How Blake Treinen Dropped 3.15 from His ERA
Blake Treinen had an outstanding year. You know that, I know that, he knows that, and his 9-2 record, 0.78 ERA, 38 Saves, and 100 strikeouts says that. But how exactly did an average run-of-the-mill reliever drop 3 points from his ERA to have one of the best reliever seasons in history? I don't know about you, but I think that's what this article is all about.
Firstly, let me start off with some comparable seasons.
First up, we go to Dennis Eckersley, the Hall of Famer. He only had one season in his 24 year career which compares to the brilliance of this one Blake Treinen season. That was 1990, Eckersley was 35 years old and he compiled a 0.61 ERA in 73.1 innings pitched with, coincidentally, 73 strikeouts, and 48 saves in 50 opportunities.
Secondly, Zack Britton, 2016. You are all familiar with Britton's season, so I'll just quickly shoot off the numbers for you: 0.54 ERA, 47 SV, 67 IP, 74 SO, and 0, count them, ZERO BLOWN SAVES. That season was exceptional, and I must say, better than Treinen's.
Alrighty, one more. Jonathan Papelbon, 2006. 0.92 ERA, 35 SV, 86.1 IP, and 75 strikeouts. And that's it. I have racked my brain, searched both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs and these three seasons are the only ones I can find similar to Treinen's. I have looked for well over 45 minutes, and I found three, I'm kinda proud of myself, because 15 minutes ago, I only had Eckersley's season. Neither Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman, or Aroldis Chapman had this good of a season. (If you guys find any other comparable seasons, please, let me know)
Anywho, enough with numbers, let's move on to numbers!
In 2018 Blake Trenien threw 18.3% four seam fastballs, 11.5% cutters, 48.5% sinkers, otherwise known as a two seam fastball, and 21.3% sliders. These numbers are grand, fabulous, and pretty much worthless the way I have put them. Time to look at what he did in 2017, when he had a mediocre to good year. He posted a 3.93 ERA in 2017, with 16 SV, 74 K's, and 75.2 IP. These pesky numbers take too long to type, here take a look for yourself:
What you're seeing there is a 4% increase in FS fastballs, a totally new pitch that he never threw before, the cutter, and he threw it 11.5% of the time, that's a major increase. Slight drop in sliders, not really perceptible, whoa, hey there changeups? Where did you go? He completely dropped his changeup, which wasn't a major pitch in his repertoire before has been completely lost in favor of a cutter. Slider percentage dropped as well, again due to the cutter.
Velocity doesn't show much here except for a slow increase over the years, which would be expected with a pitcher who doesn't get hurt. His cutter has premium velocity to it, and mind you, these are all averages over any given year. He picked up 1mph on his FS fastball from 2017, which would add to his success as well.
Here are some heatmaps of his pitch location. These are all from the catcher's point of view:
These are all his fourseam fastballs from 2018, great location. A fastball at 98mph high in the zone is almost impossible to square up. I'll only do his cutter and slider as these images are large and this article is long. Cutters:
Again, excellent location. Some say the cutter is the hardest pitch to square up, because of the late hard cut motion, which is why Mariano Rivera broke so many bats.
Slider:
Obviously, anyone is going to hang a slider, but the amount of sliders that he didn't hang is outstanding.
Now, here are some spray chats of his batted balls from 2017:
There is plenty of hard contact, line drives, flyballs, and home runs. Going to his 2018 spray charts:
Roughly the same amount of line drives, but the location of his flyballs is no nearly a long, which is a result of the cutter. Also, he allowed two home runs in 2018 and five in '17. Obviously, the quality of contact is much poorer from '17 to '18.
His HR/FB rate in 2017 was 12%, it dropped to 4.4% with the addition of the cutter. HR/9 in '17 is 0.71, it was 0.22. His BABIP in 2017 was a mediocre .344, in 2018 is dropped to .230. That is a decrease if .130 points! His average against in 2017 was .271, fine, but not great, in 2018 it dropped to .157.
At what I'm getting in all these numbers, charts, and other stuff is that the whole reason Blake Treinen dropped 3.15 from his ERA is the addition of the cutter. That is the only explanation I have, if you have any other ideas, please drop me a comment.
-AmbidextrousOutfielder
I am a journeyman writer who posts fanposts to any of the many SB Nation blogs that houses the player on whom I write. You can find links to all my posts .
Image credit to Fangraphs