00:00But there's one thing that a lot of people haven't been positive about,
00:03and that's what Andrew Painter's been doing to start this season.
00:06Are you concerned about Andrew Painter, Jason?
00:10You know, yes and no.
00:12When my wife was coaching, I used to tell her all the time
00:14that you don't measure progress in a straight line.
00:17And I think that's true for somebody like Andrew, somebody this young.
00:22You know, the fact that he hasn't figured out big league life yet,
00:27that's not the worry to me.
00:29The worry to me is that the pitch that made him, once upon a time,
00:34the best pitching prospect in baseball was he had a four-seam fastball.
00:39He could throw past any hitter any time he wanted in the minor leagues.
00:44And we are seeing that change dramatically.
00:47So among starters who throw as hard as he does,
00:51he has by far the lowest whiff rate.
00:55His is between 8% and 9%.
00:56Nobody else is under 12%.
00:59The league average against his four-seamer is 373.
01:04The slugging is 576.
01:07So I kept going.
01:09I went back and looked at that pitch specifically.
01:12In 2022, that was the year he blew through the minor leagues,
01:16when hitters swung at his four-seamer,
01:19they missed it 38% of the time.
01:2238!
01:22And this year the whiff rate is 8.7%.
01:26Let me just try to explain that to you.
01:28A 38% whiff rate would be the second best of any starter in baseball against their four-seamer fastball,
01:36behind only Jacob Mizorowski.
01:38But 8.7%, that's 81st out of 82 full-time starters.
01:46So they're trying to figure this out.
01:48They thought that raising his arm slot would fix it.
01:51You know, at some point, for him to become the kind of pitcher they hope he'll be,
01:57he needs to figure this out.
01:59He needs to recapture the life on that pitch.
02:03He needs to be, he needs to be able to talk to him.
02:04So when you're trying to get him,
02:07that's the way he'll be in a storm zone.
02:07He needs to be able to get him there.
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