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We're here against all odds in technology conspiring against us, dead wasps, fire alarms, everything you can imagine that could make a live show-- Clear your cash, ladies and gentlemen. Clear your cash. Yeah, just set a little calendar reminder. Once in a while, clear your cash. Seems like it's a good thing to do if something's not working. So that's our tech tip of the day. But on this episode, we dig into Onio Cruz's move from shortstop to center field. We'll talk about the broader implications for the pirates as they try to take a bigger step forward in 2025, at least by wins 2024 looks a lot like 2023. But of course, the arrival of Paul Skeens, among other things, making this team a bit more interesting. We're going to talk about the fast adjustments being made by the Jacksons, specifically Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churio. How have they found success so quickly against big league pitching when a lot of other rookies have gone through prolonged stretches of struggles? We're going to take a look at swinging differently in different counts as well. Try to dig into that. Get some questions as well in our discord about Corbin Burns and why he struggled in the second half. And we were wondering where the K is gone for Corbin Burns in recent years. So we'll try to unpack that plus a question about Logan Webb and the possibility that he develops a pitch that can help him generate more whiffs. So as you can tell, a jam-packed show lined up for us on this Thursday. We'll start at the top with the news. Onio Cruz making the move to center field, which will probably be more starts at DH down the stretch before playing center field in 2025. It takes time to learn a new position, especially center field. Not as easy as it would seem to just move from the dirt to the outfield. There's a lot to unpack here. First, there's been some improvement with the bat this year. Overall, the quality of contact is as good as it's ever been. A 16.7% barrel rate, 54.7% heart hit rate. Cruz is striking out a bit less against lefties, striking out a little bit more against righties. We're still seeing a 30% K rate from him. That's been a problem all along defensively, though. A minus eight defensive run saved, minus three outs above average at shortstop this year. The concern all along with Onio Cruz has been he's six seven. List the six seven shortstop in baseball history. Go. I'll give you as much time as you want, right? There really aren't any. So you have this guy that is an incredible athlete, taller than usual for the position. Great arm, 99% talent arm strength, 86% talent sprint speed. I think the possibility of this happening has existed for as long as Onio Cruz has been in professional baseball, right? This is not a shocking development. It was more of a, let's try him at shortstop and see if it works. And if it doesn't, we know he'll be a very good, if not a great outfielder down the road. Is that a fair assessment, you know? We had in our last episode this really interesting piece, where I'm on the Monday episode. We were talking about Rob Arthur's investigation into racial bias in the minor leagues. And I know that this news came down like sort of right after that. And, you know, it was kind of hard to parse, you know, like, oh, is this another instance of racial bias? I just, you know, I think you want to be careful being very specific about that sort of stuff. And then also, you know, what we were talking about was the minor leagues and, you know, black players being pushed to the outfield in the minor leagues. And I think the pirates gave him a lot of chances. You know, he played shortstop all the way through the minor leagues. And he played into the major leagues and they gave him multiple tries in the major leagues. So it wasn't just like they looked at it and said, oh, that was your one. You made an error. You're done. It was multiple errors. And I've been watching a fair amount of pirates games and, you know, some of them are just, I don't know, concentration or something. Like, you know, they're a place he should have made. I think sometimes you, you, Ellie De Cruz, Ellie De La Cruz talks about this where he can throw the ball so hard and he's so athletically superior that like, sometimes he has to slow it down, but he, it's almost like we're, we're, Trevor talks about with Jictor Brahms. Like he starts slowing it down and then you're not moving optimally. And now all of a sudden you're making errors because you're thinking slow it down, you know, and like, I think most athletes want to, like, do everything as hard as they can all the time because that's how you win. Like you throw in the ball the hardest, you know, so it's kind of weird to be like, I'm now going to place this ball to first base and now you're screwed up. So I think there was things that were starting to seem roll and started getting his head. And it didn't look that good, frankly, and the numbers don't look back it up. And I think this is the right move. Yeah. I agree. I think it comes out of tools at the end of the day. Like guys who have really good arms and who can run are, are going to be given a shot in center field because tracking a ball in the outfield is something that it's kind of assumed is more natural for, for, or like a skill that can be learned easily. We were just talking on the radio right before this about Showy Otani, like what if he didn't have to pitch? What would it look like if he was just what position would he play and we're like center field? Like he's got to end up an arm and he runs like a deer. Yeah. That guy's the center field there. Like, yeah, could he play short? Probably Showy Otani, but he probably profiles as an outfielder because he can throw a hundred miles an hour and you could throw that from the, from the outfield. Similar body too. Big guy. When you're that tall and you're going to be close to the ground all the time and you got to feel the ball and then you got to, he's got the arm and all that stuff. He had everything, but it's just comes down to range is going to be limited. There's just other, other kind of body types are, are a little bit better suited to play that position. It's just, it's just that simple, I think. And it also comes down to like, he also profiles really well in that other position. So might as well give it a shot, especially if it's not one of the numbers shake out. And you know, like you mentioned, he's been it short for, wasn't like a month. He's got a couple of years. And now they feel like there's, they have another option that they can play there that can do a job. And so now they have the luxury of, of giving him a shot out there. Yeah. And as Mattan in the live stream points out, it might be routine plays that are the problem, right? You can't make a lot of mistakes on routine plays and that seems to be the bigger problem for Cruz because of his arm, he can do extraordinary things because of his agility. He can get to balls that a lot of short stops couldn't get to. But I think my point was the height was the concern when he was a prospect. People just thought, ah, he might not, it might not work. He might just be too big. He might sort of never fit the position because of that. I don't know if that's, you know, a different type of bias entirely where you say, oh, well, we can't put this guy here because it's just not going to work to be too awkward. Maybe we'll see some great six, seven short stops someday. I think a lot of six, seven players just end up in other sports. Like that's, it's just part of why it's just small group of players to begin with. A couple of things are interesting here. You know, Matan talking about the routine play. It's like, are we going to get more out of Cruz when he's not as, as engaged? Because he's set a fielder sometimes just hanging out, you know, like, I may not get a ball for a while. Would short stop have helped keep him more engaged and would he have gotten better at routine plays over time? Like what Tatisse have gotten better at routine plays over time. Tatisse had the problem with the routine play and was pretty good at the, at the exemplary play. I think these are interesting questions. And the other thing that, that Trevor said that, that, that stuck out for me was center field is actually a little bit easier than the corners in, in, in a certain regard. When you're behind the pitcher, you can see not only the movement of the pitch, sometimes Keirmeyer says you can see the, the, the catcher sides, which I guess is out the window now, but you know, you can see the movement of pitch going in and then you can see the movement of the ball coming out. Like you can't actually see slice as well from the corners. You know, like the way the ball, the way the ball is moving horizontally. You can't see that as well from the corners, but in center, you can see that ball moving. And so in, and I know it's a more difficult position in terms of tools and what round you have to cover, but there are some things that make center field easier than the corners. I do remember when Aaron Judge moved out of the corner into center, I think people kind of laughed at that, they thought maybe it would make it more susceptible to injury or for one reason or another. Maybe it wouldn't be a smooth transition. I think he plays that position a lot better than most of the skeptics expected at the time, right? He might actually stay there a little bit longer, just based on other personnel they have available. I think that's the other wild card here. I think as far as what Cruz has done as a hitter, you can look at what he's done this year. He's got to a once 17 WRC plus you think about him being completely healthy for a full season, which was not the case a year ago, one more step next year as possible. I think it comes down to slightly better swing decisions, which come with experience a lot of times. He can live with a high strike out, right? Because he does so much damage. So you could project another step forward, I think from Cruz as a hitter. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation at all. So what do you think the ceiling looks like and how close do you think we are to that ceiling for O'Neill Cruz as a hitter, Trevor? Yeah. Just definitely just judging based on his improvement since he's come up, he has made incremental improvements over time the whole time. So that tells me that we haven't hit the limit yet. It's not like he's out of his mind with the season, he doesn't, he's having a good season. It's the best one he's had, but is there a potential in there still? Yes, because he has that kind of power that if you, he's the guy who can hit 15 home runs in a month if he gets super hot, that's possible and he hasn't done that yet. So I would love to see him have two of those months where he goes off and he has a truly special season. I think that is entirely possible. He's a left-handed stick. He's got, when it comes down to that kind of strength and that kind of power and it's a strikeout rate situation, usually you're cutting that strikeout rate by 2%, 3% can make all the difference in the world, like look at like Brent Rooker and how he's changed his. He still strikes out a lot, but he's dropped it by about 2.5% and we've seen his OPS consistently be a hundred points higher because he has that kind of power. So like those, when it's that little adjustment, not, I don't want to say it's a little adjustment, but when it's one little thing clicking, turning him from a good high quality hitter to like a great hitter for a certain amount of time, I think he has that potential that maybe other guys don't have. Yeah, I think he could do like a 275, 30, 30 season or something. Yeah, still has that in there. Still a guy we're excited about from a fan. Is he perspective? Still a guy at Pirates fan should be really excited about even with the shift to center field. Brock to a wing and in the live stream, self-team directed at Bob Nutting, who I don't think is a fan of rates and barrels, but hey, you never know, Bob, if you're out there listening, drop us a note, especially if you're in the live hive, we'd love to hear from you. What do the Pirates do at shortstop though? I think the interesting thing about the timing of announcing this decision is they're still runway for this year where they could have let Cruz have another month if they wanted to. They didn't go that route. I see a kind of Falefa, great defender, doesn't seem like a long term solution. Maybe he's the stop gap until you find that franchise shortstop. Yeah, so like you have your safety glove first option there. What's next for the Pirates, both at shortstop and for other parts of this roster, they're going to really turn the corner next year and be a contender, at least for an NL wild card, if not for the NL central, aside from shortstop, what has to change? Figure out that infield. There's a story to be told where Cabrion Haines is healthy next year, has back surgery or figures the back thing out, you know, between Henry Davis, Joey Bart and Andy Rodriguez, they have a good catching tandem, Nick Gonzalez plays short, kind of Falefa backs up. This is, I'm telling the, like, everything comes together story, okay? Nick York is above average regular at second and they go out and if not rowdy to Les, then they go out and maybe they can, you can actually afford to buy in free agency, first baseman sometimes, like an old first baseman, like what are they, Paul Goldschmidt is he in the free agent? Why? Don't, don't sharpen that bin. Try to, try to move up one bin, but less slightly less. No, Paul Goldschmidt, like, what if you had a resurgence season with the pirates, then, then you have this, like, and then you add together the fact that their starting rotation is going to be really good. Their outfield is going to be really good, I think. And you know, you just need David Bednar to figure things out and, and find a reliever or two. I mean, that, but I did tell the story of everything coming together and what is the likelihood that each of those things I just said happened is one percent, especially the Paul Goldschmidt bro. I mean, that's, that might be the most likely thing of all the things you described. I think because it might be a year for six million, kind of like the old Carlos Santana deal or something along those lines. And you know what? Carlos Santana is. This is a little bit of trivia. You know what he is? He's the only person in baseball over 35 that's going to be an above average regular on the hitting side. Hey, he's the angels. That's cool. Yeah, he's got over a thousand of everything over 300 home runs. Okay. We don't talk about that guy enough. Yeah, he's pretty amazing. But also it reminds me of what Joey Votto said in his retirement speech, whereas in one of his retirement things, he said, it's a young man's game and not a young man anymore. It changes quickly. The other thing that's interesting just as a kind of a flyaway idea, Tamar Johnson moved it to double A. He's been playing some shortstop this year, kind of splitting his time between second base and shortstop, so I guess he can't really rule out the possibility that if there's some growth there over the course of the winter and into next season, then maybe Johnson ends up being the next longer term option that gets a look at the position. If they do go the stop gap, right? His batting averages are not good, but by WRC+, he's been really, really solid. He's got to be getting closer, right? He's in double A now. I mean, that's just got that's what the thing is. I think that next year, they have to go between. They have to do this quickly, too. Go from sorting between the options to these are the options, you know what I mean? Between Nick York, Nick Gonzalez, and Tamar Johnson, they need to find a good second baseman and maybe even a shortstop. It might be a combo of veteran and free agency, trade, big trade, retrade, some of your young pitching for a young infielder. They do have Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington, so they might have like a pitching prospect to trade. Right. And then finding the third guy might be as much as you can put on the group of non prospects that they're trying to shuffle through right now. But I think you could see it. You could at least tell yourself the story that 80 wins plus are a possibility in Pittsburgh with the right adjustment, still a nice long-term up arrow there, even though this year might be flat from a win total perspective. Let's move on to the Jackson's. We're going to talk about some young hitters who've made some really quick adjustments over the course of this year, and Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churio have both done that. I mean, if you look at what these guys are doing right now, go back to basically May 1st forward throughout their first month, and in case of Jackson Merrill, the first month wasn't bad, you're going to see top 30, top 40 production from both of these players. They're doing it with very little experience at triple A, Merrill's doing it while learning a new position, which I think makes it even more impressive. But let's start with Jackson Merrill. When you start to look at what he was in day one as a big leaguer and what he's starting to show us throughout the second half of this season, especially, what's changed the most? Yeah, I have these heat maps here for Jackson Merrill, which kind of show that on the left is his isolated slugging, so it's slugging heat map for early in the season. This is when he was a contact guy that didn't have that much power, very oppo. When I see that, I see a guy who has kind of a scoopy swing, he can hit the low pitch, and he can kind of inside out the pitch on the outer half. And that matches up with my eye test. Now you look on the right, and he's figured something out in terms of pulling the ball, hitting the ball, middle, middle in. And I had a stat, I think, for you that was, you know, for March, April, and May, he did not have a single double or homer that was middle or middle in. And since then, he has 16. So he is a guy whose strength is oppo, who has added the ability to, you know, pull or, or go center, but like, you know, do something on the inner half. There's something there where I see that first heat map, and I say, you know what? Do I really think this guy will never slug middle middle? You fill in middle middle and you get that second heat map, you know what I mean? It's like, you see that first one, it's actually kind of hopeful to me. It's like, if you can do two things, why not add middle middle to that? And that's going to be a theme for me with the two Jackson's that have really broken out. Yeah. What do you think about that Trevor? If you see that when you're kind of looking at a young player or any player, and you see that gap between two spaces where they handle pitches really well, do you start to assume that this space in between will become a dangerous spot to pitch them? Possibly or, you know, it might be an example of being in between some pitches. So he's he's hitting one place and hitting on type of pitch in the other place. And also that's pretty indicative. Like you mentioned, the scoop swing, if you're looking at these, you can tell the angle, like look at the angle of the red, the angle, the red on the left is steeper than it is on the right. So it looked like he has maybe made a slight change, or maybe it could be a mindset thing and there's flattened his ability to flatten his swing out a little bit more and still get to that pitch down and away has been the key. But I went and looked at his heat map and especially like his expected numbers in Woba and slugging and ISO. And he handles like the middle pillar. I keep calling it the middle pillar of the zone, the stuff that's in the center and not on the edges, those would be considered mistakes. But if you can hit them all the way down and all the way up, that's usually a pretty good example of your ability to take advantage of mistakes that most guys make. So they have to stay on the edges. Once you know you have to stay on the edges, you become harder to pitch you. This is something like Jose Altuve has done so well in his career as he's hit really well, really high and really well, really low over the plate. Now, and not chasing off or in too much is when he's going the best. But now he's chasing off and in too much, but when he wasn't, that when he was the best virgin himself and Jackson Merrill seems to have made that adjustment. Like the East and West is not something he's having an issue, he's not chasing those ways. He's just chasing within that pillar that he gets hard. So like when he's making a decision to swing, he's making a decision to swing at something that he knows he can handle a little bit better. And that is something that's changed over time. And that's what that tells me. So if that's the case, then I'll be like, okay, now let's pick, let's try to approach him in a way that where the pitches we're choosing are always moving away from the middle of the plate. Because if you're trying to backdoor something, guys who try to backdoor come off the plate on the plate and stuff are probably guys he is abusing at this point. It's the guys that where you can get the edges that are moving from the middle of the plate into the edges that are probably having better success. Now I can't verify that, but that usually does happen that way. So that's what it tells me and to be honest, the next guy we're talking about Cheerio has also made a similar type of adjustment, not quite as well as Merrill has, but he is definitely starting to hit that middle pillar wells as well. Yeah. And check out his heat maps like he has two spots. It's not quite the scoopy swing. It looks like, you know, he was able to hit high and middle in and then he just sort of filled in the gaps a little bit. And to some extent, I wonder how much anticipation has to do with this. To me, if I see two strengths, I see two swings, right? At least. Or two approaches or two sort of tweaks he can make. So on the left, he can block that high pitch and maybe that's like going oppo or sort of center oppo, you know, in the air. And then on the left, it's maybe sort of pulling that one for power. Like I see two areas of strength, I think maybe he has two swings. And when I look on the right, which is Churio since June 1st, or maybe it's May, I forget exactly. It says it. That one's actually June. The Merrill one was May, but this Churio one's June. You look at the right. He kind of filled in the gaps. And so I wonder if it's more like he already had the tools that the in order to like do what he did on the right, but he just needed to see how pitchers are going to pitch him. And now on the right, he's putting the right swing on each pitch each time. He's sort of filling it, but again, what you see is not amazing middle middle out before. And now he's better middle middle. So like I just don't think you become a hot prospect, a top prospect, and you aren't good middle middle, you know, middle middle, often is a place where you can just, you can see someone's career is near an end. They start not being able to handle middle middle, but if a guy comes up and has two strengths and middle middle isn't filled in yet, I'm into it. 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Thursday night football is on and it's only on prom video. This week it's the boys versus the achievement as the Dallas Cowboys battle the New York Giants. This is unbelievable. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern with TNF tonight presented by Verizon. Not a prime member? Sign up for a 30 day free trial to stream the game. It's the Cowboys and the Giants Thursday at 7 oh all prime video restrictions apply. See Amazon.com/Amazon prime for details. Just thinking about Churio. I know a new more about Churio before he debuted than Merrill, just because it being a Brewers fan following more people on Brewers Twitter. I remember a lot of clips from last season from Kurt Hogue, the Brewers writer at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of Churio home runs of fastballs that were high in the zone either at the top of the zone or above. And I know we've talked about that. That one heat map spot up there. Yeah, the zone is different. But even some of them were like high 90s fastballs at double eight occasions that he would get those. He was still driving those pitches out. And that to me gave me some confidence of like, okay, he's got plenty of bat speed. So unless there's a low problem where stuff down in the dirt below the zone is. And then he comes up and he has a low heat map too, like a strength low. You're like, okay, he's got two spots. I don't know. This is all in opposition to Jackson holiday, which I was surprised but Jackson holiday only has one strength middle in and they've been filling up the outside part of the corner. He has one hit, one hit on pitches outside, like low and outside. And it was a pulled change up. That's his only hit on the pitches on the outside part of the plate. So from a game planning perspective, right? That area is not afraid of that. Yeah, you're going to get filled up there until you show you can do something with that, right? Yeah. I mean, I'd be more afraid if he'd filleted that into the outfield, right? If he slapped it down the left field line, you know, drove it. Now he's adding the Jackson Merrill, right? Like he started with the other part and now he's going to add the Jackson Merrill. I'm going to scoop this into left field, but I don't know if he has that ability. He might not yet, but he's a kid. Right. That's true. That ball skills his so far in the minors has been very, very good. So it's like, it doesn't strike out a ton. He walks as much as he strikes out. Those are good approach. He's got the head on his shoulders to have a good approach. So it's only a matter of time before I think he starts to figure that type of stuff out. But again, it comes down to like, what's he trying to do? Still trying to juice things, still trying to be a power bat, which he doesn't necessarily need to be yet. I think it comes down to maybe intent a little bit with him and there was so much pressure and hype and especially with the way there is and stuff. There's just a lot of like noise that once it settles and we've seen it settle a little bit after the first stint and he's had some success. Yeah. He's had a lower those same low peaks or the same valleys in the roller coaster, but like he's coming back up a little bit more and supposed to just staying there. Him picking it up right away, I think maybe he had the highest expectation of all of them and you know, who his dad is and there's just a lot going on there. So when that stuff kind of settles down, I would be more I think willing to kind of put a stamp on the type of guy he is. But I think you're right though, showing the ability to kind of take that pitch away and just take your single away. It doesn't seem like he's that's something that he's willing to do yet, but I'm still hopeful that he will. I'm assuming he can't. It's more maybe willing. I could see the approach thing, but as a pitcher, if you're facing a guy that has sort of multiple bright red spots on the heat map, that's scarier, right? Because he it also just means fewer places you can you can put the ball, right? Yeah. And he doesn't just have a swing type that that is bad against a certain pitch. You can just keep going to the well if you need to because he it doesn't matter if he knows it's coming. He can't change the way he's swinging to do it. And those guys exist as well. And some of those guys have success because they only hit the pitch that's a mistake every time like Adam Duvall or Hunter Renfro are kind of like a couple of those guys. They're just waiting for the mistake. Yeah. Throw that fastball down a way. I'll never hit it. But if you throw a slider and it goes right down the middle, I'm going to crush it and I'm never going to get me in the big league. So, but he's not going to be one of those guys. I do think, you know what, to be honest, maybe intent or like a willingness and ability are connected and he's like not willing to yet because he can't do it yet. So like trying to do it isn't going to make him better yet. But I think that just based on how he showed how he can handle the bat and has a bat to ball skills just kind of naturally up into this point that it's completely within the wrong possibility. He figures it out and figures it out quickly. Yeah. And we've already seen since he's returned, it's been like 26 games since he had that first stint. Five homers, K rates under 30 percent, you know, it's trending in the right direction. It just might not happen overnight because it usually doesn't. And even the case of Churio, he looks so much different from June on than he did in those first two months. But that's to be expected for these guys, especially the guys that come through the miners as quickly as this entire trio has to this point. And I think there are people that are getting frustrated even with Wyatt Langford and Langford played college ball and was supposed to be a little bit more polished. But I think the injury that Langford had earlier this year also explains a lot about why he hasn't quite hit the ground running the way people were expecting back in March. I think there's tons of reasons to still be excited about a lot of guys in this rookie class, even if they haven't clicked quite as quickly as Merrill and Churio have. Yeah. So right also to point out the excellent swinging strike rates that he had the minor leagues, I just did a quick little thing where I look at, you know, double a players under the age of 21 since 2021 with excellent swinging strike rates and power in the minor leagues. And you've got a really short list. I mean, without power, you've got Bryce Turang, Xavier Edwards, Mason Nguyen, you know, with power, you've got Roman Anthony, Anthony Volpe, you know, Tristan Cassis. So there's a lot to say with just, he's demonstrated the ability in the past and, you know, just needs to kind of figure it out at the big league level. And holiday will by far be the least costly of the three Jacksons when you're looking at your 2025 drafts, no matter what happens in the final month, there will be a gap between Merrill and Churio and wherever holiday is going, it might be a large gap too, depending on how things play out the rest of the way. We had one more talk that Enos saw at the Saver Seminar last week and that we wanted to dig into and it's about if it's good to modulate your swing by count. And this one had a fantastic visual too. So you know, tell us a little bit more about this presentation and walk us through some of the different things that we see on this particular visual. This is from Scott Powers, who is a professor that used to work for the Dodgers, used to do their, run their analytics department. And if you look at the X axis, it's how much the batter reduces their swing length by count. And then if you look at the Y axis, it's how much they reduce their bat speed by count. If you look at the shape of the graph, you notice most people in the major leagues do reduce their swing length and swing speed in two strike counts. I have another thing from Josh Rodriguez, who's at coach Rodriguez too. This shows how much people reduce their bat speed. Look at that with, in three accounts, the major league average bat speed is 74 miles an hour in O2 counts, it's 67 miles an hour. So that's a huge difference. And so back to the, the powers graph, what you see is in the red, those are players who are performing better in two strike counts. And so you can kind of assume to some extent that the changes that they make are beneficial. And so Julio Rodriguez is really one of the best case scenarios there. He reduces his, his swing length, a fair amount in two strike counts or as the strike goes, as the count gets deeper, he does not reduce his bat speed much. Then you have Adley Richmond, who's in the blue, who has cost himself by reducing his bat speed a lot, but not reducing his swing length. And I guess that makes sense that you wouldn't want to have a long swing that's slower, you know, in two strike counts. And part of my reasoning is, and this is where I really wanted to get Trevor in on it, is in two strike counts, the league throws 43% fastballs. In one strike counts as throws 45% fastballs. In the modern day baseball, I don't think you're expecting that different of a pitch mix in two strike counts, largely because pitchers know you're reducing your swing length, you're reducing your bat speed, I'm going to throw you a fastball. So if you are Nico Horner or Anthony Rizzo, who reduced their swing length and bat speed a ton, I feel like I would just, I would, I would be likely to throw you a high forcing fastball in two strike counts. And I wonder how, I know that Trevor watches a lot of Julio Rodriguez. And I just wonder what he would think as a pitcher, if he saw, you know, an Adley Richmond set to the plate or in two strikes or Julio Rodriguez and two strikes, wouldn't that affect the way you pitched them as well? Yeah, actually, it's funny that I was, I kind of just had a realization while you were, while we were starting that conversation and then you hit it. And so the interesting thing with like Adley Rushman, if his swings gets, or is slower, but it's the same length fastball, like he's now going to take more time for the barrel to get where it needs to get to hit the fastball hard, who are, who are Rodriguez on the other hand, when he shortens his swing and then it's the same speed, his barrel is going to get there faster. So breaking ball, which if you have, I've watched a lot of Julio, that works really well. The reason, and then also on top of that, the fastball is generally hit harder more often and can turn into higher production slash homers and to get run value, hitting a bunch of homers on a pitch, that's a great way to get that run value up on that pitch. That's right. He's hitting two street, two strike fastballs, Julio is, but like when he gets the breaking ball, he also strikes out a lot, he's striking out a lot on stuff that's not that pitch. And so that's the, that's the trade off. But like you would still take that because every once while he's getting it, as opposed to Adley, who's not really putting himself in position to hit either pitch well, maybe a change up, but even sliders, if your bat speeds long still and slow, you still can't get your barrel to match the movement of the slider. So he's probably still not hitting the slider hard either. It's probably just changeups, which don't profile is a great pitch to him anyways. So less guys are throwing them and relievers don't even throw them at all basically. So it's like, you know, he's not putting himself in position to hit a pitch. He's going to see a lot either. So that's probably the biggest difference, but that's how I would use it. The thing with like Nico Horner or Rizzo, and I think honestly Rizzo's thing is just kind of coming with him aging a lot. That kind of keeps both of them open and you can basically just say, either way, I can do this either way because it's just generally slower. And that's how I would use that. So like I'm not worried about heavy damage to those two guys later in account because of the way they're going Julio. I'm still kind of weary of throwing that fastball, but selling out like at least kind of doing an old school way of approaching it, and I don't think he needs to. There is a good question from jumpshoot in the live hive is out there being a switch hitter matter. I know we've seen with some of the early swing data, switch hitters do have pretty different swing speeds sometimes from the left and right side is OBS is from the sides have completely flipped from his rookie year, like crazy actually how much more damage he's doing from the right side this year as opposed to the left side and then vice versa when he first came up a much better OBS wise from from the left I think it's really hard to have to be a switch hitter. He's got two swings. I mean, imagine being a switch pitcher, you have to maintain two whole deliveries, you know, it's like a just mechanically I think that maybe and he's also one of the youngest names in terms of like small sample on this list. So it's like maybe this is just a part of him figuring it out, but I can see over his career, the pitch that he hits the best with two strikes is the curveball. And that actually sort of makes sense. If you keep if your swing is still long but slow, that's the one that you're going to actually be able to hit the best. How many people are throwing two strike curveballs? Sadly, Richmond, though, I mean, like some people, that's their best pitch, but I'd be going fast while slider against them. So to give and take your thinking about it, just what a hitter is trying to do is avoiding the strikeout, right? But to the extent that you slow down and shorten up your swing, like you can overcorrect and get to the point where you're not doing damage anymore, right? Then it's I didn't strike out, but the best case scenario was a sack fly, a softly hit ball and play, maybe a productive out. Oh, and now we're getting to the meat of it. I mean, because there's all the people that are yelling, there is no two strike approach in the big leagues. And I just showed you that, you know, we, they modulate their swing, there's their swing speed. And in fact, I hate to be a hot taker and I hate to fight that battle because it's ongoing. You'll never win it. I would say that maybe the problem is the two strike approach. I would say you might get a fast, you're not going to get a lot of fast balls. You might get a fast ball on any count. Like you need to be able to modulate that and it needs to, you can't be, you can't be swinging seven miles an hour slower in two strike counts. Like I'm sorry. I just don't think that's a good approach. Well, it's almost like the two strike approach is too vague, like who's pitching? What do they do? What are their strengths? Like you would handle a two strike situation differently based on how you expect to be pitched by whoever you're facing do, right? And the team you're facing? I mean, scouting reports, where they're teams that you were on that were a little bit more into two strike fast balls than other teams. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like that was a big thing with the, with the twins. When we first started to, to everyone throw the sliders, we were like kind of going backwards and we're trying to get the fast balls, we had, we had the guys with the type of fast balls that could get the swing and miss late too. But you know, the high fastball was, it still is a very high with pitch. It's just higher, you know, high risk, high reward. So it really doesn't matter about the stuff. I think that a lot of the gripes about the no two, two strike just to kind of go back to that, the no two strike approach comes down to like, you know, chipper Jones brothers up the other day. It's like the two strike approach and that like you're okay grounding out to second in order to get the guy home from third. That has gone like where that's the intent guys are like thinking, if I get out here, I would like actually to get out here because I don't have a chance. Like that's, that might be gone. Modern baseball does not want to give up ounce. Like we're just like out to your currency don't think that at all. That's not even going into their head that that's possible, which is good and you know, has this merit and doesn't. It just depends on your choosing your spots, but you can't just go to, I'm going to slow my swing down. So I don't strike out with two strikes because like in at least case, for example, you know, counters on first or whatever now, now it's a double play and now it's strike out would have been a better option and run super well either. So like that's something you have to think about. And when you slow your swing down that much, the chances that you ground into the softly into the player high your injury. And so like it's situational. I know it's baseball and we say that a lot. It's almost always situational, but overall, maybe picking those spots more less, but having the ability to do them and just like flaying a ball if you need to play it. Everyone's wild. Is I think still valuable, but a guy like Julio, like maybe it's just not in the cards for him, just slowing down like we talked about or nail crews, slowing down his bat, makes him to changes it some way that makes it like not a viable swing anymore. You might still miss it just as much. Yeah. Might be missing more. So much. You don't know how many guys are bats the effect as well, but it's an interesting thing. I just, you got to have to take a case by case. I just love Yandy Diaz on here. He just, he doesn't shorten up. He doesn't slow down. He just rips it every single time, but he doesn't strike out that much. So it kind of works for him. I'd also say this question from Frederick Weaver from the live hive is the lower swing length on two straight counts evidence of a deeper contact point and opposite field approach being ideal, this, this is another reason why I don't love being a hot taker. I don't want to say that people are doing the wrong thing because our information is still a little bit incomplete. And what we might find is as we study this better and as we add contact point to our swing length and swing speed discussion, we discover that some people are modulating their contact point and are going to Oppo and covering more of the bag and doing what old schoolers want them to do. And some people are just slowing down. So there is a difference because, you know, contact point changes the measurement. And so if you don't have as much, if your bat doesn't get it out in front and you don't have as far as far to go, then you're not going to get the same bat speed measurement and you're not, and you're going to have a short of swing. But I think that what you're seeing a little bit of that on the graph where you're seeing that people who reduce their swing length, but not their swing speed do the best, you know, that's, I think, one way to read this, this graph. And so if you reduce your swing length and not your swing speed, what you're doing is I'm swinging just as fast, but I'm letting the ball travel. I'm going to wait on this one. I'm going to watch it a little bit longer. And that might increase your contact rate, which is what you kind of want in two strike counts. In general, interesting thing about that question, yeah, to answer like to kind of touch on a pointy made, generally, if you hit the ball deeper and like either some, if it's before you break your hands, because you got to remember, hand break time also changes where the barrel is at is in hand breaking is where is for most guys where you turn your hands over. That's where you're peaked in your, your bat speed. That's where it's going the fastest. That's what you want. So you want to hit the ball when that happens when it's at its fastest speed, if you're hitting before you break your hands, you're not going to have as much power because the bat's not up to speed yet. So like in the case of Adley, he might be hitting the ball deeper in the, deeper into the, into the zone as well before he, the hands are broken to get the speed up as well. So like, and then once you hit it, like there's no reason to speed up anymore. So like that's the problem too. So you want to give yourself a chance of continuing, no matter where the pitch is and what it is, by shortening the swing up and keeping the speed up, you're giving yourself the best chance to get the barrel out in front every time still. So you're still going to hit the ball hard and it's still going to be, you're going to be hitting it at the peak speed if it's a shorter, shorter, shorter swing. So like, that's why shorter swing as opposed to slower, slower bat is the better option because you're giving your child a chance to get the bat barrel to a place where it can still hit the ball hard. I think that's at the end of the day. So like dragging the bat through is not a good intent anymore. It's more like you want to keep the barrel in, they call it like keeping the bat in the zone longer. But technically real in the way that said, it's like pitching the context, not like real, no one's like hit this, like, but it is in reality, like it's in position longer. 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Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Is the answer right in the middle of the graph with Juan Soto? I mean, if you're going to mimic anyone as a hitter, Juan Soto seems like a pretty good choice because there's a slight shortening up, there's a slight drop in speed but kind of just happy medium. Does that actually kind of fit as what you think would be ideal Trevor? That might just be something natural for him and that's what tells me. The way that it's so little in my Newt is rare and almost sounds like it's not conscious. Like it's something he just does and like with Julio, that's very clearly an intent thing. He's like, I do that. I shorten now. I think Juan may just kind of shorten it up a little bit naturally as the beat goes on and it gets longer because he knows he can still hit the ball hard and he keeps it within those ranges and that's really hard to do. I think doing what Jose does is actually really hard to do with intent and with practice and a lot of that is intuitive. There's a lot of guys there but again the same thing could be guys are just going off intuition and not really having the approach as well and you would see the same thing but he has the approach and that intuition and that's what makes him the hitter he is. Unconscious feel for hitting that seems to be a just a elite historically great sort of level for Juan Soto. Well let's move on. I'm not sure what happened to Eno given the tech issues he was having before. I'm not even certain he's coming back at this point. We had some great questions in our discord. One of them came from Stinky. Stinky wanted to know if there's anything different about Corbin Burns since the All-Star break. We just saw a start from Burns against the Dodgers on Wednesday night. Shouhei Otani took a deep like a pull the ball it was outside that I don't it was kind of defied physics for me watching that home run but have you seen anything Trevor with Corbin Burns in the second half of this season that's notably different in terms of stuff you know Vilo movement anything that would would lead you to be able to explain why Burns hasn't been his usual self in these last seven or eight starts. One thing that's interesting is there really isn't a ton I think in terms of like movement like everything's about the same he's still throwing really hard he's not like he's not lost any movement on any pitches maybe a slight you know slight changes at times because it's late in the year and there's fatigue and he's from 164 innings like that's a lot of innings but it is odd his decision making slightly different and he's throwing it looks like he's going to pitches that are hit a little bit harder not hit harder hit more often not swinging miss pitches as much he's throwing more change ups this year he's got 11% change of rate his sinker usage is is I don't want to say it's up but if I feel like he's used it a little bit more he's trying to use it into the righties and get the ground balls kind of maybe go for a double play a little bit more often and something we haven't seen him do in the past he wanted to strike out double digits right and you know it could be a function of the nature of how their starting rotation is put together right now and he's being asked to do a lot right he's like we need to go throw seven because our bullpen we can't use everybody every single game we need a guy to eat a bunch of innings and he could be taking that to heart I know he is a guy who cares about eating innings that little adjustment could point to him not missing bats as much making decisions where he's not worried about missing bass as much because he needs to go deeper into games which is hurting him because when he tries to miss bats he gets those those things but I just think there's a it might be a little bit more bad timing and these things are just he hasn't had a couple great outings in a row and it just happens to be at a time where they need him to and we're just noticing a lot I tend to lean that way a little bit more because I haven't been on the fine a ton but you know we got you know back and he usually has some great stuff I'm glad for the one here you have to say you're right the there's nothing that I can't find a smoking gun when I look at the movement of the pitches or like it it looks like it's all there I did watch last night and you know my general theory and this is one of the question was we have another question coming up later but you know with cornbirds I think my general theory is like just a league sort of knowing him better you know like so he goes up against Tasker Hernandez and he throws curveball curveball sinker which was a ball and I you know Tasker didn't even didn't even blink at it curveball which now Tasker has fouled off no way I would have gone back to a curveball he does a slider which which Tasker fouls off and then he puts a curveball back where the last one was fouled off exactly in the same spot until ask or goes yakety yak and I just feel like what is this approach in this moment here because in the next at bat cornburns goes up against the Oscar and as it's all cutters and sliders and he strikes Tasker out in like four pitches why didn't you take the cutter slider at bat and this 75% curveball at bat and put them together this feels like there was like a plan this what we're gonna do against the Oscar the first time this what we're gonna do against the Oscar second time this we're gonna do that to ask for the third time to some extent like if you're Tasker in this you start sitting curveball you just told you you showed you three curveballs out of four pitches like you're sitting curveball he sat curveball and he and he hit it out and I'm not here to say that like you know Orioles game planning is bad but that one just struck me is like what are you doing and one thing they did do when he got to the Orioles is throw the curveball more and his curveball is good and it's led to a little early uptick in strikeouts but I think he like one of my weirdest theories is that I think batters and pitchers should be random number generators and they should just like just be as weird as possible and just do the just like never get into any into any patterns if you look Gordon Burns when he's behind goes to the cutter 60% of the time so he has some 60s on his on his chart that you're gonna circle and once you like I think Trevor's out of this once you get past 60 like you know people are circling that and thinking about it I did find actually something interesting I think with the difference between his slider and his curveball so he's on the slider more than he's ever he's ever thrown a slider but I'm looking at where it is the vast majority of them have been thrown not a lot in the strike zone I think he's just more comfortable throwing curveball for strikes than he is throwing slider he can't that was my question is why does his slider goes well does well by stuff plus that would lead to more strikeouts he is down a little bit in strikeouts why doesn't he throw a slider more yeah I thought maybe he was blending between the cutter and the slider maybe that's they're too close or maybe just can't command it maybe just not he doesn't command a slider great I thought the blending might be possible just because he throws the cutter so much it's such an important pitch for him that maybe that's part of why it's like that pitch you know a box these are different enough that it's hard to blend because this cutter is 96 and his sliders 88 right so that difference in velos enough the interesting thing is here's the whiff rates curveballs whiff rate is 38% but the sliders is 45.6 he just doesn't get in the zone so they didn't get swings so I really think he's just that's the that's the difference in the day like I bet you they're like hey man the sliders like the slider is probably the way even though the curveball is really good you still we we want you to throw them about the same amount of time and just kind of mess with them and but he's just like my slider is a ball all the time so he just hurt the curveball and which is hurting him a little more which curveballs are hit harder than sliders now especially if like I think in the game of anticipation if like a curveball you know if I don't anticipate it a lot of times I just don't swing and you stole a strike for me but if I do anticipate a curveball I can hit it yeah you got time to get the bear out there and if a slider you're like oh I don't know what this is it's 90 right there's no like and you just fell off it's too hard that's why this has become a slider league it's like he's just not leaning on the pitch that will get him the most I think effect because he's not it's not throwing for strikes and that's big for him like manning a pitch is huge he's not gonna throw it if he can't and that is by far his worst command of pitch being a work horse is great as far as getting paid in free agency having the track record that Burns has he's gonna get a massive deal this winter but if you start yielding more contact either because you're trying to pitch deeper into games or you become predictable whatever the reason is it seems like a very bad thing in a walk year and when you look at a guy that's gone from you know 30.5% with the k-rate in 2022 down to 25.5% last year and his final year with the Brewers down to 22.3% and you look at the swinging strike rates the last two seasons being that 12% range I don't think we're going back to 30% strikeout rate Corbin Burns in the future like I don't know if what's happening this year's necessarily the true talent new baseline but if you want the elite strikeout rate I think it's gonna take a pretty big adjustment for that to come back and I wonder if that's gonna give any teams some hesitation in going out and giving him you know a six seven your massive deal that he's certainly gonna get this winter my team was about to sign up to a big deal like that I'd be like okay let's all talk about the slider now because I just feel like you know in this type of league I want the guy I'm giving millions and millions of dollars to have a great slider and do you believe it's gonna get better or that can be used more effectively one thing with y'all moto did you didn't have the great slider but I think they must have seen enough in the in the cutter the gyro whatever they use throwing and said we can work with this they had a good question from Michael C. in the discord wondering if there could be a true with pitch for Logan Webb right I mean Logan Webb like Corbin Burns has had a lot of success for several years but seems like he's doing it with a lot of the same tools that he's always had I think the only thing that's kind of caught my attention in the last year or so we brought up Logan Webb is that you think you said you know his his release points been changing right it's been dropping a little bit over time but overall it's a lot of the same approach and pitch mix that Logan Webb is using to get the results that he gets so are there similarities here even though they're very different as pitchers in terms of the stuff that they're working with the through line that I was going to try and and draw which is really really hard to prove and has to do with sort of this idea of decay the more you often you throw a pitch the more people see it the better the worst of gets right is just that there's a certain amount of decay that happens for any pitcher that's been in the league for a while I mean they're just people now know what you throw and that's why you know I think one of the reasons I admire Frankie so much was I felt like he was a real tinker that would be like oh you think you know me this year I'm different you know and there was that's kind of like every year like he kind of I felt like he wanted to come into spring training every year with something else I'm not saying that these guys don't want to do that Corbin is throwing the curve more this year he's he is trying to change a little bit web I don't know if people know this web throws a cutter he has mostly thrown it to one player show here Tommy I hadn't seen it everywhere but like yeah I talked to Logan web about a lot about his cutter he's it's not great he's trying to figure it out it could theoretically be good there are a lot of guys who are cutter sinker change up guys you know the sweeper that the web throws the baby sweeper they throws right now is a decent pitch but it's it's not I don't know why maybe maybe people can see the release point so different from his other ones or it's he's he's tried a harder slider he's tried a slower slider it's there's something about his mechanics I think that will never make him have a really great breaking ball and I in essence I guess the other three line between these two pitchers is neither one of them has a standout slider do you want to have Corbin burns if he develops that pitch or gets he hasn't already but if he gets better how hard would you push that usage given that he's a workhorse starter is there any concern about going to that too much because of fear of injury uncle Ted in the live hive suggesting that's just asking for an elbow issue I mean we've seen some different research on this over time I think direct stress on the elbow is his highest with with the low I've seen there was some new research about spending a problem but there was actually research of the savor seminar that wasn't able to replicate that finding I think it is a problem if you throw a 92 mile an hour slider and Corbin burns is is pretty pretty hard 88 is pretty hard I wouldn't necessarily push it to 40% you know but right now he's throwing what's he throwing he's throwing 15% because he can't command it I mean he could throw more sliders and web could if I could bequeath web a standout amazing slider through 25% of the time he would be he's already like a top 10 pitcher I think he would be like one of the best maybe best pitcher in the league I mean you're talking about like one of the best change up one of the best thinkers great command I mean if I gave him a plus slider you'd be that's like kind of the Pedro package Pedro was like oh by the way I have the best curve ball the best change up and you know one of the two best slot the fastballs in the league what do you think about the high-villo bullet slider that Frederick suggests for Logan will he's been trying it he that's that was what he did one time he he was talking to me for one year it was all about how hard he could throw a slider but he couldn't he just couldn't get it high enough like I just he couldn't throw it hard enough one thing that I think is being overlooked with him and pretty much nobody else he throws a force him sometimes it's terrible and he knows that Logan's a guy who knows he knows how well what his pitches are based on movement and which ones are the best the problem is the ones he throws all the time is you know when hitters are hitting they're trying to shrink the strike zone he already strengths the strike zone because he throws everything in the bottom half like the sinkers like mid-thigh but it's not up like they don't have to look up ever with him he is nothing it's not about even like standing eyes up or changing eyes I like I lines no he's just eliminated half the zone for them they're like you don't have to worry that's why he gives up so much content that's why that's why his kind of big slider doesn't get chased very much is because it's just moving exactly it's moving in the general area eyesight wise for everybody and they're just like able to make a decision that that's going to be way too far out it's too big in that case but if you think about it that way even if you add a smaller one in reality it's probably not going to get like less swings on it they're probably just going to hit it harder okay it's just because it's moving less that the reason it's changed up in a sinker both move down and away from a lefty a lot I think the cutter could be a good idea even if it's a 45 cutter because he could throw it high in the zone maybe yeah he needs then I think that's what he wants and that's why he throws it to Otani because Otani crushes everything in the bottom of his own like he can't pitch this way to him which that's a big issue that's an issue so he finding something that maybe stays higher or he can use high or maybe like a different version of a sinker that doesn't sink as much that would be interesting to me like a Bassett sinker who he throws up all the time oh just like a the two this is the two seemer this is not the sinker this is the two see roll forcing that's that's you know it's got 20 inches of drop still his forcing does if you can't do that then throw like something that goes a lot horizontally because you do that so naturally but it's a non-seam shifted sinker like the non-seam changes that and see what happens because he has already has such a good feel for that so like work within the things you have but you need to open up the top part of the zone a little bit somehow and figure out a way to do that and maybe that's just a different version of the pitches you already throw Trevor you might be interested in this there was a little part of that question was has there been research into pitch separation like different and so one of the things that we saw was somebody looked at the value of you know when you see those pitch movement charts on Brooks or whatever like you know those the spray charts that he just described the distance between the pitches like the the area of the blob or whatever and like the bigger being better and it was bigger was better but what he found was if you take if you have like a tight blob if your gram ashcraft and then you throw like a 75 mile hour curve right which is very different than your 98 mile an hour cutter and your 89 90 mile an hour sweeper right now you throw 78 mile per hour curve that pitch that's the big thing that separates from all the rest it has fewer swings it can be good for you but it has fewer swings so that that says to me the batter sees it because it's so different than everything else but if you can command it so that's what so it almost the question to well and web is not how good your cutter is is can you just put it there because it's going to look so different than everything else that most of the time people are going to see that cutter and be like what the hell was that you know and not swing you just wanted to have to think about it like if anything if it just could becomes a pitch where they're like I know that that's something that I might get that could throw them off everything else because everything else is in the same kind of bucket Josh Hader change his slider to be harder and move less because he's like the other one the 82 is just so different yeah and he needs swings because he doesn't have a good command he needs swing so you can I eat wings and my fast balls my bread and butter anyway so I need something where they're like they're going to swing at this meaning they're thinking about it meaning that's going to make it my fastball better and it has because he's like my slider is never going to be my out pitch it never is I can't throw a good one I need one that that makes my fastball better he made that choice even though no one really noticed that he needed to do it by him because it wasn't really didn't seem like an issue this is fast was still doing well but that that's kind of the way that you would commit to a not as good movement pitch in a vacuum in order to make other pitches better that's a prime example that's what Logan needs just dabbling a little bit a lot I mean he's still a really good pitcher oh yeah well if the swing and miss is something that he wants to be able to go to in certain situations and not just depend on our defense all the time because he's given up a lot of hits this year he'll tell you it's too many hits what we're also saying is he may not get a true with pitch but he may get a called strike pitch that makes his change up into more of a with pitch exactly because now they're like oh wow oh crap now it's oh two now he throws the change up this further off the zone thanks a lot for those questions from stinky and michael c in the discord join the discord links in the show description ask questions for future episodes you guys ask during the show sometimes we'll get those in as well do you guys want to play a name that dude before we go I had one queued up for last week it's just sitting here it's terrible at this yes let's go all right Trevor has the all-time series lead one oh you know see the here's the thing you know has to make sure that if he has an idea of the player he can't sound the player out out loud and then have Trevor steal because that's how Trevor got the wind i was like hey mason mason you're giving more clues you were on it you had the edge and you gave it up all right so name that dude i was a position player born november 10th 1986 in san hose california and i made my major league debut on may 18th 2011 after being drafted in the seventh round out of pepperdine blank stairs current no longer playing i played my final mlb game in september of 2020 while appearing for my fourth major league team i'll continue still blank stairs i top 25 homers in a season twice including a career high 31 homers in 2017 i want to say jason kipness it's not jason kipness it's a little bit younger than that i think some refer to me as san namja others call me phone home or mr. t to witsky no damn it he was long beach with me frank still nothing there you know you don't throw a guess out there mr. t all right what was the first one san namja all right you don't have a guess yet so we'll keep going i hit more home runs in the kbo than i did in the majors or across all of my minor league stops that did not help me what that should have given it away uh thames erke thames yes erke thames that's it mr. t trepper takes a to-oh season lead in name that dude not entirely surprised but hey remember san namja mr. t should have done it i don't remember san namja either but that was a fun little run for erke thames when he came back to the big leagues and he was providing all that power after just tearing up the kbo all right we are going to go on our way out the door amount you can find us on twitter you can find trever and i am trever may find email at younocereis find me at derrick the right for the pause at rates and barrels join that discord link is in the show description if you got a question for a future episode you can also email those rates and barrels at gmail.com is that the way to do that thanks to brine smith for producing this episode we are back with you on briday thanks for listening college football is back like never before i'm david oven and i host until saturday the athletics leveled up college football podcast three times a week you'll hear me and my co-hosts fellow athletics senior writer chris vanini and two-time national champion damey and harris embrace the sports new madness with you we're also just going to have a ton of fun enjoying all the things that make college football great check out the brand new one-field saturday every monday wednesday and thursday this fall you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts
