Will New Pitch Data Help Us Quantify Deception?
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2024
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss a report from ESPN's Jesse Rogers that MLB might consider a future rule requiring a six-inning minimum for starting pitchers before taking a deep dive into pitch angles and how future data in this area might make it easier to quantify deception.
Plus, they discuss a recent story that Eno wrote with Britt Ghiroli about the Orioles' success in developing hitters, and they play their first ever installment of 'Name That Dude'.
Rundown
0:57 MLB Considering a Six-Inning Minimum for Starting Pitchers?
14:57 Will Pitch Release Angle Data Help Us Quantify Deception?
23:03 Finding Ideal Horizontal Movement on Fastballs With Release Angle
37:49 What’s In the O’s Secret Sauce with Hitting Development?
44:47 Scouting for Curiosity Within Makeup
54:46 Do Players on Bad Team Get Bored?
1:03:49 Name That Dude
Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris
Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper
Follow Trevor on Twitter: @IAmTrevorMay
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
Related Reading
Jesse Rogers' six-inning minimum (ESPN): https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40847173/mlb-rule-changes-2024-six-inning-starting-pitcher-injuries-tommy-john
Michael Rosen on pitch release angles (FanGraphs): https://blogs.fangraphs.com/its-release-angles-all-the-way-down/
Eno & Britt on the Orioles' hitting development:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5696854/2024/08/15/orioles-hitters-development-vertical-bat-angle/
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Trevor May
Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels. It's Thursday, August 15th. Derek and Riper, you know, Sarah's Trevor May here with you on this episode. |
| 0:21.4 | We dig into pitch release angles as a way to possibly quantify deception. |
| 0:27.2 | So big topic that we'll try to break down, make it more digestible for people like me, especially. |
| 0:32.4 | That's what Eno and Trevor are here to do. |
| 0:34.8 | We're going to talk about some of the Orioles secret sauce and scouting for curiosity. The nature of being inquisitive, different things that make players more adaptable. It might be part of that secret sauce. We'll dig into that. Great story that Eno wrote with Bridgerolley that went up on the athletic earlier today. We've got a new game called Name That Dude that we'll squeeze in at the very end of the show. |
| 0:54.8 | And we start today with some news. |
| 0:56.4 | It's a report from ESPN's Jesse Rogers that they may, in Major League Baseball, |
| 1:02.4 | be kicking around the idea of a six-inning minimum for starting pitchers. |
| 1:06.8 | Because, yeah, you know, let's just add more stuff that could break pitchers. |
| 1:11.0 | There would be some guardrails. |
| 1:12.6 | Throwing 100 pitches before you get through 6, you could leave the game for that. |
| 1:16.5 | You can leave with an injury, which would require an IL stint, so you can't just game the system there. |
| 1:21.8 | Or if you give up four or more earned runs, that might be another way to leave a game early. |
| 1:30.2 | Trevor, why? Why are we doing this? |
| 1:35.8 | Why are we so adamant that we need a requirement like this? It's done under this guise that people only show up to watch starting pitchers and that anyone and everyone could do this, |
| 1:40.8 | but simply choose not to in the pursuit of, well, nastiness mostly. |
| 1:45.9 | Honestly, it's under the assumption that people only show up to watch hitters. |
| 1:50.5 | So the funny thing is, people go, why do we want to increase offense? |
| 1:58.4 | And at the end of the day, they want pitchers to do worse more often. |
| 2:03.1 | And a good way to do that is to restrict their freedom to do to make, to do strategic things. |
| 2:09.8 | And that would be another way to do it. |
| 2:12.0 | Now, the interesting thing is now we've had a long conversation about injuries and things. |
... |
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