The Book of Joe with Joe Maddon and Tom VerducciIn this episode of 'The Book of Joe' Podcast, Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci look at hitting and the unbelievable skill of Aaron Judge at the plate. Joe explains the tips and tricks he used to keep his batters prepared. Tom is amazed how the Mariners can have such great pitching, but completely miss the mark with hitting. Speaking of pitching, we highlight the best players on the mound this year and their strategies against the great hitters.
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The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Thearon, welcome back. You have found once again the Book of Joe. Most interesting podcast about baseball and other things on the planet with me, Tom Barducci and Joe Madden and Joe. I mean, we've got to talk about the guy everybody in baseball is talking about, and that is Aaron Judge. Listen, you've been in the dugout on the other side. You've seen this guy play, you watched him throughout this season. I don't know how to expand upon the fact that how good this guy is. But here's my question for you, Joe. You've tried to take some really good hitters out of a lineup by pitching them unconventionally. How the heck do you handle Aaron Judge these days if you're game planning against the New York Yankees.
I have been watching and it's just exemplary. I mean, how about his line drives down the right field line now all of a sudden, right, I mean, he's covering everything. He's not well, the big thing is he's not in chase mode. And when guys like that are not going to help you at all, they're not going to be in chase mode. They're going to make you throw the ball over the plate to get them out. That's when it becomes really difficult. Of course, uh, Stanton being back really provides and wells their catcher doing much better is also in the back of all these different teams' minds right now. However, having said all that, I still would spend a lot of time with the guys before that regarding like listen, I know, I know who's hitting behind him. I know they're pretty good. However, this guy is otherworldly right now. It's like Bonds it is I you know, you watch it. Like I said, he's covering, everything is always on balance, he never overswings, he's not out of control. It's really an incredible method. The ball probably looks like a beach ball to him right now, literally, and he sees spin, he sees it right out of the hand, nothing's too quick, and it looks like there's like five defenders and four defenders on the field as opposed to those seven guys behind him out there. So it's it's just one of those zones you get into. It's incredible bully for him, because you know, I've had a chance to speak with him, and I know you have. It's the wonderful, wonderful representation of himself and in the game. So yeah, everybody that knows and wishes him well and hopes that he continues, and he's going to continue as these guys pick up the slack behind him, he's gonna have a chance to hit those sixty plus home runs this year, at least get the sixty. But yeah, it's it's watching Bonds. It's like it really is for me. And I'm only saying that as I saw Griffy, and of course then I saw a rod Early and all the Frank Thomas as a hitter, but Bond stood out to me because every time the bat left his shoulder, you thought it could be a home run. It really did. And every time the bat leaves Judge's shoulder, you think it could be a home run. And then and then last point, when you see that and you see how Ales and Goodie is at doing this, you wonder why more guys, you know, why is there such a dearth in offense? Whereas this guy him and Bobby with Junior all the there's a certain subset that is really kind of demonstrating just the opposite. So it's what is the magic juice here? What is the magic potion that permits this this select group? But maybe that's always been that way, but it's a select group to really be in that other league. I mean, there's there's Triple A, there's four A, there's the big leagues, and enters that other league where a judge is playing right now.
I would say the answer to that is the same thing I thought was Barry Bonds's greatest gift, and that was the ability to recognize pitches early and swing decisions. And I think you hit on this early and that answer Joe, and that Aaron Judge is so selective. His chase rate is at a career low nineteen percent. The major average major league baseball hitter will chase a pitch out of the strike zone about twenty eight percent of the time. Good luck trying to make a living trying to hit pitches out of the zone. You just can't. So Judge, just to give you an example, he's always been good in terms of plate discipline. Two years ago, when he hit his sixty two home runs, he was at twenty three percent, still below average in terms of chasing pitches, which is great, But he's gone another level in terms of his plate discipline. And that's what I see. A guy who's very quiet at the plate. He's very very Rarely do you see Aaron Judge out on his front foot hand coming off the bat right. He just seems to me to be so relaxed, and if you do come into the zone, he's not gonna miss it. I mean, that's what I see, Joe. And I know you're a guy took You got inside Ken Griffy Junior's head years ago with the first shift that he saw. You got inside Bryce Harper's head by basically walking him every time he came to the plate. When you're a manager at the Cubs, I don't know what you can do with Aaron Judge these days. I do know that if you go buy scattering reports that the down and away pitch I'm talking about in the zone, that tiny corner down in a way. Up until last week he was hitting two to eight with with one home run. He generally is going to take those pitches anyway. But last week he had two home runs on pitches in that little tiny box there. So I don't know where you go with Aaron Judge these days, because I think he's just so patient about forcing you into the zone and then hammering it when you do.
Yeah, and you the selectivity component of this. This is something that really became popular early mid two thousands when I was with the Rays and the one thing about us having to play in the al Eas back then, he had to play the Yankees and the Red Sox, who were beasts, absolute beasts at that time. The lineups were ridiculous one through nine, and the big the mantra was we had to find pitchers they can get good hitters out within the strike zone. That's really what it comes down to. When you're facing selective teams. It's really all about that. To me, it's about changing speeds. Obviously, I think change ups are really good pitch in situations against people like this normally, but it really it's a part of the game offensive that's really difficult to teach, and that would be to be selective. And for me, that's why as a scout bringing whatever you're going to do right now, primarily the players. I mean, the minor leagues are so small right now, inadequate with numbers that a lot of it's coming out of colleges and whatever that these guys are getting there so quickly, but you would want to scout selectivity. You want to scout that. It's hard to teach that. And even if you had time to bring somebody to the minor leagues an attempt to teach that, it's hard to teach that DNA is DNA. A guy that likes the swing is going to continue to like to swing normally for me with the Angels in two thousand and two when we want it. The one big push we had in spring training was it wasn't so much being selective, it was giving you other tools to combat striking out moving the baseball. And I know that could be frowned upon right now a little because part of the putting the ball in baseball sometimes it can't turn into two outs via double play, and some times a strikeout is actually honestly a better play. But you have to absolutely make a push to acquire it, whether it's through drafting or through acquisition, to get the most selective players that you can possibly find, knowing how hard it is difficult it is to teach when you get a batting order like that that really can wear down a starting pitcher. Although going all over the place with in today's game, that's okay because we have a bunch of relief pictus we want to throw at you anyway. Because there was a time that getting their starting pitcher out of the game was a big part of the strategy of being selective and making pictures throw pitches. I'll always take the selectivity, obviously. The big thing I've pushed, even as a young hitting instructor in the eighties was attempting to balance your walks to your strikeouts. That was the one thing I always thought, if that was in balance, you pretty much had a decent eye at to play. When you had an abnormal number of punchouts over walks, normally not so good, and it was chasing. A lot of the big guys did that. But then it was okay because if you swung a lot, swung hard, you might hit a home run. And then there was the other guys, the guys that would walk more than they struck out, and these were the on base guys that were very attractive to the top part of the batting order. So all this stuff has been part of the landscape for a long period of time, and just for me, just know one thing. It's hard to teach a hitter that's been a swinger that Nikki Castianos as an example. Nick likes to swing the bat. It's hard to make Nick selective. He'll go through periods where he's not going to chase as much and he gets really hot, but when he's gonna gets back to the normal patterns, he's going to chase. That's just who you are, and it's hard to make somebody into somebody as a different hitter than how you saw them the first time he laid eyes on them.
And Joe, here's why I think it's more difficult than ever at what you're talking about basically is swing decisions, right, you know, I look at the gap now between the minor leagues and the major leagues to mean it's bigger than ever. And it's not because of velocity. There's guys with great arms in the minor leagues, not as many, I get it, But to me, it's about the spin in the major leagues. There's a lot more spin in the game today, and guys who get to the major leagues generally can control it, certainly a lot better than guys in triple A. So I think the young hitter of the major leagues is faced with more difficult swing decisions recognizing breaking pitches. Is that a strike to strike breaking pitch?
Go ahead?
Let it rip? Is that a strike to ball breaking pitch? Let it go. That's really hard to do at the big league level for these guys, especially if you're in Triple A. I know general managers who won't even look at Triple A stats. I mean, the Triple A numbers are ridiculous. The pitching there really is not good at all. Most of the top prospects teams will keep in Double A rather than send them to Triple A. So it's tough a to evaluate these guys in Triple A especially and be trying to assume a guy he's got great minor league numbers, he's going to do it in the big leagues because he's going to face more spin and better spin than ever before. So to me, the game is about swing decisions, and Aaron Judge really stands out to me in the box. He just gives nothing away in terms of what he's looking for, what he's sitting on. He's he's like a lion on the prowl, you know, He's just he's just standing there in a batter's box. Daring you. They'll wait, wait, wait, and once you do throw one over the plate, yeah, he's gonna pounce on it. And that is reminiscent of Barry Bonds.
Yeah, and what you're talking about right. First of all, I agree that what you just said is it is really well stated. Part of that is, then where do you learn how to hit the break and ball? Right, It's not just a new issue or problem. It's been part of the landscape for a long time. Guys that had a hard time with the breaking ball. There's, of course, there's pitching machines, and a lot of guys do not like it against the breaking ball machine. They just don't. Some guys love it, some guys don't like it. But part of the culture back in the day was going to winter ball because notoriously, in winter ball, you would face a lot more off speed stuff, whether it was in Puerto Rico, Dominican, of course, Venezuela and Mexico really had a lot of a lot of my Mexican pitchers I had in the past. These dudes could really spin a baseball and there was there was no such thing as a fast ball count because they would drop something on you in any particular count. So where do you learn how to do this? That's part of the issue too. I mean, if you try virtual reality glasses whatever to put them on an attempt to do it, fine, whatever, But the act probably the best way to learn all this stuff not on the driving range. It's actually playing the game. And winter ball I'd love I've said this for years. I'm just I know it's a dead horse, but researchers in winter ball to really hone in on some of these skills would be outstanding. Players don't really have to go there anymore financially like they had to in the past, and there's so many you know, they got to train, they got to do this, they got to do that. But Frank Howard once said the best teacher of the game of baseball is nine innings, and I still agree with that. And if you want to learn how to hit a break and ball, better go find a place where they throw a lot of breaking balls in play. It's too bad because I really culture, like I said, the winter ball, a component of our game which no longer really exists, thought was a big part of young players getting better faster. And again, if you had one particular issue with I don't know, you want to become a shortstop where you want to put crews in center field, or this guy's just you can really handle a fastball, but he is horrible at breaking balls. It was a great place to put them during the winter time to really get better. I thinks, so that's part of the teaching process that's no longer available.
Yeah, well, they do have plenty of high tech pitching machines available. I mean, they have half million dollar pitching machines that can simulate the exact spin of the starting pitcher. You're going to face that night with an image on a screen to that pitcher throwing, it looks like the pitcher's literally throwing to you. You know, they have a lot of devices to simulate the pitching. But it's an interesting point you make. I know that the other day Rob Thompson, the Phillies manager, his team has seen more breaking pitches than any team in baseball in the month of August, and the Braves kind of carved him up in Atlanta last week with a ton of breaking pitches, and he said, you know what, in Kansas City, We're going to take the pitching machine out there, the curveball machine, and these guys are going to hit on the field with it. He thought that would make a difference rather than being in the fluorescent lighting in that cage and the controlled environment. So maybe that's getting to your point, Joe, of getting out there on the field and seeing it kind of in real time, real space.
Yeah, when you could do that and would you like to do that, was without the turtle there, without the batting cage there, because it's different when there's when there's confines there, when there's this this thing is right behind you here and you're in this more confined space. As a hitter or even as a pitcher throwing into a batting cage or not, it's different. It's just different. It's a different feel completely. So that's that's the part that's difficult to replicate. And of course with the break and ball machine, you know the breaking ball's coming, which is fine because I've done this and i've actually i've actually I'll give you Charlie Phillips Jared Phillips are really nice, really good first baseman, tremendous power, left hand hitter. Angels drafted him. I think Jimmy Edmonds back to back in the late eighties, early nineties j R. Could hit a fastball, but man breaking ball with Chase Chase Chase. So I used to set up a break a ball machine to throw a ball, like you're saying I want, I would set it up to throw strike the ball, and the whole point was to take the pitch. I mean, there's something to be said to teaching with these machines what not to do, and that would be what to not swing at. And I would do that specifically when Charlie j Rrup jumps up in my mind immediately is the guy that I used to take out to the cages at Gunautry Park to do that with specifically. Then I would bring it to other guys that I thought were in Chase mode off breaking ball. So it works both ways. It's either the ball strike because they so many times you'll see a hitter a ball starting out at him, he like flinches or takes that pitch. But of course that's the better one to hit, and as opposed to the one that's the breaking ball that starts more like inside, inside edge or middle and breaks away, which is the one they do end up swinging at, which is very difficult to hit. So these are all the things you're trying to pomplish. Record. Like you said, recognize early, understand what the ball is going to do and how that's going to match up with your abilities. So it's not only about setting up a machine or whatever to hit the breaking ball. It's also what to take and I was big on that too.
I'll give you my favorite stat on Aaron Judge, and there's a million of those, Okay. Last week and the Yankees played six games against Cleveland and Colorado. First of all, it was the first time in his career he went six straight games without striking out, which was impressive enough. But in those six games, Aaron Judge put the ball in play. I'm talking about a fair ball twenty one times. Seven of those were home runs. That's thirty three percent of the time when he connected with the ball, he hit it out of the park. If you go back to the home run Derby this year, Pete Alonso was a great home run hitter. Was batting against sixty seven year old Dave Jows, throwing fifty mile an hour, cookies over the plate and home run dirty. He hit thirty two percent of the pitches that he saw out of the park in home run Derby. So Aaron Judge is making major League Baseball pitchers look like it's coach pitch home run Derby. I mean, he saw sixteen different pitchers speeds from seventy four to one hundred miles an hour, and he's playing it like it's home run Derby. It's just staggering. So Joe I like his chances to hit sixty three, I really do. I think you've seen this guy what happens when he gets hot at the rate he's been going. I mean, he hit forty five home runs in ninety four games. Not even Babe Ruth did that. So he could cool off a little bit and still get sixty three.
The one thing I'd like to point out with that is I think the teams that are not in the race are going to be more app to want to throw to him. I think teams that are in the race might be less apt to do that. You might see different I don't even know what their schedule looks like. I think they're going through a pretty good scratch now playing non content, which that's going to benefit him. Also, they have less to lose. They're going to be more willing to challenge him. Period exclamation point, that's it. They're playing Baltimore was an example, or the Guardians or Kansas City or the teams that are in there Seattle trying to get back in. Those are the kind of groups that are not going to pitch to them, but those that are out of it.
Here we go, speaking of Seattle, Joe, we have to talk about the Mariners. After this quick break. They change their managers, they have the best pitching staff in baseball, and they can't hit. What has gone wrong in Seattle will answer that question right after this. Well, Joe, I think it was a little bit surprising when the Seattle Maritors fired Scott Servis. He's had a long term relationship and friendship with general manager Jerry Depoto. They had been in first place only a matter of days ago, but that was slipping away with the Houston Astros overtaking them. I mentioned they're pitching staff, a great young staff, especially their rotation. I think it's the best in baseball. But man, they cannot hit. They lead the major leagues and strikeouts, the batting average in the low two hundreds. This has been going on for years in Seattle. If you're Seattle right now, Joe, you have to do like an offensive audit, what has gone wrong here? Because it's been systemic there Where do you begin it.
Is the acquisitional method. I agree with that. When you start blaming coaches and managers for a group that comes in and continually cannot hit, there's something awry regarding how we're acquiring these people in the first place. And then beyond that, the training methods or what are the training methods, what does the prep look like? But I know sometimes you could get to the point where it's a really over the top and in my opinion, not necessary. Some of the things that guys go through before a game. The meetings they've turned into daily meetings, where in the past it was just kind of like the first game of a series meetings, and now they become a daily occurrence. And again I'm just not into that. I don't. I don't I think that players athletes, of course we want to be coached. Of course you want information, but you need sometimes just to get it in different ways, different methods, just for you specifically, and not this homogenous method with everybody being present. So it starts with the acquisitions, and then it's a method methodology on a daily basis, keeping things fresh. You talked about a pitching machine. I've always believed in altering batting practices, and it doesn't always have to be VP on the field. It can be VP in the cages. It can be both. It could be short VP. It could be meaning that that the pitcher is shorter, it's it could be longer to get back on him out. I used to actually do angle BP and instructionings when I went to throw from an angle like halfway between the mount and third base, appe between the mount and first base, to just present a different angle to either pull the ball or stay inside the ball. For the right and left handed hitters, There's all different things to do. To me, it's like we were talking about earlier learning how to hit a breaking ball. It's about actually doing it, and then how often do I have to do this? Sometimes I think they get arm weary. I think that guys just swing too often. I do. I think it definitely happens, and it's it's you get to the point where the point of diminishing returns does set in based on this high volume of repetition, and that has to be a concern and checked out too. So start out with your acquisition method, who we bring it in in the first place, once we get them, how we what are we doing on a daily basis? Is it? Are we keeping it interesting? We're keeping it fresh? Are we are we varying this thing or is it always the same road? Kind of an exercise? And furthermore, what are what are the tenets of our teaching? What are basics right here? What are we trying to get across? And it has to be like a total reset. We got to go back in and check the whole thing out. That's that's how I would approach something like this. Variety is definitely the spice of life when it comes to hitting. Don't permit these guys get in the rut. Definitely, don't overload them with thoughts, keep things simple, teach them how to react things to that nature where they go out there and let their athleticism take over, because that's the one part of analytics to me, in the in the hitting realm is very non beneficial. It really benefits. We've talked about this. I'm talking about acquisitions. It's aces. It's aces when you want to place your defense aces. It's aces when I want to know how to pitch this to hitters. Aces. When it comes to benefiting hitters, it really is kind of archaic and it doesn't help a whole lot.
I don't think that's a lot to unpack there, Joe yep, So let me start with No, let me start. I like it because it's it's a complicated I like this because it's a complicated question with a complicated answer, and you can't just distill it down to one thing. So let's start with coaching, right se Alla Mariners have Last year they hired Brent Brown to be their hitting coach or one of their hitting coaches and the bench coach. To Scott Servis, they had played together. Brent had been with LA Dodgers as a hitting coach previous five or six years and did a really nice job there. They brought him in there essentially to be the guy who ran the meetings. Was more into the mental side of hitting, and Jared DeHart, a younger guy, was more into the mechanics of the swing. I wouldn't say their duties were divided up cleanly that way, but generally that's how they were divided up. And then there's another hitting coach as well, And that's the other thing to think about here.
Joe.
There's so many voices right now, and teams are trying to find the right balance between experienced former major league players and these young guys coming up through hitting facilities and college ranks who do not have major league experience but know so much about the swing and the technology. You have to have some element of that, and finding that balance has been really tricky. So we get to June and the Mariners get rid of Brent Brown. They were in first place, obviously struggling offensively. That the first place team gets rid of a hitting coach they just hired, you know, seven eight months ago, so I don't know where it went wrong. There was some talk that maybe the meetings were too involved and complicated and the players weren't getting it, but they got off Brent Brown midway through a season in which they were in first place. So listen, there's been so much churn in Seattle on the roster side, like they don't give people a chance to really get themselves settled there and make decisions on who actually can help them and where they have to go next. It's also happened to the coaching staff as well, so I think it's something that Seattle is going to have to look at that, the amount of churn. What do you want of a hitting coach? And can you trust somebody to establish an actual culture.
Again, there's a lot there too. I agree you mentioned the veteran coach. I like, it doesn't have to be necessarily a veteran coach or a former Major Leaguer's just got to be somebody that good that could see things during the game. You sit on the bench and you can see things. I'm just speaking from experience. I was able to do this as a hitting coach for seven years in the minor leagues. I was actually the roving hitting coach. And you know, that's spring training, that's all season, different teams, that's instructionally. My god, how many swings do you see in a season? And you get to the point where you see things. We had video, of course, but it was not nearly sophisticated obviously, but you're able to see things because the point is during the game, you want to be able to say one thing, reminded guy about one thing, one conversation, one moment, I mean a parcel, a particle, not this entire dissertation, in order to get him back and get him right because it's about one thought so you can carry and it's about feel. The best coaches are the ones that can teach field because you don't really know something until you feel something when it comes to a physical movement. So that was my big thing is to have feel in order to accomplish the feel necessary to get across the intellectual point regarding what I'm trying to teach and in regards to physical movement. So you had to see things, you had to understand feel, you had to understand how to teach feel, if that makes any sense. Through drill work, And I'm a big drill work guy, and I think drill work done properly, my god, it has so many benefits. And drill work done improperly obviously could lead to the other side of things. Just one more point. I always thought in spring trainings, of whether it was in I mean, minor leagues, whatever, all the way up, there should be a heavier dose of physical training in spring training, meaning you know, more mechanics, more and more physical mechanics will be doing here. Any changes that were being made, let's let's get this thing, let's call it down. What are we going to do here? And once you've arrived at that as it's like a sliding scale, as a seasons in progress. It should be way less physical and way more mental. How we're going to attack this guy? Where you looking? You're looking fastball first? Are you're looking away, you're looking at or you're zoning it up? You're like, what do you like to pitch? You talk to a lot of hitters. I've done it, and he would say, consider yourself a high ball hitter a lowball hitter. They didn't even know. They didn't even know where to look. I didn't know if I was. They didn't know if they were a high ball a low ball hitter. I mean, these are the kind of things. Where are your strengths? What do you do? Well, let's focus on you got to focus and cover your strengths. Then you obviously got to work on your weaknesses. But you whatever your strong point is, nail that sucker down. That's the part that should show up on a daily basis. And then while we're doing that, we're going to try to you know, whether it is the chasing the breaking ball down in the way, whether it's I cannot I cannot even foul off and elevated fastball with like say, ninety four plus below one, I can't get to it. How do I get to that even just to get another art form? Get to the next pitch? How do I foul off a pitch that I don't like because it's a strike, but I can't do anything with it. These are the kind of things to me that make the It's not about charts and it's not about studying video all the time. What am I thinking? What am I seeing? How clear is my mind? How quickly can I react? Can I breathe? I mean, what's my routine like? What is my process like before I walked into the play? What am I liking it? On deck circle? What do I do on them in the hole? All these different things, that's to me, the true essence of teaching hitting and guys that can hit, I'll tell you what they're going to hit. You're not going to make a two forty two thirty hitter into a three hundred hitter just by having being a great teacher. My whole point was to try to get them to achieve the level that I thought they were capable of. And sometimes you get lucky, and I really despise myself when I thought I've had somebody like a really good hitter, somebody that could be a good hitter, and we could not make progress at all, and I could start naming them. I'll name them to you, guys, really good, great athletes in the minor leagues that we could just not get by some physical maladies that got in the way. So again, here's another long answer. But hitting is sort of complicated, and the whole point is to simplify it and do simple better as often as possible.
I know this is a subject that gets you excited. I can tell. Let me give you the last six years where the Seattle Mariners have ranked in the American League in hitting fourteenth thirteenth, fifteenth, fourteenth, eleventh, fifteenth. Of course, there's fifteen teams in the league, last in the league, and every one of those years they're in the top five in most strikeouts. Again, there's something systemic going on here. They need to do an internal audit, whether it's teaching in the minor league system, major league level, whatever it is. And I think one of the things they have to look at here, and I don't know what the answer is to it is the ballpark. That's right, T Mobile Park is where good hitters go bad. It's just a fact from Richie Sex and the Adrian Beltrade that just smoke. Shut Figgins, Sean Figgins, Jesse Winker. You know, this year they brought in Joge Polanco and Mitch Garver. They haven't hit. Mitch Hanniger hasn't hit. I mean, this is the team. Last year, Joe, they get rid of Aohanneo Suarez, Jared Kilnick, tai Oscar Hernandez because they thought they had too many strikeouts in the lineup and they were trying to cut down. Well, what's happened. All those guys are better having gone someplace else, and the players like Polanco and Garver who they've brought in have been worse as Mariners. So part of it as the ballpark. You know, in the Wildcard era, the batting average on balls and play in t Mobile Park is tied with Dodger Stadium for the lowest and Major League Baseball slugging percentage. You've got San Diego, Miami City Field and Tea Mobile Park. I mean, it's it's rough. There's no question there's something about that ballpark. I don't know whether it's background lighting, cooler weather, whatever it is. I think the Mariners ever a point where they're about to waste again the best young pitching staff in baseball, and you've got to do a deep dive into what the heck is going on out there.
Well, it sounds to me they need a little whitey ball. I mean, power is such a big part of the world right now in baseball. And I heard a stat I think on the Yankee broadcast about in the playoffs how how home runs win games. So they're all they're all vying for this. But then again, playing in Yankee Stadium is completely different than playing at T Mobile, completely different, like you already suggested. So they they're they're just trying to build it with the power. Who cares about us? And outs and out? It's it's it's classic analytics and outs and out. Who cares? We want our guys swing it for defenses. But what happens is the ballpark wears you down mentally. Again, I'm gonna make the comp and golf. I mean, I've tried to hit the ball harder, and of course you slice it more. The swing breaks now because or you're into the win and all of a sudden, I got to do more, and of course you throw a football into the wind harder, you lose your spiral. You you try to hit a Wrigley field winds blowing in. Of course, it's can impact you, but you're supposed to you can't, but it does. Elements can wear you down. They wear you down it mentally, And that's that's the worst part about it. What's wrong with the speed and defense attitude, especially with the way you're still on. Bases are the part of the landscape now, and and you know you just litter them with you litter that ball club with some power, of course you have to, but why not really literate with some speed and defense because you already got the pitching to do it. You gotta have to win two one three to two four three one nothing With teams like that and ballparks like that, you have to kind of settle for a different method of place compared to what's so popular right now. So that's it. I mean everything you're saying, what I'm hearing when I'm looking at right now. It's kind of like a paradigm shift in regards to how we think what we got to do here be kind of cool. In that ballpark, you get a bunch of Blazers and guys that really had a new move to baseball, and then a banger that get Jack Clark in there. Whatever, you could have something exciting with that pitching staff.
Yeah, I don't know if we're going all the way back to Whitey ball. I mean, I'd love to see that, don't get me wrong, but I still think you do need a blend. I love what San Diego has done. A guy like Luis o'rei is bringing him into the lineup, and a lot of the modern day managers into analytics don't like a guy like our eyes because he doesn't hit for a lot of power. His skills are basically batting average dependent. But guess what, he's great in terms of batting average, and he's great with runners in scoring position. And this year, Joe, I look at the Padres, I look at the Guardians, I look at the Brewers. These are three teams doing really well in Kansas City as well. Throw them in there as well, with not a ton of power, but they get a lot of hits, you know, And again it's tough to hit in the game. We know that batting average two forty four, but the balance of back to ball guys and those lineups, to me, is why those teams are winning. And if you're the Seattle Mariners and you're banking on hitting the ball out of the park and that means you're going to sacrifice a lot of swinging, you're doing that in the absolute wrong ballpark. So something has to change here. And to me, you're absolutely right. The Mariners have to identify players who have better back to ball skills, simple as that, and emphasize that.
Totally agree. I mean again, you're looking at that ballpark. Kind have had a great thought and it's just when will you're talking the defense and whatever, but yes, in that Seattle yard, it would be so interesting to build a team around with that ballpark is because it's it's not going away. Oh yeah, who's the top home run hitter for the Mariners? Is that Rodriguez should be?
He hasn't hit many this year, but yet.
But what did he have last year? As an example, what it was? What was the big number? Was it thirty last year? Maybe twenty five?
Yeah, wasn't he almost a thirty thirty guy?
Okay, okay, so hit thirty home runs, that's nice, But what did he do with the other five hundred and eighty at bats that he had played appearances, what happens he was those.
Thirty thirty guy Just to clear that up, thirty two homers and thirty seven stolen bases. This year he's down to eleven.
So why is it? So? Is it not important? What do you do with those other played appearances like which are a lot? I mean, I know the home run could change the game in a moment, but if you have a bunch of guys that just don't throw away plate appearances and really make pitchers work and know how to get on base, and know how to run the bases and know how to run fast and all these different things, at some point, isn't there, like again, a sliding scale somehow that the speed and defense comes together and kind of mitigates the lack of power and you're still getting the results you're looking for because the ballpark doesn't permit something like this.
Well, yeah, to your point, Joe, he struck out one hundred and seventy five times last year, right, and this is a guy who can run. If he puts the ball on the ground, he's got a chance of being on base.
Right, So he hits thirty thirty home runs, Great, and yet one hundred and seventy five times the ball never left the bat and never even had a chance to run the first base. Why is that not I don't understand why that's not important.
Also, well, it's one of the great mysteries of the modern era, Joe, is that these teams all want strikeouts and swing a miss on the mound, but yet they excuse it on the offensive side.
That's great, terms, that's you're right on the money there, buddy.
Hey, as long as we're talking hitting, and we've got a good theme going here about hitting on this podcast episode, we're going to take a break and we come back. Did you know that this is the most dangerous era in which to hit? Just ask Austin Riley of the Braves. We're going to talk about that right after this, Joe. We were talking about hitting in the game today and swing and miss and power. But there's another component like we're seeing at a level we have never seen before, and that is the hit by pitch. I'm going to give you the five highest hit by pitch rates in the last one hundred and twenty five seasons since nineteen hundred, twenty twenty twenty twenty three. One twenty twenty four. In twenty twenty two, I think he picked up a pattern there. Yeah, the last five years the worst years ever as a hitter in terms of getting hit with pitches. And I mentioned Austin Riley out six to eight weeks basically the rest of the regular season, and he got hit with a fastball at Angel Stadium, Joe, where he actually was starting to swing the bat. I know people want to blame pitchers all the time, but in the velocity of the game today, the way hitters have to get started, his hands in the now of the bat were literally moving towards the baseball and he got hit on the right hand as he was starting to check his swing, where so his hands are a little bit away from his body. Was the pitch in, Yeah it was in, but it wasn't at his body. He actually got hit in the course of swinging the bat. And that's not unusual in today's game. So I know everybody wants to say, oh, pitchers, they get rushed to the major leagues, they can't command the baseball. Well, how about what's going on with hitting as well?
Yes, a combination, absolutely, it is. You're right, you have to cheat to get to those fastballs, and you know, hitters want to know how hard is he thrown and they can see it on the board because they have like this little internal clock. What it means to them regards to how they have to get started or when they have to get started to catch up. And that's a big part of why breaking balls are swung and missed. That because you have to cheat to get to the fastball. So you're starting earlier, you're going to get filled by the breaking ball more often, you're going to chase more often. There's all these different Wow, it's all interconnected regarding all that stuff. So yeah, it's pitchers trying to spin the ball and again not necessarily pitch and throw it as hard as they can, which is going to lead to less control. Because I'm telling you, man, when you talk about pitching around a hitter, I never even wanted my guys to do it, unless like Kyle Hendricks Johnny Lester could. But in today's game, you don't see many guys that you could trust pitching around a hitter because they don't command the ball enough to pitch around the hitter. Number eight. That's A and then B would be when you talk about the hitters contributing to be to being hit by pitches. It's because they have to get started so soon. And then you want to know why breaking balls are so effective because hitters have to get started so soon. You've mentioned Judge earlier, and the thing I love about that, and I think Kevin Long teaches this and I think it's absolutely correct. Quiet, quiet on the set, Quiet on the set. He did that with Granderson when he came to the Yankees years ago, and Curtis Granderson went off just by getting quiet in his setup. Judges, he's almost like he's like almost like a statue when he's standing up there. Joe Demagio was, Paul Molatour was, a lot of these guys are really quiet. He's quiet. And my point is, I think when you're that quiet, you are just going to see the ball and you have a chance probably to wait a little bit longer. With a lot of pre pitch movement, a lot of jiggling, going around, swaying, whatever, it's more difficult that the timing patterns. A high leg you see zach Netto with the Angels has gotten a lot better since that front foot's not coming up nearly as high. These timing mechanisms make it difficult. So the more quiet you can be in your setup, the better chance you have to recognize the pitch ab stay back and not have to commit so soon and cheat because your body's not moving all over the place. You always know where your hands are, you know where your head is at, you know where your front foot is, and you know you get your front foot down quickly. And that's the other part about its rights I just mentioned with Zach. The big thing about hitting and hitting velocity is making sure that left foot's on the ground. Talking about right handed hitter, get that foot down, get that foot down, get that foot down. It's so important Judge's foots down. And that's why this guy he's seeing it well, he's not getting fulled and like any young kid is listening. The more you can learn to be quiet and your setup, I think, the more successful you're going to be as a hitter with all this velocity and breaking stuff being thrown at you.
And by the way, Judge has been hit by pitches nine times this year. That's a career high. And you know what I see overall is the right on, right right handed pitcher, right handed hitter, hard sinker In has really gained him popularity. And we talk about a lot of spin, but that two steamer on the hands of hitters. You see a lot of pictures now adopting that pitch, and that had been the book on Judge. I think he's really closed just about every hole that he had, especially velocity in he'll either take that or he'll ram it out of the ballpark to the pole side. He's not just a guy who's shooting those things that to the right center field bleachers at Yankee Stadium. He's become a much better poll hitter in the last three four years. But I do see a lot of that Joe the same sided pitcher to hitter going in with Sinkers and they're told, get this all the way in. And that's why you're seeing like an Austin Riley, where that pitch is boring in on that right handed hitter and from a right handed pitcher, and he has to get started because it's elite velocity and it just keeps coming in. And that's where you're seeing these broken bones.
That's the compliment to the formerly just the elevated fastball spin spin spin. Hitters started to adapt to that a little bit, and a part of that is when you throw, when you're going to approach that pitch, of course, it's more of a flat swing. They've been teaching, like you know, the upper cut. It's become a little bit more flat now because of trying to catch up the velocity. Whenever you have a flatter swing coming through the strike zone, you're always susceptible underneath. Underneath that would be a breaking ball left, the breaking ball underneath the right handed hitter, meaning under his belt, right at his back, near back foot slider or sinker or change up from the right handed pitcher. James Shields outstanding, Alex Kabb outstanding at throwing that change up or that split underneath the right handed hitter right on right. Anytime identify a hitter with a kind of a flat swing, he normally is susceptible underneath. Whether like I said, it's a lefty willing to do the sinker into a lefty or a righty cutting the ball underneath him, he succeptible. Tino Martinez really good high ball, fastball hitter for a left end hitter back in the day. At that time, left these were pretty much a lot better at balls down in the zone in just based on how the game had been taught, so you'd get underneath Tino. So these are the things I look at. When I look at a hitter. You look at his bad angle and how he likes to approach the strike zone, and from that you could find your spots. I know, video and all the information could indicate that for you, but just the eyeball test. I used to have all the balls in play, all the outs, the final pitch of it at bat Diego with the Angels would do that for me. I just wanted the action pitch. I got that from mister pole Dick Poll, the pitching coach, And all I'm looking is I was setting up defenses. I wanted to see bad angle. I wanted to see bad angle in regards to where I wanted to set up my defense. They didn't have all the abilities that we have now, so my very rudimentary spray charts. But then I wanted to see how the bat came in into the strike zone and from that then you could also determine where I want to pitch to this guy if I need the strikeout too. So these are the kind of things that analytics looks at. These are the kind of things we looked at for years just by using the eyeball. So that's what you're seeing. You're seeing underneath the susceptible. And last point, I think it has something to do with it. The pictures are okay with all of this because a lot of these guys are wearing a lot of gear, so they you know, they're more comfortable throwing in feeling that they're not going to hurt them. You're not going to hit somebody. Excuse me, if you do hit somebody, they're not going to necessarily get hurt badly. Although it did happen with Riley, But I think the protective gear gives like the pictures more I want to say, open target, but are free will of doing this thinking that even if I do hit him, I'm not going to hurt him.
Yeah, that's interesting. It's a good point. I had not thought of it about that, but that could definitely be in play. I think it's way too easy to blame it on you know, pictures have a lack of command. First of all, it's not true the walk rate is actually down, the strike rate is up. You know, pictures. You can't blame it on just this general lack of command, because the numbers just don't show lack of command. What I see, Joe, is what you talked about here is pitchers are taught when they were making pitches. Obviously they want those ball strike to ball pitches that run out of the zone. Get it all the way in. If you're going to miss, miss all the way in, and if you hit a guy, that's okay. And maybe the armor that guys are wearing is part of that. But that's what I say is as pitchers are intentionally running those pitches with tremendous amount of movement. You know, when we talk about spin rates going up and velocity going out, remember velocity's gone up on breaking pitches as well. So whether it's a cutter or a slider, I mean, everything's moving harder and faster and more than it did in the past. So I don't blame it on pitchers lack of command. Here's a question for you, Joe, of all the hit by pitches, what percentage do you think come off of fastballs.
Well, I say it's less than fifty and the breaking balls are exceed that off speed pitches.
Yeah, this is where I'm getting back to these two seam are coming back in right on right, left on left, running in. Sixty percent of hit by pitches are from fastballs. Okay, thirty three percent are from breaking balls and seven percent off speed. Now, I guarantee you the majority of broken bones are coming from fastballs. The fastball is generally going to be elevated around the hands area. Breaking balls generally are going to be down. You're talking about back foot breaking balls hitting a lot of guys. But yeah, sixty percent. Now, so most of the hit by pitches do come from fastballs, and I would think most of those come from same sided pitchers, same sided hitter, right on right, left on left.
As you're saying that, you're counting, yeah, the two seam, the proliferation of the two seam, I get that. It makes all the sense. And you're right. If you're going to get in there, go all the way in there. That's that's exactly what they're going to hear in the meeting. Get in there. And the other part is the elevated in. Elevated in is a really dynamic pitch. If you know how to execute it. Nobody can hit it. If elevated in strike is impossible, it's impossible. I like elevated in cutter to the opposite side. Also, like if you're ready thrown to a lefty to cut the ball elevated in from a righty to a lefty, impossible.
Yeah, that's Nesther Cortez. He's as good as anybody on that pitch.
It's so hard to get the barrel of any kind. That's you're gonna expose, expose the weak part of the bat. You're always trying to get to the weak part of the bat. That's what I would tell my guys as you're trying to shape your pitch, get to your pitch. You're trying to get this ball to get to the weak part of the bat of the hitter. You want to stay away from the strong part. And that's the shape of the pitch. That's what we're talking about. So I do love it. I love the I love the elevated end to the opposite side cutter. And then of course the two or two seamer. This even a good four seamer elevated in strike not to buzz the tower elevated in strike really hard to do anything with and it takes some really good command to do that and trust yourself, because yeah, there is you know there is that thing you don't want anybody in the head. Nobody wants anybody in the head or to the face, but elevated in as a really good spot to go to get a major legue hitter out.
Just to wrap this conversation on the way pitching has changed, if I could pitch a guy to me who typifies what pitchers do these days, it's Zach Wheeler. The Philadelphia Phillies love watching him pitch. This is a guy who three years ago added a cutter. This year he added a splitter, and he's always had that great four seam fastball. He's always looking to get better. So now what he does is you think about the ball coming in towards the plate. He can move the ball from his right to his left to glove side with breaking balls. I'm talking about sliders, curveballs, count the cutter on that. He's got the four seamer that's up, and now he can move the ball left to right, the opposite direction with that two seamer in, and he can also go down to the bottom of the zone with a split. So he's got pitches that go east and west, west to east, and the pitches that go north and pitches that go south. I mean, what are you going to do if you're a hitter to prepare it. It's a reason why he is the best pitcher in baseball when it comes to limiting damage on two strikes. He's the toughest picture to face with two strikes because it's a multiple choice question and chances are you are going to be wrong guessing which one's coming.
He was one of my favorite. He was might have been. It was he came out there, Cole came out, you know, a free agent, and I really my suggestion, strategy wise, was the best way to have Garrett Cole consider signing with the Angels would be to sign Zach Wheeler first, to indicate the attempt to win and to improve the pitching out there. When I first got there as a manager, he was my favorite. I was my favorite when he was with the Mets. Well, of course the Grom, but I thought he was like, if you like Jacob de Grom, you got a life like Zach Wheeler too. Deliverately, the way the ball came out of the hand, Toway carried all that kind of stuff. It was there's not a huge separation between those two guys. I thought when I first saw both of them. So I'm happy for a success. He's a really wonderful young man. He does he competes. The problem of the concern at that point was he had been injured a little bit. He's really gotten that under control. I'm really happy for his success. I actually went to his house in Georgia to visit on a recruiting trip. Doesn't surprise me. He is that good. It's easy gas. When you got easy gas like that, it really shocks a hitter.
Well, that's our edition this week, Joe. Let's call it a hitting edition of the Book of Joe. I always surprise you with these topics, by the way, but somehow you wind up coming up with the appropriate means of closing this show with some words of wisdom, so you won't disappoint me. I know that, But who do you have today?
It's crazy. I went with strategy as the strategy. I was thinking about just the part of the time of the year that it is, and we're coming down to the stretch run and teams that are vying for the position to get into the playoffs. There's a lot of strategy involved in this, and then you're breaking down the hitting component of it, and I got three, but I don't want to. But it was so good because you know, I talk Offen a lot, a lot about the fact that I think everybody is something to be the same anymore, and there's not a lot of individual thought and freedom of thought in a sense. So, George Patten, if everyone is thinking and the like, then somebody isn't thinking. I love that. I mean, you have to have a diversity of opinion. We we love diversity. We don't love diversity of opinion anymore, right, we just want every group thing constantly. I love that. And this is like if I had like a Mantra model for me, would I do? It would be that I want diverse opinions. As a manager, I want somebody to challenge what I'm saying or thinking all the time. I love meetings when a thoughtful coach manager whenever would come up and would challenge what I said. I love that. God, It's the only way I'm going to grow. And so Patten said that, and then there's one more, just one more. It came from Mark Twain. If the metrics you are looking at aren't useful and optim your strategy, stop looking at them, right, He said this years ago. So yeah, when it comes down the strategy, look for diversity. If everybody wants diversity, how about how about opinion and not getting so offended when somebody disagrees with you and understand trying to understand where they're coming from and finding out to open my mind to this thought. Maybe it's going to make me better. And if your strategy isn't working, do something different. Don't get so married or locked into one thought. And you like God, I'm going to make this work. By God, this is what I this is what I've been promoting since. Is got to work. I'm gonna make it work. Sometimes you gotta punt anyway, That's what I have for today.
Yeah, good advice for the Seattle Mariners. By the way, give me that line from patent again, because I love it. When a complex thought can be distilled in so few words, it has such impact.
Right, if everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
I love it.
This is awesome, It is good. It's great.
Great job, Joe. We'll see you next time with the Book of Joe.
Get two buddy, Thanks bye.
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