Tom Brennan: What Can Pitchers and Hitters Do To Get To Be GOOD Faster? And… Catcher Pop Time

OAKLAND A’s BRENT ROOKER

I am going to approach this topic 1) for pitchers and then 2) for hitters.  

Not an exhaustive treatise, just some food for thought.

PITCHERS

I normally do not watch the SNY Mets Classics, but, as I flipped through the channels, I stopped to watch a game between the Mets and Braves. 

I quickly realized that it was the September 30, 2024 doubleheader game 1 that went from a 3-0 Mets deficit heading into the eighth inning to an 8-7 nailbiter win.

That was quite a game, one for the ages, with the Mets rallying for six in the eighth, and then, as the Mets appeared to be getting out of the eighth inning with a 6 to 4 lead, Edwin Diaz failed to cover first base, and before the inning actually ended, the Mets trailed 7 to 6, only to have the great Lindor hit a two run, come from behind home run to secure the Wild card for the Mets.

Even though it was a replay, it was painful to watch Edwin not cover first base and endanger the season, but that is not the point of this article, so I digress.

Starting the eighth inning with a masterful shutout was the Braves’ Spencer Schwellenbach. 

What was notable to me at that point was the Mets announcers saying that prior to 2024, Schwellenbach had only pitched 31 innings in college and 110 more innings in the minors before becoming an excellent rookie pitcher for the Braves. 

With that very slim amount of pitching prior to the majors, he went 8-7, 3.35 in 2024 in 124 innings with the Braves, a truly fine rookie season.

That got me thinking on this topic.  

I understand that hitting MLB pitching is a huge, ongoing adjustment for newly arriving MLB hitters to first achieve and then to excel at. Why? Because MLB pitching is light years better than college pitching, and there is still a wide gulf between upper minors caliber pitching vs. major league caliber.

You only really adjust to big league pitching by facing it.

But pitchers? You have several pitches (FB, curve, slider, change) and it is simply a matter of refining, mixing, and locating them. It just seems that it should not take that long, and Schwellenbach's accelerated charge to major league competence proved that.

His teammate, 5th rounder Spencer Stryder, compiled a mere 63 innings in college, and just 90 in the minors, and poof! 

Instant dominant major league starter.

(Maybe it is a “Braves Spencer” thing. I dunno.)

So, I see that and am baffled why so many pitchers struggle in their climb.

Brandon Sproat seemed to also be the Mets' "Spencer" in 2024, but then he got smacked around a bit in AAA. To me, that is puzzling. Yes, the hitters are better in AAA. But you are a pitcher with a dominant fastball and you know what you need to do to improve your weaker pitches, so I am often puzzled why pitchers can’t work on enhancing these things sooner.

What are your thoughts, readers, on why pitchers don’t go from college to the majors faster when they have the raw talent to do so?

HITTERS

I understand that hitters, as I noted above, face vastly superior pitching in the major leagues, making the adjustment from the minors to the majors a true challenge. 

I wonder why more people coming up don’t do it like Brent Rooker of the A’s, who took a long time to figure it out (drafted 35th overall in 2017) and then REALLY figured it out.

Rooker had about 200 weak PAs in real debut year in 2021, hardly had major league of bats in 2022, and then in 2023 hit 30 home runs as he broke out as a 28 year-old.  A late bloomer. 

Then, in 2024, as a 29 year-old, he exploded - in 146 games he hit 39 HRs, drove in 112 runs, and batted 293. One has to wonder what did he figure out, and could he have figured it out sooner. 

I wrote about this recently and I’ll mention it again. 

I think he realized that he had to swing at a lot more first pitch strikes. 

He swung at 34.7% of first pitches in 2021 and inched up to 35.1% in 2023, both of those %s being pretty aggressive compared to other hitters. 

In his huge stardom 2024 season, though, he swung at a whopping 44.5% of first pitches.  Wow.

(Sidebar: The A’s reached agreement this week with Rooker on a five-year, $60MM extension, as reported by Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. So, his aggressiveness = huge success = huge payday.)

I again postulate that from watching them, Mets rookie hitters are advised to work the pitchers, so that collectively as a team, the Mets get into the opposing bullpen earlier. 

But these pitchers are extremely talented, so that when you’re asking rookie hitters to try to work pitchers, I think what really is happening more is that it is the pitchers who are working the rookie hitters.

I think for talented hitters to accelerate to the major leagues and be successful there, emulating Brent Rucker is probably a very smart way to go. 

Get that first pitch swing right up to 40% or higher, to avoid getting behind in the count against very skilled and high-powered pitchers.

Once again, readers, I ask you:

What do you think of this more aggressive approach for young hitters?

MACK NAILED IT:

In May 2017, a month before 2017’s MLB draft, Mack presciently wrote this:

Everybody asks me who I would draft with the 20th pick in the first round. 

It would be Oregon State LHSP David Peterson who scouts say is two years away from major league ready. 

Going into this weekend his stat line was: 12-starts, 10-2, 1.99, 81.1-IP, 117-K, only 8-BB.  

A month later, the Mets drafted that very same David Peterson.

FENCES DID MATTER TO YANKEE GREAT DON MATTINGLY

Lefty hitting machine Don Mattingly loved that short right field Yankee porch…

Home: 131 HRs in 3725 PAs

Away:   91 HRs in 3997 PAs

Juan Soto would similarly love, and thrive with, shortened Citi Field fences.

CATCHER POP TIME

Francisco Alvarez gets his fair share of criticism for throwing out baserunners, but Baseball Savant Savant Pop Time shows "catcher pop time" to 2B and 3B, and Francisco, out of 85 listed catchers, was ranked 16th in pop time to 2B (top 20%) and 31st in pop time to 3rd base (top 35%). One would imagine that he will improve as long as his arm strendth remains the same.  What does that mean in Pop Time?  Realmuto is right up in the top 3, tied at 1.85 seconds to 2B.  Alvarez is at 1.93 seconds.  Yasmani Grandal is worst at 2.09 seconds (ouch).

So, if Alvarez's caught stealing rate is weak, but he is top 20% in 2B pop time (defined as the time from when the ball hits the glove to the time it nestles in the infielder's mitt at the 2B bag), then....blame the pitchers?