The 'All-Scrapes Team' and Breaking Down MLB's Japanese Pitchers (w/Hannah Keyser & Brandon Tew)

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by national baseball writer Hannah Keyser and SIS operations analyst Brandon Tew. Hannah, who formerly wrote for Yahoo Sports, introduced us to her thrice-weekly baseball newsletter, The Bandwagon, which she co-authors with Zach Crizer. She shared what early-season baseball happenings surprised her and "confirmed her priors."  Then she played along and guessed at the members of "The All-Scrapes Team" (or "The All-Ouch Team") - players who have dove for balls the most over the last 3 seasons. Mark also shared which players are the most effective at diving for balls at each position. Brandon, who writes regularly for SportsInfoSolutions.com (see his articles on Roki Sasaki and Tomoyuki Sugano), is SIS" resident expert in Japanese baseball pitchers and their performance in the major leagues. He delved into the pitching approaches of Sasaki, Sugano, Shota Imanaga, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And he talked about everyone"s new favorite pitch, the kick-change (a variant of a changeup). Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Bluesky at @sportsinfosolutions.com, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at Mark@sportsinfosolutions.com.