Spring Training games thread

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Brown threw 0 changeups that outing, but it looks like he might have been mixing in the sinker.

According to statcast everything registered as a fastball or a knuckle curveball, but it gets a little wonky sometimes with pitch designations, so it's possible. 

Fastball sat at 97mph which was good.

Javier Assad was hitting 94mph, which really jumped out at me. 

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

According to statcast everything registered as a fastball or a knuckle curveball, but it gets a little wonky sometimes with pitch designations, so it's possible. 

Fastball sat at 97mph which was good.

Javier Assad was hitting 94mph, which really jumped out at me. 

If you look though there's two bands of movement.  Vertical's a little all over the place but horizontal there's a bunch of stuff at 6-8 and a bunch at 13+ and little in between.

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

If you look though there's two bands of movement.  Vertical's a little all over the place but horizontal there's a bunch of stuff at 6-8 and a bunch at 13+ and little in between.

Yep! It's why I mentioned the weirdness on the pitch designations. I think they classify everything by the way a pitcher calls it; there's a good chance Ben Brown hasn't told Savant that "hey, I throw a sinker now!" Basically if a pitcher calls something a "slider" Savant just agrees with that guy "yeah, that's a slider" even if it's more of a sweeper or a curveball. They're super generous. 

[sweetpeteman]

Rojas put one over the bullpen in left. 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, sweetpeteman said:

Rojas put one over the bullpen in left. 

I like his change in setup. His hands are getting extra separation before he launches into his swing. And he's starting a little more crouched than last year; he was very upright.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

3 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Yep! It's why I mentioned the weirdness on the pitch designations. I think they classify everything by the way a pitcher calls it; there's a good chance Ben Brown hasn't told Savant that "hey, I throw a sinker now!" Basically if a pitcher calls something a "slider" Savant just agrees with that guy "yeah, that's a slider" even if it's more of a sweeper or a curveball. They're super generous. 

Had no idea savant was talking to these guys about pitch designations. Thought it was all math.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

2 minutes ago, sweetpeteman said:

Rojas put one over the bullpen in left. 

108 EV

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Had no idea savant was talking to these guys about pitch designations. Thought it was all math.

I didn't know either. Lance Brodzowski put out a video like a month ago and talked about it in there that basically they classify the pitches based on how the pitcher's call them, even if they don't always follow suit based on actual shape. A bit of a weird system, but because everything is subjective anyways, it's probably the best they can do. 

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, Bertz said:

If you look though there's two bands of movement.  Vertical's a little all over the place but horizontal there's a bunch of stuff at 6-8 and a bunch at 13+ and little in between.

Good catch on the movement under the breakdown as well!

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

There's one fastball from Brown that had 18 inches of HBreak, which seems crazy at 98. That was as much as one of Seth Lugo's slurves.

[Bertz]

20 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Good catch on the movement under the breakdown as well!

Threw the data in excel and yeah looks like it's two distinct pitches.

2 Seamer?: 10 pitches, 97.4 MPH, 11.8 inch vert, 14.7 inch horizontal

4 seamer: 8 pitches, 96.6 MPH, 15 inch vert, 7.0 inch horizontal

The 4 is pretty close to what he threw last year

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

4 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Threw the data in excel and yeah looks like it's two distinct pitches.

2 Seamer?: 10 pitches, 97.4 MPH, 11.8 inch vert, 14.7 inch horizontal

4 seamer: 8 pitches, 96.6 MPH, 15 inch vert, 7.0 inch horizontal

The 4 is pretty close to what he threw last year

How is he throwing the 2-Seamer harder? lol

[sweetpeteman]

The Cubs suck at challenging pitches. They were 0-2 with neither being particularly close and one being really bad. 

[Bertz]

39 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

How is he throwing the 2-Seamer harder? lol

I wonder if he was more amped to throw them so they had more juice?  

Also worth noting it doesn't have a ton of sink.  More of a running fastball than a sinker.

[Bertz]

🚨 Ty Southisene hit a ball 106

Not especially impressive broadly but for a guy who showed deadball era type power last year that catches my eye.

[mk49]

I thought both Ben Brown and Assad pitched well today.  Both of them increased the velo.  Very promising.  I heard Shota is supposed to start tomorrow.  Hopefully, he follows Ben and Assad.  

Too bad, we can't watch the games.

Edited February 24 by mk49

[Geographyhater8888]

I like the thought of Brown as a high leverage arm.

Edited February 24 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

15 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

Yep! It's why I mentioned the weirdness on the pitch designations. I think they classify everything by the way a pitcher calls it; there's a good chance Ben Brown hasn't told Savant that "hey, I throw a sinker now!" Basically if a pitcher calls something a "slider" Savant just agrees with that guy "yeah, that's a slider" even if it's more of a sweeper or a curveball. They're super generous. 

Pitch designations are too ambiguous. The intended outcome is what I associate certain pitches with, not grip. From what I’m reading it sounds like Brown has developed a 2 seamer in practice. But I don’t know if he’s inducing grounders or commanding the edges of the zone.
 

Either way he needs a third pitch badly. It’s easy to make a swing decision on the outer edge like last season when everything moved on the same vertical plane. It’d help with Chase at least. 
 

There was no ambiguity with Greg Maddux. His sinkers moved 1-7 and 2 seamers 2-

Edited February 24 by Geographyhater8888

[Bertz]

Plopping this here since there was some discourse about it over the offseason.

tl;dr is teams are paying about $10.5M per win, but there's a big split between role players ($6-7M) and good players ($12+)

 

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Plopping this here since there was some discourse about it over the offseason.

tl;dr is teams are paying about $10.5M per win, but there's a big split between role players ($6-7M) and good players ($12+)

 

Beat me by three minutes. Was literally about to post the same thing. 

[Bertz]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7064417/2026/02/24/mlb-abs-system-challenges-pitcher-benefits/

Eno Sarris theorizes that pitchers who live on the top of the zone will get the most love from ABS.  Cubs have two of the top guys in Shota and Boyd.

[JunkyardWalrus]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7064417/2026/02/24/mlb-abs-system-challenges-pitcher-benefits/

Eno Sarris theorizes that pitchers who live on the top of the zone will get the most love from ABS.  Cubs have two of the top guys in Shota and Boyd.

Isn't that Steele’s FB too?

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, JunkyardWalrus said:

Isn't that Steele’s FB too?

Yeah I'd say so.  I can't quite get to Eno's numbers but the Statcast searching I am doing says Steele's in between the two, and closer to Shota than Boyd.

Steele throws fewer of his fastballs up than either guy, but it's balanced out by throwing more fastballs.

[Bertz]

👀

Shota's fastball was 93.5 during the first inning today.  He threw four fastballs harder than any fastball he threw last year

[mk49]

Shota is looking good.  He pitched 24 fastballs in 2 innings, and the average was 93.0mph.  Definitely faster in the 1st inning, though.  Maybe, he threw less hard in the 2nd inning intentionally?  

Edited February 24 by mk49