Ground balls kill hitters & the 17 highest Pitcher Game Scores in MLB history - Ep. 713 - 6.15.26

The summer heats up, so does Shohei Otani as he rampages towards what his fifth MVP in six years. He's currently leading the NL at OPS and ERA plus. And like the Dodgers, this looks like it's gonna be a red hot summer in baseball. It's this week in baseball. I think it has been a very exciting baseball season so far. I think overshadowed by what has been a fantastic NBA playoffs as we get a sit here. And though our blue and orange team in baseball has not been doing great. Our blue and orange team in basketball finally brought home a championship last night as the Knicks won the NBA title. Fifty-three years. And now I at least have seen one.

And you've seen one. Behind my desk in my office is a is a lithograph of the nineteen seventy three Knicks signed by everybody that was involved in the team. I think almost everybody on there. And I I was thinking I never thought when I got that all those years ago that it was gonna be this long before they would win another one. Hopefully it won't be that long before we see the Mets win another one. Not looking like it's gonna be this year. If it's fifty-three years from now, the next Knicks championship will be two thousand and s and eighty-nine. I hope that seventy nine. I hope that's not the case. So yeah, you might you might see it, but I won't.

If it takes that long. So yeah, Shohei sh Shohei who left the game this week and we we thought that, you know, there might be something up. He came back in the next game and hit a home run. So I I don't know about his pitching right now, but apparently he can still hit. Right, right. And he's hitting incredible on his days off. His hitting is just better when he doesn't pitch for whatever reason, probably just a focus thing. It's probably hard to be locked in on both things to the level that you need to be to be able to hit major league pitching.

But he looks like he's well on his way to winning his four another MVP this year. I don't even know who the number two in the national league would be right now for like who's the contender? Matt Olson? Mizarowski. Maybe Matt Olson for the MVP. Yeah. I don't know. For a picture. It's happened before. And and and and Babe Ruth, as much as we love talking about Babe Ruth on this podcast, never led the league in both ops and ERA. And that is where in the same season. In same season. In the same season. So that's where we are with show here right now. So that's pretty darn remarkable.

Just by itself.

And I I think, you know, just as we continue to look around the league, we you know, we we see something in some interesting things. With the Yankees have four former MVPs that are all playing great right now. You never not playing great 'cause not everybody's playing. Right, but but I mean but Paul Paul Goldschmidt looks like he's turned back the clock somehow. Goldschmidt today in the ninth inning got a but got a double and a tie game for the Yankees. His third hit of the day. And and and then Ben Rice hits a a bomb of a home run to put the Yankees head, they're gonna probably win two out of three in Toronto, with Schlitler winning one game and you see.

Savage winning the other. I just hope the Blue Jays can rally more 'cause it would be really fun if those two teams, you know, because the Yankees are in first place. Well, I think I think it's Goldschmidt is amazing. Goldschmidt is the only player over thirty seven, at least position player wise, that's putting up a positive war this year. No other player his age or older has a positive war. That's good. ⁓ pitchers, some there are some older pitchers that do have some positive F war, but he's the only ⁓ offensive player. And y young the Yankees desperately need not only him, Goldschmidt to be good, Ben Rice to be good because they know Aaron Judge is out. Trent Grisham went on the I L this week with a ⁓

With a big injury and isn't gonna be around for a while, hamstring wise. ⁓ and then Stanton on his rehab, there's one of the MVPs who talk about the four MVPs in the A guys. Yeah, it came up a little lame and looks like it's gonna be delayed. ⁓ And then despite all of that, the Yankees have finally asserted themselves atop the AL East. They are in first place, having finally caught the Tampa Bay Rays who recaught them, right? They were ahead and then they were but the and the Rays looking a little bit more mortal over their last ten, having finally started to cool off a little.

Because there is no team in baseball that has outperformed their expected win loss like the Tampa Bay Rays. They're forty and twenty seven. Their expected win loss is thirty four and thirty three. Where are the White Sox? They are thirty five and thirty-four. That's their expected right now based off of how they played right. So they're they're a team they the Yankees are actually underperforming. They should be have forty five wins. Let's let's talk about the White Sox for a second, because I was taking a look today and not realizing that

With the the Guardians, who yesterday lost ⁓ Jose Ramirez for the next four to six weeks with a nightmare scenario for that. That's a team that struggles hitting and he's been unbelievable this year. I mean, basically MVP race kind of unbelievable with Jordan Alvarez of the Astros. And and now the second place team in that division is the White Sox, and there's nobody within a stone's throw of those two teams. I mean, they're way ahead of the other teams. It's like the twins. The Tigers have started to show some signs.

signs of life, but they're potentially in a too little too late situation already. And and so my question to you is seriously, can the White Sox with the with the Guardians having some possible problems coming on right now, could they stay there all year l and and vibe for the division title? I mean this is unbelievable. I don't think we're talking enough about it. I think it's possible at this point. They seem right for the type of team to win a miraculous division crown, have it be one of the best feel-good stories in baseball, only to go out in that first round and get their teeth kicked in. Well, and and and so people don't know, right? You're a baseball fan and maybe you're not as crazy as me, but you're pretty crazy. Who's the man?

The manager. That would be the manager. I was about to say Blake Butera, but he's the he's that he's the twist. He's having a great you know, he's the he's the National's manager. Manager, right, right, okay, yeah. Derek Shelton went up to Minnesota, he's managing there. Shelton went to Minnesota, that's right. I don't know who the White Sox is. Will Venable. Okay. He's doing a good job there. He's doing an unbelievable job. They beat the Dodgers today. Yeah, and I think they won two out of three in that series and and you know, with Davis having a tremendous season, you know, pitching wise, ⁓ you know

I'm starting to think, wow, these and they had well, they had how about the rookie, right? Braden Montgomery comes up, the heralded rookie, one of the trade the trade that they made a couple years ago when Garrett Coshe obviously ⁓ you know went from Chicago to to Boston. They got a bunch of players. All four of those guys that the White Sox got in that trade have now played in the major leagues. The latest being Braden Montgomery, who of course in his first game hits a game winning walk off home run to win the game. Talk about a good start. Right, right. And it's and it's years from guys like

Colson Montgomery, their shortstop, who's only hitting 223. But guess what? He's at 17 homers, and he's got an OPS of 800 because he's getting so much he's hitting so well. And so there's little things like that, you know, that they're getting these years from guys that you wouldn't necessarily expect. Chase Meridroth. Or Mydroth, I think. Mydroth is having a very good year at second offensively for them. He's one of the guys they got in the trade. Right, right. And you know, a young guy, another guy young, Tristan Peters is having a very good year in center field for them. Who who, you know, they've got guys that people have not heard of that.

Are playing well and no brave fans, you don't need to worry. Jared Kalinick might be on the roster, but he's only played in 19 games. I'm pretty sure he's not one of the reasons they're doing well. Another guy associated with the Mets who went over to the I think he's in the White Sox is ⁓ Luis San Jelicunya. ⁓ has done virtually nothing of goodness there. Well, I you sound like you're saying that like it's a kind of noteworthy piece of news. I looked at his career the other day, and and and like his best year was like the first 15 games of pay the Mets in that one.

He came up in September, and he's been pretty awful. Like there's been no other sign that this guy is a legitimate major league baseball player other than a late-inning defensive replacement, which is what I'm saying. Well, I'm also gonna be mad that when you said his name, I initially thought of Luis Giorme. So that's why I was like, I don't know why you're saying that name like I'm supposed be expecting anything of it. No, no. Now when I realize no, you're talking about the younger Acunia. Yeah, it looks like they moved on at the right time from him. It looks like he gave them the best time he was for 15 games. Well, right, and you what it was? It looks like I mean.

When you watched him play he was a crazy free swinger and I think when you get young guys that come up sometimes pitchers just throw them pitches in the strike zone to try and see if the guy can even hit. I think he hit three home runs that September he played for the Mets when they needed a player, so he came under I don't think he's hit another one since.

They definitely got the best out of that guy. So I I I'll be interested to watch the White Sox. Three home runs in fourteen games has not hit one in the hundred and there you go. So ⁓ I I I'll watch the White Sox because I you know, I I I think I'm kinda given up waiting for the Royals to turn it around. You would probably out. Vinny Vinny Pack is now out with a ham eight. Everybody's it's a ham eight year, you know, everybody's got it. Everybody's doing it. I wonder if it's a kind of injury that we used to just call something else and now we're calling this. You know, it's it's not what I what happens is the guy makes a swing and he feels something wrong. It's not like a it's not like catastrophic events. Right, but what I'm saying is it builds up over time. Guys used to have this injury all the time. We just called it something else back and some kind of hand issue. Yes they can't they couldn't call it anything like that. So but yeah the Royals who, you know, have it all there for them, right? You know, a year where the division is there for the taking right for the taking and just can't seem to get out of their own way. And I still think that Macquar, their manager there, ⁓ I don't know.

They he might be in a little trouble. If you think you can win, ⁓ you know, why don't you do what the Phillies did and you get rid of the manager, you do something different and they bring Mattling in there. They've been much better since then. That's a team that, you yeah, their trades haven't worked out. Some of the moves they've made haven't, you know, worked out in the way they want. But I think you would still look at this season and say, them maybe more than anybody is underperforming in the major leagues right now. And and the division is laying down for them to to to do and that would be relative 'cause it's like the Mets have clawed their way back in where they're just regular, disappointing

Like a nice win today. I when you win two out of three against the Braves and you finish eight eight eight eight one victory, you're thinking, gee, you know, they're actually not so bad. Right, right. And if you're looking they're they're thirty they they should be about thirty four and thirty seven, a couple games under five hundred, which when you look at the team that had a thirteen game losing streak. Twelve twelve twelve. Twelve twelve. Twelve game losing streak, you're like, Okay, you know what? Not as bad as when you think about that 'cause when you look outside of that, it's even you you take that twelve game losing streak away, they're actually a pretty good team. You know, and and you know, look you won two out of three from an Atlanta team this weekend if you're the Mets. That doesn't

have Ronald Acunya Jr. who is himself out with with an injury he's gonna be out for a while. Drake Baldwin is still trying to make his way back. So take those two guys out of the Atlanta lineup and that's it's a different team. Very different team. So and the Braves obviously still ⁓ lead somewhat comfortably ⁓ in in the in the National League East with the Phillies now over 500 and looking like they will sort of get into playoff position and then they're gonna say I expect them to separate from the the Nationals and then the Nat the Mats, the Marlins and the Matt

sort of vie for hey, can any one of us play well enough down the stretch to talk ourselves into the third wild card spot? And you mentioned Blake Butera before, and and I I I think he's done a really good job only because the team has played better than expected in Washington. ⁓ that team can hit and they're the s second best hitting team in the major leagues. They they can't stop a cold when it comes to defense and and pitching. So I I don't know that I really want to see them make the playoffs to have somebody just spank them if they get in there because they can't get anybody out

Like to see them make the playoff just purely because okay, you know what, it's proof of concept that this whole rebuild is working. Cause like if they're not able to make the playoffs in the next couple years, you have to start thinking about, okay, well, what do we do now? Yeah, well, and again, they have new ownership. ⁓ they took a obviously directional difference when they brought in a new GM and they fired Mike Rizzo, who had been there for a long time, ⁓ which seemed a little odd at the time, but based on the performance, I'd say the national fans and the organization is feeling pretty good about what they've done this year so so far. So and the Marlins too.

have you know their scrappier and better. I think we said they would be good in a and a pain in the neck. ⁓ and that makes that NL East just a real tough division, which ain't gonna make it so easy for the Mets to come back because you're gonna you you don't you don't have really any easy games against any of the teams in your own division. No, everybody's a pretty good team. It's the same issue that you're dealing with if you're a team that's behind in the NL Central. Everybody else in your t division is pretty good, so it's not gonna be easy to come back because if you're the Reds, yeah you're only three games under five hundred, but everybody else is over five hundred.

So it's tough to expect, you know, you're not gonna be able to look at that and go, Yeah, we'll just go, you know, six fifty or better in our against our division the rest of the way. It's not like you're the the Padres who are thinking, like, yeah, we just need to beat up on the the Diamondbacks who are five hundred and then the Giants and the Rockies who are both bad. Yeah, and isn't interesting when you talk about the Giants when you you know, how nice a job we say Blake Buther is doing in Washington and how you don't necessarily feel the same way about Tony Vitello in San Francisco. It it feels like

the experiment we thought had a chance to go wrong sorta has. I mean doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So Buster Posey, who's clearly somebody who's willing to take a chance and do something, you know, that's that's you know, o out out of the norm. ⁓ right now it doesn't look like it's working and then the in between stuff I've read about his managing that says that he he's he's he's struggling, you know, in in a lot of ways. He's struggling and I think you run into I mean outside of Bryce Eldridge who has been a bright spot for them emerging at DH

That

You you I also kinda look at it's like, What do you mean? He's having an unbelievable year. he's I think he's num number two in the National League in batting average. right. He's having a great year average wise. He's I mean not a powerhead at all. But yeah, but but Bryce Eldridge is hitting three eleven and he's got fourteen and he's got like five homers already in thirty one games. He's you know, come out of nowhere. For a team that desperately needs power. Desperately, right. But it's like I I do kinda look at that roster and go, Well, what do you really expect Tony Vitello to do with this roster? Yeah, well you know, I like Matt Chapman, you know

there

but I think that's but Matt Chapman realistically well he's the foundational player almost on the team when you think about the guy who's got the most experience ⁓ and I if you're gonna put your you know lay it all on Matt Chapman to take you to the promised land that's asking a lot. Right. I feel like that that's how I feel. So ⁓ okay so you mentioned the Miz, right? And then everybody's got nobody beats the Miz and all this stuff about Jacob Mizarowski ⁓ who had ⁓ you know an unbelievable game obviously on Friday night ⁓ he pitched a Maddox

As we like to talk about, which is less than a hundred pitches. and he topped out at ⁓ at 104.7 miles an hour, which is the fastest pitch ever recorded for a starting pitcher in majority. And it was more impressive because he was throwing 103 in the ninth inning still. So it's something that he's able to sustain through the entire game. And realistically, this guy is, you know, an elite company because the start to his 2026 has only been replicated by one other guy, and that was Jacob deGrom in his an unbelievable 2021 campaign. Now

As amazing as that is, should that not also give you a moment of pause if you are the Brewers, because Jacob deGram did not finish that twenty twenty one campaign. Yeah, yeah. Well, certainly we don't want to ⁓ even think about something like that as well as this guy's pitching and and I I think he'll he'll start the All Star game for the second consecutive year, 'cause I think he started it last year when he came up and he made the all star. I think they started him. I think they did too. So that's amazing and and it made me think about our friend Mark Stevens who wrote the book The Fireballer. And now that this guy's throwing a hundred and four, a hundred and five.

You know, the the the the the ⁓ Frank in the in the books threw it 110 miles an hour with a very smooth motion and didn't get hurt, which when you think about how, you know, like like well he had to do something with that because how could that even be? Right, and that and that's where I would have to draw the line is that like okay, he's done it for a game. If he turns out like seven starts like this in a row, then all of a sudden we can start talking about like, okay, wait a second, is he actually untouchable? But like

We have to see that happen. Well, and then they and and again, up score Mark's book, you know, had the guy throwing a hundred and ten, which was so so over the top that they actually started t talking about changing the rules about how fast a guy could pitch, which is the interesting thing that I'm thinking about. Like won't happen to Mizarowski, but what would it take to get to the point going, I'm sorry, we don't even have a chance of hitting this guy at all. And I don't know how long it would take to get that like like because it would have to like, okay.

Okay, literally they don't have a chance. And then they're like, Why even have the game? Like that would be why they would have to change the rules. It's 'cause you kinda got to that point. The fans were just like, this isn't like the novelty would wear off probably after so many starts and you would like, Okay, well this isn't very fun. Right. I'm not gonna watch Well, and I think that's what he was, you know, what he was Mark Mark was writing about. So shout out to our friend who who wrote w a book that we like a lot. We think it'd make a great movie, actually, at this point, but ⁓ Mizarowski's still got five more miles an hour to get to a hundred and ten. ⁓

What else he wasn't the only pitcher with a brilliant start this week 'cause Yamamoto Yamamoto had a perfect game into the eighth before a Mookie Betts error dispelled that. Though not to be you know, it was like I guess that kinda got to him 'cause then he gave up a home run in the ninth. So you you don't have to really feel too bad about the perfect game, then you lo lose the perfect game on an error. He had a shut out no

You also no hitter. No hitter. No, you don't have any of those either. You but you won the game and Yamamoto. One, you're the other pitcher on the club next to Shohei. The other guy next to Shohei, and he doesn't throw quite as hard as Skip. But he's not he's not throwing over a hundred on every pitch like Mizarowski and Skiens are, who are also American. So I think he's definitely the forgotten guy because he's the other Japanese pitcher. I think also I hate to say it, but ⁓

East Coast bias when you don't watch a guy pitch as much because the Dodger games start late, you don't see it as much, you don't read about it as much, you don't hear about And and all of the Dodger news is so dominated by Shohei that he's easy to lose in the shot. And the other Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers in the lineup. the thing about Yamamato, I I I noticed also even a week ago he fired retired the last twenty two batters that he faced in a victory over the Angels. ⁓ and that was the third time since September that he retired the last twenty hitters he fasted in a game he faced in a game. That is closing.

is

like it's he hits a point where it's like okay I instead of the hitters figuring him out, he figures them out. Kind of like Jalen Brunson in the fourth quarter. A little bit. You know, like like it's gonna happen and we're gonna finish this and I'm gonna be the one to do it. So ⁓

And and I did a little comparison, ⁓ by the way, and I'm gonna probably write about this f between Goldschmidt, you we talked about him and Joey Vato because Joey Vato's coming up for his Hall of Fame vote. so yeah, down at the bottom I actually posted ⁓ their their comparable stats and it's kinda remarkable. Number one, it surprised me that Goldschmidt to this point is career has played about five percent more games. ⁓ no well not even two percent more games. He's twenty one hundred games to twenty h two thousand and fifty games. So that's like a negligible negligible difference.

their war ⁓ career war 65 for Goldschmidt to 63.6 for Vado. So virtually the same. Right. They play the same position. Right, right. And it's again, and when we talk about Votto, I think the interesting thing is we talked about Votto. I was like, yeah, he's for sure kind of. I think so. Right, but you I Goldschmidt's kind of under that category too, because he's got the gold gloves and they both have the N VP. I think it's And the Silver Slugs. If you're gonna put Vado in, Goldschmidt has better overall numbers, so you have to then put Goldschmidt in. Well, other than the Ops Plus, I Vado.

Ops plus ⁓ OPS plus is one forty four, which is blows my mind. That is that's that's a really high OPS plus. Right, that was in part because of his batting averages and his fast, fantastic and not and right, and not swinging, not striking out, which is one of his superpowers, you know, right there. But yeah, I think both of those guys are are Hall of Famers in that from that standpoint. And I guess I just didn't realize that we we always said like Goldschmidt needed to do a little more. Done a little more, he's doing a little bit more, so good on him. So ⁓ all right. ⁓ how about any other news?

stories before we get to our stories of the week? Nothing particularly I mean we've got guys going back and forth off of the IL, but I think it's kinda hard to see. You know, Strider leaves the game due to arm soreness. That's always concerning. Yeah yeah now he's got Elb he's being seen by Dr. Keith Meister. That's not good. Right. And we've already kind of talked about the big injuries, you know, Acunya Jr went to the ayah with hamstring prob problems.

Th that's more you're more worried about the long term ramifications of that injury than the short term. It'll probably miss a few games here over the next ten or so days, but it'll be back then. It's questions like well, how is he is that gonna affect him in 'cause he's not been he's been good but not great this year so far. Exactly. And and the cruises, right? O'Neal Cruz out ⁓ on the IL ten day with some some hand problems. And I believe Ellie de la Cruz also not playing as well. So not doing great. Not a good cruising week for those guys. yeah, that's but that's pretty much the the injury stuff. So

What's your story of the week? So my story of the week it went to when I saw that Mizorowski had ⁓ a a more than one hundred pitcher game score. I thought, wow, that's that's pretty good. You know, I'm always looking for that. And I I I don't know what a what a game score is, ⁓ in terms of how it's calculated. And it came out of ⁓ Bill James, who calculated it years ago. And and basically you start with a baseline of fifty points, and then for every strikeout you get points for every scoreless inning beyond four you

you get so so you you can build up points and so getting I'm not gonna go through the whole you know explanation of you can look that up but so getting to an eighty game score is really good. Ninety is ridiculous. Only seventeen times in major league history has y somebody gotten to a hundred. Right. That tells you like getting to a hundred and when you when you it's so interesting 'cause when you start naming some of these games, you as if you are a baseball fan, you remember some of these performances. Well not just the performances. You're so right. Right, but but all the the pictures like

Okay, so there's no like only a couple ones all the pictures. I'll give you the guys. There's a couple names on the list here that I'm looking at that I go, yeah, people are gonna be like him. So Kerry Wood has the highest game score with a hundred and five. He pitched in his amazing twenty strikeout. Everybody Everybody knows that game in his rookie year, nineteen ninety eight. Mac Scherzer, I think that's his no hitter against the Mets. Yeah, no hitter against the Mets. It was one hundred four, it was number two. Seventeen strikeouts. So that's how you do it. You don't you give up no hits, you strike out everybody, and you don't walk anybody. Neither of those guys walked anybody in there in that game, which is crazy. Right. So

So

⁓ Jose Dilian, you would have never put him in the top three. Had a game score of a hundred and three. He pitched eleven innings, so I have to double check. It's supposed to be based on nine innings, but he gave up one hit in eleven innings, no walks, no runs, and eight strikeouts. Yeah, wow. So that's that's having a day. Clayton Kershaw has won a hundred and two in two thousand fourteen. Matt Kane was a very good pitcher for the Drake. Right, but he's a guy that when you look at the rest of the guys on this list, because the guy that he sandwiched it's he Matt Kane is sandwiched between Clayton Kershaw and North.

Nolan Ryan. So just hold on. Just ⁓ hold on

So Matt Kane of course had two no hitters, I think, in the major leagues. So that's this so give give him his how many did Nolan Ryan have? Well Nolan and we're gonna talk to Tim Brown next next week and he's gonna an author of the author of the fantastic Nolan Ryan biography that's coming out called Nolan. Right. So we're gonna post that episode probably on Tuesday next week after Father's Day weekend since we're gonna record with him on on Monday. But Nolan Ryan has the ⁓ over one hundred game score, not once, not twice, not three times.

Four different times he had a game score of over a hundred for a pitcher. Okay. In all of those games he didn't get any runs. In all those games he struck out a ton of guys. Right, right. We a no one right in does. But and that's the pattern here to get a game score because you have to get strikeouts in order to really get those additional points to drive up the score. Nobody else has more than one, ⁓ than Norland Ryan. Garrett Cole, ⁓ is one of the guys. Verlander did it. ⁓ we mentioned Mizorowski. Brandon Morrow of the Blue Jays did it one time. It was a nice pitcher, but

He's really the other guy that you look at on this list and you're like, He made it? Wow. Randy well, wait a second. There's one more. Randy Johnson, Kurt Schilling, they he did it. Well game pitcher game score of a hundred. Bobby Witt Senior.

So Bobby's, you know, Bobby's dad doesn't get a lot of props, but he had a game score of a hundred when he struck out fourteen, gave up one hit over nine innings, no walks, you know, ⁓ and and no runs. and then Hideo Nomo is the last guy on the list in two thousand and one for the Red Sox, not for the Dodgers, which I didn't realize he had that good of a game for the Red Sox when he pitched the whole game, ⁓ gave up one hit and struck out fourteen. Walk anybody the whole not walking somebody and striking out fourteen just blows my mind.

everybody kind of an idea, quick I quick baseline of it. In order to get a game score of 100, you need to throw a complete game this is the baseline. Complete game shutout, no hitter with 13 strikeouts.

That's the baseline. No, you it 'cause you guys that gave up a hit and made it. Right, because by by striking out by striking out more guys. Right. By st the kcause that's the thing. You get fifty points baseline, two a three for a completed inning, and then an additional two for every inning past the fourth. So you get eighty-seven by throwing a complete game shutout. And then you lose points for giving up hits, but you get one additional point for a strikeout. So you have to strike out thirteen and give up nothing for a score of a hundred. And if you strike out more than thirteen, then you give yourself a little wiggle room to get

Don't walk anybody. Just don't walk anybody because that's two points. That's really bad. Because that's bad. So yeah, a really interesting stat. And you can find it in baseball reference. They they do a daily update where they'll post the best ⁓ pitcher game scores from the night before. I look at them every day. Most of the time guys pitch six innings, and he gave up one hit, and he struck out eight, and he has a game score of seventy-two. Nice indeed. Right, right. Above it, nice game. Above eighty-five is that guy had a night. Absolutely. How about yours? What's yours? So I found a very interesting article because we've been talking about so much and hear so much about players in the

The major leagues with ground ball rate versus fly ball rate. And now we I remember when I was a kid and we we were learning baseball, they told us to put the ball on the ground, hit the ball hard on the ground. Down and hard. Down and hard. Right. Down and hard, we'd say. Right. They I was one of those stupid coaches. Right. They would encourage us. And now we've completely flipped the other way. And fly balls are better. Don't you dare hit the ball on the ground because you're I mean you're just gonna kill yourself. It's actually one of the reasons why if you look at guys like Vlad Guerrero Jr., who's having a bad year this year, he's got now he's hurt. Right. He had a real

Really

low five fly ball rate and a really high pull rate. And that combo is like batter death. He was never a guy that hit the ball in the air very much. Right. But hitting the ball hitting the ball on the ground a lot and pulling the ball a lot is very bad because it lets the defense set up like if you spray the ball around on the ground, you can get away with it a little bit because the defense can't just necessarily camp out and but you're not hitting it with necessarily authority if you're spraying the ball around. Right, exactly. So it's kind of interesting, you know, like let's look at

It over through the years, has it always been this way? And it's actually not. There have been some decades where if you look at it, it's very confusing because it goes the other way. You would not think that in ⁓ in a given decade that like the ground ball rate going down would rece you would see an ERA deduction, right? Because if you or but it's not always that case. Some decades being a ground ball pitcher is better than being a gr a fly ball pitcher. Like if we looked at ⁓ I believe it was here in nineteen

Yeah.

Being a ground ball pitcher was better than being a fly ball pitcher. Okay, so I'm trying to think why in the nineteen seventies was the age of Astro Turf Ballpark. So you had a lot of turf parks. So you're you know playing on carpet compared to what you had played in prior and and and whatnot. So how much of a difference you played in some big ballparks that you know that were not necessarily home run ball type ballparks that had artificial in Kansas City, in St. Louis, that wasn't a home run ballpark. So I wonder how those things impact.

Decade prior in the 60s, it was all nice and orderly. Ground ball pitchers have the lowest ERA, the second lowest FIP, the lowest strikeout rate, the lowest home run rate. Whereas fly ball pitchers have the highest, second highest ERA, highest FIP, third highest strikeout rate, highest home run rate. Because typically being a ground ball pitcher over time has shown that you are typically not a strikeout pitcher if you're a ground ball pitcher. Because to be a strikeout pitcher means you need to generally elevate the ball in the zone to be able to strike it. To be able to elevate in the zone, elevate the ball in the zone, which leads

Right. I think of a pitcher like Bobby Ojida who pitched for the Mets and in the eighty six World Series team had a fantastic season and his best pitch was the dead fish changeup, you know, which you know basically he kinda looked like a fastball and then would just die and and and break. So I don't know that he he wouldn't throw hard enough today for them to have to respect that anymore. And so that you can't be Jose Quintana and you have to be so perfect when you're that kind of a pitcher who's a a really good pitcher, Quintana late in his career, but he's a precision pitcher, right? So he

He has to be accurate. He's trying to get them to hit it on the ground because if they hit it in the air, he's going to get killed. Right, it's going a long way if that happens. So you know, but it's really hard to be the Martin Perez who pitched yesterday for the the Braves on Saturday against the Mets, also a guy who looked better keep the ball down. So there are some guys who can only be successful doing that. Right, right. And it's not that being a ground ball pitcher or being a fly ball pitcher is better or worse than one another, but you have to understand what it means for you as a pitcher. I think on average, you're like if I had to

You know, make a wild statement here. I think you know you're probably going to see more success on average from ground ball pitchers than fly ball pitchers because the variance for them will probably not be as wild. It's way harder. Like a ground ball, a guy having a bad ground ball, like a ground ball pitcher having a bad start, isn't going to be as bad as a fly ball pitcher having a bad start. And on the anamalous days where they hit the ball through the holes all the time. Right, right. Where but I think a fly ball pitcher has a much higher chance of being an outlier. Because I think a lot of the dominant starters, like Mizarowski, might be a fly ball pitcher. We just don't call him.

that because he strikes out fifteen yards. Right. They don't hit the ball. But he would be a fly ball pitcher if that was how he got the majority of his outs in the field because that's how guys are gonna hit the ball off of harder and harder without

continuing to risk injury even greater than we've seen to this point. It looks like you can it can happen even more. So where is there gonna be that happy medium where the guy's like, I can throw, I can throw hard, but I'm so good at getting the ball to be pounded into the ground that I don't have to throw max effort. I can I can stay healthy longer. I can make a living longer doing this because I'm I'm I'm not always risking injury as much. And it's just it's really hard to get out major league hitters that way. But I think these pitchers are are good enough to sort of find their way into that instead of saying all we got to do is throw hard.

You know, which is I you know, I don't think people you know, again, seventeen strikeouts is great if your pitcher's doing the striking out of the guys, but if you're the fan of the team that's getting strikeouts seventeen towns, that's the most boring game you've ever been to. Awful to watch. So

Yeah, I think you know, that th there's there's a lot to be said with I think that's a really interesting stat. And and you said in another podcast that the positioning defensively is so good because everybody understands tendencies and all that kind of stuff. Right. So if they know then that's what I was saying with like the pull hitters, if they know you are a ground ball hitter that pulls the ball, the short stuff in the third baseman can just position themselves to eat up all of those ground balls. So your chance of hitting that ball through the hole is so minuscule because you've basically got one line where you can actually fit it between them and that requires you to then hit the ball hard enough to do that.

And if you're not gonna do that, you're probably just gonna have a billion plays throughout the course of the season where you're hitting weak ground balls to the left-hand side, you probably ground into a ton of double plays that way. And you're just you're just become a quagmire in the middle of your lineup. Hit the ball in the air, guys. That's that's the secret. You said it, Gordon. I think you know, that's that's now being proven, and I don't think I don't think we're headed back the other way.