Speaker 1: Now Pitching Pitching Ninja. Rob Friedman joining us right now
Speaker 1: back on FT and happy opening day to you, Rob,
Speaker 1: and also happy opening book to you. Right this is
Speaker 1: the first book you're putting out there, so give us
Speaker 1: the goods on that and we'll mix it into the conversation.
Speaker 2: I'm excited, absolutely, I'm excited too, like both for opening
Speaker 2: day and Opening book day. So I wrote a book
Speaker 2: about like how pitching has changed over the years, and
Speaker 2: how pitchers are now engineered to be dominant and I
Speaker 2: feel sorry for hitters.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go there right off the bat. And you
Speaker 1: can also, of course tell us some of the pitching
Speaker 1: that you're exciting you're excited to see this year, whether
Speaker 1: it's rookies, new pitches, the whole deal. But tell us
Speaker 1: more about that topic from the book. How much has
Speaker 1: pitching development advanced in comparison to hitting development.
Speaker 3: Well, like for pitching, it used to be either you
Speaker 3: have it or don't.
Speaker 2: We said you couldn't teach velocity, or you couldn't teach
Speaker 2: someone how to spin a ball. It turns out you can,
Speaker 2: and that's why you're seeing pictures throw a lot harder now.
Speaker 2: It used to be through luck or you know, back
Speaker 2: in the day they used to be farm strong. Now
Speaker 2: they can be in the weight room. We used to
Speaker 2: think that would make pictures too muscle bound, but it doesn't.
Speaker 2: If you train them correctly, we can break down somebody's
Speaker 2: mechanics improve them very quickly. We can do things like
Speaker 2: use high speed cameras to watch how the pitches, how
Speaker 2: the ball's coming off someone's fingers, and measure it and say,
Speaker 2: if you just moved it a little bit over, we
Speaker 2: can make this pitch even nastier.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of things that pictures.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying necessary that the pitchers are even better today,
Speaker 2: like they're not necessarily better athletes, but they have a
Speaker 2: lot more at their disposal to help them train, and
Speaker 2: maybe that some guys back in the day would have
Speaker 2: been way better today if they pitched today because of
Speaker 2: all the training.
Speaker 4: One of the stories you actually have in your prelimb
Speaker 4: to the book is about your son Jack and how
Speaker 4: this like set you on the journey. He went from
Speaker 4: seventy seven to ninety five and then he ended up
Speaker 4: having labrum's issues. The first thing that's brought up when
Speaker 4: I was in Tripa talking to young pitchers what does
Speaker 4: it take to make the big leagues? And I said,
Speaker 4: nobody wants to just make the big leagues. They want
Speaker 4: to stay in the big leagues. So is all this
Speaker 4: information and all this ability to spin it, to throw
Speaker 4: it harder getting guys hurt? And is there more value
Speaker 4: in getting there but not having a long career than
Speaker 4: getting there and having an average career that's longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great question. Unfortunately, to get
Speaker 2: your foot in the door today, here's a reason why
Speaker 2: people sit behind the backstop with radar guns. They do
Speaker 2: it because that's how they judge initially, how you get in.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that you constantly always want you're there,
Speaker 2: have to throw as hard as you can. And as
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, I think the trend now is
Speaker 2: to throw many, many different pitches because it makes it
Speaker 2: tougher for a hit or to hit if they don't
Speaker 2: know what's coming. If you have eight different pitch types
Speaker 2: and you can command them, that's as good as somebody
Speaker 2: just can blow you away with one hundred and three
Speaker 2: and maybe a little less stressful on your army. So
Speaker 2: you're seeing guys like Paul's schemes to versify his his arsenal.
Speaker 2: He doesn't top out at one oh two every game.
Speaker 2: He's backed off it a little bit, but can keep
Speaker 2: hitters off balance throwing them a bunch of different looks.
Speaker 2: So I think you're seeing a lot of that to
Speaker 2: help people stay around, but in order to get in
Speaker 2: the door. The problem is if you don't light up
Speaker 2: a radar gun and a coach takes or a scout
Speaker 2: makes a bet on you, you're if you're wrong. If
Speaker 2: that scout is wrong, it's on them. It's their judgment
Speaker 2: that was wrong. If you lit up the radar gun
Speaker 2: and they said this guy throws one oh two, he
Speaker 2: got to draft them and you don't and the pitcher
Speaker 2: doesn't succeed, then the scout did what he was supposed
Speaker 2: to do kind of and the pitcher just didn't have
Speaker 2: it or did it, you know, broke down. So it
Speaker 2: is there's a little bit of a blame game going.
Speaker 2: I think that goes on with analytics in general. But uh,
Speaker 2: I think there's I would love to see it come
Speaker 2: back to a little bit more gamesmanship. I have no
Speaker 2: problem with that at all.
Speaker 5: Rob In your book in earlier you just talked about
Speaker 5: how pitching analytics are ahead and in your book, thank you.
Speaker 5: I got a line in your book, so I'll be
Speaker 5: expecting your royalties at some point.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: But I said it, and I've been saying this for years,
Speaker 5: that pitching analytics are so far ahead of pitchers, And
Speaker 5: in your book it's kind of what I said, like
Speaker 5: you can tell a guy and you can just slow
Speaker 5: motion cameras, just move your finger or do this or
Speaker 5: do that, and it changes everything about the way they
Speaker 5: throw the ball and the way the ball comes out
Speaker 5: of your hand. Is there any way for hitters to
Speaker 5: catch up? Because I mentioned the trajet machine, But you know,
Speaker 5: you talk to organizations, they don't love it. They don't
Speaker 5: say it's the best thing in the world. Yeah, it's cool,
Speaker 5: it's a cool gimmick. But how do hitters catch up
Speaker 5: to what pitchers are doing? Because hitters don't have slow
Speaker 5: motion cameras. Every swing is a little bit different, every
Speaker 5: pitch is a little bit different. There's not a perfect swing, right,
Speaker 5: So how to hit catch up to what pitchers are doing?
Speaker 5: Because it doesn't seem like it's possible.
Speaker 2: It's really hard because baseball's a weird sport. The offense
Speaker 2: doesn't have the ball like the pitcher really is on
Speaker 2: offense and the hitter's reacting. The hitters a counterpuncher. So
Speaker 2: I think that's what makes it tough, is that if
Speaker 2: I'm a pitcher, ideally I should be able to spin
Speaker 2: the ball away I want, put it where I want,
Speaker 2: throw it as hard as I want, and I know
Speaker 2: the heat map of the hitter, so I can put
Speaker 2: the ball exactly where that hitter's weak spot is. I
Speaker 2: think the way for hitters to catch up Number one
Speaker 2: traject does help in seeing a nasty pitch over and
Speaker 2: over again, so you might be able to make that
Speaker 2: pitch a little less nasty when you see it, So
Speaker 2: that might help. But I think other things like potentially
Speaker 2: AI and picking up pitch tipping or something like that,
Speaker 2: if a hitter knows what's coming, he's got an advantage.
Speaker 2: And if you can just like if there are guys
Speaker 2: who tip, I think it would be very useful to
Speaker 2: do things like that, doing your homework, looking at your
Speaker 2: own scout report against you, even different bats.
Speaker 3: For different pictures.
Speaker 2: You could do stuff like that, but in the end,
Speaker 2: pictures I think are always going to have somewhat of
Speaker 2: an advantage.
Speaker 4: Who's the pioneer of this. You mentioned a few people
Speaker 4: early on in your book about Tom House, Nolan Ryan,
Speaker 4: and not one of them individually, but how they all
Speaker 4: got to get how they got together and helped each other,
Speaker 4: going to Randy Johnson helping him, and then even you
Speaker 4: mentioned later on in your book about like a Trevor
Speaker 4: Bauer who has you know, kind of gotten a little
Speaker 4: bit of backlash. But who do you feel like is
Speaker 4: the pioneer of this development age? And then who do
Speaker 4: you feel like is doing it the best right now?
Speaker 2: So you daled it with Tom House. I think Tom
Speaker 2: House was the first person to ask why. He saw
Speaker 2: Nolan Ryan and he saw Sandy Kofax, and He's like,
Speaker 2: these guys are just people.
Speaker 3: Why are they doing what they do? How do they
Speaker 3: go about this?
Speaker 2: So he broke it down, built his own biomechanics lab
Speaker 2: in his house. Cost him his marriage, he says, look
Speaker 2: at pictures all the time and try to figure out
Speaker 2: what does what. So he is really the start of
Speaker 2: this whole thing. Guys like Kyle Body at drive Line
Speaker 2: took it to the next level. I mean, he's got
Speaker 2: an engineering background, so he started looking at it at
Speaker 2: stuff from a engineering or computer programming sense. Step by step,
Speaker 2: and you're right, Bauer took it into the clubhouse where
Speaker 2: like him or not, and I understand.
Speaker 3: Obviously the backlash, but.
Speaker 2: He certainly did break down a lot of barriers, weighted balls,
Speaker 2: high speed cameras, rap sodo, just training, biometrics and training
Speaker 2: and all that. Like the game, there's a little bit
Speaker 2: of debt ode to him is where the game is
Speaker 2: today that pictures are now taking. For granted, someone like
Speaker 2: Paul Skeens has really perfected. He's taken a lot from
Speaker 2: a lot of people. If you watch his warm up
Speaker 2: throwing footballs that's a Tom House thing. He's got a
Speaker 2: connection ball that's a Ron Wolforth type thing. So he's
Speaker 2: got a lot of different drill that he does.
Speaker 3: I think he has perfected.
Speaker 2: He's also perfected the personality that goes along with it
Speaker 2: because he doesn't rub people the wrong way. He's a
Speaker 2: competitor that goes in, listens, synthesizes information, and goes out
Speaker 2: and competes. And I think that's kind of, to me,
Speaker 2: my perfect pitching model. There's no perfect, but he's kind
Speaker 2: of where that goes.
Speaker 4: Perfect pitching model is the one that stays healthy, has
Speaker 4: success for twenty years and then he's the anomaly, not
Speaker 4: the not the norm. We are seeing all of this,
Speaker 4: all this technology. Every bullpen guy or every bullpen has
Speaker 4: a guy that throws one hundred throws ninety nine miles
Speaker 4: an hour. If you're not throwing ninety seven in high school,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. But why do we not ever reach
Speaker 4: where Eradus Chatman was, why do we not ever every
Speaker 4: like we're peeking out? Is there something in the future
Speaker 4: that's going to get us to that one oh seven
Speaker 4: one eight category?
Speaker 3: Likely?
Speaker 2: So, but I can't promise you they won't break down
Speaker 2: if they do that, because as you know, as a competitor,
Speaker 2: as an athlete, you know you're trying to be you
Speaker 2: redline your body right, You're fighting through stuff. If you
Speaker 2: see a number attached to you, you're going to try
Speaker 2: to achieve it.
Speaker 3: And beat it.
Speaker 2: That is just what you do as a competitor and
Speaker 2: an athlete. So you're always going to push your body
Speaker 2: as far as it can go. No matter what that
Speaker 2: number is, You're going to want to eke out a
Speaker 2: little bit more so, I think you're always going to
Speaker 2: run into that ceiling. The key is knowing your body
Speaker 2: there may be technologies that can keep you healthier, understanding
Speaker 2: that rest is important and recovery is important, monitoring that.
Speaker 3: But will pitchers continue to break down? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Probably until we like you'd have to tell what the
Speaker 2: weak point was before it would break, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe like car monitoring systems, that warning light comes on.
Speaker 2: You know, I think we have stuff that's being developed,
Speaker 2: but that's going to be the main problem.
Speaker 5: A guy who seems to be in a development crisis
Speaker 5: is Roki Sazaki. What can he do? What tools does
Speaker 5: he need to figure out to get to where people
Speaker 5: thought he would be once he came over to the
Speaker 5: major leagues?
Speaker 3: You know he does.
Speaker 2: He is a little bit more complicated mechanics than someone
Speaker 2: like Yoshinobayamamoto, who is as streamlined as can be. I
Speaker 2: also think some of it is almost overthinking his mechanics.
Speaker 2: To me, at least, listening to every interview. Every time
Speaker 2: he struggles, it seems to be, well, it was my
Speaker 2: mechanics were off.
Speaker 3: I did this wrong, I did that wrong.
Speaker 2: Most pitchers don't lose command because of their mechanics. They're
Speaker 2: losing command because of a focus type thing or not
Speaker 2: understanding where their misses tend to be. It could be
Speaker 2: a variety of different things. But I think if you
Speaker 2: start feeling like you have to be at one hundred
Speaker 2: percent mechanics wise and physical wise every game to throw strikes,
Speaker 2: it sets up a spiral where all of a sudden
Speaker 2: something goes wrong, and that goes wrong again and goes
Speaker 2: wrong again. Think he's in a situation now where when
Speaker 2: he starts throwing balls, he starts throwing pitches out of
Speaker 2: the zone. It starts getting in his head and he
Speaker 2: starts trying to make adjustments and he just can't do it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you do. Sometimes you have.
Speaker 2: To figure out a way to compete through it, and
Speaker 2: it's not always a mechanical thing, all right.
Speaker 4: You quote tweeted one of the conversations that we had
Speaker 4: about aces, Andy McColl and I were in we're in
Speaker 4: cahoots on the fact that Yamamoto is not an ACE
Speaker 4: yet yet, and visceral hate exploded on the internet. What
Speaker 4: is your list of aces and what is your or
Speaker 4: what is your criteria of an ace, because I think
Speaker 4: people stopped listening to what the criteria of an ACE
Speaker 4: was even you just brought in the picture of him
Speaker 4: having a great postseason and one great season in the
Speaker 4: big leagues. So what's your criteria for aces in the
Speaker 4: big leagues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in fairness, I don't think for Yamamoto it's
Speaker 2: one great season. You're talking about a legendary pitcher in
Speaker 2: Japan who won three Solar More Awards and MVPs and
Speaker 2: legendary low eras comes over to the States, had a
Speaker 2: solid first season and then an excellent second season and
Speaker 2: dominated in the postseason, pitching on one day's rest in
Speaker 2: the World Series.
Speaker 3: To me, and I think to most pitchers that.
Speaker 2: Watch that competitiveness and stuff, they would say that as
Speaker 2: an ace without a doubt. People were like I talked
Speaker 2: to Ryan Dempster after that. He was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: that was what I love about the game. I've talked
Speaker 2: to other guys like this is an ace. This is
Speaker 2: an old school horse. So to me, that is that's
Speaker 2: my criteria. It is you know it when you see it.
Speaker 2: There has to be stats to back it up, but
Speaker 2: it's it's being counted on in big situations for your
Speaker 2: team to come through and carry that team and go
Speaker 2: relatively deep into starts, or put your career on the
Speaker 2: line like he did and come back on one Day's rest.
Speaker 2: To me, that's a no doubter that he's an ace.
Speaker 2: Paul Skins obviously, Logan Webb's an ace. You have a
Speaker 2: lot of them throughout the league. Garrett Crochet is an ace.
Speaker 2: It's guys that you know you can count on that
Speaker 2: make me want to tune in, and they're proven themselves
Speaker 2: over at least a full season, and you feel like
Speaker 2: there's no reason they can't continue with that.
Speaker 4: Who's next?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 5: Who's next?
Speaker 4: On the list?
Speaker 5: If guys like Verlander, Scherzer, guys like that are starting
Speaker 5: to get a little bit older, Kershaw's gone now, who's
Speaker 5: the next wave behind scooball Schemes? I guess you could
Speaker 5: put Web in there.
Speaker 4: Who's next?
Speaker 5: Who's the young guys that you've watched that you say
Speaker 5: can be the next let's say three best in the
Speaker 5: next ten years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've really liked what I've seen out of
Speaker 2: I think Hunter Green is on the verge of do
Speaker 2: you consider him an ace? I think that he is
Speaker 2: a guy that I would if he has a strong
Speaker 2: year this year, he's an ace. He's a guy that
Speaker 2: I like watching pitch and he's you know, kind of
Speaker 2: one of the next guys I can see in that category.
Speaker 3: Bubba Chandler, a.
Speaker 2: New guy I think is going to be very, very good.
Speaker 2: I think Nolan McLain for the Mets is a guy
Speaker 2: I can't stop watching because his stuff is made for
Speaker 2: pitching Ninja, because it's just eye poppingly good, like twenty
Speaker 2: inches here, twenty inches east west, throwing ninety nine and
Speaker 2: a competitor. That's a guy I can see up there.
Speaker 2: Chase Burns is another guy who I've loved since he
Speaker 2: was in college, and I think he's got unhittable stuff
Speaker 2: when he's on.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, what about show Hey? A lot's always
Speaker 4: asked about, like the one year where he didn't pitch
Speaker 4: and he became an MVP just as a DH and
Speaker 4: he launched his he launched his hitting to another level.
Speaker 4: Show Hey when you watch him, and I think last
Speaker 4: night he just had ten punchouts in like four innings.
Speaker 4: It was ridiculous against the Angels. But there's that. But
Speaker 4: do you think if he just p he could be
Speaker 4: a cy Young Award winner or do you think he
Speaker 4: just slightly is outside of your everybody's an ace category?
Speaker 2: He has got what he's on, he's got who has
Speaker 2: better stuff? Like legit throws over a hundred sweeper that's wicked,
Speaker 2: splitter that can't be hit, constantly improving a tax the zone.
Speaker 2: You see him come through in big moments like if
Speaker 2: you want, if you want somebody on the bump in
Speaker 2: a big moment, a competitor and somebody who's going to
Speaker 2: dig deep and show you something that you've never seen before.
Speaker 2: That's the guy that I would love to see out there.
Speaker 2: So he meets my criteria other than the innings part.
Speaker 3: Because you know, I'd like to see, you know, more
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: But I think he's absolutely a pitcher. He's absolutely pitch
Speaker 2: for pitch as good as anybody in baseball. The question
Speaker 2: is how much do you want him to pitch because
Speaker 2: his hitting is so good?
Speaker 4: All right, So we're making predictions. I think some people
Speaker 4: have it. It's easy like Cy Young Awards, American League,
Speaker 4: National League. I want to hear your top three finishers
Speaker 4: in the in the Cy Young Award for the National
Speaker 4: League and American League this season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, I've for the American League.
Speaker 2: I've got to stay on the schoolbol train until school
Speaker 2: ball shows signs of fading. I think that that would
Speaker 2: be tough to back off of him. I would then go,
Speaker 2: I mean Crochet also, he's he's on, he's so good,
Speaker 2: So that's that's another guy that I would find hard
Speaker 2: to back off of.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: I mean Max Freed is always there. I can go
Speaker 2: with Max Freed in the NL. I mean, Skeens is
Speaker 2: just scratching the Skenes is just now like how many
Speaker 2: years have you even pitched full time? So it's hard to
Speaker 2: say anything negative about Paul Skeens's chances of winning another
Speaker 2: cy Young So he would have to be number.
Speaker 3: One on my list. Number two.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can see someone like I mean Christopher
Speaker 2: Sanchez had a great year. I'm probably going Logan Web
Speaker 2: maybe and then maybe a surprise. I mean, I would
Speaker 2: love to see and this is more picking with my heart,
Speaker 2: but I would love to see someone like Noelan McLain
Speaker 2: have a solid season this year and really open some
Speaker 2: eyes because his stuff is that good. His stuff is
Speaker 2: as good as anybody in baseball, maybe better than anybody
Speaker 2: in baseball.
Speaker 1: And he'd been doing the two way thing, so now
Speaker 1: he's just focusing on pitching, right, So you feel like
Speaker 1: there's still more that he can unlock. This is his
Speaker 1: first full season two. Feel like we've been talking about
Speaker 1: him a lot, but you know, because of the WBC
Speaker 1: in this strong debut last year, but this is his
Speaker 1: first full ride.
Speaker 3: Yep, and had a velo jump in the WBC.
Speaker 2: I mean he had what was mostly topping out at
Speaker 2: ninety eight and he'd ninety nine point two. He told
Speaker 2: me he's never hit one hundred at any level and
Speaker 2: I'm going to take credit for it.
Speaker 3: If he does this year, well we'll give it to you.
Speaker 1: And also we'll shout out the book on the way out.
Speaker 1: So tell us you know you can get it wherever, right,
Speaker 1: is that how books work these days?
Speaker 2: Absolutely anywhere, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble. I'll even deliver you
Speaker 2: on if you really want.
Speaker 1: It that bad, well depending on where you live, but yes,
Speaker 1: maybe at a ballpark. Unhittable is the name of the book.
Speaker 1: Rob Freeman aka Pitching Ninjur. We love having you on.
Speaker 1: Congrats again on the book. Happy opening day to you
Speaker 1: and we'll catch up soon.
Speaker 3: Thanks thanks for having me on.