Speaker 1: We are in the city of brotherly love, and I'm
Speaker 1: joined right now by a man that considers me a
Speaker 1: little brother, maybe a big brother, and that is Dodger
Speaker 1: reliever Blake Trining. Great to see you, brother.
Speaker 2: Good to see it's it's moderately good to see you today.
Speaker 1: Hey, I saw you just come back from this new
Speaker 1: revamped bullpen in Philadelphia. They got the slunting glass doors.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that situation?
Speaker 2: It's great, but don't don't fool yourself. The only reason
Speaker 2: we got it is because I think there's some type
Speaker 2: of rule where if you upgrade one, there has to
Speaker 2: be competitive balance. Yeah, we can't be sitting in the
Speaker 2: elements as they But thank you Philadelphia for taking care
Speaker 2: of that. So it's nice. They did a good job.
Speaker 1: I heard, with the reputation of a city that booeds
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, it was a little distracting to have the
Speaker 1: fans here that close to the visiting bullpen.
Speaker 2: Fans are fans. I mean, there's places just as bad,
Speaker 2: if not worse at times, you know, like for the
Speaker 2: percentages and population that filled the entitlement to say whatever
Speaker 2: they want because they bought it, you know, like that's fine.
Speaker 2: I mean we're professionals. We get paid to make sure
Speaker 2: we can block it out. So you know, that was
Speaker 2: only the handful of people across the league that want
Speaker 2: to be ignorant and do stupid stuff that weren't being ejected.
Speaker 2: So tread lightly, you know, like if you come to
Speaker 2: the bullpen, We've got guys that have a quick trigger.
Speaker 2: It's not me. I'm not going to tell you who
Speaker 2: it is, so, but there are quick triggers down there.
Speaker 1: Blake Trening is our guest as the Dodgers and Phillies
Speaker 1: are getting set for first pitch. Blake, here's something I've
Speaker 1: never asked you before. How do you continue to get
Speaker 1: better with age? Because it feels like you're not only maintaining,
Speaker 1: but you're getting better every year.
Speaker 2: Was that a mild backhanded compliment? Blake? With as old
Speaker 2: as you are, can you teach an old dog new tricks?
Speaker 2: You know? The reason I'm even in this game still
Speaker 2: is by the grace of God, and I've been very
Speaker 2: blessed with good people around me to try to, you know,
Speaker 2: learn me some new stuff. And uh, you know, for
Speaker 2: what it's worth, Trevor Bauer helped me with my sweeper
Speaker 2: back in twenty one and spring training Connor mc guinnis
Speaker 2: and Mark and Bard. They all helped me stay locked
Speaker 2: in on certain cues with my pitches. So my success
Speaker 2: is a culmination of plenty of good people around me
Speaker 2: keeping me dialed in. We are about as good as
Speaker 2: those who are around us. You know, if I was
Speaker 2: on my own, you know, you always think, like, man,
Speaker 2: if I was somewhere else, could I repeat what I'm doing? Maybe,
Speaker 2: if that's what God wants me to do. But I
Speaker 2: like to think that the people here have really helped
Speaker 2: bless my career, and hopefully I've been able to bless
Speaker 2: you know, the organization on the backside of it too.
Speaker 2: But you know, learning new pitches certainly helps lengthen your career,
Speaker 2: and you know, I like to think that I'm doing
Speaker 2: something right, and maybe the Lord has favor over my
Speaker 2: career too. It's to me, it's evident, and it's it's no, no, no,
Speaker 2: more obvious than the fact that I'm here for another
Speaker 2: two years of the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: Yes, that news was broken by a TV reporter in
Speaker 1: Houston somewhere. Blake Uh as far as that sweeper goes,
Speaker 1: you're a great person to ask this, can you define
Speaker 1: what a sweeper is because us mere mortals hear these
Speaker 1: different terms of pitches and don't really understand. Is it
Speaker 1: just another name for a slider or is it a
Speaker 1: unique shape of a pitch.
Speaker 2: I think it's more or less. You're you're clipping it
Speaker 2: higher rate with lateral spin to get it to turn.
Speaker 2: So if you were to put it more north and south,
Speaker 2: it'd be a curveball. But since it's east and west,
Speaker 2: the idea is that you're you're catching the teams just
Speaker 2: right to get a lateral curveball. And that's why you
Speaker 2: don't really see him higher than truthfully, like a big sweeper,
Speaker 2: you don't really see bigger than like, you know, sixteen
Speaker 2: to twenty and then uh lateral uh, and then you
Speaker 2: know the vlo I. There might be a couple of
Speaker 2: guys and there's a lot of talented arms out there,
Speaker 2: but most most sweepers are you know, no harder than
Speaker 2: eighty eight, and that's pretty that's pretty elite to get.
Speaker 2: Usually when it's that hard, you get you're flirting around
Speaker 2: like ten to fourteen lateral. When it's a little bit slower,
Speaker 2: you have time for it to catch more and you know,
Speaker 2: you can get more more lateral with it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just it's just a lateral curveball.
Speaker 1: Okay, good to know. See I was confused. We're all
Speaker 1: confused about the sweeper.
Speaker 2: And I would have never known to describe it as that,
Speaker 2: and unless I had talked with Connor mcguinnis and he
Speaker 2: kind of worked it that way, because I you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not a big fan of reinventing different terms. I mean,
Speaker 2: people have thrown lateral sliders for a long time. The
Speaker 2: idea now that it's a new pitch is just that
Speaker 2: we've got more information. We've got ken of tracks, we've
Speaker 2: got mocap, we've got all these things that can teach
Speaker 2: guys how to throw these pitches at a quicker turnaround
Speaker 2: instead of learning it for years. That now the whole
Speaker 2: league can learn to throw them. And so you know,
Speaker 2: the next pitch, who knows what it is. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: the kick change, maybe it's something else like I don't know,
Speaker 2: which is another weird term to me. We've got a
Speaker 2: ghost fork or kick change, a splinker, which is just
Speaker 2: a split fastball that sinks, and I you know, we
Speaker 2: can call it and have fun with it and it's
Speaker 2: it's good for fans, but at the end of the
Speaker 2: day that a lot of the pitches are still the same,
Speaker 2: but old timers never really called them new pitches. There's
Speaker 2: I asked my slider, ask my curveball. It's my singcrols,
Speaker 2: my splitter. So yeah, there's a we'll see with the
Speaker 2: next new pitches in baseball.
Speaker 1: All right, Thank you Blake Trenon, who's been very kind
Speaker 1: with his time, and he seems to be a big
Speaker 1: brother to some of these younger relievers. Your catch partner today,
Speaker 1: Ben casparis, how much are you mentoring him?
Speaker 2: I will only mentor as much as they allow me
Speaker 2: or want me to. I'm not going to force any
Speaker 2: of my stuff on anyone. I think it's hard to
Speaker 2: try to press who you are on someone else. Leading
Speaker 2: by examples, the biggest thing, he might get something from me,
Speaker 2: he might get something from Tanner or Kirby or Vesia Banda, whoever.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just you.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to pick and choose what version of
Speaker 2: yourself you want to be out there as a competitor,
Speaker 2: as a as a guy who prepares, as a guy
Speaker 2: who executes, and how to stay healthy there's so many
Speaker 2: factors in being successful in this game. And you know
Speaker 2: the guys who stay around for a while or fortunate
Speaker 2: enough to have the right information and hold on to
Speaker 2: the right information throughout the course of their career to
Speaker 2: linking out. You know, the innings they pitch and you know,
Speaker 2: is this is this where he's supposed to be long term?
Speaker 2: I like to think so is this? Uh? Is his
Speaker 2: body going to stay healthy? Is his preparation gonna get
Speaker 2: dialed in? And you know, like every he's doing a
Speaker 2: lot of great things right now. And for being a
Speaker 2: young guy, he's one of the more polished arms I've
Speaker 2: seen come up as a rookie, with the amount of
Speaker 2: pitches he has that are plus probably that I can
Speaker 2: think of, maybe only Luke Trevino is about the only
Speaker 2: guy that I could think of that came up with
Speaker 2: three plus polished pitches as a rookie, and then he's
Speaker 2: one of them.
Speaker 1: He's very lucky to have Blake Trenton in his life
Speaker 1: and as his catch partner. Blake always loved catching up
Speaker 1: with you. It's always fun and let's do it again soon.
Speaker 2: And and one last note is Dave's my favorite interview
Speaker 2: to doing baseball,