Pitching Ninja Praises Pirates Rotation, Breaks Down Evolution of Pitching
Hello Pirates fans and pitching fans specifically today. Welcome to Bucks Bounty, Michael Mckenry, Steven Brawl, and today we are joined by just an unbelievably special guest, Rob Freeman, better known as Pitching Ninja on all social media platforms. Rob, it is so good to have you here with us today. So excited to get into this. Uh we’re going to talk about your background. We’ll talk about pitching in general. We’ll talk about the Pirates guys specifically later in the show. But how you doing? What’s your off season like when you’re not, you know, making all these videos for live pitches going on every day, dude? I get some sleep finally. Like I watch almost every game, so it’s really good to like be able to catch up on stuff. And like right now, I’m giving out the pitching ninja awards, which is always fun at the end of the year to kind of wrap things up. But it never stops here. But it does slow down a tiny bit. Oh, that’s incredible. So Rob, I I’m a huge fan. Probably kind of uh girl tripping on you a little bit. I have a little bit of a crush being a catcher, a guy that loves pitching, loves the craft, but also has fun with it. It It’s amazing. But you went from lawyer to youth baseball, softball coach, and and then a high school coach. You started a company, but yet you’re a ninja. How does that even happen? Dude, I have no idea. When you say it like that, it sounds like weird. And it is weird. Like I had no plans on doing this at all. Zero plans. Like, you know, why would I? Um, but yeah, I started coaching and learning from like a bunch of the really like we didn’t know it at the time. We were all on this message board called LO Let’s Talk Pitching and it was guys like Cal Bod who started Driveline. Yeah. um Eric Cressy, Allan Jagger, a bunch of guys who were big into pitching. Um Ben Brewster who started Tread and we I used to like ask a lot of questions because as a coach, you know, I grew up and I wasn’t a great player, but I had kids that I was responsible for coaching and I’m like, I don’t want to teach what I learned. I want to learn this whole thing over. So, I asked a lot of questions from these guys and we all were learning at the same time. like we were all kind of nobbodyies and we all went off and did our own things and I ended up just wanting to give back to the community and sharing and I started sharing stuff on social media and it started taking off and I still have no idea how I got here. That’s awesome. You you say that, but I mean look I you go look into what you’ve done uh as far as you know not just not just showing videos. I think people, a lot of people think of you as just the guy who makes the cool, funny videos on whatever social media they watch, but really there’s so much more to it because I was telling these guys before you got on, you’ve you personally, I don’t know if anybody’s told you this, but you’ve kind of revolutionized how people watch pitching. you know, how the average fan sees pitching because you’ve made this very intricate, detailed uh, you know, information and you’ve brought it to a level where everybody can understand and everybody can appreciate it and that’s such a hard thing to do. What made you kind of, you know, be able to bring that information, you think, to the masses in a way that they would appreciate? I think it’s cuz I have to take it simply myself. Like I understand it at a at a pretty deep level, but for me to learn something, I have to visually learn it as well as like break it down into little bite-sized things. And it just so happens like social media works with my ADD brain. And I’m able to just fit things out there and try to make sense for everybody. And I love when little light bulbs come on where everybody’s been screaming at hitters like, “Why did you swing at that?” And now they’re like, “Oh, I see why they swung at tunnel this fast.” with like it’s so cool to see people actually speaking that language now when before I don’t think they got it. And I’m a very visual learner. So I think I think a lot of people are and I don’t think I my thoughts were a lot of people didn’t take the time to explain it. They just either assumed everybody understood it or maybe you know they didn’t understand it themselves and just said oh this guy shouldn’t have swung at this pitch why he doesn’t know patience or whatever. Major Leagueers are good. They have patience. They get fooled a lot though by great pitchers. Hitting is hard, but let’s be honest. And something I want to talk about, we’re we’re in the digital space as well. How you push out so much content and how you edit it so well and so fast is remarkable to me. I love to edit. Even though as a former player, I’ve really gotten into that and seeing how fast you pump it out, how well you can articulate it, and how you pick the pitches so fast to do overlays kind of mindboggles me. It shows the true love you have for the game. explain how you got into that because yes, you could pump out content. There’s a lot of people that do that, but it’s really the quality of what you pump out, how fast you pump it out, and how much fun you have behind it. You could tell the love you have for this game, which, you know, I think is infectious for someone even through a through a tweet. It doesn’t matter what platform you watch you on, I can feel your genuine love for the game and learning and it’s really cool. Well, I’m a fan first. Like, I love the game in general. I think it means a lot to kids from giving them self-esteem, teaching them how to work as a team, whole bunch of things. I want to bring more fans into the game. So, that’s kind of what my goal is is that. But like I am obsessed like during the season I plan everything around the game schedule which drives everybody in my family crazy. I was like, “Are you ready to go? I have to like it’s it’s rotten.” Like I am watching I have screens up all over the place. All the posts that you see on X are all mine. like I do all of it myself and it is uh I mean I love it but I get you know by the end of a day I feel like I played in you know five games because I’m constantly you know going back and forth and trying to keep up with everything. Uh but it’s just like again I think you get better and better at it as you do more and more and it happens to be the way my brain works. It’s always worked that way since I was a lawyer. Like I can think really quickly. If you give me a lot of time to do something, I’m not necessarily going to do it any better than I can do it in five seconds, which is matter. Let’s uh let’s talk a little bit about that growth that you’ve seen. I obviously when you start something like this, I I assume you know you start it because like you said, it’s something you enjoy doing. It’s something you love and now it’s blown up into this massive thing that you are doing. You’ve got a website, you’ve got merch, you’ve got guys in the major leagues not only retweeting all of your videos, but wearing your gear and and supporting you and talking with you. Um, you know, I What is that like? You know, now you’ve can be become this this personality beside Rob Friedman. Everybody knows you as pitching ninja. What is that like getting to this point now? Dude, it is so cool. Like if I ever if that ever becomes old, I quit. Like it is awesome to be like I’ll be walking on the street or at a stadium and people will stop me and they like ask for like autographs. Like they’re asking me for autographs and I’m like yeah like I don’t care where I am. I could. Yeah, I’m I’m stopping everything and I am I am absolutely, you know, taking the time because I know what it’s like to like I want to be a positive influence and I know what it’s like to see somebody else like blow someone off and never then the rumor gets around, oh that guy’s a jerk. I never want to be the jerk. So I think it’s awesome. Like um it never ever ever gets old. I was just putting out a Jacob Miserowski uh post this morning and I got a shout out in that game from him like Bohemian Raps City a uh Willie Castro in that game. He just killed a man. And yeah, so they’re like pitching ninja get on it. I’m like I am already on it. I’m watching it. But I love the shout out. I mean it never gets old. It’s so cool. Uh we’ve definitely given you multiple shout outs whether it’s on the broadcast or on the pre and post because your stuff we follow we love. But do you sign pitching ninja or do you actually sign your name? Like that that’s one thing I want to ask. Right. I do both. I write Rob Freeman and then I write pitching ninja underneath because Rob Freeman doesn’t mean anything. Pitching ninja is a lot pitching is a lot cooler than Rob Freriedman. I will tell you that. Yeah. I was kind of hoping you were going to come on with, you know, the the ninja mask today. Oh, I dude. We’ll make sure we get you one black and yellow so when you watch the pirates there. Yeah, you have that on. I want to go back real quick before we jump into how good the Pirates are and the pitching there because I know you love Paul SK. I want to talk about when you were coaching, how big of a shift have you seen? Because I don’t think fans understand. You said you didn’t want to teach what you knew. You wanted to continually learn. And me and Stephen played for a long time. We’re still in the game. We never took a minute off from playing to when we transitioned in the game. And it’s still it’s still growing. It’s I’m still learning on a daily basis. And I think we feel that same way is we love asking the question. So how far has it come and where do you see it going? I know that’s a big thing to cover but someone with your knowledge and coming from here all the way here is remarkable. So one of the cool things and I’m not plugging it because it’s not even out yet but I am writing a book I have a book coming out in March um about like technology in pitching and how it’s made pitchers almost unhitable. And it goes through the history of this. But when I started doing this, I don’t think people knew what like a rapoto was or knew like what pitch metrics were. And now if I talk to any pitcher in baseball, they know their stuff frontwards and backwards. And even guys like, you know, probably the most old school pitcher that I know in in the game is like someone like Chris Sale, right? Like Chris Sale, you think of, you know, he is as old school as they come. I I was talking to him and he started talking to me about seamshifted wake and how he doesn’t know what it means but he’s using it now on his change up and I’m like holy cow like this is something that I come up and he’s now you the guy that never would talk science or anything is talking it and I just love how it’s infiltrated every aspect of the game and pitchers are learning fans are learning I know people always go like back in my day we just did this and we had Greg Maddox painting corners and all But, you know, hey, the game gets better. Greg Maddox would be doing things different had he come up today. Like he would be taking all this information, be a better pitcher even. It’s hard to imagine, but he would be. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know, I think that that’s what’s lost. Uh, a lot of times there’s a disconnect between people think that these are new stats. They’re not they’re new that we can quantify them with the technology we have, but people have been working on getting their slider to move horizontally more forever. And the way that you do that is still the same. It’s still adjusting your pitch grip a little bit, maybe changing your arm angle a little bit. Those adjustments are still the same. It’s just now that we can actually measure exactly how much that change is becomes more of a science than before when it was more of a a feel thing I think is a big difference there. Um, I want to go into really quick uh just what we have on the screen right now, flatground.org. something that you’ve started that it really is such a cool thing that I want to make sure that we get out there um for you to explain it before we go into the nitty-gritty of pitching and the pirates. What is flatground.org? What did you start it for and what is it for or what does it help people with? So, I started flatground because b my son was playing travel ball and I saw a lot of players that were playing at a pretty high level at a very high level. I mean, we’re talking about East Cobb, Georgia, like you know, top teams, but you’re seeing parents and kids like they’re making cho life choices about can we afford this? Can I take vacation here? And using up their, you know, their entire vacation on these tournaments, all their free money that they have for vacations and other things they want to buy to spend on their kid. And everybody wants their kid to succeed, but it’s really expensive. And I didn’t think baseball should be a rich kid sports sport. I think Rich I think baseball should have like access to everybody should have access to it for the sport to grow and for the best players to make it there and I just don’t think it’s fair that you have you know people that can afford the best equipment and the best coaching making it further only because of that. So what I did was I had a following and I said you know what I am going to start posting people on flat ground to get the coaches and everybody else is following me to see these players for free because again if they can get if they can get noticed for free then maybe it could dovetail with showcase stuff that they had to do or at least they can or they don’t have the money to do go to a showcase and they can put that stuff out there. College coach can see them and sign them. pro coach pro uh scouts can see them and sign them and it worked. Like there’s been over a thousand kids signed for college uh getting college scholarships through flat ground. There’s been I don’t I haven’t counted the amount of uh pro teams that have picked up guys through flat ground. Just seen a guy you know a lot of times scouts will write someone off they maybe threw wildly or they didn’t have a lot of vo and then they worked hard and grew themselves but scouts kind of forget about them. they saw them once, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I saw that guy. He wasn’t any good.” And now this gives you a chance to show your best foot. And then it starts a feeding frenzy among the scouts that are now seeing that guy up there or among the colleges that are seeing that guy up there and going, “Oh, wait a second. This guy’s now really good. We got to get on him.” And it puts the player in more control than the teams or the colleges, which is what I Yeah. I really loved. I mean, it’s it’s it just flipped it all on its head. Ron, that’s to be honest, it’s probably my favorite thing you’ve done. Um, I love the pitching ninja, but I love that you use your platform like that. I have used that multiple times where I’ve shared a kid with his handle and immediately the flat ground app throws it out there. A flat ground bat throws it out there and every one of those kids got interest back through their social media. So, thank you so much for that. It’s been phenomenal. I’ve used it as a tool myself. So, if you’ve not checked that out, whoever’s watching this, make sure to go check that out because it is a rich man’s sport right now. It is very hard. I work with some of the best kids on the planet. And these kids have to spend a ton of money to even get to USA baseball because they have to fly there, but then they take care of them, but they have to fly to Perfect Game. They have to do all these things that I don’t think parents really anticipate. So, you’re open up the door to ask the right questions, but you’re also giving chances to so many guys that are overlooked. And speaking of that, let’s go to the college game real quick before we really get into the Pro Bowl. You have a love for college sports or college baseball. I do, too. And some of the stuff you put out in college is probably the funniest stuff you put out because those guys are in it a little bit different. How do you balance that with how much you have to watch MLB with college? I mean, you have to have 88 TVs in there to figure that out. I mean, it’s remarkable. I I definitely do. Like I have guys that I know that I want to watch and then there are games that I want to watch and you know I try to narrow it down but I also try to watch as much as I can. If I see someone starting to get some traction um or someone pitching well I’ll start watching them just to figure out what they’re all about. Uh my son my son uh got a baseball scholar to Georgia Tech, got injured there, but uh we went through that whole thing and you know, it’s one of those things watching all those guys and watching him make it up to the major leagues. Like Brandt Herder started out as my son’s was one of my son’s roommates. Um Zack Maxwell for the Reds was also one of my son’s roommates and broke his countertop by sitting on it. U but anyway, there were It happened. Hello. He’s a big He’s a big dude. He’s a big dude. But but it was like I mean watching these kids succeed that’s like my favorite part like when you know them and you see them grow up in the game. Y’all have one of them. My son played with Hunter Barco um and yeah on the East Cob Astros. So we have a long history with Hunter and uh it’s great to watch him come up through the ranks as well. I I just I love that part. in college. To me, college baseball, if you’re not watching it, you should because it’s a whole another level of fans getting into it, the players, you know, they’re playing a lot of times for the love of the game and you can see like it’s so much fun to watch. He got him and he’s done it again. Welcome to Unobstructed View. We’re at BP. We’re going to get the inside look. Once you start loving each other, you start fighting for each other. Welcome to coach’s corner. And he’ll admire it and so will we. Is that too much to ask for? Oh, baby. Let’s get into pitching, shall we? I I love I’ve wanted to talk to you specifically about a lot of things uh throughout the my career. Now, obviously, I’m not pitching anymore, but there first of all, I have to say one thing. You posted me one time. It was a 94 mile fastball where I froze Chris Bryant. And I’ll never forget it because there’s the joke of like you haven’t really made it now until you make it on to Pitching Ninja, right? That’s that’s what it feels like. All right, pitching ninja appreciates what I did there. Um, and and it’s true because I I felt that. I was like, look, yeah, that’s right. That was a good pitch. I deserve that. Let’s go. Um, but you know, as as this has gone on and you’ve started to get more into the major league game and more contacts actually in the game, how has that changed your approach to this at all? Are there guys that you really like to watch and focus on right now in the game? Obviously, we all know the the big important pitchers. Um, and we’ll get to Paul SK a little bit later, but who’s maybe somebody that you really like watching that maybe the average fan might not know much as much about? Oh, that’s a great question. Um, you know, I I’m thinking like and I and probably folks know them, but like Chase Burns is a guy that I love watching pitch. I think he hasn’t gotten quite the love that some of the other young guys got and he is spectacular to watch. his stuff is kind of off the charts. Um Blake Trinan, I think everybody knows my love for his stuff. Like again, this this postseason wasn’t the real Blake Trin. And Blake Trinan is the filthiest pitcher on the face of the earth when he is Yeah. The witch. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And a long story, but he hates being called the witch. And I had I stopped it. I had I had lunch with our dinner with Blake Tryman and he’s like man I just but I thought it was a great like because his stuff is of the world like it’s it’s the nastiest stuff in the entire world. He makes the ball move. Call him Call him Doubledorf. I mean the dude’s a wizard on the mound. Exactly right. He absolutely is. Like so that’s one of the guys that like lowkey I sit there and watch and man he’s ridiculous. Um Nolan Mlan this year uh the young pitcher for the Mets. Holy cow. Like that’s going to be that’s basically Witch Jr. right now. I mean he’s like Michael King throws the ball a little harder and uh like big big. Everybody should just drop everything. Every time he pitches just drop everything and watch him pitch. He’s just crazy. Just watch watch him throw his sweeper and his curve ball like all the it’s just the way he spins the ball is just unbelievable. It’s not. Do you think uh there’s a way to Sorry, this is a little bit in the in the woods here, but do you think that there is a way to increase spin rate nowadays? Are pitchers finding ways to increase spin rate, or is that something that’s more latent? What you have, you have. Mostly, it’s what you have, you have. You can do some things with finger positioning or uh like getting closer together, for example, on your fast ball. Sometimes it works for folks. Obviously, we all know about the sticky stuff stuff, which you can’t do anymore. Shame on you if you do that. Makes my stuff better, but Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I I say use all of it, but MLB would say don’t. Uh, so there there are way So, the biggest thing right now is seamshifted wake. Taking advantage of the seams on the baseball is a way to get your pitches to move like it’s got a ridiculous spin rate without having a ridiculous spin rate. If you can get the seams to be oriented the exact right way, the air the differential and air pressure and stuff makes the pitches move a ton and you’ll see just wicked stuff without that high spin rate. So that’s kind of the new thing that people are doing a relatively new and I had a role in that coming about because I was like the intermediary between the guy who discovered it and drive line who actually tested it out. Um, but that’s been like the biggest thing in the world right now, like seamshifted wake and guys making the ball move like it’s got a huge spin rate or move like it’s it’s got a uh a scuff on it almost because it basically treats the baseball like a scuff. Um, so that’s kind of cool. And it’s one of those new things too that you’re back in this is this effect has always been around. We didn’t invent it. It’s like pitchers lucked into it before. Like David Con told me he used to call it catching a seam on the ball and it would take off in a way that he didn’t expect it to. Um, Greg Maddox would do the same thing. But now we know why it happens and we can teach it to people and we can use slow-mo cameras like the edgatronic cameras to slow up the release of the baseball to see how it’s coming off your fingers to make sure it’s coming off the right way. So, you’re reducing the amount of iteration you need to get that pitch to move that way. And going back to Greg Maddox, if there was this concept when he was there and how much they use scuff balls, then he would be throwing balls that move 14 feet. But let’s just be honest. Right. Remember, yeah. I mean, as a catcher, I used to bounce the ball to second base to get a scuff and hope they didn’t see it. Almost got thrown out of the game a couple times doing it. So, I love that that’s coming back in the game. I hate it for the hitters because it’s going to be really hard, but I’m always a catcher first. I want to talk about you also kind of revolutionized tunneling. Um, I I retired from baseball professionally, I say, because I’ll play if anybody calls at any point rec recreationally. Um, you started tunneling for me and a lot of people in this industry based on your videos and how you started to pick pitches. You’ve gotten creative over time. Your sequencing when it comes to tunneling is outstanding. But how did that kind of come about? What did you see? Was it the old Greg Maddox who said it’s the what is it the milk cartons or the milk things that kind of drop? Where did that come from? How did you start doing the videos? And the videos are absolutely incredible. It’s not easy, folks. You almost have to take everything away and just have the ball there to actually make it work. And he does it with an absolute grace. Well, thank you. Like, so that was one of those things where I’m watching hitters look stupid and trying to explain it to people. Like, these are the best hitters on earth. they’re getting paid a lot of money and they are much better than you if you’re sitting on your couch yelling at them like they’re just better than you. So my thing was I wanted to show why these guys were swinging at pitches that they couldn’t possibly hit. And you know instead of saying, “Oh, this guy has no discipline. This guy stinks. He can’t pick up spin.” Well, secret, very few hitters pick up spin. And I’ve talked to everybody about this. um they see something different, but they don’t necessarily see the spin on the baseball. So, get it out of your head that all these guys are seeing spin and they’re just chasing pitches. They’re seeing something either a release point difference, maybe someone’s tipping in some way, maybe they’re seeing a red blotch or something like that, but they’re not seeing spin. Um so, if you can Yeah, if you can tunnel the ball perfectly, you can break a hitter’s brain because they’re hunting fast balls. all hitters, even the hardest throwing guys, they’re keying on your fast ball. They’re waiting for they’re sitting dead red because they want to hammer something. They’re not sitting on that nasty slider, believe me, they’re not. And if you can make your f your make your slider look like that fast ball that they just saw, the better off you’re going to be. So, I wanted to show that visually. And I did a lot of trial and error. Um, I did some photography like in my spare time when I was a lawyer, just for fun. And, uh, time you had. Yeah, dude. I My brain doesn’t work very well. It just jumps from thing to thing. But, uh, I get it. Trust me, I get it. That’s kind of how I ended up here. Like, so I was just trying different things. I’m like, well, if I change this and I do this and I line this up, can I get this done? All of this stuff is self-taught. Like, I just I just spent a lot of time with editing software and tried to explain what I saw um to fans. I want to make it so simple that everybody can see what happened and now people do and I’m like amazed. Um I know we’re going to talk about skins in a little bit, but I was talking to Paul SK at the All-Star game and he started talking about tunneling and what he learned from me tunneling wise and I’m like dude this is awesome. Like I love it. But he learned tunneling his misses with a pitch that’s going to break to the plate. And he learned that from a a overlay I did with Zack Gallon throwing to Freddy Freeman. o a a high fast ball that was way out of the zone. He tunnneled a curveball that dropped in the zone for a strike backwards K. And uh he said, “I saw that.” And I was like, “Oh, wait a second. That’s how you get guys to freeze.” And he started doing it. I’m like, “Dude, you’re that’s brilliant. Like, I’m glad you got that.” And I’m glad like that video made an impression on people because that’s really why I want to teach fans and I want to teach players to just make the game better. like you don’t you should be free to ask me questions, you should be free to ask everybody questions. I think it’s I think it’s very cool. You know, I think if you you bring a great point up there, uh which is some of the differences when as a pitcher when you get up to that major league level, uh you know, as a kid, you’re always thinking about what the next pitch is. What am I going to throw next? Major League pitchers are always thinking about the pitch they threw before. What’s the last pitch I threw? what did I do to you early in this bat or the last at bat? Because then, like you say, you’re able to tunnel pitches off of each other. I think one of the things that that you do really well is is exactly that. You show that when these pitchers are tunneling pitches off of each other. It’s not always one pitch to the very next pitch. It can be one pitch and then later in that bat, they’re saying a hitter still thinking, “All right, I got to be ready for that fast ball away.” And then like you say that slider starts in the same place, tunnels off, goes 8 inches off the plate and you still guys got you still get guys chasing because it is not always a perfect science. It’s just about knowing what you actually did before. And I think that you’ve done a great job of expressing that no one destroys a baseball like Cruz. That is the hardest hit ball in known Major League history. Pitchers should consider themselves warned and it is gone. There’s a cruise missile. Log in with your cable provider and stream the Pirates all season long on SNP 360. Now that you’re, you know, going into this a little bit deeper with uh with Paul Ske, let’s just jump right into it. I I want to start with him. Uh, as far as pitch selection, okay, so when when Skins came up to the big leagues, Michael and I have watched every single pitch he’s thrown. I’m sure you’re pretty much probably the same. Um, and so when he came up last year, he started throwing or he had already started, but he he really started using what we called the spinker for a while. Um, and it last year or 2024, it was his most used pitch other than his fast ball. It was absolutely nasty. It got a ton of swing and miss. He came out in 2025 and that pitch was not the same. Um, it didn’t have the same vertical depth. It was not getting the same swing and miss. He gave up three home runs on it, which he only gave up one all of 2024. Something like that. Paul Ske has the ability to change and to now start using his breaking balls more uh, and still maybe even have a better season because he’s Paul Skins. But that’s something that I’m curious what when you see a guy like Skins making those adjustments, is that something that separates him or can everybody learn and make those adjustments the way he does? That’s a great question because I I think people can take something from it, but he is he is talented at a level that I’m not sure everybody can do. He blows my mind with uh like I asked him about this. I said like, “Dude, I feel like sometimes you just decide you’re going to dominate a team with this pitch this day and it’s could be any of your pitches and you’re just going there and you’re mowing down people your curveball like it comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden you get like 10 whiffs on your curveball and he’s like he’s like, “Yeah, it’s kind of like that.” Like he goes into bullpen. He’s like, “All right, this pitch feels good today and he’ll throw more of that in the game and if it keeps working, he keeps going to it.” Like he has a plan, but he’s willing to deviate from it. and he’s got so many different weapons. They have to respect his fast ball. They have to respect all of his pitches. His command, he told me when he was in college, and this also blew my mind, that he’s always been able to put the ball where he wanted to. And I’m like, young pitchers never do that. Like they it takes them a while and then they dial in command. He has always been able to do that. He was a catcher so he knows how important sequencing. I think it’s really awesome that he was a catcher and knows then how to call pitches and knows what hitters are expecting. He was a hitter. Um, so that separates him. His command separates him. His stuff separates them. His his poise separates them. The fact that he likes doing the boring stuff. I mean, the only thing he ever gets criticized for is that he’s not the most, you know, he he’s not over-the-top enthusiastic when you interview him. He’s But that’s what makes him great. It’s the willingness to do the boring stuff. Like there’s so I cannot think of a pitcher that’s got it together more than that guy. And he is so much fun to watch. Everybody should watch every one of his starts. And uh and you can learn something from it, but also realize you’re watching a once in a generation guy who is just phenomenal in every way. Great for the community. He does so many great things in char like who if your kid grew up to be Paul Schings, you’d sit there and go I’m a winner. Like that was the best Michael ever turned out. Like that is fantastic. Yeah. Uh my high school coach once gave me the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten. He said, “Michael’s a guy that I would allow to marry my daughter.” Paul Skins is out for me. He’s a guy that you’d be like, “Duh. Yeah, take her. Whatever you want. Go ahead. Be a part of this family, right?” Like this guy’s incredible. So I I think you said it best. He got Kstrut of the year in your awards. you said walk slowly off the mound surveying his kingdom and I think that’s the perfect element because this guy is a giant lion. If there was a liger I believe in it now because of this guy but watching him uh Rob over the last couple years like I’ll never forget me and Stephen are watching I go dude how sick would it be if he threw that spinker off the front hip right here and sure enough he did. I’m like how does this guy do this? He’s 22 years old at the time and he’s making adjustments that you only dream a guy would make maybe in his 30 30 year old season, 31y old season, six years in. This guy’s doing it day one and he’s teaching the veterans things because he’s willing to make that change like this. I think it’s the military background. I say he has 58 tactical game plans and he plans for it to go wrong. But before I even go any further on that, I want to talk to you about this moment that he had this year. It’s the coolest moment I’ve ever seen in baseball. He threw a pitch and he always looks up and I’m always scared to death he got hurt. He goes like this, but he’s not getting hurt. He’s looking up and at PNC they have the horizontal and vertical break. Well, this day his vertical movement with his fast ball because his low slot was taking off up better than it had all year. He led by far with that four seamer. Pretty much dropped the two seamer that day which took over a lot for a swinker this year and dominated with it. I think he had 10ks, nine of him on the fast ball. That’s what makes this guy extremely unique. But have you ever seen anybody be able to slow the game down like this at any age with this stuff, this command and ability to adapt within the game? Because it’s remarkable. And he feels like I feel like every time he says, “Ah, I’m just trying to learn from this and that.” I’m like, “Dude, what else you going to learn? You’re going to revolutionize the game.” I I you’ve That was exactly exactly my view on him. And I knew this from like I interviewed him at LSU and you know how good he was at LSU. Yeah. And I was trying to figure out how good he can be from the interview. And at the end I just came away going like dude you are so good right now and you could be so much better but you’re so good right now. And I can’t wrap my head around how like mature, how well he thinks about the game, how much he wants to be better, and how much he focuses on every little detail to get that way. It is a it is just a unique mindset. And I do think it has something to do with his military background. I think I mean he just can be very disciplined and has a bunch of different plans when things go wrong. Um there is no young pitcher that pitches like that. He’s so far like he pitches like a that’s the thing that that’s the great combo, right? He pitches like he’s 35 and he’s 22. He’s got 22 year old stuff. So he’s he’s among the smartest game. Yeah. Like he’s he’s just he’s Paul skins. Like there’s nothing you can say about him other than he’s a oneofone unique character. And I mean I guess I don’t wish everybody was like him because then you wouldn’t have these like I’m glad there’s only one Paul Ske. It’s it’s fantastic to watch. So, you talked about the his ability to throw one pitch more on a given day. Um, I’m going to use this to kind of lead into a more general question about some of the Pirates and baseball in general. So, in 2024, he was not throwing his change up very much yet. He started throwing it more at the end of the season. Uh, but there was a game in 2024 where he threw nine change ups. He had eight whiffs and seven of them were strikeouts. Right? So just thinking about that you throw nine change ups and you get seven swinging strikeouts on that pitch uh is just insane to think about. He started using it a little bit more and then this year he used it a lot as a big strikeout pitch for him and it’s it’s nasty. But he’s not the only one that the Pirates have that are doing this big right-hander power arms. him, Bubba Chandler, uh, Mike Burroughs, all these three guys that big power righties with a strong fast ball using a change up as a swing and miss pitch. When I came up, change up was always seen as a weak contact pitch. That’s starting to change. Do you think that’s because of the seam shifted wake that we are seeing now more often in Major League Baseball? A lot of it is due to that. Um, and secret, this change up is probably my favorite pitch, too. I think because there are so many different ways to throw one, and they just like I I love I’m a sucker for change-ups. I did a video on like the origin of like the circle change and all that and Pedro’s change up, one of my favorites. I named the Air Bender like so. I I get that. I get that. Uh, but yes, absolutely. I think that has something to do. We’re able to manipulate change ups a little bit more now because of seam shifted wake and those guys you mentioned like Paul skins’s change up I I don’t even know like what is his best pitch. Do we know what his best pitch is? Like we don’t right it’s not really fair because it depends on what you mean by best pitch. His best pitch is that he can all of them whenever he wants. Like that’s his best pitch. You know it’s just not fair. Yeah. Like I don’t I couldn’t if you asked me it. I don’t know I can if I can answer that question. I can answer it for Terk Scooel. I think his change up is his best pitch. I don’t think I can answer it for uh for skins. But yeah, I think we are seeing that with with multiple guys. You’re seeing that across the league. And people are figuring out like the key to make a really good change up. And that’s one reason why I mean last year you had uh Sale and and Scooble win the Sai Young award and they both were throwing seamshifted wake changeups and you’re seeing more of that from I mean I don’t know it’s not a purely lefty thing but that they both happen to be lefty but you’re definitely seeing that happen more. So obviously Mike Burroughs has an incredible change up. I know you love yourself some Mike Burroughs. He’s a guy that reminds me of Gito. He could throw that change up and I think guys would swing at it constantly, but it’s not a it has nothing to do with his sheen seam shift wake. This guy just stays behind it. It’s pretty much a four seam change up, but it’s Bugs Bunny style. just talk about the different types of change ups and how his kind of stands out and he could literally throw it at any moment and it’s because whatever in your brain you see that fast ball like intent and you just cannot not swing and then it’s 10 mph different. Yeah. Like historically everybody’s, you know, you teach the circle change where you’re teaching pronating through the ball and not everybody’s good at it, which is why the seam shifted wake stuff takes into, you know, come came to play or the geolo type change up where he’s just focusing on traditionally, you know, as as they say, let the grip do the work. That’s what he does. And in Gio’s mind, he sits there and says, I throw a lot of fast balls at the top of the zone, so if it looks like a fast ball, they’re not going to be able to hit it. So, I’m going to throw it and let the speed differential do the difference and I don’t care where it ends up. And Burrows is like is a lot like that where you’re able to throw it up in the zone. You’re going to see more of that too and more pitches up in the zone off speed up in the zone with the challenge system coming into play next year because a lot of those pitches don’t get called strikes historically by an umpire if it clips the top of the zone. And now you’re going to start seeing more change ups I think at the top as well as more curve balls clipping the top of the zone. Not fair. It’s not fair. question is going to be least favorite pitch top zone. Not fair. Exactly. What are you going to do with it? It’s unhitable. You’re going to watch it come in like a rainbow. Oh, that’s pretty Exactly. If you’re if you’re a manager, are you letting your pitchers challenge pitches next year or is it strictly a catcher thing? I It’s going to depend. I think I think some pitchers have earned that right, but you’re going to have to do it pitcher by pitcher because every pitcher thinks everything they throw is a strike. That is true. Every pitch that I did throw was a strike. Yeah. Yeah. There’s some guys you can’t do it. I remember I was I was in uniform with the Rockies and these kids were coming back saying, “Oh, challenge challenge.” Because they were trying to figure out who should have the ability to challenge his hitters. And dude, they they were right down the middle. The guy was that was a ball. I’m like, “No, man. Look, turn the iPad around and be like, “No.” I’m like, “Yeah, sorry.” Um, over under, this is a quick question for you because I I have to ask. How many do you think Paul Ske will get wrong? I don’t think he’s going to get any wrong. I think he’ll be 100 for 100. You may be right. Like that dude knows like he did in the minor leagues, too, when he had challenged it. Like he was getting it constantly right. There are some guys that know the zone crazy good. Like Paul Ske could do everything. He could do I think he’s practicing it at home right now. probably is. He’s like, “You’re right again.” Yeah. Yeah. He probably has like 3D go, you know, virtual reality goggles on and stuff. It’s just Oh, for sure. I would to nail that. Like, yeah, I I mean, he would be one guy I would trust absolutely with everything. Babysitting my kid, calling strikes, whatever he wants to do, challenging stuff. Totally right. Yeah, I would say he’s earned that right. I know Cal Raleigh last year at one point in spring was like nine for nine challenging pitches. So you have some C this is going to be another talent for a catcher to show off, right? Like understanding the strike zone and using challenges efficiently is going to be a thing. So we say, you know, framing may disappear a little bit, but this is another thing you can take into account and also fooling hitters potentially into challenging pitches that were strikes. You know, you might be a there’s a whole bunch of things we can do. Be fun. So, Rob Freriedman, pitching ninja, joining us. Just a few more minutes here with us. Rob, I want to ask you a kind of general baseball question here. And if you don’t have an answer, that’s totally fine. Um, but I’m just curious going into this next year, what pitching staffs are you looking at as the top pitching staffs in Major League Baseball? Do I not get to say the Dodgers? Because if they’re healthy, they’re they’re crazy good. Yeah, you can say the Dodgers. That’s okay. 29 other teams. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. I mean, I love I think like don’t sleep on the NL Central staffs. Like I mean, I’ve seen I I was I I went to the Reds uh the Reds invited me over to their their and I’m like, dude, they’re shaping up to be a really good pitching staff. You have the Brewers, really good pitching staff. You have the Pirates who you cannot like look at the young talent that you have an opportunity to see every day. And I don’t think the rest of the world understands how good the Pirates pitching rotation can be. Like Bubba Chandler is a freaking stud. Um, so I love watching them and I think, you know, those those three jump out to me as I think people are sleeping on them a little bit and they could very well jump up into the upper tier. You also have to see like what happens with trades and stuff because you know if school gets traded he’s gonna help whatever team he’s on because he’s a absolute ridiculous pitcher. Um but you know where where things shake out. I’d be curious but yeah I mean I I would say I I focus on things that would surprise people and I think the three I mentioned would surprise people and they should be watching them if they’re not. Absolutely. Well said. So this year with the Pirates, we saw them bring up guys like Ashcraft, throw them in the bullpen. Then he started, they went back to the bullpen. We’ve seen openers, which I was in Tampa Bay when that kind of all came about. They did it because they had so many pitching prospects, they had to figure out a way to get them more innings, and it worked out to their favor. But then in this postseason, we saw the Dodgers use what was best available, right? They their starters were awesome. Their bullpen struggled. Rob, where’s the game going? What are they going to do? Are they going to use numbers and just make these guys unhuman? Or are they actually going to say, “This guy’s human. He can do things that are unnatural. Let’s let him figure it out on his own because like it seems like it is shifting all the time.” It is. I think we thought we were all going to go to openers and that the starters were going to disappear and then we see guys like Yamamoto going deep in games and coming in relief and doing every like to me that’s I think the talent is if we can develop uh pitchers that that have the durability and can throw relatively hard and put the ball where they want to. There’s never going to be a shortage of those. You see like the amount of respect that Yamomoto got in the game among guys that have played the game is off the charts. Like fans understood it, but people that have played in the game were coming up to me going, I we’ve got to talk about Yamamoto cuz that is an old school throwback guy that everybody loves. Like he’s humble and did what he could do for his team, you know, jeopardized his career, you know, coming back on short rest like that or no rest. He’s willing to do whatever it takes and did it and came through in the clutch. He’s a legend for forever. And that’s what everybody plays the game for. You don’t play it for money, you play it for that. And uh so I’d love to see more stuff like that and maybe take into account some of his training regimens where you have more durability in your pitchers, but not everybody can do what the Dodgers did either because they have, you know, they were able to be patient with their guys, let them go through a time where they were a little bit hurt so they could all come back healthy and you know, hey, we’re going to bring give some young call some young guys up while you’re on the you’re on the IIL recovering. We don’t want to rush you back. Just be healthy by the end of the year. and they did and everything dovetailed perfectly for them. Everybody can’t do that. Everybody doesn’t have that talent. So, you know, the ability to take what you have and and and basically run with it. I mean, you mentioned the Rays. They did a great job of that. I think the Pirates have an abundance of I amazingly an abundance of young pitching and young arms, electric arms. I love Ashcraft. I think he’s a really good pitcher and I don’t think a lot of people paid attention to him. So, I mean, you have you have guys out there that you just have to figure out a way to maximize and every team’s different. Well, Rob, thank you so much, man. This has been absolutely incredible. You are you are a true legend in the world of baseball and we really appreciate you joining us here. Uh, it was a lot of fun. Any quick thing you want to say before we let you go about the book or about Flackron or anything like that? Oh, I mean, pay attention. My book will be coming out in March. Absolutely. Pick it up. It’ll be fun. Like I It’s hard to It’s hard to write a book, dude. Oh yeah. Done. It’s the last year. The fact you did it with your personality knowing I’m I’m all over the place as well makes it even more impressive. I will pre-order it today if I can because I want to read it because it’d be a dream to write a book. But man, you’re you’re incredible. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope you come on again and if you ever need anything, let us know. I really appreciate it. By the way, Paul Ske is front and center in that book, too. So, he is like my prototype as a pitcher. Just to throw that out there. Spoiler alert. I mean, he he is my spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. I love it. Well, that’s that’s totally fair. He’s our favorite guy to watch, too. Well, thank you very much for joining us, Rob. Check him out. Pitching Ninja on any social media platform. Go check out flatground.org if you’re trying to get found. Uh, and hey, man, we really appreciate it. Look for his book next year. Thanks for joining us on Bucks Bounty everybody. We will see you next week.
In this episode of Bucs’ Bounty, Steven Brault and Michael McKenry are joined by Rob Friedman, also known as Pitching Ninja, to discuss the origins of Pitching Ninja, the evolution of pitching in baseball, and break down the Pittsburgh Pirates’ elite pitching staff.
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1 comment
Thanks for having me on–it was a blast!