Dominant right-handed reliever Blake Treinen has agreed to terms to remain with the Los Angeles Dodgers on a two-year, $22 million free-agent contract, the team announced Tuesday.
Treinen, 36, is fresh off a dominant 2024 season for the world-champion Dodgers, with whom he’s spent the last five years. In 46 ⅔ innings for L.A., Treinen put up an ERA of 1.93 (201 ERA+) with an FIP of 3.00 and 56 strikeouts against 11 unintentional walks.
While Treinen has been used primarily as a high-leverage setup man in recent years, he does have past experience as a closer. In 2018 as a member of the Oakland Athletics, Treinen recorded 38 saves and finished sixth in the American League Cy Young balloting.
Earlier in the offseason, CBS Sports ranked Treinen as the No. 22 available free agent in the current class.
Here’s part of our write-up:
Coming into the year, it was reasonable to think that Treinen wouldn’t be as effective this season as he was in 2021, when he posted a 1.99 ERA and a 3.40 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his most recent full campaign. After all, he was entering his age-36 season and had missed most of 2022-23 because of shoulder surgery. He then suffered fractured ribs and a bruised lung when he was hit by a line drive in spring training. That makes it all the more remarkable that Treinen wasn’t just as good as he was in 2021, he was measurably better: improving upon his ERA (and ERA estimators) as well as his strikeout, walk, and strikeout-to-walk rates. The sweeper he forged in 2021 has been a revelation for him, to the extent that it’s probably fair to think he has at least another season of being a high-end reliever in him — and, who knows, maybe more than that.
For his career, Treinen has an ERA+ of 149 and 80 saves in 549 ⅔ innings.
