The Pitch Clock & Velocity Might Be The Problem Says Dodgers Blake Treinen | Baseball Isn't Boring

bro listen never in my life Associated the word boring with baseball F we know we know what's up me yeah famous yeah and I'm like giddy over there there smiling like holy I mean we're about to win this [ __ ] did everyone give you crap give me a good like host story you know I'm like I'm not picking it up no we both love the game we talk about it every day baseball having some popcorn you're ping around your phone i' have to way in line for 3 hours hang on cuz it's about to be a wild ride there's no human being I'd rather talk to right now than Blake trond so thank you yeah likewise for you oh see that's the first timeone ever said that uh but you I appreciated uh talking to you and having you on um at Joe Kelly's house it was a good time it was a memorable time for me honestly it wasn't just because of the great Yamamoto stories oh yeah yeah yeah it was yeah yeah yeah but it was also just because like the before the during the after mhm it was good man I don't know for you if like if if if if pitching talking pitching like that is a thing but it's probably the worst night of my life that's that's it was really boring I don't know no it was it was good I actually you know I got to meet you for the first time and uh I'd briefly run across Rob in the past VI some interviews and and then even uh Michael fiser being there I worked with him for a little bit back when I was in Oakland so uh seeing some some uh familiar faces and meeting new faces like yourself and I think your producer maybe was there too me they had the producers yeah so yeah all around it was just kind of a fun a lot of people fly we listen we had uh we had um we had uh bottles of wine from Japan we had um javelins the he brought did he bring a javelin in yeah brought the Javelin in yeah yeah had big old New York style pizza two of them think well that was yeah that was my only contribution to the whole thing yeah that was great I enjoyed it yeah but uh but I sincerely did love hearing all you guys talk pitching and I don't know what I can add but it sort of that was in spring training and so now it's a good time to sort of sit here and say reflect on okay has 20124 pitching like evolved like you thought and congratulations for everything you've done but like for for you when you when you have seen how pitching has evolved and obviously uh the sweeper is a big thing the two biggest things Blake is sweeper injuries like those are the two biggest conversations right yeah I think uh I mean if you had more to add I I think I think there's a lot of contributing factors to the injuries and pitchers um I I don't know if you can deliberately say say sweeper I think there's probably a right and wrong way to throw it I think there you can throw it and rip it as hard as you want which and get the results which you're seeing in baseball everybody's got like a gross stuff now but if you're not throwing it the right way you're probably adding a lot of tension you're not staying within like your what I would call a cylinder you know like when you establish this Lane right here with your arm if you're casting out you're going to add extra pressure to your elbow so um you know some guys have Elite numbers but is it sustainable that's the scary part and the sad part about the sport is we deal a lot with uh performance and trying to be the next uh person to have the the next shiny new toy um we fall in love with numbers too much I believe um and guys are chasing numbers versus results sometimes and um numbers when you say numbers uh like stack cast numbers and you know like a measurable it's like oh my slider was at 2700 broke 20 lateral and was at 86 cool was it a strike yeah you know cool just a tunnel off your stuff are you chasing a pitch that isn't conducive to your arm slot I there's a lot of things out there that are interesting I believe the pitch clock has a lot to do with it too people can call me crazy um I don't think you can write it off I can't say 100% that it is but I would challenge people to understand that we are giving Max effort towards the plate 10 to 15 to sometimes 20 times an inning and we have 15 seconds between each pitch now I know there's a lot of variables involved with this like analogy but have a position player line up on the line and do 20 15 yard Sprints or 60 ft Sprints or whatever for for the for the argument see how many times they can do that with the up down up down over the course of 160 days 170 days and how many times how many more leg injuries would you possibly see like hamstrings to say for me and like I'm sure the league is is optimistic so they maybe misspoke and I hope they misspoke in this but to to throw it out the window that the pitch clock has nothing to do I think is very uh IR irresponsible and and kind of NE negligent if you will um pitching is not a natural motion you know so the rest anybody in in the training field knows that there's a direct correlation between rest output and like you know injury injuries that correlate if you don't have a rest period so I I think a lot of it there is something to do with the pitch clock I'm not saying to get rid of it completely I think there just needs to be some tweaks I think pitch should be allowed to pick over as many times as they want as long as they're picking not disengaging just to disengage but to pick over um I came up I was I'm not necessarily quickest guy to the plate another thing to think about is when you have guys on base it's a higher strain situation that's normal I'm not I'm not upset about that that's part of the game you enjoy it you embrace it but if I'm not allowed to Long hold pitch come set pitch long hold step off long hold pick these things that control the game because I don't necessarily have the most d in slide step now you're forcing me to have to slide step which is fine I'm going to have to adapt but at the same time you're just forcing people straight into it right with two different rule changes that we haven't even established one to see how it correlates over the course of a few seasons I just I personally wish baseball would take time to evaluate the rule changes longer and maybe let's try an offseason without changing a rule I mean since I've come up maybe one year we've had not a rule change and I've been in the league now for 11 years well the the the the knocking off to two seconds is was like that almost seemed like what's the point doing it for the sake of hey you know what we're going to keep this momentum going and changing the rules yeah it's it's like I'm scared to say like where's the game going to be when my kids you know old enough to really start playing I am might going to be able to teach them the same game that I grew up loving um I love competing there's a lot about the game I still love but the rule changes it's it's stressful it makes you scratch your head and it's like it's just not the rule book has got to be completely Rewritten at this point in my opin I mean the fact that we've got a higher percentage of people stealing 50 70 plus bags when in the years past it hasn't necessarily been that way I mean there is a correlation to the rules that they've changed and if that's the brand of baseball they want then sure but you want more stolen bases maybe maybe incentivize St incentivize stolen bases in arbitration or incentivize stolen bases in uh free agent Market I don't I don't think stolen bases are incentivized enough what is the thing that of all these things that you mentioned and and I'm glad you brought up the pitch clock when you talk about power ranking the injury thing yeah Kenley CU we had Kenley on yeah that was his number one too and he had a great analog and he's he's historically really slow I've been on the slower side of things in the past um since I've been in La I like to think maybe i' been a little quicker but I'm not necessarily A get the ball throw right away right away like I want to get up there set set my my internal cues on like what what to do to execute a pitch so I get it it's been a defin definite change for me though like it's it's it's taken some work yeah it it his analogy was lifting weight you don't you don't run you don't run around lifting weights right you know you need okay time to recover and that makes sense to me too well yeah like hit workouts are a thing right but like it's it's different like those are those are semi-natural movements this isn't natural over the top you know so nobody walks around like this swinging their arms you know so what you mentioned rules so what if you're commissioner of baseball here it is here's the commissioner of baseball first thing you change I I don't know there's there's I will say the two things that I like I like that there's Universal DH and I like that every team plays each other those are the two rules that I think are phenomenal the pitch clock thing you know I I don't know I don't know what the exact number is but it's got to change and I think the one rule is you should be able to pick over as many times as you need to as long as you're throwing because it's active the balls balls in play Anything Can Happen I still have to make a good throw over there um yeah there's I'd have to think about that before I just the all good you're going to be the next one to interview the commissioner we had Joe sit down for 45 minutes to do it cuz I transcribed the tape yeah and and like every player should be I know the commissioner comes around but every player should get like you would be my my representative this year to sit down if you want to do that yeah we'll see we can make it happen yeah we'll see um I also want to ask the question about the Pelican Rock on the back of the mound because a few years ago Pelican was banned and not not a substance that we were allowed to use but now baseball is using it with an MLB logo stamped on the back of it behind explain that that's for another time oh yeah we're not going to dig deep into it is that The Rock the yeah there's like Pelican Rock rosin now so it's interesting that that was the same product that was banned in what what liquid form or whatever so I'm going to look I'm going to look into it um so you would mention unnatural movements you know I I just did we had a conversation with Daniel Bard uh yesterday about CU you know when he came up he was like throwing 100 right yeah one of one of five or eight leag yeah and so I I really wanted to talk to him about especially with the ski stuff that's going on now where you have this guy who comes up and he's throwing a 100 twice as much as everybody can v b and good for him right yeah but it's this is the the epitome of CHA like this is this is the poster boy for it's eye candy right eye candy like yeah now to his to his defenses he's got he's got really good stuff aside from it but there's so many people that are chasing velocity without making it like good so some guys can throw 100 now but is it missing barrels you know then some guys are throwing 93 and it's completely missing barrels yeah so it doesn't matter like velocity in this league doesn't really matter anymore in my opinion I'm a guy that's like honestly been blessed by velocity in my career and um but I just as I'm watching it's like koscar Hernandez hit a home run on a two- strike count right center field on 101 so it's like velocity doesn't matter like it used to um because it's it's a dime of dozen I mean every organization probably has 15 guys that can hit 100 now yeah that aren't even in the big leagues so but but but still people chase it because it's it's the feather in the cap right it's a yeah but and another thing we had to mention was you know you're chasing a couple things you're chasing velocity you're chasing spin rate like the other measurables that you everyone's chasing something yeah I think because the games put emphasis on jobs being maintained through uh pitch character SS as opposed to Performance and like if you're not performing then what how can you maintain a job and it's let me let me spin a curveball at 3,000 RPMs or you know have a four seamer that's 27 7 2700 RPMs you know that has has ride and stuff so finding the intangible qu like trying to quantify why certain pitches do certain things and then people chasing it because it lengthens some careers yeah and then they can say we we know this this is pro so anyway all right well I appreciate you taking the time always good all right thanks man we'll get the commissioner yeah baseball's not boring don't worry thank you thank