Sam Briend and Matt Blake have long been considered some of the best minds in baseball, and their work with the Yankees since being hired in 2020 speaks for itself. They’ve built a pitching empire in the Bronx, developing some big-time arms and establishing a culture defined by improvement and innovation.
Pitchers specifically come to New York to improve, and the Yankees have helped some pitchers take off this season thanks to their mastery of the sinker. A pitch that was once considered out of vogue, it’s become one of the more valuable weapons a pitcher could have in their arsenal, and the Bronx Bombers have become the place to learn one.
From young pitchers finding their footing to experienced veterans in the later stages of their careers, the Yankees’ recent pitching surge has been fueled by their sweeping improvements to their pitchers’ sinkers.
How the Yankees Have Transformed Their Sinkers in 2025
The Yankees are top 10 in both sinker usage (20.4%) and Run Value (+6) through the first quarter of the season, and we’ve already seen some pitchers make sweeping improvements to that pitch this year.
Max Fried has always featured a sinker, but last year, batters had a .308 wOBA and .339 xwOBA against that pitch, which isn’t bad, but the Yankees figured they could make it even better.
An already-dominant starter who was highly sought after on the market, Fried would shift his sinker from a traditional two-seam grip to a one-seam grip, and the results have been staggering.
Max Fried’s sinker has gained 4.1 inches of vertical drop, which has created more groundballs and soft contact for easy outs. Batters are hitting just .196 on that sinker as a result of these changes, with Fried being able to turn sinkers into groundball outs more frequently.
Matt Blake mentioned how Max Fried would have access to more information and data than he had with the Atlanta Braves during the offseason, and that access has led to a 1.29 ERA through 10 starts.
He isn’t the only pitcher to adopt a new one-seam sinker; Carlos Rodon has added a one-seamer and has taken off as a result, and while it isn’t a primary pitch in his repertoire, it adds a different look that can throw off hitters.
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Rodon’s new sinker has a .204 wOBA and 23.7% Whiff% this season, and among sinkers thrown at least 80 times, he has the seventh-lowest average allowed (.125).
Throwing a sinker has felt like a game-changer for Carlos Rodon, who has gone from a pitcher who gets rocked when he allows contact to someone who can get a soft groundball early in a count to get out of an inning.
His sinker is unique because he throws it from an extremely high slot relative to the movement he gets on it, a trait also shared by Max Fried this season.
Will Warren has added some more run and depth on his sinker this season and Clarke Schmidt has added four more inches of vertical depth on his sinker as well with these one-seam sinkers, but why do the Yankees like this shape?
Pitchers typically try and generate movement through spin. For years, the common belief was that more spin would lead to more movement, but we’ve come to learn that seam orientation can create ripples in the air that affect movement.
By altering the grip and seam orientation used, the Yankees have been able help pitchers get more depth on their sinker and move the ball off the barrels of hitters.
Not every pitch is capable of converting sinker spin into sinker movement efficiently, which is why the Yankees have tried to get some of their pitchers to rely more on seam orientation than spinning the ball harder.
There isn’t a clear or concrete way to add spin or make spin more efficient without potentially harming the rest of your repertoire, whereas altering a grip doesn’t require changing your wrist rotation or arm slot.
A deviation in spin-based and observed movement is an indication of a pitcher getting inefficient spin on their fastball, and a lot of Yankees who throw sinkers don’t get efficient spin on it.
Key arms like Will Warren, Clarke Schmidt, Ian Hamilton, Carlos Rodon, and Max Fried all rely on seam effects to get movement on their sinker, a growing trend in their pitching staff.
All of those pitchers tend to struggle with pronation, which is the inward rotation of one’s wrist when throwing the ball, and before teams figured out that seam orientation affected movement, they may have never altered their sinker grips.
The Yankees have always valued the sinker, but their approach has expanded beyond acquiring pitchers who already possess a nasty sinker and don’t utilize it enough.
Now they can either improve an already-existing sinker that had poor shape or teach a pitcher without a sinker to throw an effective one.
After losing Gerrit Cole for the season and Luis Gil for what could be the entire first half, the Yankees have the ninth-best ERA (3.54) and seventh-best WAR (6.0) as a pitching staff.
Sam Briend and Matt Blake have led a pitching staff that innovates and adapts to league trends, and no matter what unexpected hurdles the sport throws their way, they always find a way to put together an effective staff.