Trade deadline wild with relievers, Waste pitches are not what they used to be - Ep. 621 - 8.4.25

Ichiro Suzuki gave a great speech at the induction ceremony last weekend in Cooperstown. So did C.C. Sabathia and Billy Wagner. Willa Allen gave a nice tribute to the late great Dick (don't call me Richie) Allen and Dave Parker's brother painted a more accurate pitcher of the Cobra. 

The largest crowd ever to attend a regular season #MLB game at Bristol Speedway in Tennessee got rained out on Saturday night - 91,000+ fans attended breaking the record set in 1954 in Cleveland in a game vs. the #Yankees.  The #Braves won on Sunday 4-2 and home runs were celebrated with a 'Home Run' car going around the oval. That was cool. 

Trading deadline had so many teams picking up relief pitchers that can help them for the stretch drive and for the playoffs. #Padres, #Phillies, #Mets, #Yankees, all made significant improvements to their bullpens. Eugenio Suarez also was moved back to #Mariners and with Cal 'Big Dumper' Raleigh the M's have power they have not had in a long time to go with their excellent pitching. 

Is Jimmy Rollins a HOFer? He's now in the Phillies HOF as he was inducted this past weekend. 

Waste pitches used to refer to pitches thrown in a 0-2 count. Now there are means to evaluate how untempting some of those non-competitive pitchers are. Emmauel Clase of the #Guardians along with his teammate Luis Ortiz have cleaned out their lockers as the advanced metrics may have uncovered a gambling scheme.  We talk about strike zone shadow zones and how pitchers can overdo trying to get the batter to go fishing. 

Intro & Outro music this season courtesy of Mercury Maid! Check them out on Spotify or Apple Music!  

Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If you can give us 4 or 5 star rating that means a lot. And if you have a suggestion for an episode please drop us a line via email at Almostcooperstown@gmail.com.  You can also follow us on X @almostcoop or visit the Almost Cooperstown Facebook page or YouTube channel.  And please tell your friends! 

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Transcript

Hall of Fame inductions, the trade deadline deals and what actually constitutes a waste pitch. We got a lot to talk about. It's this week in baseball. I mean, I have to say I've only really recently, mostly since we started doing this show, gotten into paying attention to the Hall of Fame ceremony. But I thought this was as far as ones go. This is a pretty good one this year. Each of those speech was fantastic. And I it was a really good crop of guys that got on even if we had some

Discussions about maybe how it took to some some guys too long to get there. Well, and I think you're right. Each year speech, you know, he was much funnier than people probably know each year to be, although if you're in baseball, you know that he was kind of a guy who would do practical. Renowned for being a guy that was fun. Exactly. CC speech was a very good speech. I liked it a lot. I'm Billy Wagner, very heartfelt and had some really cool things to say. And then, you know, the widows of.

Dick Allen and his widow Willa, his widow really spoke eloquently about what he faced in his career and how he was misunderstood, which I think a lot of people feel. And Dave Parker's brother did it for him and also sort of made you sort of think of Dave Parker as, know, man, you know, I don't think people appreciated how great a player he was. Right. Right. Made it, you know, especially to, or for people like me who had never really heard or thought about these guys as players up until

this hall, these hall of fame cycles. And if you're not somebody that's plugged in, you're really not, you've probably never really thought about Dave Parker. Right, right. I, I, you know, funny cause Dick Allen, and, and he, you know, certainly had hall of fame, you know, miss as well. he didn't have a nickname.

You know, people mistakenly called him Richie, which he couldn't stand. He wanted to be called Dick Allen and they tried to do him baseball cards with Richie Allen on it and all that stuff. Major League Baseball did weird things like that with names and stuff like that. And Dave Parker had the nickname the Cobra. That's a pretty good nickname. That's a pretty good nickname. So yeah, we talked about before that weekend.

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that maybe we should make plan a trip and be there for that. I just feel like it'll be like a thousand degrees. You're not going to be able to do anything. It was not like there's a crazy crowd there. And if you, you, it's the kind of problem that, you know, it's that easy to reserve the time up there because there's so many people going out. There's not a lot of places to stay, but if you scope out the weather a couple of weeks or a month beforehand, you think it might be the right kind of weather. You could get lucky and get a really cool weekend and it's probably a wonderful time. So, uh, yeah, really, really good weekend.

and we really haven't had a chance and you started by talking about, everything that led up. haven't had a podcast since the trading deadline, because of the way the podcast falls, had one on the Sunday before the trade deadline, which left a lot of time between then and then last week it happened last week. happened. And it was, it started off slow, but it picked up steam and a lot of players moved all over the place. Yeah. And, and relievers of being traded was really the thing that I think was overall.

You know, the thing that you looked at and said, wow, there are a lot of folks that trade changed hands going to contending teams who needed to refresh their bullpen. I think it's very interesting you point that out, because if we look at, you know, the top star, the pitchers, the starting pitchers that were available, almost none of them won anywhere. Shane Bieber was really the only guy that I could say is a needle mover that got traded or somebody that you're at least really excited about as a starting pitcher. And even that's a little bit he's coming off of injuries. So really what you're going to get from him. Do you think that

The asking price was too high from the teams that had starters that might have been considered on the block like Zach gallon. we saw Merrill Kelly go actually, he went at the end. there was, there was one of the guys. I the same way in money ball teams eventually caught onto the things that the A's were doing and being like, yeah, these metrics are important. I think teams are catching onto the way the Dodgers and the Mets look at in the Phillies, look at pitchers and go, it's not worth it to give.

most starting pitchers, any kind of contract or years, Frankie Montas, right? Right. And so if you're looking at guys like Merrill Kelly and Zach gallon and Mitch Keller, who are owed a bunch of money and you're going to have to give prospects to get them and then pay them two month rentals. Right. Right. You're like, Oh, I don't, I don't like that. Especially because if you're immediate, if you're a team that's not going to make it, I think that's, that's another thing. Is that like, okay.

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How many games is Zach Allen going to help you win as opposed to a reliever who might appear in way more games over the period of time where you have him? So I'm writing about this right now. So I'm going to step out of the three deadline for a moment and just say, yeah, I think I think what's happened with starting pitchers to me is obviously we know they're not even pitching six innings in the game on average. I five and two thirds is the average major league start. And I think it's switched that the stars are there to not exhaust the bullpen. So the bullpen has some steam for the playoffs.

And if you're a teams that are in contention and all that, you don't even need your starters to pitch more than five innings because the Dodgers showed you last year. You can go with like hardly any starting pitchers and win the World Series. I mean, the Mets lost today. I'm just kind of thinking about that Mets lost today and right now they are now 63 and 48, 49, 49. So they're 63 and 49 because they're going to lose most likely lose today unless they pull off an all time comp.

at 63 and 49 you would end up there. They played 112 games, so they've got 50 games left. Just thinking about that, if you got to wait, I went out and got a starting pitcher. How many starts is that guy going to get? He's probably going to get, he might get nine. How many games do you think Ryan Hellsley will appear in? More than nine. Right. And then a playoffs. How many games do you think he'll appear in?

I think Ryan Hesley will in at least half the games if not more. Exactly. That I think is a big reason why teams are not excited to trade for starting pitching because when you're not trading them for a long period of time, you're really especially from a rental perspective, you're getting such little value out of it.

The only reason I think you would do that is like somehow you're in the reverse situation where you already have the crazy bullpen and you just need you're like, okay, the thing that puts us over the edge is we'll have one pitcher that if he gets hot, he could go seven in a game.

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And even that, look, we're bringing in pitchers and we think, OK, we need them to eat innings, right? So that's why you want to go maybe bringing a starting pitcher that maybe will fortify the bottom of your rotation, the four and the five guy. got a guy that said they can't go five or six innings. They're not doing it. They're getting knocked out. So your bullpen is still getting killed. And you have this guy there. It's it's it's not worth it. It's not worth it. And that's why you just saw a lead relievers going all over.

the Mets, the Phillies, the Padreins, everybody went out and tried to get, the Yankees went out and traded for relievers. Everybody was trying Hasn't helped the Yankees much. No, they had a dreadful series against the Marlins. The Marlins, I don't know if they won today, they were leading, but had they won today, they will be at 500. I would have lost a bet on the Marlins being 500 any time this year. only team in MLB history.

with a winning record against the New York Yankees. Oh, that's good. That's good. The Yankees probably hate that. And the World Series is something that they haven't had to be to at a long time in the Marlins. They're not going to get there this year, but I think they've opened a lot of people's eyes. And I gave Clayton McCullough a real hard time early in the season for some very questionable managing decisions when he first took over the team and times he was running in situations. But they have responded. And now keeping Alen Contra and Perez.

And they didn't sell. Hmm. They've got some pitchers there. So, yeah, I think I think that's it. You know, when you have a good mojo season like this going, not selling those guys can be a good thing, especially when you've got a bunch of young guys playing passionately. I imagine some of that dies down if all of a sudden, like, you know, your veterans are traded out of the clubhouse and, you know, right. You're left with, you know, the shutters toward and in the playoffs, your four and your five starters aren't really going to pitch.

Right. it's your one, two, three. And if you got three pitchers on your starting step that you hope can go five innings in the playoffs, that's all you really expect. If they got a six, you're dancing for joy. Right. Right. So I think, you know, the game has really switched and, you know, people can say it's it's, you know, it's very different and not the same and not as fun to go there and watch a starting pitcher match up with another starting pitcher and have an epic battle, which still happens upon occasion this year. Even their pitchers can go deep in games and they do sometimes. It's just more often they're not.

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Right. And I mean, we still saw some position players moving around. The Mariners traded for Eugenio Suarez after trading for Josh. Eugenio. Eugenio. Yes. Cabrera and Hayes went to the Reds. He had a home run his first game. Ryan McMahon earlier on in the trade deadline went to the Red Sox. Got Stephen Matz. I think position players and the Astros, I guess, in a way, did a favor to the twins by taking Carlos Correa's contract off their hands.

As much as I imagine just the entire trade deadline stung for the twins, that's a trade I can understand they make because most even though they didn't get much back, who was going to want to take that Korea contract? You know, and the Astos have experience with a guy who, know, who's done a lot of good things for that team. Exactly. I guess he's going to play third base for parodies until parodies comes back or if he comes back from injury. So, yeah, I think that that's pretty.

You know, good thing for the Astros who needed some hitting as they're still waiting for Jordan Alvarez to come back and fortify as well that lineup. You know, we still saw some guys go around. Jose Caballero went to the Yankees to as insurance for Caballero, yeah. Yeah, but even though he ended up making an error in right field.

where he's been very good defensively, that just seemed like a game where the Yankees, know, the spirits of bad luck infested the Yankees and they were just destined to lose. Well, Mr. Volpe better get his defensive game together for the Yankees. I know he can hit some home runs and some prodigious ones, but, you know, defensively he's had a struggle and Caballero is going to have a chance to play some shortstop there, I think. Right, and interestingly, despite all their, you know,

defensive troubles, the Yankees are still second place in the ALE is destined for at least a wild hard spot. The Red Sox caught them. The red. the Red Sox have passed them. Yes. Yes. The Red Sox are now in second place. And remember how dumb my Red Sox pick for that division. Look, it's not as dumb as it back in. I guess in that case, and the defense has really doomed the Yankees, but it's not saved the Atlanta Braves either.

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who have been the number one defensive team in baseball and they look like they're in danger of losing 90 plus games. That's I heard that too as well. And they did win today. And so we talked about that in our preview last week. So they played the Bristol Speedway MLB Speedway game. And so that was supposed to be played last night. And I don't know why they made these poor fans. They decided instead of a speedway to host it in an aquarium.

It was raining so hard and they waited like two hours to start the game and they started again They played it in the driving rainstorm in the first inning and then they went yeah This is a dumb idea and the so they set the record even last night the all-time record for a major league baseball game of tennis and a game that didn't count They had 91,000 people show up impressive which beat the all-time record of 84,000 in Cleveland in 1954 when that

at the big municipal stadium. the LA Coliseum? It did, but that wasn't a regular season game. That was an exhibition game. So it's the largest for a regular season game. And so what they did is that when they hit a home run, you know, and there were two home runs in the game, I think both by the Braves, they have the little race car.

out there and it says home run and it goes around the track, know, when it hits a home run. And actually that's probably the coolest thing about the whole game. I just have to ask, if somebody that went to USC did it evoke memories of the horse? Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking going the horse, the horse. Anyway, I don't know if they're planning to this annually. And I swear there had to be people so far from the playing field in this almost mean way to host 150,000 people for some events, car races as well, that people said, what are we here for?

What are we watching over there? see a bunch of guys standing over there. Anyway, they had some fun with that. So, yeah, and I think that the other team that really struck me was about the trading deadline with the twins. Definitely struck everybody. their entire team. No, they traded 10 out of the 26 active players. They traded 11 guys overall. 11. I goes over 10 out the 26 active roster players.

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And and so I think they have only two players on the contract for next season. So that sounds like a team that's preparing for a lockout. Well, it sounds like a team that's preparing to get sold. Yeah. Well, and that too. You know, and that's the difficulty getting that done. But Derek Falvey, you know, the Pobo there, you know, came out and said, hey, you know, we have a plan. We knew we weren't going to do it this year. So we needed to, you know, put put our minor league system back together. And you can argue whether or not they got equitable value. But if you're a twin player who's left there.

You got to feel pretty forlorn. That's good. I've got to be very, very, very depressed clubhouse right now. And that's the kind of team that you could look at them right now. And, know, their, their record isn't quite terrible yet. They're 52 and 59, but they could plummet and join the white Sox. That's a team that could go into a free fall over the last month, two months of the season.

because they've got nothing to play for and there's got to be no spirit in that club. But they didn't trade Joe Ryan of all the guys and I guess he's like, we're going to build around this guy. And he and Buxton, think are the only two guys who under long term deals for them. yeah, they're cleaning house and starting over. And you make a good point that perhaps the sale or the impending sale is a reason that's being done. I wanted to talk about

the fact that Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies, and we don't give the Phillies enough credit here since we're Met fans, but was inducted to the Philadelphia Hall of Fame yesterday on Saturday, made me think about Jimmy Rollins again as a Hall of Famer. And I've kind of gone back and forth on that, even between he and Utley going, if I had to choose between them, not to say heresy.

I look at Jimmy Rollins and go, know what? He should be on the ballot so I can argue about him for a couple more years. You know, I don't know why I let the war thing get to me so much with Jimmy Rollins. had a 44 career war in a long career. So he barely averaged three war a season. Has an MVP. I think it gets to you because there's guys that have greater wars than him that you would look at and go, yeah, he's not a Hall of Famer. And so it's harder to put him in there.

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And then it's especially hard when there's guys at shortstop that aren't in like that could be in, you know, but due to steroids and other stuff aren't in those guys. And our old favorite Verne Stevens, when you look at a guy like that back from the the 40s, you think, OK, this guy was a slugger, but maybe not the greatest defensive player. played a lot of shortstop. And so he's not in. And so where do you draw the line between what is a hall of very good guys, you like to say?

All right. Right. Right. Hall of Famer. so it's also just really tough as people that constantly, you know, proponents of a bigger hall. It's really tough to sit here and say, yeah, but that guy doesn't deserve to be in. Well, and that's why I go back and forth. don't I don't want to be. that guy's a really good player. And as a a fan of a team that played his team a lot, you saw a lot of Jimmy Rollins over the years. He was a guy you didn't want to see coming up the plane ever. The same way. It's never going to feel fair to what was the 65th team in the NCAA that

missed the tournament. It's got to be like the 69th now. I know I get your point. I think it's going to be the same way. Somebody's always going to be the best player that's not in the Hall of Fame and it will always feel very unfair to that guy in particular. If you live in Philadelphia, you are sure that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. sure. So does Utley for that matter. That's why I say we should probably have both of them on the ballot because I would rather put in Rollins compared to Utley just because I don't like Utley purely on the basis of that slide. So

be like, yeah, let's in Jimmy Rollins over Utley. So I also saw this this week that the Giancarlo Stanton has become the eighth player in major league history with 2000 career strikeouts. It's an exclusive club. There some really good, good players that have struck out 2000 times. There's also Adam Dunn, who you wouldn't be surprised is in that club. Stanton is a guy who is going to get to 400 home runs.

Don't know that he's going to get to 500 and I don't know that that would put him over the top. I like he would need to get to 500 for me to really even consider it even considering or at least close to it because like he would you describe him as complete a hitter as Edgar Martinez was no right and he's basically the same player.

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He was, he's certainly a better power hitter than Martinez Martinez has a similar number of career home runs. He's got a lot of career home runs. didn't get as hurt as much as that's the problem is that only has the home runs to fall back on and an MVP and an MVP. So yes. So I think that is, that is some, I think that, you know, I just think that without that milestone career statistic, I think it's a lot harder for Stanton to make the hall of fame. Cause you know, I mean, yeah.

Martina's won two batting titles, had 309 career homers and had a 312 career batting average. Right. And in a sport that we don't look at batting average quite the same that we used to, but if you looked at his Ops Plus, I imagine it's very good. Ops Plus is 147. There you go. that's it. That's the difference. OPS of 933. Yeah.

Yeah, those two things are the reason why he wasn't maybe not the power hitter that Stanton is, but he hit enough power. Right, right, right. And his power was a lot. And he had the good average. so any other good on base average. So he's got a higher career OPS and a higher career OPS plus. Yeah, yeah. Stanton. So, you know, I think it's interesting how everything's changing, right? We probably aren't going to have after these guys get into the Hall of Fame, Scherzer and Verlander and Kershaw, you're not going to have three thousand strikeout guys anymore.

It may be sale gets there, it's downfall. the metric we'll use to evaluate how good they were in their career will be strikeouts. It'll be strikeouts per nine. And 500 home runs is not a sure ticket to getting into the Hall of Fame. Right. Thank you, Gary Sheffield. We're 100%. I think we no longer value... The length of career is no longer a thing that's valued nearly as much. But at the same time, here's what I want to say.

500 you could put everybody who's ever had 500 home runs and be like another two guys. Or three guys. It's just A-Rod and Palmiero and those guys. want to set up some weird, you know, rule. if you get 500 home you're right. You're right. in the Hall of Fame. Because then what happens if you get like the home run guy who has 500 career hits? They're all home runs. Yeah. But and that's why I said the same thing. Is the Hall of Fame better because Gary Sheffield isn't in it?

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Right. Right. That's where it gets hard. That's where I kind of go with it. So and the Cubs are going to have the All-Star game at Wrigley Field in twenty twenty seven and they have not had an All-Star game there since nineteen ninety, which is surprising. And I wonder if that'll be the send off for Wrigley. Cub fans are coming for you now. They had to do all kinds of agree to do all kinds of safety renovation or things in front around Wrigley Field. I've been

I've been to a couple of games there. It's great. to a It's a great place. It's a really fun, fun park to go to. Uh, no, that Wrigley ain't going nowhere. They'll refurbish it before they take it down. I'd say so. Okay. So, um, let's, let's get to the topic. So I think what's really interesting. One of the things that we always talk about

we talked about both when watching baseball and when I was pitching was a waste pitch and everybody that's a baseball fan sort of colloquially knows what a waste pitch is. How many times did your dad on from the dugout here on the mound? and two, nothing too good with two strikes. And that's just like a baseball dad thing to say, you know, and it's not a unsound, you know, thing, but I'm sure you hated hearing it a million times. Right. mean, because I think it always frustrated me the same, you know, the same way it frustrates me when we're watching baseball. We always call it a non.

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I'm going to a The batter knows he's not going to low strike and the batter didn't throw at it. So that was

Kind of a non-competitive pitch back then, but we liked it. Okay. Well, if he knows I'm not going to throw his track, then he just sit there. And then like there was the incentive to like, he just gets a free ball. So there, but there are levels, right? And so I think that when we're talking about waste pitches, what, what we always talk about isn't actually a waste pitch and major league teams have gone a lot deeper in evaluating where, when a pitch is thrown, what zone a pitch kind of ends up in. Cause it's not the strike zone.

That's not just it. That's too simple. There's more than the strikes. You actually end up with four different zones. So the first zone is where the batter wants it and the pitcher doesn't want it. That's the heart of the bad zone. It is a bad zone. So this is a zone that's actually a smaller zone within within the strike zone. And that's based on each individual hitter, right? Based on each individual hitter. But it's always the same amount of space. It's just, you know, changes based on the size of the header. But it's a certain area within the center of the plate.

That's the heart of the play. Pitchers only throw about 25 % of their pitches in this zone. Batters swing at almost 75 % of pitches in this zone. They're to hit strikes. Right. And if they don't swing, it is called a strike 99.9 % of the time. Okay, that's strong. So right now, Angel Hernandez is behind the play. Well, last It's only called not called a strike when the umpire makes a grievous mistake. The shadow of the zone. This is really the overlap area.

So this is the area that kind of is around the edges of the strike zone, both that are in the strike zone and just outside the strike zone. This is the shadow of the strike zone. This call, you know, pick the pitches here. There are these are the pitches that when you're watching it on TV, you're like, I'm not sure that's one's a strike when the umpire calls it or you get annoyed that he didn't call it a strike because it's right on the edge of the box. And just to interject for a second.

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The box that we see on TV is not wholly accurate, but I think fans have kind of adapted to. That's what I'm looking at. So that's what I'm going to call it. I mean, if it's in the box, it's a strike. If it's not, it's out. Right. And so this is where pitchers are generally trying to throw the majority of their pitches. They throw about 40 % of their pitches in this range because this is where the, know, when you're watching a guy nibble, this is where he's trying to nibble into. It's hard to do well in this area. Batters generally don't have great averages on pitches in this area.

it's much harder to hit a pitch there compared to something that's in the heart of the plate. And so they only swing, they swing about just over 50 % of the time on these pitches. Well, these are still an area where the batter is swinging a good percentage of the time. So then the area that's next is the chase region. So this is a much bigger region that's fully outside the strike zone. And it's kind of basically...

within region of like within reason of like where the batter can kind of reach with his bat normally like like it's not fully but this is where you're trying to get the batter to chase something so this is a pitch that's fully off the plate and was never going to be a strike you could never call this pitch a strike at least you shouldn't and so pitchers only throw about 25 percent of their pitchers here this is where kodai sanga's ghost forks end up a lot of the time just to give you an idea and the batters swing at about 25 percent of these pitches with almost

poor almost always poor results. Very few guys are good at hitting balls in the chase region because it's really hard to and then the last area. This is the true waste pitch. These are pitches that are well off the plate into batter's boxes less than 10 % of all overall pitches are thrown into that area with only 5 % of the batter is actually still swinging at a pinch into your body where you're standing either into where you're standing or the opposite batter's box. That's how bad a pitch has to be to be in the way zone.

No matter ever wants to be swinging out a pitch and no pitcher ever wants to seems like they swing at those a lot. They swing at them about 5 % of the time. It just seems like even you see it, maybe because you just notice it. What was he thinking? One one. What it is is that the chase region is far bigger than the average person expects because we don't realize how good these guys are with being able to reach out and hit balls that are far away from them. So it is a much bigger region around the plate. That's a hittable pitch than you would think. So you have to throw the ball very far outside the bounds of the plate.

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for it to be a true waste pitch. Well, and here's the thing. I think that also we don't credit enough is the pitches are so good, right? So that the hitter can see a ball break ridiculous amount and it might start and look as a striking be way outside the strike zone because it broke the whole time. But you can't adjust quick enough to realize, no, that's way out there. And just because so this was what turned me on to the statistic was actually something I saw online. I was opposed. Somebody was talking about online.

about a class A and why he's now going through some of the trouble that he's going through because his locker has been cleaned out in Cleveland and we don't know what's happening. Well, what we think is happening is he and his teammate, Luis Garcia, think, was one of the Luis Garcia's or it was a guardians pitcher. Right. basically, were thought of as betting or, having, helping,

win money on some of their side bets. Side bets. Right. And so one of the things people think it might be connected to were prop bets on balls and strikes on like the first pitch of an inning. Cause it would be like, Klaus comes in and he throws a ball for the first pitch. Cause you can not start shockingly bet on stuff like that. And so to give you an idea, Klaus only throws about 5 % of his total pitches in

the waste zone, the league average is 8%. So he's above average. He's below average, but he's a better. He doesn't throw it there. He doesn't throw it out there. The first pitch of the inning this year, he throws it at 17.5 % in the waste area. That's a huge jump and you can bet on that and you can bet on that now, but you still get an idea that like Klasi is pretty good because he only he throws about 28 % of his pitches inside the heart of the zone. The league average is 27%. So this tells you.

that he's got elite elite stuff because he can get away with throwing his pitches. How could he miss so many times on the first pitch if he's that accurate? And he's way better than league average in terms of run value. this is a good statistics because I'm going to tell you who are the guys that got the elite kind of stuff because they get away with throwing in the heart of the zone. Guys that don't have elite stuff can't get away with throwing in the heart of the zone. You'll see that reflected in their statistics. Those are the guys that have to live in the shadow of the zone and the chase area.

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Because if they ever stray too far close to the middle of the plate, it gets crushed. So, know, a Hall of Fame pitcher, Greg Maddox, has been said to have said a number of times that he and on an own to pitch.

would not throw a waste pitch and he says, I've already got the guy down 0 and 2. Why would I want to mess around? Let me just get the guy out instead of trying to fiddle around and nibble away on out of the zone pitches and hope he swings out. I think I understand the perspective because it comes from the older school thought of like, let the hitter get himself out because you could throw a pitch that you didn't necessarily have to put maximum effort into because it was never intended up being a good pitch.

And maybe the guy just swings and gets himself out and you've got a pitch throwing at like 70 % effort basically. of course then Greg Maddux doesn't think that everybody can can do anything but throw like Greg Maddux. You know, yeah, but I can just, can put it exactly where I want it. Right. Can't everybody? The guy is not going to hit it anyway. So why would I waste it? And while he knows that, you know, that's too, he was just talking about himself in terms of the way that he approached How he looked at it.

Looked at it differently and and you know what? I think one of the things that you know, I saw a really interesting clip that you know, we forget how back of the day guys were not coached in the same way that you know, there I saw an interesting thing George Brett was talking about. He's like when he first came up to the major leagues, he was hitting like 210. He wasn't hitting at all and like he was into his second season and he wasn't hitting well and his hitting coach came up to him. He's like, listen, we got the next couple days off. Come work with me. He's like, okay.

When you're up at Charlie Lowe, I it Charlie Lowe was the coach and he's like, OK, well, hey, when you're up at a plate, what's your approach? He's like, I don't know. I hit the ball. He's like, I had never been coached on how to hit up until because everything he had done up until that point, his natural talent allowed him to succeed. He didn't have to have a plan. See the ball hit the ball. He didn't any approach. So then Charlie Lowe kind of was like, OK, this is what we're to work on. This is what we're going to have him do. And by like that point at the end of the season, he was hitting two ninety going in the last four games. And then the hitting coach got Charlie Lowe got

Almost Cooperstown (28:56.91)

fired right at the end of that season and he didn't hit well in the last four games and he's like, think if they had fired if I would have hit 300 that year. Charlie Lai was a proponent of releasing the hand off the bat, which George Brett did as well. Not everybody could do that as successfully as George Brett outweighed. But I think it just like, know, as much as coaching, some guys are just like bucking against traditional trends in these guys. Sometimes they've gotten there. They've never had the coaching to figure out to think more. And so I think that just so interesting looking at these pitches. OK.

If you're Greg Paddocks, yeah, why would I waste the pitch? It's inefficient. I know I can get them out. But the hitters have been trained as well now to to to know what not to swing at. And sometimes the stuff is so good they can't resist. But a lot of times they understand I'm just not going to swing at this particular pitch, even if it is a strike. The pitchers, think, are much because they're not worried about striking out, especially they're not worried about striking out looking. They might not like it.

but they know it's not going to reflect badly on them in the eyes of the coaches and the team if they strike out a whole lot. You're not going to be worried if you take called third strike when the guy throws a backdoor slider because you know the worst thing to do is to take a feeble cut at it and potentially like ground into a double play. That's a way worse thing you can do because it's like, okay, well, you were never going to hit the ball effectively.

Swing, why are you swinging at that pitch? And what we say when you and I sit and we watch a game together and we talk about non-competitive pitches, you're wondering what was the pitcher actually trying to do? And I'm guessing most of the time he wasn't trying to throw it that far away. It just was if I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss outside and away. And he missed way worse. It's like you're trying to throw a slider that starts on the already off the edge of the plate.

and it breaks it's maybe a strike for a second, but. Right, right. Maybe the guy just swings at it when he shouldn't, but like, wait, my outside slider started too far outside and now it just totally gets away I look silly and no one's going to swing at that ever. Right, right. And we always say it's such a bad pitch because for the batter, he can tell it's not a strike so early. He doesn't have to expend any effort on that at bat, whereas at least if it's close pitches, you have to think about it for a second. It ratchets it up the tension. There's a release when he gets a pitch off, basically. It was easier when you could just think of it as

Almost Cooperstown (31:08.716)

Waste pitches are O2 pitches that shouldn't be in the strike zone. Well, it also turned into a thing we didn't care that pitchers would throw 125 pitches in a game. Now, when your pitchers rarely throw above 100, throwing a pitch that has no intention of doing anything, you have no intention of getting it out or a strike, that's just wasting one of your precious pitches. If you only get 100 pitches in a game, you just wasted 1 % of your pitches on a worthless pitch, essentially. And I hope it's because sometimes the pitchers can't control their own stuff.

And it does things they can't Nowadays I think it is, the same way sometimes you throw a curve ball that, you know, it's a flat curve ball and it gets you, a hanging curve and it gets crushed. Sometimes you throw a slider and it's, ooh, that was not a good one. And you get away with it and the guy misses it. Right. So, you know, it can be both ways, but yeah, it's an interesting subject. And I really had not thought much about the different areas around the plate that, you know, you would go in from a percentage standpoint, it's fascinating to see that.

You know, the pitches in the zone, the batters pretty much swing at the good pitches. It's the marginal ones that they shouldn't. looking at your, your, your, individual pitches and where they're falling into it. Because you might say, look, you know, your, your changeup doesn't have enough movement on it because it's only falling from one zone into another. It's not, got enough movement on it to break across multiple zones, which means if you ever miss it's, it's not going to miss enough.

You're able to tell how you want pitches to move probably through multiple zones on this, because those are the ones that are really hard to hit. You know, that's what's saying this ghost for because that'll come in looking like it's in the heart of the plate and then it'll fall all the way into the chase zone. I guess in his case, that's why I was thinking about him, too, because that that ghost fork is, you know, a pitch that I can't imagine. He throws like 10 percent strikes with that pitch. They're basically always below the zone and the hitter just can't resist swinging at it. And if you're a hitter, you think, OK, I am never.

going to swing at that pitch except that you can't throw the hard part about it. It's probably really hard to tell the difference on site between a 95 mile an hour fastball and 85 mile an hour ghost fork. It looks the same until all of a sudden, as you start swinging, the bottom just drops out of it. And it looks like it's a fastball that's right down the middle that you can crush and wait, it's gone. He's struggling a little bit right now. But when he's good, you know, it's unfair.

Almost Cooperstown (33:25.358)

Right. guys look silly. Even when he is not good, they don't hit that pitch. Yeah. They're just able. I think when he's not. But they don't swing at it. And so they're not. That's why he's walking guys and stuff like that. So, yeah, he lives outside the meat of the zone. And that's a pitch that probably a batter is better off never swinging at. Oh, for sure. So. Well, OK. Well, that's a good one for this week. And we'll be back with we're kind of enjoying doing this stat of the week thing. so reach out to us. Let us know if there's any stats you want us to talk about, if there's anything that I want to do like like.

good old fashioned RBI's or something like that, like the hated status of RBI's. But why are RBI's hated? Aren't they wonderful? Aren't they important? Why don't we look into that next week?