Los Angeles Dodgers have another lottery ticket with Blake Treinen

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a potential nightmare at the back-end of their bullpen. RHP Blake Treinen was a premier reliever as recently as 2018 and the Dodgers are hoping he can regain that form.

2019 was a significant fall from grace for Oakland Athletics reliever Blake Treinen. Treinen had a monster 2018 season where he was the best reliever in all of baseball, throwing 80.1 innings with a microscopic 0.78 ERA, totaling 3.6 fWAR. 2019 was a huge disappointment for Treinen as he threw 58.2 innings with a ballooned 4.91 ERA and -0.3 WAR.

The Los Angeles Dodgers believe they can get Treinen back to what he was in 2018 and that would be a monstrous addition to the relief corps. Let’s figure out what went wrong for him in 2019.

Treinen still averaged a healthy 96.7 MPH on his fastball but his usage of the pitch changed rather drastically from 2018 to 2019. Compare his fastball heat map from 2018 to 2019 and you’ll see Treinen was throwing inside much more in his less effective 2019 season. The density of fastballs out of the zone is noticeable and likely contributed to his career worst 14% BB rate and reduced ground ball rate.

The power sinker is Treinen’s best pitch and he’s thrown it 69% of the time in his career. Last season, hitters found a way to do more damage against it. His expected batting average (xBA) on fastballs raised up from .226 to .271. For context, hitters went from being Jarrod Dyson in 2018 to Alex Bregman in 2019 against Treinen’s fastball.

Hitters improved their plate discipline against all of Treinen’s pitches. Hitters were less likely to chase any of his pitches in 2019 as his out of zone swing percentage dipped down to 38%, up from 43%. Even though they swung less, hitters made huge gains making contact against those out of zone pitches up to 62%, up from 47%. Hitters just figured it out in 2019 as evidenced by having their best launch angle and exit velocity against Treinen. If Treinen reverts to his 2018 fastball usage, the league better watch out.

Treinen probably won’t have another season like 2018 and that will go down as his career year. He should, however, be able to bounce back being an above average relief weapon with better fastball usage in 2020. The Dodgers have to know this and were smart to make the gamble. We should be able to find out early if they’ll have Treinen back to his better self just by watching the heat maps.

If the Dodgers can help Treinen rediscover even half of his old form, they will have a serious weapon at the back-end to pair with Kenley Jansen and Brusdar Graterol. That trio would rival the Fluffy relief monster the Royals had back in 2015.

Blake Treinen is one of the more uncomfortable ABs in all of baseball and if the Los Angeles Dodgers get him back there’s going to be a lot of punch outs that look like this.