Tom Verducci

But the variety of pitches in the game is like nothing any hitters have seen, even if you're a young player now.

So if you're a veteran like a Goldschmidt or Rafael Devers or somebody, man, you've seen the game change dramatically.

Well, it's interesting you bring up trajectory because I was talking to Aaron Boone before the game last night.

And of course the Yankees can go in there and look at Trey Savage, seven and a half feet release point off the ground, like nobody else in baseball.

And they can just, even if you're not swinging, you can just track those pitches over and over and over again.

So an unusual release point becomes a little bit more familiar, but guess what?

If you're on the road, you don't have that advantage.

there's it's not a portable machine and i've actually spoken with some people who think it's a real disadvantage in the game offensively because the home team has a true home field advantage where you can train against that now if you're the visitors you could use vr and kind of simulate that but uh i wouldn't be shocked if i'd say the next five years because those machines are expensive

Every ballpark has one home and road.

It does.

To me, that is a counter move by the players is to just train off the pitcher who's pitching that night.

And if you're on the road, you literally can't do it.

I do think they're better because they're getting Garrett Cole back on Friday.

Tomorrow night, we'll see.

He's pitching against Tampa Bay.

And I always caution people, just because a guy's back doesn't mean he's the same pitcher.

I mean, most of the time, you're going to see better stuff second year, as we're seeing with Shohei Otani.

But he's back.

That's a big addition.

Assuming there's nothing too structurally wrong with Max Freed, I think the Yankees have a possibility with Schlittler looking like the real thing to go into a postseason environment with their best rotation that I've seen, at least since they won their last title in 2009.