This 30 Year Old "Rookie" Was 2023’s Most Surprising Ace

[@SportStorm23]

Use code STORM120 to get $120 off across your first 4 boxes of Good Chop at bit.ly/3PqGjBf

[@Toast2005]

Can you consider speaking like you don't have impediment? I'm sorry but the way you speak is the equivalent or running in a dream. It's so lethargic and frustrating. I like your video topics but fuck they are hard to get through sometimes

[@greetingsmars]

You gotta use a meat thermometer on those bad boys 145F is my ideal medium rare. Bake in oven at 275 until steak is 110 then give it 2-3 minutes per side in a cast iron pan with some butter garlic & rosemary 👨‍🍳🔥🥩

[@davethewolf]

Dude he was solid. They worked him on a stretched schedule and he basically had to be our Ace instantly. He was fantastic his first year

[@Charlie-sl1ou]

Exactly, he stepped up when needed, and did so phenomenally. The man’s a total class act as well, so happy to have him in Flushing. Didn’t get to see him this year though, hope to catch him in ‘24.

[@rogerj21]

Senga WILL be even better... Why? Cause his biggest issues were in the first half cause he wasnt used to the MLB culture.

[@mikerogers5086]

Nolan Ryan also walked everyone and is regarded as one of the best pitchers ever

[@TryPuttingItInRice]

this is secretly a Blake Snell video

[@ebscoHOSTpub]

He flipped the scouting report script in his last away game vs AZ

[@mariohnyc]

I chalk up the first couple of months to adjustment period. What he accomplished after those first couple of months was impressive, regardless of who was doing it. I expect year 2 for him to be on par or better than year 1, barring injury.

[@user-lr3gv4wr7h]

I dislike how some people say Japanese players shouldn't be considered rookies but those same people say that the NPB isn't even close to MLB or even AAA level. If the NPB is such a bad league like they say why can't Senga or Yoshida be considered a rookie?

[@ロキ1061]

日本人です A lot of Japanese fans are saying Pitcher=AAAA batter=AA

[@user-lr3gv4wr7h]

@@ロキ1061 確かに打者のほうが通用しないケースが多いですよね

[@MyLife-og2kr]

Cause it don't fit their narrative.

[@laxphitta1403]

Americans arent exactly the best using logics...

[@SuperJay12jay]

Just Japanese haters that's why.

[@gabrielv.2647]

He finished his rookie year with a 2.98 era. Nothing weird about that.

[@otgbaby4615]

Bro is like 35

[@kevind7708]

More like "bro had like 35-yo MLBer's experience in Big Leagues". @@otgbaby4615

[@Drogon7102]

​@@otgbaby4615 30

[@invisible8338]

I remember him pitching against Team US in the 2017 WBC.

[@someonenamedgem]

The graphic at 11:52 is actually hilarious, as out of context it makes it look like Jaime Barria is a better pitcher than Kodai Senga, Shane McClanahan, Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, and Sonny Gray

[@zhechen1342]

Someone teach this man how to cook steak

[@lorimeyers3839]

The game he pitched home against the Phillies was one of the most dominant displays of pitching I’ve seen in the last 20 years. That ghost forkball was dancing like crazy. Phils hitters were stupefied by it. I think his tendency to be a bit wild with his fastball really makes him tougher to hit.

[@rustyshackelford4224]

So it's like Roger Clemens Fastball + Forkball/Splitter combo?

[@lorimeyers3839]

@@rustyshackelford4224 I didn’t even consider comparing his stuff to Clemens’. Clemens could locate his fastball with incredible execution. Senga is kinda all over the place with his fastball. His forkball tumbles quite a bit more than Clemens’ split did, and I believe Senga’s forkball is thrown slower and with a larger speed differential than Clemens. A forkball and a split fingered fastball are essentially two different pitches. Split spins a little more and is thrown harder than the forkball. Forkball has that knuckleball effect to it.

[@DCSk8er529]

His Fork Pitch is fun to use in MLB the show. One! Two! I'm putting a fork in you!

[@SuperJay12jay]

Senga will opt out after 2025. He is grossly underpaid. 2nd in ROY and tops in CY. He's an ace and deserves a lot more.

[@youmefull9]

Fastball and forkball of senga is always devastating thanks to my team Fukuoka Softbank hawks and especially thanks to his handwork fyi the hawks team are very damn good at developing pitcher because every season are ridiculously high spin rate and velocity whether fastball and breaking balls because I watch the pitchers of hawks especially training camp via YT and also articles not only pitcher but hitters too the batter of hawks are good especially the barrel and bat control another information :) and lastly developmental player's of hawks are no joke when they play baseball

[@BackwardsKnees]

man you fucked up that steak LMAO

[@carlosalbertosantiago6404]

Watched the whole vid. Don't get how any of this is weird... especially since I watched most of Senga's starts as a Mets fan.

[@SportStorm23]

Understandable. I believe it was a weird season in the sense that he's a high K/BB "rookie" pitcher with some interesting stats in comparison to past rookies. But then again, it does feel weird to call him a rookie. I'm sure he'll be great next year too

[@mimichaten]

Japanese rookie throwing forkball? Remember Hideo Nomo 1995 ROY CYA4th K%30.3(2nd) BB%10.0 Ks236 (2nd) K/9 11.1(2nd) AVG.178(1st) WHIP1.06(3rd) ERA2.54(3rd)

[@わわ-l8w]

蒲郡とか豊橋とかの奴らはなんか骨ある奴多いよなあ。 朝倉未来とかもあの辺やろ。

[@ガス欠-b2g]

未来なんぞといっしょにしないで

[@komickaze85]

Time will tell. He could end up like Dice-K or Tanaka. We will see. Hopefully he walks less hitters in the upcoming seasons to lessen the chance of more on baserunners scoring. It was also his first season in MLB, which is a huge change. Like fellow rookie Masataka Yoshida, I'm sure the longer travel and more games played factored into his initial adjustment period.

[@cejannuzi]

Dice-K hurt his arm and took 2 years to come back from it. Tanaka hurt his arm but never underwent TJ surgery. These sort of arm injuries aren't unique to Japanese pitchers.

[@strangelyerect3047]

God damn man. Those steaks looked bad! Great vid though

[@mudzip]

Video on rangers soon?

[@bulbachar2282]

Sengoat

[@RyanMariners]

Sportstorm's the G.O.A.T!

[@lxnavs]

I have a forkball like Senga It’s just not as accurate But it is nasty And my 4-seam acts like a cutter and sometimes a slurve for some reason

[@GaijinBaseball]

10:39 Gee, It's almost like they weren't really rookies or something.

[@BendyDH]

yeah, I feel like I'm in the minority thinking that NPB guys coming over to MLB shouldn't count as rookies. They've all technically been in pro baseball for at least 6 or 7 years by the time they come over to the US, kind of seems unfair to have them in the running for ROTY over a 20yr old kid having his true breakout year in pro ball. If the Japanese player doesn't play any NPB and comes straight to the US out of high school or something, I'm all for giving them ROTY in that case.

[@SportStorm23]

That's fair, I probably should've labelled them as "MLB rookies" or something along those lines. I do agree it's weird to label international pros "rookies"

[@GaijinBaseball]

@@SportStorm23 In fairness I am joking around. There are people who completely disragard past accomplishments but in the age of the internet they're becoming fewer and fewer

[@GaijinBaseball]

@@BendyDH The NHL did a similar thing during the Eastern European boom of the 90s so I don't see why MLB couldn't do it as well.

[@BendyDH]

@SportStorm23 i mean, MLB considers them rookies so it’s not wrong to say it’s their rookie season, they just shouldn’t count as rookies in my opinion

[@noriskgaming8312]

I love SoftBank, its a shame we fell off near the end of the year.

[@snappyone]

a bright spot in the mets' crappy season

[@tatsuyaarai6029]

I know you did that because of Halloween.

[@reubent.4800]

Do a video on gms

[@cejannuzi]

I would suggest he just had a harder time gripping the MLB baseball. Then his hand got stronger. I think the fork can lead to elbow problems pretty quickly. He does have the best one since Nomo.

[@KeithanJung]

Set speed to 1.25x

[@Toast2005]

I put it as 1.5. This nigga speaks so lethargically it actually makes me want to die

[@Katsos44]

I see these comments on Sport storm videos all the time, but man I cannot listen to the speed of him on 1.25, he seems perfect the way he is to me and him and Jolly Olive really help build the narrative through tension and patient storytelling or player analysis which I enjoy.

[@Toast2005]

​​@@Katsos44 That's not why we put it at 1.25-1.5 speed. It's not the video it's the way he talks. He speaks so fucking slowly

[@aidanbay8721]

Cringe zoomer behavior💅

[@ravenshade266]

Set speed to 0.75x

[@tahzib1451]

explain this in Ohtani terms

[@JawaPenguin16]

Blake Snell OP

[@Buhfay]

If kodai was on the braves he would be the shit, if strider was on the mets no one would give a shit

[@Not_Sal]

It’s not even that. If the Mets weren’t such a disaster this year Senga would get much more recognition.

[@LowQualContent]

Part of me wishes we traded for Senga instead of Mad Max.

[@bobwtrs89]

Bro got the good cuts of meat just to cook them into leather

[@arcticredpanda4598]

His success depends on playing his ghost fork off of his fastball. So his success will decline with his fastball velo.

[@nedsykes3816]

wants to be foolish bailey so bad.

[@u2rocks7993]

That steak looked like a piece of shit!

[@Speedster___]

Well yes Mets are a struggle

[@FeiLi-i9z]

Who wants to bet Mutts will deal off Senga?

[@arnor5775]

🤡

[@mbdg6810]

Only if they are crap in 2024. Even then thats dumb. I really disliked them trading Verlander and Robertson due to the fact they lacked solid pitching and thats what they traded away.

[@rustyshackelford4224]

@ishottheserf6715 Is the Mets farm system really that good though? What that team badly needs is way better player development and an overhauled health team...

[@IdliAmin_TheLastKingofSambar]

I’m a Met fan, and I know I’m going to get hated on by fellow Met fans about this, but I remain a little skeptical of Senga’s long-term prospects for MLB success, even though his season line turned out to be better than I expected. (The team, however, performed almost exactly as I predicted, as I picked them to finish 4th with around 75-78 wins.) Not to go through a laundry list of concerns, but he’s almost completely reliant on a pitch-the forkball-that has a VERY low zone rate. His four-seamer has never missed many bats despite its velocity, even in NPB, and he doesn’t command it that well. His cutter improved over the course of the year, but it’s not a pitch that misses bats, either. His slider was the only other pitch with a swinging strike rate above 10%, but it was still below-average in that department, and it got hit very hard, due to his poor command of it. I also think he’s a big injury risk; he was twice shut down with elbow issues in 2022, and the Mets apparently weren’t thrilled with the results of his physical, which likely explains why he didn’t get more money. And he’ll be 31 next season. I suspect that what we saw during the second half of 2023 was peak Senga, which isn’t to say he can’t replicate that level of performance, but I’d be surprised if he exceeded it for any significant period of time. Having said all of that, I was impressed that he seemed to make adjustments fairly quickly. However, it’s a little too much to expect a 31-year-old to suddenly develop plus command, for example, so while I now believe his floor is higher than I originally thought, I still think his ceiling is that of a #2 starter. Unfortunately, the Mets don’t appear to have a future ace in the system, barring an out-of-nowhere situation à la Jacob deGrom (pls come home Jake 😢), and the free agent SP market this offseason isn’t that strong. I don’t expect the Mets to be contenders for at least another season or two anyway, so perhaps it’s just as well.

[@Crynn]

kinda curious, why did you think the mets would have around 75-78 wins?

[@IdliAmin_TheLastKingofSambar]

@@Crynn Do you mean to ask why I thought they’d have a bad season generally, or why I predicted 75-78 wins specifically?

[@Crynn]

@@IdliAmin_TheLastKingofSambar moreso why you thought they would have a bad season, even as a phillies fan i thought they would have at worst a 92-93 win season

[@TGSFlight9]

As a fellow Mets fan I enjoyed your insight and also had similar concerns when we signed him. I anticipated a better season myself, but for now I can only wish the best for him and the team going forward 🤞🏻

[@rustyshackelford4224]

​@@IdliAmin_TheLastKingofSambar Why did you predict the Mets gaving a bad season before the 2023 season even started?

[@derpz.]

First to a Sportstorm video 🫡

[@007Hutchings]

His season wasn't that weird