Blake Treinen has spent a whole profession as among the best sinker-heavy relievers in all of baseball. Since his debut, he’s been among the best relievers in baseball — interval. That feels like hyperbole however it isn’t. From 2014 via 2022, he ranked ninth in FIP-based WAR and fourth in RA9-WAR amongst all aid 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 large shift: He began throwing an enormous sweeping slider. He was an early poster boy for the sweeper revolution. From 2014 via 2020, his slider averaged about an inch of horizontal motion. Beginning in 2021, he modified the way in which he threw it, and that quantity blew as much as almost seven inches. That turbo-charged his strikeout fee, and 2021 was certainly one of his higher seasons regardless of intermittent command issues.
These two issues embody most of what individuals find out about Treinen. He will get a ton of grounders and he throws a giant previous sweeper. Actually, 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 should you don’t know his title on each single squad. He lives on the east/west aircraft, and produces loads of ugly swings and possibly 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 never-ending 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 bought hit by a line drive in spring coaching whereas making an attempt his return. It felt like he would possibly by no means return, or can be a shell of his former self if he did. We’ve seen it occur to pitchers sufficient occasions that it’s by no means shocking, 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 bought injured. By means of 17.2 innings of labor, he seems like the identical previous 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 type of issues that, as soon as seen, can’t be unseen. Treinen remains to be placing out a ton of opposing hitters. He nonetheless sometimes 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 this point, and it’s arduous to think about something much less Treinen-y than that.
I do know what you’re pondering, as a result of I used to be pondering it too. Say it with me now: small pattern measurement theater. Anybody can do something in 20 appearances. Wake me up when he runs these charges for a yr or two. There’s one drawback with that: the proof. Right here’s Treinen’s groundball fee, in rolling 20-game segments, for his total profession:
This isn’t simply enterprise as standard. So I assumed I’d look into what has modified, and whether or not we will be taught something broader from this growth. In any case, a number of pitchers throughout baseball are following the tough Treinen blueprint. May the identical factor be in retailer for them?
Treinen’s sinker remains to be a grounder-inducing pitch, however it 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 yr, which doesn’t seem to be a giant hole, however that underscores the change. A technique of taking a look at it’s that his ratio of grounders to fly balls has declined from 4.66 to 2.5. Or possibly this may do it for you: From 2015 via 2022, the common launch angle in opposition to Treinen sinkers was -1. In different phrases, the common hit was pounded downwards. That’s not fairly the most effective within the sport, however solely the most effective 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 yr, the common launch angle in opposition to Treinen sinkers is as much as 9 levels. Batters simply couldn’t carry his sinker earlier than; this yr, they’ve already hit 5 balls at 30 levels or increased. That’s a full yr’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 yr, 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 advantageous pitches – they simply work in another way. These fly balls that opponents have hit in opposition to Treinen have been fairly terrible this yr, 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 might scrounge up. He’s nonetheless killing its pure backspin to a powerful diploma, and it nonetheless explodes to his arm aspect. He’s simply recognizing it elsewhere, and whereas he’s nonetheless getting nice outcomes, they appear totally different than they did up to now.
That brings us to Treinen’s sweeping slider, which can be producing fly balls in a method he simply didn’t up to now. This time, although, the offender isn’t mysterious. Sweepers make for popups. That’s a characteristic, not a bug. The pitch drops lower than you’d anticipate for a breaking ball and tails away from same-handed hitters, which ends up in weak elevated contact.
The Treinen I image, the man who closed for the A’s, didn’t throw this slider. He threw a standard 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 lots of swings beneath the ball. Sliders are purported to fall greater than Treinen’s does.
In the event you’re in search of the mathematical expression of that thought, it’s this. Treinen’s previous slider, which he threw from 2014 via 2020, produced a 2.34 GB/FB ratio. It was a heavy pitch, similar 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 a particularly totally different method, 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 unimaginable in opposition to lefties. From 2014 to 2020, he threw 63.1% sinkers to lefties. Then the Dodgers bought 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 yr anyway. But it surely’s simply one other method that he’s made utterly logical modifications to his sport that lead in the direction of extra fly balls and fewer grounders. From 2014 via 2020, Treinen threw 425.2 innings, and coaxed 181 lefty groundballs together 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 conduct. Certain, hitters try tougher 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 perfect of how issues ought to work. He’s nonetheless the identical man – and but very totally different on the similar time.
