Detroit Tigers: Designing the perfect arsenal based on the 2023 pitching staff

Stealing a sinker from Detroit Tigers RHP Jason Foley.

If there's an arm who was able to break out in 2023, it was Jason Foley. The Detroit Tigers saw Foley prove to be a crucial piece of the bullpen in 2023, and one of the ways he was able to do that was by being a sinker-baller out of the bullpen.

Foley came in and threw bowling ball sinkers to cause havoc for opposing hitters, which is exactly why we're adding the sinker into the "perfect arsenal" as pitch no.2, deviating off the four-seamer from Brieske.

Foley's sinker averages 97.2 mph per Baseball Savant's Statcast data. He threw it 69.3% of the time in 2023 and sure had some success in doing so. In terms of movement, Foley's sinker averaged 3.6 inches of horizontal and 32.6 inches of vertical break.

Watch one clip of Foley, and it's easy to see why 97 with that movement profile is tough to hit. Even big-league hitters are going to struggle with that pitch. There's a reason that Foley's sinker has held opponents to a .237 average in 2023.

Foley's sinker also managed to help him put away 45 hitters for punchouts. He threw it a lot, generating soft contact on the ground, allowing him to find success. It's a pitch that Foley's been able to incorporate for him to be efficient as part of a three-pitch mix, so why not add it into our five-pitch arsenal?