#MLBVideos: Previewing Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s start for the Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLCS!

Previewing Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s start for the Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLCS!

When you pay someone, the kind of contract that the Dodgers paid for Yashin Nobu Yamamoto, these are the kind of results you were hoping for and dare I say expecting, yeah, top five pitcher in the game, what, what , what a B play and I know there was a lot of teams in on him but to go 325 never pitching on us soil and dominating us hitters or big league hitters a bit of a risk there big time risk watching him pitch in Japan. I mean, obviously they had, you know, plenty of eyeballs on him like, you know, like you’re getting a super talented pitcher , but the fact that there’s that little bit of unknown, there’s no track record in the big leagues going into giving him that kind of money, that kind of contract. Yeah, there’s a little bit of a little bit of doubt, a little bit of risk. Um But obviously they were super confident what his ability can become and the instant superstar he could be in the big leagues. And I think the beauty of like my, my generation getting phasing out of my generation into to the, to this new regime talking to Brian mccann. He said the biggest difference from being behind the plate is when you give me a pitcher that’s got multiple variations of a fastball and secondary stuff where I can go to, I have something to go to every quadrant with it gets real fun behind. No, that’s, that’s, that’s the fun part about being a catcher as far as navigating a lineup getting through a game. I, I would say the same thing a lot of times, like at the end of spring training, we’re like figuring out who’s gonna be like that fifth starter. Like, and it was like between like that soft tossing lefty that had four pitch, four decent pitches that might get through five innings or that guy that’s got wiped out fastball, wipe out slider, but could walk forward in the first two innings. Like give me that lefty every time because I know he doesn’t have great stuff, but I can get through five innings every single time no matter who’s up because I know where the ball’s going. So it gives, it gives you a chance to be able to navigate a lineup and, you know, you know, trick the hitters sometimes when you need to, he’s your soft tossing lefty, but he throws, he throws with wipe out stuff. So let’s give some love. Nas came to me yesterday. The doors open, huh? That packet had some, it was, it’s getting out of control. I got him when he gets going, he does an amazing job but he really dove in on what makes this guy so successful and Then maybe what’s a game plan to kind of combat it for the Brewers. You take a look at his 2025 stats with MLB ranks. He was top five across the board. I mean, er, a S fifth fielding, independent pitching. Those are the things he can homer strikeouts, walks, he was eighth opponent, batting average. You can’t, you can’t, there’s no process of elimination with this guy. No. And it, and it doesn’t come just like all success either. There were some, some rough starts throughout, you know, which Brewers beat him up to where he, he made adjustments, start to start as far as like what he needed to do to continue to pitch well and be consistent over the course of the year. So taking you inside when you’re preparing for a postseason pause. This postseason start, you want to dive in on everything they throw. I used to go in my room and go. What do they throw? 00, to right handers, one or two. Every count to try and find some type of outlier that if I got that count I could just sell out for that pitch. You’re looking for patterns. He does not allow you to do that. Manny Manny Machado. A be right here. Watch where these pitches are located, the crispness, the V low and the fact that he just went sinker up and in 95 bugs, bunny curveball, 93 cut. You don’t know where it’s going. Splitting. 93 tunneled four seamer off it. Yeah, I think what set that up to. You had that first fastball? That curveball you saw Manny’s reaction right there. Look at a little cutter away to sean Murphy split. Never gives you the same thing back to back split again. Let me tunnel the fourth team wipe out. That’s the other thing come here. Look where that fastball is though. That’s what gets the caught looking. And Steven Kwan’s got to deal with shadows. 95 wipe out curveball. He went heater curveball split. See you later to a really good contact hitter. Ok. So he pitches with a plus five run value on four different pitch types, obviously the two best in the business and Then Yamamoto with the four seamer split curveball and cutter. The other thing about him, he’s a unicorn. You can’t go through a lineup, he can go through a lineup 15 times in a row. Todd change me to the next one. Take a look at this 1st, 1st time through opponent. Average dollar 99 actually gets better. It actually gets stronger. It gets tougher because you have multiple ways to be able to get the same hitter out. So you’re not seeing the same look and you can be as unpredictable as possible. And even on the previous board. N threw it in my ear about the fact that those four pitches for those three guys skiing and school ball had two fastballs in that situation. He just had, you could see it there. He actually has four separate pitches. Both these guys have the four semen in there. So you’re still getting heaters. So when you’re a hitter, you still can eliminate, you still have to get rid of here. You, you have no, no chance of any sort of kind of pattern or any predictability with Yamamoto and you can’t give up on his fastball because it’s 95. Plus that’s the thing. I almost would want to go up there and sit off speed, but Then he wipes you out. You got no chance. So let, so let’s get into it. What does he do really well besides everything hitting the edges with his fastball with every pitch basically, but we’re going to focus on the fastball and how he’s just able to dot it to the outer edges. You take a look, highest percentage of pitches thrown to the edge of strike zone. I mean, he’s certainly on the board. Could we go real quick back to that video? Just go right back to that video with, with uh make him work. Come on, let’s do something, right. No, one more. No, keep going against the Giants against the Giants. I just wanted to point that the first one, that’s the first one I just wanted to point this out because I thought when I first saw him, um, when he first came over right here against Flores, let’s pause it. Go back, go back his delivery to me. Like when I saw this is what I thought would give hitters a trouble right here. So if we play it, this is a heater right middle in Los is a good fastball hitter. He’s late on this because of his delivery. It’s almost like that, that, that slide step. He’ll give you, he’ll, well, he’ll give you the leg kick. But Then even in his, in his delivery right here, he’ll like slide step you quick pitch. You with his wind up, not just in the streets where you know, as a hitter, like what do you want as a hitter? You want time, right? You wanna be able, you want time to make the decision. Why do we always stay in the back of the box? You want to see the ball as long as possible when he does that? It’s instant like you feel rushed, you feel panicked, you got to make a decision early which allows you, you’re either gonna be out in front of the off speed or you’re gonna be late on the fastball like Flores was in that situation even though that’s paint right there to say in the hitters meetings, watch out for him, slide stepping you because there was a bunch of us with toe taps or leg kicks. You almost had to like, be ready to just eliminate it. Get it out of the way. That’s just another element of what, what he does. Well, good body control on the mound pitches to the edge of the zone and we focused on his fastball to the edge of the zone. He throws every pitch to the edge of the zone, but we’ll get into it hard. Change me to what guys do against his heater. I mean, no one slugs. It keeps the ball on the ground. The wipe out breaking ball for me is intense though when I watch him the other day and we get back into the tape first pitch of the game. It was just a bugs bunny breaking ball. This is the beauty of him. I was talking to you back in edit every pitch. How you’re supposed to do it. Yeah. If you’re throwing a four seamer to a right hander, where do you want to execute it down and away? Guess where he puts it down and away. Where do you want to throw your split finger, illusion of a strike and get it out of the zone? Look at the curveball and change it to the next one. I mean, he, he executes it to perfection. What he’s trying elite command with plus plus stuff. Look at the slider. I’m either dotting a, a Nats Tush or, or you’re swinging at something off the plate. It’s just fantastic. Give me, give me the curveball b roll. I, I can watch him throw this rainbow. That’s old school 12, 6, 75 miles an hour to, could tell Marte and you know what, spinning it on that curveball too, you know. So I caught Greinke for a little bit in, in, uh, in Arizona and he had, you know, a curveball 12 to 6 like that. He could, he could change speeds on it and I don’t know if he does it, but I know a lot of guys that have a good curveball like that that make it look like it stops mid air. They’re almost almost like bringing, bringing it back towards them as they’re coming down right and snapping it off, pulling it back towards them to be able to give that illusion that it’s almost stopping in mid air. And you see here, hot largest curveball vertical drop versus average. He’s on the list with Aaron Ashby, who outside of Freddie Peralta starting today might as well roll him out there for first inning of every game they play. That’s 98 top of the zone. So I want to take a look at that is nasty curveballs. And Then what’s the potential game plan? The one thing Nas has noticed in the postseason is he seems to have troubles. Last two starts landing the split you would know better than us. Is this something that would he go away from it today? Is it something maybe the Brewers hitters can eliminate or is he gonna show it early to see if he has it? Well, that’s the thing. If you’re the Brewers hitters, you, you know, he’s having a hard time throwing it for strike. So I’m making him prove that he can do that if you see rights, he’s almost eliminated it and I post throwing it. If I’m the Brewers hitters that like if I’m trying to, if I’m facing him, that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to, I’m, if I see it , I’m taking an ache in it, making him prove that he could throw it for a strike. If I’m catching him, I’m not going away from it. I have to be able to still incorporate it to try to get it going. You can’t just forget about one of his best offspeed pitches and wipe out pitches. That’s, that’s something you try to, you try to avoid, uh, as a catcher. If you’re just eliminating pitches like that, you’re giving the opposing hitters more opportunity. And that’s when you start falling into patterns. You have to still be unpredictable and still kind of incorporate that, uh, throughout the game. Yeah, you see here, regular season, high concentration of how he wants to execute it just in the postseason, in his last two starts. He is off, just lost some feel for it. So that might be something, maybe we eliminate the split and the thing that the the Milwaukee Brewers do well and Yamamoto and maybe this is the reason why Snell was so off speed heavy. They, they Hammer 95 plus that they’re a good fastball hitting team. But, you know, you know, probably something and, and that’s, and Snell talked about it after the game too and that, you know, he just kind of, he went off of how the game progressed and, you know, off speeds working, let’s stick to it, make them prove that they’re gonna make the adjustment. And I think, and you see right here what they do 274 against 95 plus, but Robert, I think the biggest thing is I remember July 7th knocking the earpiece out going up to going up route three , there was a day game Yamamoto against the Brewers. He didn’t get out of the first, he didn’t get out of the first. They beat him up. So andrew Vaughn hit a big homer. I would live on that ride that into this. Just, just real quick. We saw that graphic where it was school ball skins and Yamamoto if we can agree that Skins and School B are 12 in whatever order would you put Yamamoto right behind them. The first guy that comes to my mind is zack Wheeler. Ok. Fair dinged up, but it’s certainly he’s top five. Top five. Good to know he’s top five in the game. Very good. Top five is great. We’ll take that great stuff, guys.

Alex Avila and Mark DeRosa break down Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s approach on the mound ahead of his NLCS Game 2 start for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Milwaukee Brewers.

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