The Ultimate Pitching Guide With Nick Pollack (EP. 763)

Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Bros. This is the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. It would be Joey Joe Pisapia, and it's time to continue our series of the ultimates. We did the infield, we did the outfield. There's only one thing left, and that's the Ultimate Pitching Guide, and you have to say it that way. We're contractually obligated, and of course the Welsh also contractually obligated to be here every single

It's a cutter. It's devastating cutter.

You have to get up more on the seam over here with You can't just do it straight over like No, I didn't.

Have it straight over right here. This is my cut You haven't seen the cutter yet. It's coming. Circle change, circle change.

Oh no, we're a minute into the show and I've already lost control.

This is the Ultimate.

Pitching Show, Joe. We have to show off the pitches.

I'm going to show off. Speaking of the picture list. Nick Pollock, it's so great to see you, one of our favorite people. By the way, what's what's the uh? What's the grip on the slutter? Because that's a pitch which a lot last year on.

How deep you go into cutter or a slider and you're going.

Boy, for a second there, I thought this was gonna go way off the track. Let's I thought it.

Was gonna be like a really deep circle change.

Whoa, whoa? Nick? Nick Pollock, you know you are the pitching guru. You're the guy. I gotta ask you this question. I guess I've never asked you this before. Who is your favorite all time pitcher? I feel like everybody has one. Maybe there was that guy that like caught your imagination when you were a kid. Was there somebody pollocked that way?

Guess my guy, let's guess my answer is going to be who was my idol growing up?

Okay idol growing up? Where were you born? Nick Pollock?

Maybe if you don't know the information, you're already behind.

So it's gonna be East Coast Joe and Nick is probably nobody.

He's not from Brooklyn. I'm from brook he just lives there. Take a guess, am I right nor raised in Brooklyn. Yes, I can't believe that you have zero trace of any accent whatsoever.

My guess is Greg Maddox. Joe, don't tell us yet, Nick minus Greg Maddox. You pick one, and then Nick unveils.

I think he's a I don't think that's sexy enough. I think he's a Pedro Martinez guy. Nick Pollock, what are you?

Okay, hold on a second.

So you think that I just told you I was born and raised in Brooklyn and my idol growing up would be Pedro Martinez, Well.

I mean, I gotta be honest with you. I'm a lifelong Mets fan and he's still one of my all time favorites. He was, Well, I mean, if you there's you're not old enough to love Dwight Gooden like I am.

So okay, you're getting there, Okay, So it's David was the one that I would actually model my wind up after.

David Kohn. Okay, good story.

Also, by the way, Nick, during first Pitch Arizona, he made an example of me by doing a trick pitch when we were playing a whiffle ball game and Nick was just he Nick was just having fun with everybody. Welsh gets up here and he does this thing.

What did you do?

He like pretended he threw and it flicked underhand.

I've never seen anything like he really describe it over a podcast, but it was magical that I still want.

To do our charity event where I get three at bats against Nick Pollock because I still feel great.

I haven't actually thrown properly off a mountain for a very long good.

I haven't properly hit off a guy with a rag arm in a while, so it'll be fun.

I just get you, have ice in advil with you.

That's all. I always travel with both of those Nicole hit you.

Don't worry.

Get to the names on the list. We're gonna break down the sp ones through five kind of bring you where we are in terms of the ADP the ECR over on Fantasy Pros, which you can see a Fantasy Pros dot com. We're gonna pick out some names that we're gonna debate a little bit and also just get some deeper dive on before we do though too real quick. The winner of the Bling Ring the Fantasy Championship Ring Cursey of Trophy s Mack is Craig Harris, congratulations, Craig Harris,

Where did you grow up in Brooklyn?

I grew up in Mill Basin. Yeah, Crime Family Block.

Oh yeah, I played.

I got some stories.

I coached that that field too, Did you really?

I played in Parks Play there you go? Anyway, two guys from Brooklyn with no accent.

West coast, West coast.

If you want me having an accent, that can do that, if you want me to do that. But anyway, I know no one will never want nobody does. In fact, Corvin Burns going to Baltimore helps him. Obviously, Waltimore is a good thing for him. It's just a better situation overall. I do think that there are simple changes that Burns can make across his entire arsenal from last year that aren't asking too much. And it's always funny when we think about down seasons when it was still such a

So he is my SP three now.

He was SB four before underneath the wheeler, but to Baltimore and just just looking into that more, I was like, yeah, this should be a really good fit for him.

I was really curious where you were going to go with this if the slider usage uptick in Baltimore might be something that would change.

I'm just curious.

So do you think the team context in Baltimore contract you know contracts, the one as versus pitch mix, like what which pitch mix change or whatever they could tinker like their offense and defense was Yeah, like it don't actually.

Think as an organization, doesn't really lean on it.

But it's really two words. It's ADLEI Ritchman. I actually truly believe in the morale that he brings to starting pitchers and he does make an impact and it's only going to help Burns.

Yeah. Look, it's a positive impact on pitchers, certainly from the catcher position. We've seen it with you know, everyone from Pad Rodriguez to Gary Carter back in the eighties to what he did for a very young Mets staff. Even you know the years of Yadi or Malino, twenty years of Cardinal pitchers who all just swear by it.

Yeah, I mean not like being a Homer, but it is Gallon. But I don't think I need to be a homer to be able to pick zac Gallen.

Here.

The Diamondbacks have already discussed openly about the usage of Gallon. That's going to be something important, which I think one thing that's gonna materialize is probably a lesser spring. And then, as he mentioned in conversation, this might literally just be about not pushing maybe one more inning or one more batter and trying to save where you can. They really built up their bullpen, but Gallon. To me, it's not Kirby.

Man, I have so many thoughts about these too. I don't think I'm going to have either of them roster on any of my teams. Personally, when it comes to Schooble, it's fascinating to me how we care about his eighty innings, but we don't care about Cole Reagan's, which makes no sense to me because Cole Reagan's is a better pitcher and Trek's scoobl You just.

Said that so effortless.

It's easy. I want to talk about throwing hard.

Reagan's SAT ninety six and I talked to him in December. You can check it out on our YouTube channel, This wonderful hour and a half interview with him and he's throwing a little bit harder apparently, so yeah, he's really good. And he has five pitches as opposed to Schoobol really just has like two where it's a four seamer that performed as well as any in the game. But all the indications are that it's command and it's uh in pitch shape are not actually elite. It was really the

Not a fun crew.

And what that tells me is he squeezed enough out of his fastball and his secondaries at the right times. I am a little worried because I think that it was a little bit more fortunate in that regard. I think the innings totals, as you guys mentioned, will affect him. It's hard not to and it's a little bit more precarious than I want for a top ten pick.

Who would you pick if you had to pick between them?

Though, if you're I currently have Gallon at nine, I'm probably going to lower that, and I have Scooble around twenty four. I'm going to raise that.

Whoa well Scooble.

For me, it's again about the fast one is not going to be as good as it was and the change up.

No, it's all fair, but.

He was so good last year.

It's just like that's not a large enough sample of that, and also a really bad schedule. It's going to be closer, but I'm going to go for a gallon just because of the historical showcase of him doing well with this, and last year he did go through a moment where he tried to go high four seamers that didn't work, and then he got it back going downstairs, so it should be good. Also, the A zone Diamonbeck's defense better than the Tigers, and that certainly helps him.

And Meryl Kelly, well, do.

You think that Pollock's is just making up stats now like we did last year to.

Year he tried to get at me. It's not gonna happen. I have a hard line.

It's actually been acknowledged.

By so many people, so you should too.

I'm just saying, can you believe by the way that we threw a fake stat at all of the people? Why did you do it? Why did it was that of Pollock the person that we threw X plug at.

One of the first ones.

We're not gonna throw that past stats all the time, BP fastball of staf.

Let's go to the newest toy in Dodger Land. It is Yoshinobo Yamamoto. Welsh and I have talked a lot Nick about Yamamoto, and it's funny because if you go back and look at you know, about a month ago, ADP was very different. Now it has moved up into that s P one tier, Nick, do you feel comfortable with drafting him there? I know some people are concerned a little bit about the size of Yamamoto, and I could see you're shaking your head, so you are not comfortable.

That's where I was going to jump into it because, like I had, I had this conversation about size of pictures with many best friends justin Steel and we were talking about the size of you know, like the under five foot ten guy. And I saw Yamamoto and camp and he is one of the smallest pitchers I've seen in person. But like can a guy with elite extension

I'm going to give a very very quick basic understanding of pitch shape and what matters because I essentially went through this this offseason a ton and I hate myself for waiting as long as I.

Did to really have my enlightenment with it.

Huge props to Kyle Bland creating our Pictureless Pitches app that allows me to actually visualize this and understand it better and give like averages and percentiles. So there are four aspects that really matter outside of location. Okay, for really just for fastball shape, it's velocity. We know that

Bad extension.

However, Spencer Strider has the lead extension and this velocity and it's stupid good.

There you go. The other two aspects.

Are things that you're hearing a lot and you might not really understand, which which is vert IVB. You don't really have a reference point for it. I certainly didn't. And when you hear that IVB and vert are the same thing, it's just induced vertical break.

It's just better understanding of, like, this is the actual movement of it.

When you get above sixteen inches, that's where it's great. Seventeen and above, oh boy. So when we talk about TODs Bradley's fastle being elite, his is eighteen vert.

Okay, unreal.

The thing is, if you have good VERT and you don't have good extension and you don't have the next onech is VA. I'll get to that in a second, it's not going to be as good. So you essentially need to have velocity and you need to have like two of the other ones for everything to be really good. Sometimes you can get by with just extension and velocity.

Okay.

The last one is height adjusted VA, which is oh my gosh, that's a mouthful. All that means is where you release the ball, does it come in at an angle that matches the batter's bat path. So like, if you're going to swing at a ball, how long does it stay where the bat is? And the flatter it is, the less time it is with the bat right. So, because that's not flat, the bat is going to be

It doesn't matter when I say this.

I say that if Yaalamoto has excellent extension and he throws ninety five plus, like that already is you're in the front door.

You know, you're in the.

Door of like, this is going to be good unless it's terrible V and it's terrible verts, which I don't from my understanding it's not. So I'm not worried at all about Yamamoon in this regard, and I'm gonna be utilizing those two things a little bit later. But really that's like when we talk of pitch shape, that's all it is for sliders.

And doesn't matter that much.

Like you know, if it's filthy, he moves a ton or not.

So after all that word you have run.

Yeah Yamamoto, Well I don't think he's going to pitch a ton. He's not. He's a six man rotation. Uh, it's going to be.

The Dodgers are just going to make sure that happens because they're just preserving for the playoffs because we all know they're going to be there, so they're not going to be pushing all these guys so innately, I don't want to take a guy who is already capped at like one fifty already that's the ceiling.

I don't want that in my top all of this collaboration.

Actually want to go bet nouelve Marte and yeah that's curio rookie, and that's all this is done, honestly.

Right, And so with Yamamoto, the skills actually do believe. I see a guy that has four pitches that are going to get strikes. Really it's three of the curveball and not as big of a deal I think, but still he gonna be very effective. It's gonna be nice. You want to pitch for the Dodgers, He's going to help you. But pushing the needle, I don't think it's gonna be as much as we want it to be.

One quick break in the action. Because MLB draft season is here and the easiest place to play fantasy baseball is at Underdog Fantasy, We've already been active in their best ball format fantasy drafts, where you draft your team over twenty rounds and the best score from the team you drafted becomes your score for each week of the

All right, let's go to the SB twos here, Starting at thirteen, Logan Webb, Aaron Nola, Freddy Peralta. Then you have Franbervaldez, Max Free, Blake Snell, Code I sing at nineteen. At twenty Logan Gilbert Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Efflyn, Eurie Prize, and Bobby Miller Welsh. Grayson Rodriguez, a pictuer that struggled early on last year, got sent down, came back, started to show the flashes. This is a big time prospect now he gets to, you know, sit behind Corbyn Burns.

I think the opportunity is absolutely their big way of so would love to see him throw the slider a bit more. Innings are probably a little bit less of an issue with him. It is weird that we've got these three young pitchers that I think are being clumped together, and we're gonna talk about one of them in a second. But you know, I struggle with Uri versus Grayson. I've actually put Bobby Miller kind of above the tier of Grayson and Uri Perez. But Uri Perez we talked about

So yeah, I'm with you that Bobby Miller is above both of them for me, and Grayson is Actually I think it's way closer Bobby Miller and Grayson than it is Uri.

I'm Uri in my shiny squirrels tier.

And that's going from Rob Silver giving me some criticism in twenty nineteen that I still take the heart of It's fun. It really is, but there's a lot of polish left to be added. I see think more so with Uri than it is the others. And I say that because I don't think that he utilizes his fastball correctly. It gets hit far too hard because he's keeping it too low, and it's a pitch that only really works upstairs. His slider and his skurball are not the philth McGee

No.

His slider is actually not really the most aggressive moving slider, but based off the fast ball is where he gets its effectiveness, which can be a little more startling for me because it can't He can't just carry himself only with that slider, I believe. But like Grayson the polish I am gonna I'll get to Grayson in a second.

It's well, I was just going to say he had a three forty average against his fastball last year, but he had a high wift rate, so right.

So I also want to emphasize that I don't like quoting average for pitches just because of how they're utilized is defining how what their average is going to be, like if it's a strike up pitch, if they have to throw it more In like two accounts, one accounts, Bailey Freeman had a fantastic video about count changing stuff. All right, but at the same time, you're right about the Grace Rodriguez fastball. It's ICR that is the contact allowed being favorable for the batter super high, like forty

Interesting, I want to talk about Bobby Miller because you kind of perked up there about Bobby Miller. Yeah, so let's throw him out there, a young pitcher, a great team with the Dodgers. Certainly, you know, again, another guy's going to benefit for other guys in the rotation. But then you have a guy like Blake Snell coming off his second so young, who hasn't have a team yet as of us recording this, still we're still waiting on that.

Next call it, you know, real quick when you have this to be yeah.

Right, you know, can come on another time in debate.

You know what was funny is that we did that.

That was who else was referring to is in first Pitch Arizona. We were doing the Live on the Corner podcast, right, me and Miles, and we were talking about Blake Snell at the time in October, I think I had Snell at like thirty three or something like that, and now I think I have him around like twenty eight. And Ano came on to protest and I said, well, where do you have him?

Goes twenty eight?

What is this?

And so actually I found myself at the end of the day. I didn't even think of that when I was doing the ranking. It's like, okay, cool, where is it. He's at twenty eight.

I'm like, well, there you go. But the problem with Blake Snell.

To me is he what he did last year was deserved. And I've said this time and time again, off he deserved the cy young You see the high walk rates. We have another SAT that we just unveil. These are the two favorite stats we just did. One is so simple. It's called mistake rate. Essentially, we have our pitching model and we say, all right, these are pitches in the zone that have two times the chance of allowing a hit that's clearly a mistake that you just threw it,

I mean, we can't.

It was a one twenty array over what nineteen starts or something ridiculous like that's not gonna happen again. Oh and by the way, it was still a one nineteen whip over the way too, Like it wasn't as if he did this method with the higher walks, and it was such a dramatic drop in hits that he had a good whip too, he didn't. It was just the array and obviously the strikeouts that we care about. So at the end of the day, he's not an innings guy. He's not an a fishing pitcher to go six constantly

And while on the other side you have Bobby Miller, who was so good.

He has all of his pitches are amazing and his slider is going to be better. If I have to make one bet this year, it's that Bobby Miller slider improves because it should be so much better. He was missing just the hair outside of the zone down in a way, which is where you want to be. You just got to like it a little bit closer. And it's not like a shotgun blast of missing. It's like, oh,

That's the most interesting thing. Who has more innings at the end of the year.

Honestly, Bobby Miller.

That's what I would say too, because I.

Think the Dodgers are going to say, you know what, Yamo, we have for ten years, is your first transition over while Bobby Miller was prepped for this year last season, right.

That makes a lot of sense to be real quick before we get out of this tier is lightning round. Zach Efflin last year revelation another one of these guys, Tampa Bay raised. They find a pitcher, they fix it pitcher and he's great. Do we get better, worse or same out of Zach Eflin next year Welsh better worse or same your expectations for him?

I think slightly better.

I'm not.

I don't think I'm in the camp of like the insane projections of like I think it's like atc or bat whatever it was was like eleventh pitcher, auction calculator and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean the rays tend to make these guys better. He's going to be a workhorse. I'm but I don't think he's going to take an exponential jump where he is SP ten or twelve or something like that where projections are So I'll say, slight boost Nick.

How can he be better?

That's the thing is, like I look at that last year and I see Zach Eflin squeezing everything out of what he had to the fact that even his for seamer, which is by all metrics horrific, all of a sudden, was effective for him because he threw seventy five percent of the time and two strike counts upstairs and he got swinging strikes on that and got some strikeouts.

Like he found a way to make that pitch work for him.

So I see a season of a guy finding a cutter that the race taught him doing the most he could possibly get out that there's no way there's another level. I mean, I guess maybe the e ar a could be more fortunate than a three to five. But I think that you're gonna see a worst season. That doesn't mean he's gonna be bad. I actually like e Flyn more than Uri Peiz, for example, I have him around twenty.

I thinkstand because you're also getting a guy with who's gonna give you more innings potentially, and as you said, maybe a little bit more polish the.

The ATC thing that you're seeing or the high projection that I get, because they don't seem they see him going every five days and averaging six six a game. You know that's a getting that on a winning ball club, and your good picture means you shouldn't get ten wins, you should get closer to fifteen, right, and that's gonna push up all of those player raiders, all of those auction calculators a ton because just the difference of one win is such a massive boost.

So that's why you have that you on here, Yeah, he's good.

To the SP three group here starting at twenty five, Hays Loose, Lozardo, Joe Ryan, Justin Steele, your new best Friend, Welsh, Joe Muskrove, Cole, Reagan's Tanner byby Dylan Cees, Sonny Gray, Walker, Buehler, Justin Verlander, Chris Bassett, and Hunter Green at thirty six. So let's start Reagans because that's the guy that you're super excited about. So he is all the way right now being drafted as SP twenty nine according to fantasypros

Cole Reagan's is a unicorn. He throws five pitches that are all fantastic. He throws through ninety six.

So why was he traded? I guess that. I guess that that's.

Kind of whatever. Okay, So there's two parts of it. Two parts of it.

Well, I mean, there's an organization that could use some young pitching. I understand they went only in they won the World Series, Like, I get that. But at the same time, if he's you know, and I know it when.

You see guy traded, if I'm gonna try my best as a as an analyst to say that all organizations are making the smartest moves for them, then like we're not gonna have a good time.

Of course not that.

And for James Shield, he also I did.

Not have very young at the time, and it was very projectable at the time. It was still very down the road. We're talking about a guy that they traded and went off. So went off to an extent that Nick Pollock is so excited about.

Him right now that might just be a developmental thing though. That's that's the tough part. Like that actually might be a criticism to how.

A few starts in season. It's not like they have him for a year in the organization and turned him around.

For a Rangers team to look at him and then a Royals team to get a hold and unlock four miles per or Velo and have him be and be able to utilize, Like this guy needs to start showing throwing a slider that maybe shows something to the hands on pitching development of maybe hey, let's just let these guys who have the stuff do it instead of let's get this guy into the best place.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate, but I'm doing it for a reason because we've seen this before work. I gets traded and all of a sudden he pops for a short period of time, but then it doesn't follow up. It has happened many times, so I want to know why this is different.

Okay, we need to.

There's so much misinformation game thrown around here. I need to I need to correct a lot of things.

What is the misinformation.

I know.

Wow.

Of course someone say things that you would think we're not we're misinformation. So first and foremost, the story of Cole Reagan's is pretty simple. He was thrown two in twenty twenty two with the Rangers, worked with Treid Athletics, who actually already had started to unlock his velocity in the off season. The talk of the town in Texas in spring training was Cole Reagan's because he was throwing hardy, he was looking really good.

It's exciting.

Then he actually made some appearances in as a reliever. I remember one specific one. If you follow my sp round up during the season, you'll go back and look at this blurb where he had an opener. He came in and he threw four innings, sitting at ninety six and actually being on the top of his zone as a ranger. I believe back in April he didn't do well in that start because he didn't have a slider yet and he was still kind of raw with figuring this out and he had not essentially gone the time

So it just happened to work in that way.

Should the Rangers have maybe been a little bit more invested in Reagan's before the trade I think so. I was very intrigued by him before the trade. The long story here is that you see Reagans do well, and you can do this two ways. You can do it as well. Here are the numbers, and that just doesn't seem sustainable because because he wasn't as good before and now he's this, and that just feels like it's not real.

Or you can be like me who watches.

Every single Cole Reagan's start live streamed with my community and breaks down every single pitch he throws. And as someone who has watched a lot of pitching in my day, I see this guy and I go, oh my gosh, this is so good and so real and it's amazing.

That's the difference.

So I think anyone that's looking overlooking Cole Reagan's and wants to go after other risky guys and just saying like, well, no, it's still not over for this small sample, I think this is this is one of the guys I look at and I just go, no, this is the real deal.

Is he gonna be anything? Every single time.

No, but this is the kind of guy that I absolutely want inside my top twenty. I actually have him at fourteen right now, and I feel very good about that.

I guess I guess the point I'm making is that no one's overlooking him. Number one, number.

Two is a twenty nine.

They are at twenty nine so far on the ADP. But if you, you know, out there in the streets right now, on the fans face, come on, baseball can be It's the same with the football. We talk about a guy, talk about a guy. The next thing you know that twenty nine becomes nineteen. It should in two weeks, and maybe and maybe it should. But I guess the whole point I'm making is it is a smaller sample, and if we're gonna kill guys sometimes on smaller samples.

I get like.

Five, I get five four point one walks per nine right in his minor league career. So I'm not saying a guy can't go on his own and get better. I can't say a guy can't go and learn new pitch. But we all knew what Randy Johnson was, you know, when he was in Montreal before he went to Seattle, and then you know how things evolved and changed for him and he came with the greatest pitches of all time. I'm not saying that he's Randy Johnson, he's gonna become

It really is going to also depend on risk management versus what you're trying to do in constructing. I think from a fantasy construction standpoint, I mean, I won't speak on Cole Reagans, Nick Proof, we're not allowed to speak on Cole Wagans. We're misinformation. We don't know what we're talking about.

Well, we can't get a school about col Rag And I like, not that I don't like him. You've got an amazing information about him. However, it's it feels like at the same time, like all we want to see is the positives. And I'm saying, whenever a guy gets dealt and all of a sudden, you know, pops off like that. To me, it's one of those things, Well, that's very surprising when you see a young picture or anybody get dealt in season and all of a sudden become a guy like that, I think he's well worth

I think he's well worth the risk in what you're doing in fantasy, getting outside of all the minutia about the picture that he is and how good he's going to be and all of the inner workings, Like from just the pure fantasy perspective of like roster construction, I

I do agree.

Right, let's move on before let me leave me.

Let me pitching guy, not the ultimate Cole Reagan's guide, now many other guys.

All I'm gonna say is that you say that small sample of Reagan's and then there's all these other small sample guys that everyone's jumping on and said, trek School, why are we not doing the same thing.

I agree, he's I'm but the same thing, you're killing Schooble. But then you're saying right and I understand the same to each other and you probably and and you're right they should be closer to each other. I agree.

I think also you're arguing against us like we are the twenty nine. I'm not the twenty nine.

Like the the ECR.

The consentous ranks that has it at twenty nine all agree. It's all around agree it's too low. I don't think Reagan's is far from Lizardo. I don't think I think too many people weren't having the Reagans schoobl conversation. I completely agree we are not the ECR.

So we are with you on that.

Sh anybody listening and understanding that.

Honestly, I'll take Justin Steel over all of them. But let's move on to the next grouping here. Walker Buehler versus Hunter Green. Let's keep this simple. Walker Buehler, Hunter Green. They're both on the board. Need a picture, Welsh, Who do you want?

Oh God, a catcher. I would rather go a catcher probably, So I think I'm I think I'm out on Bueller. I think I'm out on Bueller. I can't mess around with it this year. I'm optimistic about Hunter Green adding the was it the curveball? And I think at the splitter just trying trying to get hitters off the fastball a little bit, making a little bit more efficient. That's what he did with a slider, So I'm down with that.

Hunter Green Bueler of Green Pollock well under thirty minutes.

Yeah, I got you.

Don't worry.

You're not gonna listen to it anyway.

I do listen to it. I listened to it. I love to understand that he had been working all season on it and then he got to show his toy, and now the league's gonna see it and they're gonna adjust to him. I get it. I've been around a long time.

Walker Wheeler's Hunter Green. It's pretty simple.

If the Dieters are actually putting Bueler on the ael one Bueler, I don't know. Actually, this is something I was thinking about, is concidering he's still not back technically from Tommy John. Is it actually going to be an eyel stint. If it isn't, yes, I'm so in. If it's not, that means that I need to actually have him on my bench, which is terrible. I don't want to have a stash for six weeks or something like that.

I'm looking at some pitching one year wonder. Some great names on this list here, Mike Foltonevitch, Brian Maddis. Oh, these are like the guys of yesteryear. I just wanted to see, like the guys, maybe they kind of popped out of nowhere. We'll see, we'll see what they are. Daniel Norris, remember the Daniel Norris. Wow, that was some fun. Yeah, all right, let's continue on here with the next grouping, the sp four's. We've got Chris I at thirty seven,

Of course we can. And Michael King is nothing makes me happier when you ask the command pich.

It's such a cute upset face. I love it. It's my favorite thing.

Oh no, that's a terrible thing for you to like.

Michael King has a phenomenal slider that he improved when he actually went into the rotation. Has change up is fantastic, really good singer. The biggest question mark is our are you going to do well enough against lefties? When you think about pictures is just about all right? What are your weapons against right is? If you're a sinker sweeper guy, that means you do not have a whip weapon against the lefties. So the change it really helps the four

So I want Michael King there.

What are your thoughts on King? What if that's on Bailey Ober, because I'm a huge Michael King by the King guy. By the way, it also very reminiscent of like Brendan Fought. Brendan Fott has like the little bit heavier stuff, but it's a mix and then moving on them out it's sweeper fastball change up. He added the sinker to the exact same pitch. Maybe they're used to utilized a little bit differently, and.

Vilo's are very similar.

Yeah, so I love those guys. But coming back to Bailey over what is really attracted about Bailey over comes back to my type of pitcher this year, it's like the low walk you know, mid strikeout type of guy, the command pitcher. I mean, lo low five percent walk rate K minus walk percentage really solid this year. He's pretty a popular sleeper. Is he in the you know, breakout sleeper territory for you this year?

Well, it's hard because he's at forty one here to say that, it's pretty much well there goes king in and over as our sleepers, right.

Well, I mean but forties, like I mean, do they have top thirty upside? I guess Kim King and over?

Yeah.

I call it the over the Bailey special last year anytime that Bailey pitched, because it was essentially six innings like two three on runs with like six seven base runners and it was just like yep, like clockwork.

He would just do that.

And he's someone who throws surprisingly soft for being as large as he is. It's like ninety one miles per hour and so like ninety five concerns like sixty seven or something. But he has a good extension because of that, and he hits the top of the zone super well. That he's Bailey Ober Rizzy, if you remember, Jacotorizzy would do this constantly, and that's my name for Bailey, so

But I like Bailey Obert.

I just don't want to have to pay super high for I don't want to go like inside the first ten rounds if I can avoid it.

What about Carlos Rodin Welsh is very in on him. Yeah, I understand the roll of the dice in the upside here, but to me it's still a little too rich for my blood? Is it too rich for years? Nick?

Well at forty three.

It's my philosophy is you have to get four pitchers that you trust they are going to not be dropped throughout the year, and not by injury, just by by essentially saying like, if they are pitching, I'm happy they're on my team, and that means I'm not a risky thing and you can get four of them, especially if you jump a little bit in those in those rounds like seven through ten, which I like to do. I think that's where the best value lies for starting pitch hitter.

Would you take that risk? I understand taking it in you know, snake draft. Would you do it in the salary cap league?

Ah?

Yes, that's a little more dangerous.

It depends on where the dollar value is on that.

Right.

I would be more hesitant to go after it in those because I think there are a lot of really good value starters that you can get and that you would normally be able to get in a snake draft.

Right, let's do a versus year at SP four Mitch Keller, who was fantastic for the first half of the season and then the wheels came off, but the strikeout rate did stay. Or you Darvish who we've seen the terrible bounce back for a great year. Well, shoul, would you rather have Mitch Keller? You, Darvish.

I you know what always stands out to me. When I was getting to hang with Corby and Carroll, he had said we'd asked him, like, who is.

The nastiest pitcher? Pick up this name you dropped?

Yeah, no, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, I don't. I don't have the accolades of some on here, but I can mention a couple of names. Is Carol. We asked him, who is like the nastiest picture you faced all year? And he thought about it for a second and then he was like, you know what he's like, Mitch Keller, He said, Mitch Keller. He's like his performance wasn't great, but you didn't know what the hell was coming at

It's the age that concerns me. It's like he's this guy keeps getting off the mat time and time again. You Darvish, and you know I've been fooled before, and I almost feel like I'm gonna get fooled this time. But Nick, I mean, when the age starts to creep in, maybe there isn't a bounce back here.

It's kind of funny you say you don't know what's coming, and you weren't talking about Darvish like he's the king of how many pitches does he throw? What's actually interesting about Darvish to me is I've been being the drum a lot about Hey, Darvish, you have these ten pitches in actuality, you don't need to learn anything new.

You have elite pitches inside of this. It's just about four of those.

And I very much believe there is a blueprint with Darvish's arsenal that is elite. What we saw last year was him figuring it out and acting more like a canvas of just kind of what do I have to say? I'll figure this out and try and go from there, leaning too much, kind of sinker sweeper. And there were starts where Alfson was furs, he was upstairs. It was a cutter for strikes. It was a gyro slider and the sweeper and then the sinkers at the right times,

All right, let's go to the sp fives. Here. These are the guys going outside of the top fifty. I'm not gonna run through the names, which is gonna highlight

The Cub's got the greatest free agent signing of this offseason, and it's not I don't understand it.

Actually, you say.

Quote a little fanfare too.

I feel like it's absolutely bonkers to me.

I the WBC, you know, sorrys the stuff plus everyone the pitch then that Yamamoto was number two and stuff plus and Minaga was number one, And that's not in command, that's just in stuff. And the reason for that is I was talking about those fastball shapes. Yeah, vert, super high, VA excellent, extension, excellent, and Minaga has it. And guess

That's it. I agree, Brendan Fopp is your guy Welsh in this grouping. You saw enough last year, especially down the stretch into the playoffs, where you felt like this kid turned a corner. Do you think it's sustainable though, because last year it was a lot of valleys when it came to Faud.

Yeah, but the valleys were a lot smaller. Once Strom moved him on the rubber. We saw that full mix of sinker being able to come on the outside. You got the change up, you got the sweeper, you got the fastball, four pitch mix that he felt more comfortable with. It was a Diamondbacks camp two days ago and just

Just at a curiousity, I was looking at this one Year Wonder picture list. It's not from picture list, dude, but actually you should put a picture list together the one year Wonders. Were you a Danelson lamette guy back in twenty twenty one? Oh?

That was so fun?

Him twenty twenty was just I mean, we always knew that he had the best slider, but then all of a sudden, going from like ninety six to ninety nine was stupid. I wish I knew all these things about fastball shape and we had that data back then which we didn't have.

You gone back, and that'd be fascinating to go back and look and see where these guys really as well.

All Right, That's actually one of the fun parts for me of this is understanding my assessments of these guys and seeing like what I missed and what I didn't and how shape has changed and stuff.

Also sticking was a big part of it.

Keep in mind, so like Walker Bueler is forcing her used to be elite and now it's not, and that has really more worried to I want.

I want to see you about one guy because I talked to him the other day. It was Brian Wu. Everyone's made a big deal about the fastball and I asked Brian, I said, are you going to add any pitches? And he went no, He's like, I'm not doing anything. I'm like, you're not gonna do anything. I said, what about the splitters. I'm like, all the dudes. You got Kirby and you got Gilbert. And he looked at me

I mean, okay, are you saying this because of my whole stance on splitters?

Is this the no?

I mean, just everybody's adding and it was just my favorite quote.

Yeah.

I love that splitter mafia is great, and I love Wu more.

Funny, I do get to make that one Welsh though. Don't let him make that teacher that's arm.

Don't worry. I can come up with my own things, thank you. H No.

I actually just did just an episode of The Craft with the end of before this, and we talked about Wu in and Bryce Miller throwing splitters or not right, And actually I do think that WU could benefit from a splitter, but it's not in a necessity. I see splitters as a they fill a certain need and what that is generally against opposite handed batters. It gives you a potaway pitch, that's what they do. They are not strike earners, and if you are a pitchers that needs

The cutter is already there and good.

He just needs to get it upstairs and actually in on left ease. He can even surprise if he wants with an upstairs sinker too, which is great. But right Andrews destroys. He has all the duels against Right Andrews. I love Brian Wu. I think they star them every five days, And when I think about innings for the year ahead, I just think about it, is this team

And that's how you should think. He's seventy five guys right.

Now, right right now, wo and like which is it's an overall top seventy five?

He's fifty four fifty. I'm sorry, WU is fifty four. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of I have WU around thirty five, so I'm very much in. I don't think you're gonna drop Brian Woo at all. His four seamer has more whiffs than Bryce Miller's guys. He's a better command pitch pitcher than Bryce Miller, and I trust command pitchers who have good stuff.

So the question, Nick, who is the best in that Seattle rotation in terms of fantasy return on investment? You've got legitimately some really good guy in the rotation that we all like. Is the best?

I enjoyed George Kirby. I'm a believer in that. I thought that I was gonna be able to get him like much later, but now all of a sudden. Everyone is in on that, and okay, I blame Welsh. I mean I had him in October at like seventh or eighth, but I didn't think like that would actually influence things,

Fair enough. Last question for you, Nick, and fantastic stuff. I love every year when we were to you on the show. It's my favorite things. And you know you're so good rating for us all the time, and you know, well we'll yell about things all the time. Alex Pass isn't here to yell with us today. We're missing from this show. But last question, outside of the top seventy five, who's that guy for you? They keep saying this is well target, this is my dude.

Yeah, I mean, okay, if the twins actually say, like Louis Viarland is starting, go get Louis v Island, but it doesn't look like that's happening. Cutter Crawford is someone that just keeps popping up in our models. He finally improved his cutter, thankfully, so now he has his namesake. But the way they use the lot utilizes his slider as well is way better. Now. His four seamer is excellent. He has a lot of those good metrics we were talking about too. For fastball shape. He's in that situation

You know. It's funny Welsh Pollock mentioned TODs Bradley. That's my guy outside of that top seventy five that I just think was just rushed last year. He was literally like Dante from Clerks. He was not supposed to be there, and he got thrown in a little bit before he should have been and he wasn't quite ready. And I think with the proper mindset this offseason to work out that he can get to that high level. He's a very talented young man.

Cutter disappeared. He lost his cutter. He lost his cutter and he had to go back to the miners. And when he was down there, I remember.

I was doing that and he wasn't gonna He went back there too.

But me and Nino talked about it for like I think three weeks, because he stopped throwing his cutter down there because he and he said he lost it because he got to talk to him that he had lost his cutter, and then we were just all speculating what's it going to happen when he comes back. So that was kind of an.

Odd It's a the race said like, hey, cool, we're going to make you focus on fastballs and that's why he lost this cutter.

Yeah.

It's a raising wow outside the ras though, because the rays continuously get the best out of every picture that they touched, So you know, I trust the process there. Well, she was your guy outside top seventy five.

Yeah, just quickly. Pavetta is not outside the top seventy five, but he's just one of my guys highest. He had the highest K percentage from July first on and he had the best year over year with percentage change of any starting pitcher. So I love Pavetta this year, and I love body going there and doing stuff. So I'm big,

Because he was a two pis pitch pitcher all these years, isn't that?

Yeah, But I also want to see, like what happens in spring?

Did we fix that?

Like I'm saying speculation at this point, I don't know if I have, like most of the guys i'll side the top seventy five, I probably have in the ones that I really like. Nick Povetta would be one that I like, I have really really high and that I'm into, but I don't know that's one that his peak mates. I will also say Michael Waka By the way, Michael Walka through a session yesterday two days ago against the Royals. He made Bobby Wit. He just had Bobby just flinging

For like free, I got, yeah, drafts doing sleeper guys walking.

I don't understand, like I get there in Kansas City. But at the same time, like guys, these guys were tremendous last year. Like for free, I'll take a shot on them for free.

Yeah, I mean they're they're bordering what I call it, Toby, which is do they push the needle enough? And is it worth it in your drafts to go after them?

But if you take both of them in one of them works then sure, I mean what is working though right like it.

More than a streamer, probably probably someone that's not want to take that chance As a flyer.

I'd rather go for DL Hall at the end of my drafts and maybe that works out in Milwaukee. That's a bigger impact of it works out. But Walka looked great. He looked great, and also Chris Paddock I looked up on the whole cool. He must have had a really good fastball before, especially last year when he came back terrible fastball, and it's actually not nearly as good as.

I want to be.

He's throwing harder it was in the pen, but as a starter, I'm very worried because I think the fastball's Philossy's going to drop and then it's a vulcan change, which is not consistent. It's curveball was always terrible, so I am interested to see what he looks like. I'm not as in on that one, but bit better with the Worldly Birds sweeper. Oh, he's in my top forty.

I love him all right, Great stuff, Nick Pollock. As always, it's so fantastic to have you on the program. Make sure you go to picture lists dot com and check out the amazing work. I mean, nobody breaks down pitching better than Nick and his entire team there. We're always so grateful to have him on the program. Obviously, you know, we tried to get to as many pictures today as