Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.
Happy Thursday.
This is another Thursday episode.
We're coming at you now three days a week.
I've got Kenji with me.
We're going through some league news today.
So nothing crazy noteworthy in terms of game news or anything like that.
But there's some really interesting things that we wanted to touch on.
Some injuries, some people that are coming back from injury.
And then Kenji's favorite talking point, he's been on me all day about this, Roki Sasaki.
So I'm not even going to dilly dally.
I'm going to jump right in.
Kenji, Sasaki pitched yesterday.
How do you make you feel?
It went a lot better than I expected.
And I watched him pitch in the WBC, but to me, the splitter looked better at spring training
than it did during the WBC to me.
Like there were some of those splitters that he threw that kind of blew me away.
Just how much movement it had.
And then you watch him pump 99, 98, 97.
It's pretty special.
And to think that he could, he's only 23.
His fastball, I did notice a bit of movement more than I was expecting as well.
I remember he backdoored a righty hitter.
He threw a fastball.
I think it was a four senior.
I threw it outside and kind of slightly tailed inside just enough to hit the corner of the
strike zone.
And I thought, oh, that's what I was talking about.
He needs that.
He threw a two seam or a sinker.
I don't know.
I've tried to figure it out.
People say it's a four seam.
People say those only he throws four seam split finger slider is what I've heard.
But I can't seem to figure it out because we don't have any advanced stats.
But well, I have some advanced stats for you that I've found while I've been looking this
up.
So for those who don't know, a splitter is a pitch that is designed to essentially like
the bottom falls out of it so it drops really steeply to hitter.
So they see it.
It's called tunneling where you like a pitcher tries to throw the ball out of the same spot
in his release and a splitter essentially follows kind of the similar path as a fastball
looks similar in grip, but the bottom just falls out of it.
It's eight to 12 miles an hour slower than a fastball on average.
And the bottom falls out of it.
It's intended to be a very low spin pitch because you're trying to get the ball to drop
as much as you can.
That's why they really like stuff it between their index finger and your middle finger.
That's what she said.
And so essentially, his splitter has extremely, extremely low spin even for the major leagues.
They said, I'm looking at Major League Baseball put out an article said it has spin relative
to a knuckleball because it's just a spin killing splitter.
It's crazy that the bottom just drops straight out of it.
So it doesn't necessarily dance like a knuckleball, but the bottom falls out of it.
It's such like a dead ball.
So you're expecting that 98, 99, but then you get this like 80 something mile an hour
just bottom falls out of it.
So it's filthy.
I mean, he's got the potential to be phenomenal, but we knew that.
But then we kind of talked about this.
The big thing I've been saying is he's a super straight fastball sometimes.
I guess I can't say it's every time now because I did see some movement.
But I did see that straight fastball on an 02 count right down the pipe.
And I wasn't really sure.
I was watching, I watched it twice over and I was watching where Will Smith commanded
the ball and it looked like he was holding it inside, inside fastball, which I was a
bit confused about.
But while you'd go inside fastball with a really straight fastball on an 02 count, that
kind of caught me off guard.
He did shake off, I think a splitter or a slider.
He did shake.
So Sasaki did shake off Smith on that 02 count.
Which is good.
It takes some guts to shake off this early.
But I don't know.
It was a weird place to call a pitch.
I would assume you'd either want it high in or low away, just in one of the corners.
And after that, it took a couple more pitches for him to get the batter out.
He was pretty obvious he wasn't going to go fastball after that.
Or if he did, it's just he shook him out in the end with a nice splitter.
But overall, it was really impressive.
It seemed like players were pretty shocked at what they were seeing.
And it's exciting to see how he gets implemented to that rotation.
I did hear that he's going to be starting game two in the Tokyo series.
That's awesome.
I mean, why would he not?
It's great for him.
Which I'm stoked for the Tokyo series.
We're going to talk about it in a minute.
But I want to emphasize how crazy this splitter is.
So in the history of the Statcast era, which goes back to pre-2016, history of the Statcast
era, they've been tracking RPMs on pitches, velocity, all sorts of advanced metrics.
Roki Sasaki, the pitches that he threw in spring training, those splitters, the lowest
spin rate of any splitter in the major leagues ever since Statcast has been tracking metrics.
Roki 519 RPMs, Emmanuel Ramirez, 577 RPMs, and Logan Gilbert, who already is a wipeout
splitter, 589 RPMs.
So Roki, it's tough to quantify how much a 70 RPM difference makes, but all you need
to know as fans is it's filthy.
And they've got a map here where they plotted where the pitches are going.
And typically you'll see a lot of pitchers throw changeups, and changeups are kind of
well known to the bottom falls out of it.
It either goes straight down or drops to the arm side of the pitcher.
So if you're throwing, if you're right handed pitcher, the ball kind of fade away down and
in to a right handed batter.
If you're a right handed pitcher, vice versa, if you're left handed.
The advantage Roki has is his splitter is moving both ways.
So not only does it like, yeah, so not only, and that's part of the really low spin is
not only does the bottom fall out of it, but it can move to the right.
It can move to the left a little bit.
So it's tough to like sit on that and be like, okay, if he's going to throw a split, it's
going to be middle in.
You have to, you have to now protect against the outside splitter too, because you don't
know where it's going to go.
It's a filthy, filthy, filthy pitch.
I think a lot of it has to do with his arm angle too.
His, his big body, long arms.
I don't know how to describe it, but cause he has an overhand.
Um, yeah, it's only you and I can see what I'm doing, but it's an overhand and I've always
been a fan of, I'm a bigger fan of overhand and uh, I like a nine, what's like a 90 degrees
like a three quarter.
Yeah.
Like I'm a bigger, I don't, I'm not a big fan of a three quarters angle.
I'm always a big fan of overhand.
Okay.
I think you can do more pitches like Tyler glass now, for instance, his slider, um, or
whatever he calls it, I think is really his arm angles really overhand.
Um, I think it's, and I think you can do more with pitches.
I've always thought, or at least they move a bit more differently than what most people
do, but that's just my personal opinion.
But I'm, uh, it was exciting to see, um, it was positive.
It was encouraging.
Yeah.
And, uh, we'll see how he does.
I'm sure he'll pitch one more time in spring training and then he'll be pitching the Dodgers
in the Tokyo series.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want this to go to waste either.
Uh, chase petty, who was a first round pick last year of the Cincinnati reds also threw
in that game.
And I watched both rookie siloed and petty siloed petty look good.
He gave up a homer to Mookie, but it's clear the difference that there's even with like
a first round pick chase petty to 23 year old or however old rookie is like, there's
still a significant gap.
You're like, okay, rookie is much more polished and maybe that's his time in the NPB versus
time in like division one college, but like rookie still, you can just tell he has that
little bit of an edge on him.
So thrilled to see him in the big leagues and healthy and what a prospect, huh?
Fantastic.
Unbelievable.
Um, and that's, that's rookie Sasaki.
I wanted to say, if you guys haven't seen the trailer for the Tokyo series, go watch
it.
It's a, it's pretty sick.
Who was a demon slayer?
They got to come in the slayer theme.
It was pretty, it was really well done.
I remember last year's was pretty dope too.
Um, for Korea.
Yeah.
This year's awesome.
So go check it out.
Go check it out.
We're going to get, we're going to break down the Tokyo series as it gets closer.
Uh, okay.
On this weekend's episode and then into next week, we're going to be like drilling down,
but I'm excited.
I mean, we're two weeks from baseball, from actual like games that we can watch and that
count towards regular season, which is thrilling.
If that's all you got on Roki, then I'm going to rattle off some injury stuff.
Let's hear, let's hear what's going on in the league.
Okay.
So I'm going to start with the O's because we're a fair weather podcast and I'm, and
I'm a dire podcast.
Non-biased fair weather podcast.
Uh, of course, Felix Baltista made his return to big league action after 500.
56 days, something like that.
He came back and he was hitting upper nineties.
He still got the good splitter, which doesn't have the same RPMs as Roki does, but his
is still also very good.
Fantastic.
And so that was really great to see Felix back on the mound.
O's need him desperately.
I've been on it all off season that the O's last year, they won 91 games.
Of course they had Corbin burns, they had Anthony Santander, but they didn't have anybody
on the backend.
They had Craig Kimbrell in the backend.
They still found a way to win 91 games and they had a losing record in one run games.
I think Felix and the way that him being back will trickle through the rest of the bullpen
is going to really help the team as a whole.
So I'm really glad Felix is back on the flip side.
Gunnar Henderson has a right intercostal strain, which kind of puts his status for opening
day in jeopardy.
The Brandon Hyde and some of the reporters are being pretty cryptic about it.
From what I can gather, it's the muscles in your rib cage area.
And so a mild right intercostal strain can range from anywhere between a couple of weeks
to a little bit longer.
If it lingers, who knows?
They're going to be super, super careful with him.
He's like, I'm glad it's not an oblique.
Yes, 100%.
He is the pride and joy.
And it was a really like strange moment that he tweaked it.
So hopefully, you know, it goes away here in a little bit and he'll be all right.
So but that's the, that's the deal with Gunnar Henderson.
Need him back.
I'm going to cry if he's hurt.
Adolis Garcia, he is hurt.
Now do you know exactly what he's hurt with?
I can't remember what he was hurt with.
I'm going to find out.
I didn't even know he was hurt.
Yeah.
Adolis Garcia has got a problem.
Yeah, the size of his brain is what it is.
He's got.
Yeah, he he was scratched from the team's lineup yesterday due to a left oblique injury.
It's being labeled as pretty mild and not quite a grade one from Bruce Bochy, which
is good.
But anytime you hear oblique, you get nervous.
I mean, same thing with Wyatt Langford.
Wyatt Langford has a mild and actual mild oblique strain.
You're kidding.
He does.
He's expected to return to the lineup this week, but he does have an oblique strain.
It's tough when you're this early in the season, you see a couple of these.
Why would you play him?
Let him rest.
Yeah.
Speaking of obliques, Christian Walker has an oblique problem.
Left oblique soreness for Christian Walker, which he missed some time last year for the
D backs with left oblique soreness.
So that's a big deal.
Houston obviously gives him a large payday.
You want that guy on the field.
He's a big part of their lineup.
Need him in there.
Hopefully they were kind of in that period where we're now, I think three weeks from
tomorrow is opening day.
And so you're like, let's not push these guys.
Let's just get their timing down.
Like, let's not get him hurt.
Let's make it to the start of the season.
And so you'd rather this this kind of thing, this like oblique soreness pop up now rather
than like the days before opening day.
But a good point.
But still, you never want to see it regardless.
Yeah.
Any takes on those ones before we before I keep going?
Painful ones.
But yeah, there's no point of playing them anymore.
I don't think just because it oblique can come back immediately and just ruin you for
a couple months.
So I just just don't play them.
I mean, they're going to be your starters anyways, all three of them, especially white
Langford.
You cannot have white Langford hurt if you're the Rangers.
So yeah, you need I would I would I would I would I said them.
Yeah.
Sean Murphy for the Braves.
He's expected to miss four to six weeks with the cracked left left rib that he suffered
after getting hit by a pitch, which that's brutal.
Never want to see that in spring training.
Somebody getting hit and breaking a rib.
So heart goes out to Sean Murphy.
He'll probably miss opening day than he will miss opening day.
So I mean, it's good news if you're one of the Braves backups, maybe you get a little
extra time, something to prove yourself.
But Murphy's the guy they need him back.
And they are not the same without a functioning Sean Murphy in that lineup.
The Yankees were competitive.
The Yankees.
Luis Heal is being shut down for at least the next six weeks after he got a high grade
right latch train, which is a big deal.
Clark Schmidt got it last year and he was out from essentially May until the beginning
of September.
So similar great.
Clark Schmidt was out for a while.
The focus for the Yankees, of course, is you want to be ready for October.
So if there's any sort of silver lining, that's your silver lining.
But you never want to see anybody go down with shoulder problems this early in the year.
Joe Carlisle stand both elbows are broken for him.
Who knows what's going to happen.
And there's a there are a couple of notes here.
DJ Lemahue felt a tweak in his left calf.
They need to just cut him.
I get that he's he's a legendary piece of the Yankees, but he's he's not going to help
you win games.
He's a he's he's he's just not it anymore.
And just yeah, it's kind of you just get him off the team.
Yeah, Jordan Walker for the Cardinals is kind of the funniest one.
So there are two really funny ones I wanted to touch on.
Jordan Walker stepped on a sprinkler head and has left knee inflammation.
Yep.
So he has no he has no structural damage, but his knee is sore after stepping on a sprinkler
head.
Yep.
I'm fully serious.
Wow.
Joe Jordan Westberg of the O's has a sore back for which he claims is the fault of a really
soft mattress.
He says he sleeps on a rock back home.
But he got to the Airbnb in Florida and he said the bed is really soft.
So his back's hurt.
I know.
I don't even know.
You're Kenji's laughing.
You guys can't see it.
Kenji's laughing pretty hard.
I know.
So we got sprinkler heads and soft mattresses.
Whatever.
I sleep on a pretty soft mattress.
I'm just going to be candid.
I like a little soft mattress.
I like a pretty stiff mattress.
You like a stiff mattress?
You wouldn't mind that.
I sleep on a pretty terrible mattress.
It's it's just springs, but I love it.
You know, it's a guy I enjoy a little.
I mean, I slept on the floor for two years.
So I mean, like I'm used to kind of a tougher ground.
But yeah, it's fine.
Yeah, I mean, and there's other notes for players, notable players, but a lot of it
is back tightness, nothing like super serious.
Corbin Carroll lower back tightness.
Rafi Devers is going to be back with he's going to get to get excuse me, going to get
his timing back and he'll be playing this week.
Yoshida is coming back from that labrum tear.
Bayo's coming back.
He's got shoulder problems.
Let's see.
Manny Machado has back tightness.
Yeah.
So the Colson Montgomery Big White Sox prospect has back spasms.
So hopefully he can sort that out.
I know that's that's always one of those you never really know.
So a lot of a lot of people that are generally sore all around the league.
But the silver lining for everybody is your three weeks out from opening day.
Hopefully a raise enough time to rest up, get healed and then be ready for the big day.
So yes.
Yeah, you you you had a couple signings, right?
You want to kind of cover as well?
The bigger the biggest one is Jose Quintana to the Brewers.
I thought that was a really good depth signing for them.
He was great for the Mets last year.
And he had some depth, some veteran depth to that Milwaukee rotation.
They always find ways to just like turn out really productive players year after year,
even though they might not be good elsewhere, but they come to the Brewers and they're great.
And Quintana is one of those.
Quintana is a journeyman been all over the NL Central, especially.
And so it's good for the Brewers.
I mean, I would have loved if the L's winning got him.
I know Mets fans wanted him back through a lot of teams that could use it like a solid
backhand left hander like that.
Good for Milwaukee.
Any other signings you wanted?
Or you can think every team, but the Dodgers could have used them.
Yeah, just good, solid picture to have him.
He's not he's not an ideal fantasy pitcher, so he's not going to be the most popular pitcher.
He does what he's supposed to eat those five or six innings.
He runs a little couple couple runs, not a crazy K rate, but he gets the job done.
And again, like you say, he's a great lefty to have and he always want veteran pitchers
on your team.
So I think it's a great move for the Brewers and I could see him being really productive
for them this year and really helping them win games.
Just to lose to the Cubs for the division.
I have the Reds winning the division still.
Don't forget that.
Although I am a little nervous about my Mariners prediction for the wild card.
I got to be honest.
Justin Turner came out with some scathing comments about them.
Yeah, that was funny.
Make me a little nervous about picking them.
Although Julio Superman, who knows?
Big domper.
But those are all our notes for today.
Pretty quick episode.
We're trying out some different formats.
We're going fast.
We're taking a little bit longer doing these drafts, trying to see what you guys like and
what you guys enjoy.
We're loving doing it.
We're having a great time.
Kenji, any other notes before we see these guys on Saturday?
Who's going to be the best pitcher on the Dodger this year?
Yamamoto.
Okay.
You heard her here first.
Who do you think?
I think Blake Snell.
Yeah, that's a good answer.
You can't go wrong, man.
I don't want to say Yamamoto, but it's pretty hard to ignore what Blake Snell has done.
They're all great.
And just an awesome vibe of LA.
I think it's going to be pretty good.
Really great team.
Yeah.
All right.
Fantastic.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
We will catch you all on Saturday.
We'll see you next time.