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 charge 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 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 charge, and 2021 was one in all 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 an enormous previous sweeper. In actual fact, he was on the vanguard of a pitcher sort that now appears to populate each main league bullpen: the sinker/sweeper righty. You possibly can image this man, even for those who don’t know his identify on each single squad. He lives on the east/west airplane, and produces loads of ugly swings and doubtless a success 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 obtained hit by a line drive in spring coaching whereas trying his return. It felt like he would possibly by no means return, or could 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 stunning, solely unhappy.
Excellent news, although. Treinen has come again simply as efficient as ever. His velocity is down a couple of ticks, however his fastball has the identical sinking motion as at all times and his slider is shifting much more than it was earlier than he obtained injured. Via 17.2 innings of labor, he seems to be like the identical previous Treinen – with only one slight exception.
Fantasy analyst and FanGraphs alum Brad Johnson pointed the change out to me a couple 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 putting 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 date, and it’s onerous 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 dimension theater. Anybody can do something in 20 appearances. Wake me up when he runs these charges for a yr or two. There’s one downside with that: the proof. Right here’s Treinen’s groundball charge, in rolling 20-game segments, for his whole profession:
This isn’t simply enterprise as common. 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. Might the identical factor be in retailer for them?
Treinen’s sinker continues to be a grounder-inducing pitch, however it actually appears to be much less so than earlier than. In his profession, he has a 65.3% groundball charge on the pitch. He’s right down to 58.8% this yr, which doesn’t look like an enormous 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 can do it for you: From 2015 via 2022, the common launch angle towards Treinen sinkers was -1. In different phrases, the common hit was pounded downwards. That’s not fairly the perfect within the recreation, however solely the perfect 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 towards Treinen sinkers is as much as 9 levels. Batters simply couldn’t elevate 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 high-quality pitches – they only work in another way. These fly balls that opponents have hit towards Treinen have been fairly terrible this yr, the truth is: 4 innocent outs and a ball that Teoscar Hernández dropped for an error.
Treinen’s sinker nonetheless grades out properly on each pitch mannequin I might scrounge up. He’s nonetheless killing its pure backspin to a formidable diploma, and it nonetheless explodes to his arm facet. He’s simply recognizing it somewhere else, and whereas he’s nonetheless getting nice outcomes, they give the impression of being totally different than they did previously.
That brings us to Treinen’s sweeping slider, which can be producing fly balls in a approach he simply didn’t previously. This time, although, the offender isn’t mysterious. Sweepers make for popups. That’s a function, 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 quite a lot of swings underneath the ball. Sliders are alleged to fall greater than Treinen’s does.
If you happen to’re searching for 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, 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 totally different approach, with popups and whiffs as an alternative 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 major pitches are unbelievable towards 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 towards 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 approach that he’s made utterly logical modifications to his recreation 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 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’ll’t clarify all of it with altering hitter conduct. Positive, hitters are attempting tougher than ever to get the ball within the air, however pitchers have a component to play too. Sinker/slider guys are more and more utilizing their pitches to get weak elevated contact as an alternative 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 excellent of how issues ought to work. He’s nonetheless the identical man – and but very totally different on the identical time.