Driveline blog on how Dillon Tate increased his velocity

[Frobby]

Super techno-geeky:

https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2022/03/dillon-tate-using-biomechanics-for-player-development/

[interloper]

Heck yeah! No radar in today's game but he looked pretty good. Showed some emotion on the strikeout. Hoping he takes another step this year, the bullpen could really use him.

[yark14]

That's awesome.  Hope he has a really big year, I really like him.  I love to see players put in the hard work.

[Just Regular]

Impressive stuff in the piece, and also makes me think of the overhead for any player trying to get a foothold in the league, make it to Arb, etc.  

Tate got $4.2M six years back as a nest egg for investing in himself, but are the programs he's grown with even a life choice for Joey Krehbiel or Felix Bautista?     Would it be an efficient use of Orioles investment if they aren't?

I am going to guess the coaching bill for something this fancy is in five figures.

 

 

 

[Just Regular]

Locked On Orioles got the author Anthony Brady on to say some of this stuff in plainer English across about half an hour.

Now having listened to piece, sounds like better "slider sweep" is what the pitch designer hopes they have curated this offseason.   Praised specifically how his sinker and change-up have a lot of armside run, and hope is improved gloveside run on better slider will miss more bats.   If it worked, I imagine we'd see the left-bendiest (from perspective of CF camera) pitches we've ever seen from him right out of the gate.

[wildcard]

The question I have is:   Is there coordination between Driveline and the O's pitching coaches?

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, wildcard said:

The question I have is:   Is there coordination between Driveline and the O's pitching coaches?

I’m sure there wasn’t supposed to be any during the lockout, for sure.   But I think generally places like Driveline are independent advisors who derive credibility from not being beholden to the teams in any way.  

[wildcard]

16 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m sure there wasn’t supposed to be any during the lockout, for sure.   But I think generally places like Driveline are independent advisors who derive credibility from not being beholden to the teams in any way.  

O's pitching coaches probably knew Tate was going to Driveline long before the lockout.  Especially since he has been doing it for a few years.

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, wildcard said:

O's pitching coaches probably knew Tate was going to Driveline long before the lockout.  Especially since he has been doing it for a few years.

I don’t doubt that.   I’m just saying I don’t think Driveline is getting instructions from the team about what to do with their players.   

[wildcard]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t doubt that.   I’m just saying I don’t think Driveline is getting instructions from the team about what to do with their players.   

Seems kind of disjointed.  They are under contract with the O's.  If they are injured it affects the O's.

And was it prohibited for the O's to talk to Driveline?

[Tony-OH]

All this talk about Tate's velocity "increase" and in the only statcast game of the spring we've seen him in he was down about 2 MPH from last year. 

Glad to see him putting in the work to get better though. He needs to be more consistent.

[Pickles]

26 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

All this talk about Tate's velocity "increase" and in the only statcast game of the spring we've seen him in he was down about 2 MPH from last year. 

Glad to see him putting in the work to get better though. He needs to be more consistent.

I'm curious about this as well.

He was 98 last summer.  

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

All this talk about Tate's velocity "increase" and in the only statcast game of the spring we've seen him in he was down about 2 MPH from last year. 

Glad to see him putting in the work to get better though. He needs to be more consistent.

As noted on the Verge podcast, his break is significantly better though. He's traded some velocity for like 4-8 inches of break on his sinker and slider respectively. Which to me, for his repertoire, is much more important than some fastball ticks. 

[Tony-OH]

17 minutes ago, interloper said:

As noted on the Verge podcast, his break is significantly better though. He's traded some velocity for like 4-8 inches of break on his sinker and slider respectively. Which to me, for his repertoire, is much more important than some fastball ticks. 

That's good. I didn't look at his numbers too closely other than glancing at his velocity numbers because of this thread. If he can throw -94-96 with better sink and a better slider then that is fine. The key for him is to lessen the mistakes in the middle of the plate.