tasar out in like four pitches why didn't you take the cutter slider at bat and this 75% curveball at bat and put them together I I this this feels like there was like a plan this is what we're going to do against thecar the first time this is what we're going to do against T Oscar the second time this is what we're g to do that tcar the third time and I to some extent like if you're teoscar in this you start sitting curveball yeah he just told you he just showed you three curveballs out of four pitches like you're sitting curveball and he just he sat curveball and he and he and he hit it out and I don't I I I'm not I'm not here to say that like you know orio's game planning is bad but this that one just struck me as like what are you doing and one thing that he did do when he got to the Orioles was throw curveball more and his curve Ball's good and it's led to a little early uptick in strikeout but I think he like one of my weirdest theories is that I think batters and pitchers should be random number generators and they should just like just be as weird as possible and just do the just like never get into any into any patterns if you look courton Burns when he is behind goes to the cutter 60% of the time so he has some 60s on his on his chart that you're going to circle and once you like I think Trevor thought about this once you get past 60 like you you know people are circling that and and and and thinking about it they know uh I did find actually something interesting I think uh with the difference between his slider and his curveball so he's thrown the slider more than he's ever he's ever thrown a slider but I'm looking at where it is the vast majority of them have been thrown not a lot in the strike zone I think he's just more comfortable throwing curveball for strikes than he is throwing SL he can't that that was my question is why does his slider go well does well by Stuff Plus that would lead to more strikeouts yeah he he's done a little bit in strikeouts why doesn't he throw the slider more there's I thought maybe he was blending between the cutter and the slider maybe they're too close or maybe he just can't command it maybe he's just not he doesn't command a slider great I thought the blending might be possible just because he throws the cutter so much it's such an important pitch for that maybe that's the velocities are are are different enough that it's hard to blend because his cutter is 96 and his slider 88 right so that difference in V is enough the interesting thing is here's the whiff rat curveball whiff rate is 38% but the sliders is 45.6 so like but he just doesn't get in the zone so they doesn't get swings so I really think he's just that's the that's the difference at the end of the day like I bet you they're like hey man the slider like the slider's probably the way even though the curveball is really good you still we but we want you to throw them about the same amount of time um and just kind of mess with them and but he's just like my slider's a ball all the time so he just the curveball and which is hurting him a little more which curve balls are hit harder than sliders now right now in the game especially if like I think in the game of anticipation if it like a curveball you know if I don't anticipate it a lot of times I just don't swing yeah you know then you then you to you stole a strike from me but if I do anticipate a curveball I can hit it yeah you got time to get the barrel out there and if a slider you're like oh I don't know what this is it's 90 right there's no like uh and you just fell it off it's too hard like that's why this has become a slider League it's like you yeah so he's just not leaning on the pitch that will get him the most I think uh effect because he's not it's not throwing for strikes and that's big for him like commanding a pitch is huge he's not gonna throw it if he can't and that is by far his worst commanded pitch being a Workhorse is great as far as getting paid in free agency having the track record that burns has he's GNA get a massive deal this winter but if you start yielding more contact either because you're trying to pitch deeper into games or you become predictable whatever the reason is it seems like a very bad thing in a walk year and when you look at a guy that's gone from you know 30.5% with the K rate in 2022 down to 25.5% last year and his final year with the Brewers down to 22.3% you look at The Swinging strike rates the last two seasons being in that 12% range I don't think we're going back to 30% strikeout rate Corbin Burns in the future like I don't know if what's happening this year is necessarily the true Talent new Baseline but if you want the elite strikeout rate I think it's going to take a pretty big adjustment for that to come back and I wonder if that's going to give any teams some hesitation in going out and giving him you know a six seven ma your massive deal that he's certainly gonna get this winter if my team was about to sign him to a big deal like that I'd be like okay let's all talk about the slider now because I just feel like you know in this type of League I want the guy I'm giving millions and millions of dollars to to have a great slider yeah and you believe it's gonna get better that was one thing with Yamoto dude yeah you didn't have the great slider but I think they must have seen enough in the in the cutter the gyro whatever that he was throwing and said we can work with this yeah we got a good question from Michael C in the Discord wondering if there could be a true whiff pitch for Logan A True Whiff Pitch for Logan Webb? web right I mean Logan Webb like Corbin Burns has had a lot of success for several years but it seems like he's doing it with a lot of the same tools that he's always had I think the only thing that's kind of caught my attention in the last year or so when we brought up Logan web is that you I think you said you know his his release Point's been changing right it's been dropping a little bit over time but overall it's a lot of the same approach and Pitch mix that Logan web is using to get the results that he gets so are there similarities here even though they're very different as pitchers in terms of the stuff that they're working with yeah the the the the through line that I was going to try and and draw which is really really hard to prove and has to do with sort of this idea of Decay the more you often you throw a pitch the more people see it the bet the worse it gets right is just that there's a certain amount of Decay that happens for any pitcher that's been in the league for a while I mean they've just people now know what you throw and that's why you know I think one of the reasons I I admire grank so much was I felt like he was a real tinkerer that would be like oh you think you know me this year I'm Different you know and there was that kind of like every year he kind of I felt like he wanted to come into spring training every year with something else you know and um the the one thing I have so and and I'm not saying that these guys don't want to do that Corbin is throwing the curve more this year he's he is trying to change a little bit um Webb I don't know if people know this Webb throws a cutter he has mostly thrown it to one player sh otan is this is this is this web weaver yeah yeah okay I I hadn't seen it everywhere but like yeah I talked to Logan Webb about a lot about his cutter he's it's not great he's trying to figure it out um he could it could theoretically be good there are a lot of guys who are cutter Sinker change up guys you know um and uh you know I don't know the the the sweeper that that Webb throws the baby sweeper that he throws right now is a decent pitch but it's it's not I don't know why maybe maybe people can see the release point so different from his other ones or um it's he's he's tried a harder slider he's tried a slower slider it's there's something about his mechanics I think that will never make him have a really great breaking ball and I in in essence I guess the other through line between these two pitchers is neither one of them has a standout slider do you want to have Corbin Burns If he if he develops that pitch or gets he has it already but if he gets better how hard would you push that usage given that he's a Workhorse starter is there any concern about going to that too much because of fear of injury uncle Ted in the liive suggesting that's just asking for an elbow issue um I mean we've seen some different research on this over time uh I think direct stress on the elbow is is highest with with vo I've seen there was some new research about spin being a problem uh but there was actually research at the saber seminar that wasn't able to replicate that finding um and um I think it is a problem if you throw a 92 mph hour slider and corbon burns is this pretty pretty hard 88 is pretty hard um I I wouldn't necessarily push it to 40% you know but right now he's throwing uh what's he throwing he's throwing 15% because he can't command it I mean he could throw more sliders and web could if I could bequeath web a a standout amazing slider they threw 2 % of the time he would be he's already like a top 10 pitcher I think he would be like one of the best maybe best pitcher in the league I mean you're talking about like one of the best change up one of the best sinkers great command I mean if I gave him a plus slider you'd be that's like kind of the Pedro package Pedro was like oh by the way I have the best curveball the best change up and you know one of the two best fast balls in the league thank you what do you think about the high vlo bullet slider that Frederick suggests for he's been trying it he that's that was what he did one time he he was talking to me for one year it was all about how hard he could throw a slider um but he couldn't he just couldn't get it high enough like I just he couldn't throw it hard enough yeah uh one thing that I think is being overlooked with him and uh pretty much nobody else he throws a for team sometimes it's terrible and he knows that um Logan's a guy who knows he knows how well what his pitches are based on movement and which ones are the best the problem is the ones he throws s all the time is you know when hitters are hitting they're they're trying to shrink the strike zone he already shrinks the strike zone because he throws everything in the bottom half like the Sinker like mid thigh but it's not up like they don't have to look up Ever with him he he he has nothing it's not about even like standing guys up or changing eyes ey eyelines no he's just eliminated half the zone for them so like you don't have to worry that's why he gives up so much contact that's why that's why his kind of big slider doesn't get chased very much is because it's just mov moving exactly it's moving in the general area eyesight wise uh for for everybody and they're just like able to make a decision that that's going to be way too far out it's too big in that case but if you think about it that way even if you add a smaller one in reality it's probably not going to get like less swings on it they're probably just going to hit it harder okay it's just because it's moving less that the reason his change up in his Sinker both move down and away from a lefty a lot but they I think the cutter could be a good idea even if it's a 45 cutter because he could throw it high in the zone maybe yeah he needs then I think that's what he wants and that's why he throws it to Otani because Otani crushes everything at the bottom of the Zone like can't pitch this way to him which that's a big issue that's an issue um so he finding something that maybe stays higher or he can use high or maybe like a different version of a sinker that doesn't sink as much that would be interesting to me like a basset Sinker who that throws up all the oh just like a the two this is the two seamer this is not the Sinker this is the two seer throw a for seam that's that's you know it's got 20 inches of drop still as for seam does if you can't do that then throw like something that goes a lot horizontally because you do that so naturally but like the non seam shifted Sinker like the non seam shifted Sinker mess with that and see what happens because he he has already has such good feel for that so like work within the things you have but you need to open up the top part of the Zone a little bit somehow um and figure out a way to do that and maybe that's just a a different version of the pitches you already throw and Trevor you might be interested in this there was a little part of that question was has there been Research into pitch separation like different and so one of the things that we saw was uh somebody um looked at the value of you know when you see those pitch movement charts on Brooks or whatever like you know those uh those spray charts that he just described the distance between the pitches like the the area of The Blob or whatever and like the bigger being better and it was bigger was better but what he found was if you take if you have like a tight blob if you're Graham Ashcraft and then and then you throw like a a 75 mph hour curve right which is very different than your 98 M hour cutter and your 89 90 mile hour sweeper right now you throw a 78 mile hour curve that pitch that's the big thing that separates from all the rest it uh has fewer swings it can be good for you but it has fewer swings so that that says to me the batter sees it because it's so different than everything else but if you can command it yeah so that's what so it almost the question to WAN Webb is not how good your cutter is is can you just put it there yeah because it's going to look so different than everything else that most of the time people are gonna see that cutter and be like what the hell was that yeah you know and not swing you just want them to have to think about it like yeah if anything if it just becomes a pitch where they're like I know that that's something that I might get that could throw them off everything else because everything else is in the same kind of bucket it's uh uh uh Josh change his slider to be harder and move less because he's like the other one the 82 is just too different so different just like getting these like and he needs swings because he doesn't have good command he needs swings so he can I need swings and my fast ball is my bread and butter anyway so I need something where they're like they're gonna swing at this meaning they're thinking about it meaning that's gonna make it my fastball better and it has because he's like but my slider's Never Gonna Be My out pitch it never is I can't throw a good one I need one that that makes my fastball better he made that choice even though no one really noticed uh that he needed to do it but him because it wasn't really didn't seem like an issue because his fast's still doing well but that that's kind of the way that you would you would trade in a you would commit to a not as good movement pitch in a vacuum in order to make pitch is better that's a prime example that's what Logan needs yeah dabing a lot I mean he's still a really good picture it's oh yeah well if if the swing a Miss is something that he wants to be able to go to in certain situations and not just depend on defense all all the time because he's given up a lot of hits this year he'll tell you it's too many hits and we what we're also saying is he may not get a true wh pitch but he may get a called strike pitch that makes his change up into more of a whiff pitch exactly because now they're like oh W oh crap now it's 02 now he throws the change up this further off the Zone yeah you know exactly thanks a lot for those questions from stinky and Michael C in the Discord join the Discord links in the show description ask questions for future episodes you always ask during the show sometimes we'll get those in as well want to play a name that dude before we Name That Dude! go I had One queued up for last week it's just sitting here I'm terrible at this yes let's go all right Trevor Has the alltime series lead one Eno see the here's the thing Eno has to make sure that if he has an idea of the player he can't sound the player out out loud and then have Trevor steal because that's how Trevor got the win I was like Mesa Mesa you giving more clues you were on it you had the edge and you gave it up all right so name that dude I was a position player born November 10th 1986 in San Jose California and I made my major league debut on May 18th 2011 after being drafted in the seventh round out of Pepperdine blank stairs current no longer playing I played my final MLB game in September of 2020 while appearing for my fourth major league team I'll continue still blank stairs I to 25 homers in a season twice including a career-high 31 homers in 2017 I want to say Jason Kipnis it's not Jason Kipnis you know want to throw a guess in he's a little bit younger than that I think not yet looks like a no okay some refer to me as s namja others call me phone home or Mr T tul litzky no damn it he was Long Beach withy frick still nothing there you know want to throw a guess out there Mr T 38y old yeah Mr T what was the first one s namja all right you don't have a guess yet so we'll keep going I hit more home runs in the kbo than I did in the majors or across all of my minor league stops that did not help me what that should have given it away uh Dames Eric Dames yes Eric D that's it Mr T Mr God damn trer takes a 20 season lead in name that dude not entirely surprised s namja s namja he should have done it I don't remember s namja either but that was a fun little run for Eric Ds when he came back to the big leagues and was providing all that power after just tearing up the kbo all right we are going to go on our way out the door reminder you can find us on Twitter you can find Trevor I am Trevor may find Eno Enos seras find me Derek rer the pot is rats and barrels join that Discord the link is in the show description if you got a question for a future episode you can also email those rates and barrels gmail.com is the other way to do that thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode we are back with you on Friday thanks for listening