GDT 8-2: Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

Carp said:
Waldrep was optioned back to AAA. I'm reading where he was woken up at 11:30 and told his driver will be waiting for him at 5:30 in the morning

And here I thought AA was trying to respectful to player's feelings and trying to fair....

What a clown show.
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This actually isn't anything to do with our plans for him. Waldrep was the 27th man for the suspended game. Under the rule he comes up for one game then goes back to AAA. There's no minimum time he has to stay before being recalled. So we could be planning to use him to make his next start in Atlanta and he'd still have been sent to AAA.
 
striker42 said:
This actually isn't anything to do with our plans for him. Waldrep was the 27th man for the suspended game. Under the rule he comes up for one game then goes back to AAA. There's no minimum time he has to stay before being recalled. So we could be planning to use him to make his next start in Atlanta and he'd still have been sent to AAA.
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I will recant the post.

Looks like the twitter poster got the facts wrong.
 
Nice game for Waldrep. He should get several more starts. I was against his aggressive promotion last year and his work in AAA has been a bit uneven, but he's on the 40-man now and it's important to get a read on him.
 
50PoundHead said:
Nice game for Waldrep. He should get several more starts. I was against his aggressive promotion last year and his work in AAA has been a bit uneven, but he's on the 40-man now and it's important to get a read on him.
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Absolutely. It was nice to see that his mechanical adjustments seem to be working. I definitely don't see an ace or even a top-of-the-rotation arm, but his splitter was diving, the fastball was solid, and he actually had command of his pitches. My biggest concern with him is that his fastball, slider and splitter overlap so much in their movement profiles. The new cutter could be really helpful
 
I wasn't able to watch the game, but I see that statcast has him throwing a sinker instead of a four-seamer like last year. i don't recall seeing anything about him changing up his repertoire - does the sinker look more viable than the four-seamer?
 
UNCBlue012 said:
Absolutely. It was nice to see that his mechanical adjustments seem to be working. I definitely don't see an ace or even a top-of-the-rotation arm, but his splitter was diving, the fastball was solid, and he actually had command of his pitches. My biggest concern with him is that his fastball, slider and splitter overlap so much in their movement profiles. The new cutter could be really helpful
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One stat I look for after a pitching performance is the S/B ratio and he still has a ways to go there. 75 pitches with 45S/30B is still iffy to me at 3/2. It would be great if he could get closer to 2/1 but that might take some time. But I'm not going to dis his performance yesterday.
 
I'm buoyed by Waldrep's performance yesterday. That splitter is a crazy pitch. We need to see more of him in this lost season.
 
Never mind, I'll post it. Waldrep threw 9 splits. A total of 123 MLB pitchers have thrown 5+ splits in 2025.

Waldrep's 5.8" of arm-side run (higher number is better) ranks 116 of 124. For comparison, Schwelly's moves 9.4" and elite movement is 15"+.

Waldrep's 1.0" of rise (lower number is better) ranks 28 of 124. For comparison, Schwelly's rises 0.2" and elite rise is negative (yes, true sink like the actual "deadly" splits Saskai, Scott and Houck throw).

So, to summarize, Waldrep's "deadly" split sinks a fraction of an inch less than Schwelly's with bottom of the league horizontal movement. I'm sure hitters are quaking in their boots at the thought of facing this devastating pitch. It's literally a worse pitch in every way to Schwelly's, which is nothing more than a competent split.

Waldrep does not have a good arsenal.
 
Enscheff said:
Never mind, I'll post it. Waldrep threw 9 splits. A total of 123 MLB pitchers have thrown 5+ splits in 2025.

Waldrep's 5.8" of arm-side run (higher number is better) ranks 116 of 124. For comparison, Schwelly's moves 9.4" and elite movement is 15"+.

Waldrep's 1.0" of rise (lower number is better) ranks 28 of 124. For comparison, Schwelly's rises 0.2" and elite rise is negative (yes, true sink like the actual "deadly" splits Saskai, Scott and Houck throw).

So, to summarize, Waldrep's "deadly" split sinks a fraction of an inch less than Schwelly's with bottom of the league horizontal movement. I'm sure hitters are quaking in their boots at the thought of facing this devastating pitch. It's literally a worse pitch in every way to Schwelly's, which is nothing more than a competent split.

Waldrep does not have a good arsenal.
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For the umpteenth thousand time, no one said he has a good arsenal. You keep chiming on a point that no one disagrees with. It's been the opinion for awhile now that he is a future reliever because he only has 1 pitch. Even as good as it maybe, you aren't gonna be a starting pitcher with only 1 good pitch (unless you are a primary knuckleballer). Yesterday's start did nothing to change that, although the command of his pitches was a welcome surprise.


Edit: I was looking at the wrong line on stuff+. They haven't released any info on that yet. But in 2024, Stuff+ rated his splitter at 132.
 
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Digging into Waldrep's individual pitch movement may give some insight to his issue.

He threw 9 splits. 6 of those splits had 0" of rise or negative rise. He recorded a K on 4 of those 6 well executed splits.

The other 3 splits actually had 6", 5" and 4" of rise, and were terrible. Those poorly executed pitches are the ones that are going to tank the outing when they get hit 400', especially after he's walked 2 guys on base before it happens.

So the only path forward for Waldrep is to figure out how to throw more -2" splits and fewer +4" splits.

I won't even get into the movement profiles of his other pitches. I'd like to end my thoughts about Waldrep on a positive note thinking, "maybe he can learn to throw more sinking splits more often with better control".
 
Enscheff said:
Digging into Waldrep's individual pitch movement may give some insight to his issue.

He threw 9 splits. 6 of those splits had 0" of rise or negative rise. He recorded a K on 4 of those 6 well executed splits.

The other 3 splits actually had 6", 5" and 4" of rise, and were terrible. Those poorly executed pitches are the ones that are going to tank the outing when they get hit 400', especially after he's walked 2 guys on base before it happens.

So the only path forward for Waldrep is to figure out how to throw more -2" splits and fewer +4" splits.

I won't even get into the movement profiles of his other pitches. I'd like to end my thoughts about Waldrep on a positive note thinking, "maybe he can learn to throw more sinking splits more often with better control".
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The good news is we have so many pitchers injured that he has 2 months to learn.
 
Tapate50 said:
Holy cow how does a pitch with 700 spin rate rise at all
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Arm angle and release most likely. He's always struggled repeating his mechanics, which is a big reason his command has been garbage. His grip could also be a factor as well, since people don't describe it as a standard splitter.
 
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