They Rejected Him

Welcome back!

In today’s edition…he was a 5’7” out-of-shape teen who quit baseball.

When he tried walking on to a D1 program, they rejected him before he even threw a pitch.

Here’s how he carved out a remarkable path to the 2024 World Series.

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How Blake Treinen Went From Quitting Baseball to Dominating MLB Hitters on the Biggest Stage

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“Blake Treinen strikes out the side!”

For big league announcers, it’s become a familiar refrain.  The closer’s hard-breaking sinker and devastating sweeper have dominated MLB hitters all season long.

But before he became the 6’5” 225-pound flame-thrower you see on TV, he was just another 5’7” out-of-shape teen on the verge of quitting baseball.

Blake Treinen grew up in Osage City, Kansas, a town with a population of 2,800.  There were only 48 kids in his graduating class at Osage City High.

He played on the baseball team as a freshman but quickly fell out of love with the sport.

“I didn’t really enjoy it that much,” he said in an old podcast interview. “Everybody else was kind of above my talent level.  I just didn’t wanna play baseball [anymore].”

He was also facing personal struggles.

Instead of playing sports outside with his friends, he’d sit in front of the TV guzzling two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper.

His joints ached, and his weight got out of control.

Doctors diagnosed Blake with juvenile arthritis and borderline Type II diabetes.

“You got to get this in check,” his mom told him. “You’re getting close to where you’re going to be a diabetic. You got to make changes in yourself.”

As he fought to get his health under control, Blake didn’t play baseball at all in his sophomore year.

That summer, he visited his cousins in San Diego, who helped him turn things around.

“They were huge on pushing a healthy diet,” he remembered. “I would run every day…I lost like 40 pounds that summer.”

His aches and pains faded away and he hit a growth spurt up to 5’11”.

He returned to the baseball team in his junior year, with his fastball topping out at 79 miles per hour.

After earning honorable mention all-area honors in his senior season, he graduated without much interest from recruiters.

“I didn’t really have any opportunity to play [in college].”

Through his mother’s co-worker, he connected with the pitching coach at Baker University – an NAIA program in Baldwin City, Kansas.

“I went and tried things there and they offered me – I don’t really want to say a scholarship, because it’s $24,000 a year to go there – but [the scholarship] was like $2,500 for the year. So, I mean, a little bit of money helps no matter what.”

But the first semester of his freshman year wasn’t exactly smooth sailing.

First off, the pitching coach who recruited him was out for the first half of the year.  So Blake was on his own in transitioning from high school to college pitching.

Secondly, the school’s only weight room was shut down.

“It was being disinfected because it had staph infection.  So we didn’t have a weight room to work out in the whole first semester of the year.”

“It’s tough.  You go there thinking you’re gonna put on weight and muscle and get stronger and faster. It just really wasn’t the scenario I was hoping for.”

When the pitching coach returned for the spring, Blake had trouble adjusting to his teaching style.

“I didn’t really get the help that I needed…and I lost the passion for baseball.”

They stuck him on Baker's JV team.

On top of that, the school didn’t offer his preferred major: landscape architecture. 

If he wasn’t progressing on the field, why would he waste any more time?

So that summer, he transferred to the University of Arkansas with the hope of walking on to the team.

“I was just hoping that they would see my frame and maybe take a chance on me.”

By that point, he’d grown to 6’3” and got his fastball velocity up to 83 miles per hour.  But it wasn’t an easy 83.

“That was like max effort, trying to blow up the gun.”

In his first week at Arkansas, Blake walked into the baseball office and asked to speak to the head coach.

But the secretary told him that Coach Dave Van Horn wasn’t there and that he’d have to speak to the grad assistant instead.

“You know how many people want to be on this field?” the assistant asked Blake. “If we let you try out, we’d have to let the whole state of Arkansas try out.”

To make matters worse, Blake spotted Coach Van Horn walking into his office.

"Is that him?" Blake asked.

But the assistant said, “Look man, we really don’t have time for this.  We’re pretty busy right now.”

Leaving that office, Blake was beside himself.

He’d transferred to Arkansas hoping for a chance.  And they turned him away without seeing him throw a single pitch.

"That conversation could have easily been the end of my career," Treinen wrote.

"At that point, I was 20 years old and I had yet to throw a collegiate pitch on a varsity team, much less in the big leagues."

But he made a promise to himself to give it one more shot.

“My career looked to be at a dead end, but I decided to view it as a crossroads."

Blake spent the entire first semester lifting weights and packing on muscle.  He barely picked up a baseball.

By Christmas break, he missed pitching.

A friend told him about a clinic held by former minor league pitcher Don Czyz.

The one-day event mostly attracted middle schoolers and high school pitchers, so the 6’3” Treinen stood out immediately.

Even though he hadn’t thrown in months, he found a way to make an impression.

"My fastball just didn’t have enough zip on it to impress so I leaned on my curveball, and on that first day of the clinic I somehow was throwing the best curveball I had ever thrown in my life."

Czyz liked what he saw, and told Blake he’d call his friend Ritchie Price – the head coach at South Dakota State.

Until that point, Blake had made a promise to himself: he wouldn’t leave the University of Arkansas unless he received an offer from a Division 1 program with a landscape architecture program.

“It’s so funny because that year [South Dakota State] just bumped up to Division 1 baseball and they’d just gotten a landscape architecture degree,” Treinen said.

“So I was like, well obviously God’s opening the door for me.”

Czyz sent a video of Blake’s bullpen along with velocity readings to Coach Price, who saw enough to extend Treinen a walk-on offer.

Treinen transferred to SDSU but with the NCAA's rules on transfers, he had to sit out the 2009 season.

“I don’t think I realized as being invited to walk-on, how thin your line is to staying on the team.”

When he got to South Dakota State, his velocity was topping out between 85 and 86.

Realizing he was on the borderline of being able to make the team, Blake set incremental goals for himself.

“All right, by the end of this year just try to be at 90.  Next year, try to be like 90-93.  The next year, like 93-96…even if I fall short, I’m still in a decent range to give myself an opportunity to get drafted.”

He spent his redshirt year working as hard as he could, both on the mound and in the weight room.

Blake grew another inch and went from 186 to 210 pounds.

“I’d always had bird legs,” he joked, “and my legs started getting a little bigger.”

In the spring of his redshirt season, he pitched in his first simulated game.

“It was the first time I remember actually throwing fastballs by guys…it was an eye-opener for me.”

By the fall of the next year, his fastball hit 93 miles per hour.

“It was crazy to me.  I understand hard work is going to get you to places, but honestly, I have to give a lot of credit to God because I don’t know where the gains came from.”

As the last starter in the Jackrabbits’ rotation in 2010, Treinen went 7-0 in conference play.  That summer, the Marlins picked him in the 23rd round of the 2010 MLB Draft.

Blake signed his half of the offer, but the Marlins insisted on running him through a rigorous physical exam before signing theirs.

"I actually knew something bad might happen when the day started," Blake wrote, "because I was one of only two players drafted that the Marlins had kept around from the day before."

The MRI revealed shoulder inflammation, and the Marlins withdrew the offer.

He asked them, “Am I still allowed to play college baseball?”

The team's rep replied, “That’s not for us to decide, but there’s a cab outside waiting for you.”

Blake was crushed. Just as his dream was finally within reach, it was ripped away in the 11th hour.

"I had no idea if I was going to head back to college, or if I was even eligible to play, or where my baseball career was headed."

Luckily, Treinen hadn’t hired an agent or worked out with the team. And because he was there for less than two days, his NCAA eligibility stayed intact.

“I felt like I had a lot to prove,” Blake said.

“And it really bothered me that the whole Marlins thing – to me – it felt like it put a red flag on my career for other teams to wanna take a chance.”

That extra motivation carried him through a spectacular senior season.

Treinen struck out 84 batters in 84 innings, with a 7–3 win-loss record and 3.00 ERA.  He earned his degree and his fastball reached 97 miles per hour.

His draft stock soared and the Oakland A’s took him in the 7th round of the 2011 MLB Draft.

It wasn’t official until he passed a physical.

“I’m getting nervous like, ‘Am I gonna pass this MRI?’ and everything cleared, and things worked out.”

After signing with Oakland, he reported to the Stockton Ports of the Class A-Advanced California League.

“My first full season in Stockton was kind of mediocre and my velocity dropped to like 88, 91, 92 and just did not have what I thought I’d always pitched with.  I was wondering if it was the end of baseball.  What’s going on?  I’m getting hit, my velocity is down, and I’m not the pitcher I used to be.”

He posted a 4.37 ERA in 24 games.

But everything changed when the Nationals traded for him in a three-team deal in 2013.

“It was probably the best thing that happened in my career because coming over to [the Nationals] I’ve seen my velocity shoot up again and sustain up.”

The Nats put him on a new throwing program that included long tossing from greater distances and stretching his arm out as far as it could go.

“I think I always had the ability to pitch and I had fairly clean mechanics,” Treinen said. “For me, it was mainly training…I got on a good throwing program that allowed me to really get the most out of myself.”

With his confidence restored, Treinen posted a 3.64 ERA in 118 2/3 innings at Double-A Harrisburg.

He got called up to the big leagues the following season, where he split time between the bullpen and starting rotation.

His velocity was consistently in the high 90s and pushed as high as 101.

Since 2015, he’s found his home in the backend of the bullpen.

After missing most of 2022 and all of 2023 with injuries, Treinen put in the work and came back better than ever.

At 36 years old, he posted a 1.93 ERA in 50 appearances for the Dodgers.

His 6-out save in Game 6 of the NLCS helped LA reach the World Series for the 22nd time in franchise history.

“The doors keep opening,” Treinen said.

“It’s a slap in the face if you don’t make the most out of your opportunities. You just got to trust His plan and give it all you got.”

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Tyler

Extra Innings…

👀 In case you missed it: He worked 5 jobs, played for 3 colleges, and 2 teams that no longer exist on his way to the NFL.

⚾️ “There’s still hope for me,” said my dad when he sent me this story of a 52-year-old college reliever who’s rewriting his life story. It’s never too late!

🫵 Subscriber Shoutout: Thanks for joining, Manny! I’m so impressed by your story. Thank you for all that you’ve given back to the game of baseball.

🌟 Trivia Answer: A) Andy Pettitte won the Game 6 clincher of the 2009 World Series.