Baseball Prospectus

MLB Statistics

Statistics for All Levels

Plate Discipline

Preseason Long-Term Forecast (Beyond the 2019 Projections)

Comparable Players (Similarity Index 69)

Rank	Score	Name	Year	Run Average	Trend
1	79	Tony Watson	2016	3.33
2	78	Francisco Cordero	2006	3.82
3	77	Scot Shields	2007	4.32
4	77	Pedro Strop	2016	3.04
5	77	Mark Melancon	2016	2.02
6	76	Peter Moylan	2010	3.39
7	76	Ryan Dempster	2008	3.27
8	75	Kevin Jepsen	2016	6.34
9	75	C.J. Wilson	2012	4.54
10	74	Pedro Feliciano	2008	4.05
11	74	Bobby Jenks	2012	0.00	DNP
12	74	Justin Duchscherer	2009	0.00	DNP
13	74	Jake Arrieta	2017	4.38
14	74	Saul Rivera	2009	6.57
15	74	Joe Smith	2015	3.58
16	73	Kevin Gregg	2009	4.98
17	73	Ramon Ramirez	2013	12.71
18	73	Jim Johnson	2014	7.59
19	72	Sean Marshall	2014	9.00
20	72	Dan Kolb	2006	5.21
21	71	Jeremy Affeldt	2010	4.50
22	71	Fernando Rodney	2008	4.91
23	71	Sam Freeman	2018	4.47
24	71	Chad Qualls	2010	8.54
25	71	Blaine Hardy	2018	3.87
26	71	Luis Garcia	2018	6.07
27	71	Dan Jennings	2018	3.78
28	70	Sparky Lyle	1976	2.86
29	70	Jared Burton	2012	3.05
30	70	Phil Niekro	1970	4.86
31	70	Tommy Hunter	2018	3.94
32	70	Wade Davis	2017	2.45
33	69	Ryan Madson	2012	0.00	DNP
34	69	Sean Burnett	2014	13.50
35	69	Nick Vincent	2018	4.47
36	69	Alexi Ogando	2015	3.99
37	69	Chad Bradford	2006	3.34
38	69	Will Harris	2016	2.39
39	69	Anthony Varvaro	2016	0.00	DNP
40	69	Dane De La Rosa	2014	11.57
41	68	Tanner Roark	2018	4.49
42	68	Darren O'Day	2014	1.83
43	68	Sean Green	2010	5.79
44	68	Ronald Belisario	2014	6.51
45	68	Tom Wilhelmsen	2015	3.48
46	68	Roy Halladay	2008	3.22
47	67	Aaron Heilman	2010	4.50
48	67	Javier Lopez	2009	10.03
49	67	J.J. Putz	2008	3.88
50	67	Geoff Geary	2008	2.53
51	67	Matt Guerrier	2010	3.55
52	67	Jason Frasor	2009	2.65
53	67	Alex Wilson	2018	3.50
54	67	Burke Badenhop	2014	2.55
55	67	Johnny Cueto	2017	4.70
56	67	Brandon Webb	2010	0.00	DNP
57	67	Jeff Fassero	1994	3.50
58	67	John Franco	1992	1.64
59	67	Heath Bell	2009	2.71
60	67	Kameron Loe	2013	7.09
61	66	Matt Bush	2017	5.16
62	66	Matt Wise	2007	5.03
63	66	Jason Isringhausen	2004	3.23
64	66	Braden Looper	2006	3.68
65	66	Steve Karsay	2003	0.00	DNP
66	66	John Grabow	2010	8.42
67	66	Clem Labine	1958	4.76
68	66	Nick Masset	2013	0.00	DNP
69	66	Jake Westbrook	2009	0.00	DNP
70	66	Greg McMichael	1998	5.16
71	66	Adam Ottavino	2017	5.06
72	65	Derek Lowe	2004	6.75
73	65	Will Ohman	2009	5.84
74	65	Michael Gonzalez	2009	3.39
75	65	George Kontos	2016	3.21
76	65	Mike Garcia	1955	4.27
77	64	Luke Gregerson	2015	3.54
78	64	Roy Oswalt	2009	4.12
79	64	A.J. Ramos	2018	6.41
80	64	Whitey Ford	1960	3.50
81	64	Bob Veale	1967	4.13
82	64	Joe Nathan	2006	1.58
83	64	Mariano Rivera	2001	2.68
84	64	B.J. Ryan	2007	14.54
85	64	Tim Hudson	2007	3.49
86	64	Juan Rincon	2010	4.50
87	64	Max Lanier	1947	0.00	DNP
88	64	George Sherrill	2008	4.73
89	64	Casey Janssen	2013	2.91
90	63	A.J. Burnett	2008	4.43
91	63	Eric O'Flaherty	2016	7.85
92	63	Mike Koplove	2008	0.00	DNP
93	63	David Phelps	2018	0.00	DNP
94	63	Roger Clemens	1994	3.22
95	63	Jared Hughes	2017	3.32
96	63	Adam Liberatore	2018	2.77
97	63	Terry Adams	2004	5.27
98	62	Jim Kern	1980	5.54
99	62	Brad Brach	2017	3.57
100	62	Dan Quisenberry	1984	2.71

BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2019		Due to publishing agreements, the 2019 player comments and team essays are only available in the Baseball Prospectus 2019 book (available in hardcopy, and soon e-book and Kindle).
2018		Treinen was the major-league piece coming back to the A's in the Sean Doolittle/Ryan Madson trade. He's not a full, drop-in replacement for either pitcher (the days of Billy Beane getting Dan Haren back for Mark Mulder are long gone), but if you cover up his ugly (albeit BABIP-fueled) first half with Washington last year, he looks like a dang good reliever, particularly when you watch him throw 97-mph sinkers and 89-mph sliders with movement that should not be permissible at that velocity. The knock has always been control, but check out the chop in walk rate last year: He did it! He's the guy this Annual has been writing about for literally two decades, the "if he can cut his walk rate while maintaining everything else, he'll be great" guy. Congratulations to him, to us and to everyone involved. Last one out, please hit the lights.
2017		Things happen for a reason, some people say. Exhibit A might just be Treinen, who as a kid nearly chopped off the thumb on what turned out to be his pitching hand. The ensuing lack of mobility once his mangled ligaments hardened into an improvised new world order forced him to hone a unique sinker grip, and the pitch has evolved into one of the league's deadliest. So nasty is its movement, in fact, that he often struggles to harness it in the strike zone. He walks a good number of hitters—lefties especially—and while he produces groundballs and whiffs aplenty, he’ll need to Treinen improve his control if he aspires beyond his moderately-leveraged bullpen role. And yes, that pun is a metaphor for his sinker.
2016		Treinen is one half of an elite relief pitcher. Against right handed batters, his heavy power sinker generated 80 percent groundballs and just a .211 SLG. Against lefties, however, that became 60 percent grounders and a .575 SLG. His big slider gets lots of whiffs, but he lacks the ability to finish at-bats against southpaws and ends up walking many of them. Overall, they stung him for a .934 OPS. So what's Treinen to do? He could try again on that changeup development, or he could settle for being a ROOGY. But nobody wants to be a ROOGY.
2015		It's almost as if the Nationals were incapable of producing a starting pitcher who struggled at the major-league level in 2014. No Gio Gonzalez for a few weeks? Want to rest a few guys down the stretch? Sure, here's a seventh-round draft pick with a 3.70 career minor-league ERA and pretty much just one pitch. He starts seven games and allows 12 earned runs. To be fair, when that one pitch is a sinker that can touch 99 mph and generates groundballs at a 65 percent clip, simple is sexy. There's no place for him in Washington as a starting pitcher in 2015, but that's more of a reflection on the Nationals than on Treinen.
2014		Acquired as part of the trade that sent Michael Morse to Seattle, Blake Treinen has the upside of a back-end starter but, realistically, the future of a middle reliever.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Blake Treinen has thrown 8,218 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2014 and 2024, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2024, he has relied primarily on his Slider (85mph), Sinker (95mph) and Cutter (91mph), also mixing in a Fourseam Fastball (94mph).