The Jacob Steinmetz episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jacob Steinmetz (Arizona Diamondbacks)

Interview

• Personal history
• Milestone ages – 70 MPH, 80 MPH, 90 MPH
• Getting noticed in high school
• Experiences as a first year minor league ballplayer
• Goals for 2023
• Goals for 2024
• Experience of being drafted
  • Mazel “lucky” draft slot
• Turning professional vs. heading to college decision
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Playing for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic
• Experience as the first Orthodox Jewish players drafted by a major league team
• Major league players that have influenced Jacob the most
• Jacob’s father’s influence (Elliot Steinmetz)
• The Arizona Diamondbacks organization
  • Coaching
  • Analytics
  • Development
• Sticky stuff
• Changes in the 2023 MLB rules
• Robo umpires / Challenge system
• Softball advice for Ariel

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The Pitching Ninja episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Rob Friedman

Interview

• How did Pitching Ninja come about?
• When did you realize that you’ve made it to the big time?
• Major league pitchers benefiting from watching and interacting with Pitching Ninja
• What is the difference beteween a sweeper and a slider?
• The effect of the new rule changes on baseball and on pitching
  • The incerase of performance variance between starts
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Swinging strike rates
  • Called strike rates
• How will swinging strike rates fare in 2024?
• Are batters trying to put the ball more in play, or are still swinging for the fences?
• How is a GIF pronounced?
• What is the most important aspect of analytics for pitchers these days?
• What has been Pitching Ninja’s impact on the fantasy baseball world?

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Last week, left-handed starter Eduardo Rodriguez signed a four-year, $80 million contract with the Diamondbacks, ending his two-season stay in Detroit. After posting the lowest ERA of his career, let’s consult the park factors to figure out whether the change in park might impact his results.

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On Monday, I reviewed seven starting pitchers that increased their fastball velocity early in the season to find out how they performed the rest of the way. Now let’s review the starting pitchers whose fastball velocity declined in the early going. Did any of them enjoy a rebound over the rest of the season? Let’s find out.

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Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Frankie Montas

The 30-year-old Montas faced just seven batters last season where he struck out one and walked another. In his appearance, his fastball velocity was down 1.6 mph compared to last season and 2.0 mph from 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

I love identifying early starting pitcher velocity surgers, as increases in velocity, if maintained, often lead to breakouts, or at the very least, strikeout rate surges. But do these early season velocity increases last? Let’s review the increasers I discussed at the beginning of the season to find out how they performed over the rest of the season. I’ll start with an Apr 4 post discussing seven pitchers.

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Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

José Butto

The 25-year-old righty made nine appearances for the Mets last season including seven starts. His surface stats seem decent with a 3.64 ERA and 1.33 WHIP but a 0.6 HR/9 and .261 BABIP kept them in check. He posted a 4.90 xFIP and 5.11 SIERA with a 4.9 BB/9 pushing them up. His struggles with walks just started this season with a 4.9 BB/9 in AAA. In 2022 he had a 3.4 BB/9 in AAA and 2.2 BB/9 in AAA. His 4.5 BB/9 in the majors was just in 4 IP and irrelevant.

This year in the majors, he had three stints, one in April and May (3 G), a single relief appearance in August, and five starts to end the season. Here are his stats from the first two stints and then the last one.

Stints: K/9, BB/9, xFIP
1 & 2: 6.1, 8.6, 6.33
3: 9.2, 3.0, 4.13

What a major improvement. He just found the plate and the results are comparable to the 2022 results of Yu Darvish, Reese Olson, Lance Lynn, and Clayton Kershaw. I couldn’t find any changes to his arsenal with his velocities being constant and no major changes to his pitch mix (added a sinker) He just pounded the strikezone. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Orion Kerkering

The 22-year-old righty flew through the minors spending time at Low (10 IP) and High-A (20 IP), AA (22 IP), AAA (1 IP), and the majors (3 IP). He has closer material written all over him and won’t be an unknown after making seven post-season experiences where he threw more innings (5.1) than in the major league regular season (3). While in the majors, he posted a combined 11.9 K/9, he struggled with walks (5.4 K/9). In High-A, he posted a 2.7 BB/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in AAA, so walks weren’t always an issue. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, Kenta Maeda agreed to a two-year contract with the Tigers, after a three year stint with the Twins. After missing all of 2022 recovering from TJ surgery, he returned this year to post some solid skills. Unfortunately, a triceps injury cost him nearly two months, limiting him to just 104.1 innings. Now on his third MLB team since debuting in 2016, how will the home park switch affect his results? Let’s consult the park factors to find out.

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Just over a week ago, Lance Lynn signed a one-year contract with the Cardinals. It marks a triumphant return to the team he started his career with, last pitching while donning their uniform back in 2017. Since, he’s been a member of five different rotations. Now coming off the highest ERA of his career, let’s dive into the park factors to determine whether his new home park might provide an assist in his quest to rebound.

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