Blake Treinen has spent a complete profession as top-of-the-line sinker-heavy relievers in all of baseball. Since his debut, he’s been top-of-the-line relievers in baseball — interval. That appears like hyperbole but it surely isn’t. From 2014 by way of 2022, he ranked ninth in FIP-based WAR and fourth in RA9-WAR amongst all reduction pitchers. He additionally ranked second in groundball fee amongst relievers who threw 400 or extra innings. That’s elite efficiency, and he did it with a constant assault of sinkers and sliders.
As his profession has worn on, Treinen has made one huge shift: He began throwing an enormous sweeping slider. He was an early poster boy for the sweeper revolution. From 2014 by way of 2020, his slider averaged about an inch of horizontal motion. Beginning in 2021, he modified the best way he threw it, and that quantity blew as much as practically seven inches. That turbo-charged his strikeout fee, and 2021 was one among his higher seasons regardless of intermittent command issues.
These two issues embody most of what folks learn about Treinen. He will get a ton of grounders and he throws a giant outdated sweeper. In actual fact, he was on the vanguard of a pitcher kind that now appears to populate each main league bullpen: the sinker/sweeper righty. You possibly can image this man, even in case you don’t know his identify on each single squad. He lives on the east/west airplane, and produces loads of ugly swings and doubtless successful batter or two when his sinker veers into the righty batter’s field seemingly out of nowhere.
Treinen missed most of 2022 and all of 2023 with an endless array of accidents. He handled a capsule tear in his shoulder. He had surgical procedure to restore each his rotator cuff and his labrum. He cracked two ribs and bruised a lung when he obtained hit by a line drive in spring coaching whereas trying his return. It felt like he may by no means return, or can be a shell of his former self if he did. We’ve seen it occur to pitchers sufficient instances that it’s by no means stunning, solely unhappy.
Excellent news, although. Treinen has come again simply as efficient as ever. His velocity is down a number of ticks, however his fastball has the identical sinking motion as at all times and his slider is transferring much more than it was earlier than he obtained injured. By way of 17.2 innings of labor, he seems like the identical outdated Treinen – with only one slight exception.
Fantasy analyst and FanGraphs alum Brad Johnson pointed the change out to me a number of weeks in the past, and it’s a kind of issues that, as soon as seen, can’t be unseen. Treinen continues to be hanging out a ton of opposing hitters. He nonetheless often struggles with walks. He nonetheless throws his sinker a 3rd of the time, his slider a 3rd of the time, and a cutter and four-seamer to fill within the gaps. However he’s racked up 18 fly balls and solely 16 grounders to date, and it’s arduous to consider something much less Treinen-y than that.
I do know what you’re considering, as a result of I used to be considering it too. Say it with me now: small pattern dimension theater. Anybody can do something in 20 appearances. Wake me up when he runs these charges for a 12 months or two. There’s one downside with that: the proof. Right here’s Treinen’s groundball fee, in rolling 20-game segments, for his whole profession:
This isn’t simply enterprise as normal. So I assumed I’d look into what has modified, and whether or not we will be taught something broader from this improvement. In spite of everything, plenty of pitchers throughout baseball are following the tough Treinen blueprint. Might the identical factor be in retailer for them?
Treinen’s sinker continues to be a grounder-inducing pitch, but it surely definitely appears to be much less so than earlier than. In his profession, he has a 65.3% groundball fee on the pitch. He’s right down to 58.8% this 12 months, which doesn’t appear to be a giant hole, however that underscores the change. A method of it’s that his ratio of grounders to fly balls has declined from 4.66 to 2.5. Or possibly this can do it for you: From 2015 by way of 2022, the typical launch angle in opposition to Treinen sinkers was -1. In different phrases, the typical hit was pounded downwards. That’s not fairly one of the best within the recreation, however solely one of the best sinker throwers rack up numbers beneath zero. Clay Holmes had the heaviest sinker in that point interval at -8, whereas Logan Webb and Framber Valdez are every at -3. Marcus Stroman is at -1, Ranger Suarez at -2. Treinen match proper into that cohort.
This 12 months, the typical launch angle in opposition to Treinen sinkers is as much as 9 levels. Batters simply couldn’t raise his sinker earlier than; this 12 months, they’ve already hit 5 balls at 30 levels or increased. That’s a full 12 months’s complement of fly balls for Treinen.
I’m admittedly delving into tiny samples at this level, however Treinen is throwing his sinker up within the zone greater than ever earlier than. This 12 months, 23% of his sinkers have been up within the zone; his highest single season earlier than 2024 was 18.5%, and his profession common was 13%. Excessive sinkers are completely effective pitches – they simply work in a different way. These fly balls that opponents have hit in opposition to Treinen have been fairly terrible this 12 months, in actual fact: 4 innocent outs and a ball that Teoscar Hernández dropped for an error.
Treinen’s sinker nonetheless grades out nicely on each pitch mannequin I may scrounge up. He’s nonetheless killing its pure backspin to a formidable diploma, and it nonetheless explodes to his arm aspect. He’s simply recognizing it somewhere else, and whereas he’s nonetheless getting nice outcomes, they give the impression of being completely different than they did up to now.
That brings us to Treinen’s sweeping slider, which can also be producing fly balls in a means he simply didn’t up to now. This time, although, the wrongdoer isn’t mysterious. Sweepers make for popups. That’s a characteristic, not a bug. The pitch drops lower than you’d count on for a breaking ball and tails away from same-handed hitters, which leads to weak elevated contact.
The Treinen I image, the man who closed for the A’s, didn’t throw this slider. He threw a traditional gyro slider, with little horizontal motion and a few downward break. It fell as a lot as the present one regardless of a five-mile-an-hour velo benefit. The brand new one ought to fall farther, because it has extra time for gravity to work, however its motion simply isn’t the identical. The result’s a whole lot of swings underneath the ball. Sliders are speculated to fall greater than Treinen’s does.
In case you’re searching for the mathematical expression of that thought, it’s this. Treinen’s outdated slider, which he threw from 2014 by way of 2020, produced a 2.34 GB/FB ratio. It was a heavy pitch, identical to his sinker. His new slider, from 2021 to current, checks in at a good 1.0. Each pitches have been fairly efficient, with a slight edge to the brand new one. However his new sweeper will get to these related leads to an especially completely different means, with popups and whiffs as a substitute of grounders and whiffs.
Lastly, there’s the matter of Treinen’s cutter. He dabbled with the pitch in Oakland, however began leaning on it extra after becoming a member of the Dodgers. It’s a logical transfer, as a result of neither of his main pitches are unbelievable in opposition to lefties. From 2014 to 2020, he threw 63.1% sinkers to lefties. Then the Dodgers obtained severe about avoiding platoon disadvantages with a sinker, and his utilization has dropped to 18.5% since. One thing has to fill that void, and on this case, it’s the cutter.
Treinen’s cutter isn’t a very standout pitch, however he nonetheless throws it greater than half the time in opposition to lefties. It doesn’t have notable floor/fly splits, and batters have solely put eight of them in play this 12 months anyway. Nevertheless it’s simply one other means that he’s made utterly logical modifications to his recreation that lead in direction of extra fly balls and fewer grounders. From 2014 by way of 2020, Treinen threw 425.2 innings, and coaxed 181 lefty groundballs along with his sinker. Within the 95 innings he’s thrown since then, he’s allowed precisely one lefty to hit a grounder off of his sinker. They merely don’t get to see the pitch sufficient to do a lot with it.
Is it a coincidence that GB/FB ratio is at its lowest level in our 2002-present database? Clearly not, and you may’t clarify all of it with altering hitter habits. Positive, hitters try more durable than ever to get the ball within the air, however pitchers have an element to play too. Sinker/slider guys are more and more utilizing their pitches to get weak elevated contact as a substitute of simply becoming one cookie-cutter mould. Treinen is an instance of the broader development: use your pitches to get outs, to not fulfill some generic splendid of how issues ought to work. He’s nonetheless the identical man – and but very completely different on the similar time.
