Lakeland, Fla. — Cruel game baseball.
Year after year, Chasen Shreve has been a solid, useful left-handed relief pitcher. And year after year, he finds himself designated for assignment and looking for a job. He has a 21-12 record with a 3.87 ERA in nine big-league seasons. He’s averaged close to 10 strikeouts per nine innings, features an elite split-fingered pitch and has an above-average swing-and-miss rate of 30% for his career.
And still, he’s been traded twice and released five times in the last nine years. The Yankees and Mets have released him twice each.
What gives?
“Your question is what I ask myself every year,” said the 32-year-old Shreve, who is in camp with the Tigers as a non-roster invitee. “I don’t know. After 2021, I had arguably the best year of my career, and I still got released at the end of the year.”
He pitched in 57 games for the Pirates in 2021 and posted a 3.20 ERA and was worth 1.2 WAR. He limited hitters to a .203 batting average with a 32.8% whiff rate with his splitter and a .149 average with a 32% whiff rate with his slider.
A couple of crooked-number outings ballooned his stat line last year in his second stint with the Mets (career-worst 6.49 ERA in 26 innings), but his splitter was still effective (.192, 42.5% whiff).
“He’s found his way to the big leagues every year for the last nine years,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “He will find his way to the big leagues and then it comes down to controlling the opposite-handed hitters. The three-batter rule probably impacted him as much as anybody.”
Maybe Shreve was considered a lefty specialist earlier in his career. But the reality is, his splits are almost dead even — right-handed hitters slash .226/.317/.424 with a .740 OPS; left-handed hitters slash .231/.320/.420 with a .741 OPS.
The splitter can be a great equalizer.
“He has that unique pitch,” Hinch said. “If he can get to strike one, he can get to strike two and then he has the ability to get guys out on both sides of the plate. This is a tough league. It’s tough to stick. He finds a way because he can do some unique things with the ball.
“Where he throws his fastball is very important because it plays off the same plane as his splitter.”
Tigers infielder Ryan Kreidler found that out hitting against Shreve in live batting practice on Thursday. Shreve got three swinging strikes, mixing 90-mph fastballs and 82-mph splitters out of the same arm slot and tunnel.
And yet, Shreve has been cut loose the last four years.
“You’d think that after a certain amount of time, me doing it for nine years, it’d be like, ‘Oh, this is him. He’s going to do this every year.’ And every year, I get released. My agent doesn’t know why. They don’t give me any reasons. Most teams don’t call me; they call my agent.”
He’s got a strong work ethic. He’s been a good teammate over the years; there’s a reason the Mets brought him back twice. And he’s been a productive reliever.
“And when I get released, I have like 12 teams contacting me,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I don’t understand. I try not to look too closely at it because it drives me crazy. I just try to control what I can control and keep a good attitude.”
When pressed on it, Shreve thinks analytics might play a role in the one-and-done nature of his career.
“I think what a lot of it is, analytically, I’m similar to people in Triple-A,” he said. “So teams feel like, ‘Why would we pay Shreve so many dollars when we can call up a young guy, and on paper, they’re going to do the same thing?’
“But doing it on paper and in a big-league stadium is completely different.”
It depends on what analytics you use, though. Yes, he’s lost an inch or so off his fastball in the last couple of years, from 92-93 mph in 2017 to 90-91 last season. His fielding-independent pitching (4.74) and walk percentages (11.4%) are elevated.
But, his pitch characteristics are good.
“I have a good swing-and-miss pitch, I have good ride on my fastball and good spin rates,” he said. “I get it — if I was putting up good numbers and my analytic numbers were crappy, OK, I’m getting lucky. But, that’s not it.”
It is also true that the splitter can be fickle. The hit-or-miss nature of the pitch can be problematic for teams.
“There will be times when I’m just absolutely cruising and I have the splitter going,” Shreve said. “Then it will just be gone and I have to figure it out. It’s a tough pitch. It has a lot to do with how the seams catch the air the right way and all that stuff. If you get even a little tired, just a slight bit and it’s different.
“Lucky I’m good at figuring it out when I need to.”
Shreve is one of three left-handed non-roster invitees fighting for a roster spot — Miguel Del Pozo and Zach Logue are the others. Since Shreve signed, the Tigers have added another lefty to the fight — claiming Tyler Holton from the Diamondbacks. He’s on the 40-man roster.
The odds, as they seem to be every year, are long against Shreve. But, as Hinch said, he always finds his way to the big leagues.
“I thankful for my job,” Shreve said. “I am thankful to be here because I know a lot of guys don’t have jobs right now. So, I have to be thankful for this. I’m just going to do what I do every year; try to get better and try to make a team.”
Twitter: @cmccosky