What is up and welcome to episode eight of the Alex Fast show. So a quick refresher on what we're doing here.

Every single MLB pitcher is in the big leagues for a reason. Maybe their arsenal possesses something unique or they have a distinct release point that allows them to succeed.

And what this show wants to find out is what that reason is. Every week, I'm going to be doing an exhaustive dive on just one pitcher where we're going to peel back the layers on what makes that pitcher tick. And in the process, I'll be breaking down

at least one high-level pitching concept per episode. We've talked about induced vertical

break. We've talked about seam shifted wick. We've talked about vertical approach angle all in past

episodes. Every day I am learning more about pitching, and the point of this podcast

is to learn more about pitching with you. Today is a very special episode. The past couple of

weeks, I have not gone to Twitter for a poll because they kept choosing the most popular person,

and I was like, you know what, I actually want to break down someone who might not necessarily

get a lot of love. But this week, I went back to Twitter, and I included our very first reliever. Now, that might not have been fair, because as someone who,

you know, is very active on Orioles Twitter, maybe some of my followers skew towards an Orioles

bias. And I put Felix Batista in the poll. I really thought Blake Snell was going to win, but Felix

Battista won the poll. So today, in episode eight, we're going to be breaking down our first

reliever. And with Felix Batista, we'll do a small breakdown on what Stuff Plus is. Obviously,

something that you've heard about a lot, but maybe you haven't really had a really good breakdown.

So we'll get into that a little bit.

All right. Apologies if you hear my dog in the background. Maybe you can't, but if you can,

she's trying to get warm on the couch, even though it's 95 degrees outside in L.A. right now.

She's trying to get herself comfortable. All right. So who's Felix Vautista on a higher level?

Currently, what? I think you can probably say,

fine, just to provide the caveat, arguably, let's say arguably one of the best relievers in baseball right now.

He's pretty dominant, just like everywhere. So he's got a 92 ERA, 0.92ER, 0.92ER, leads all of qualified relievers, an 86 whip, 0.86 whip, fourth among qualified

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