[…] Foley did not throw a sinker at all until 2020.
The story behind what is now one of the best pitches in baseball goes like this: That spring, the Tigers — still evolving in their analytic advancements — brought in a Driveline consultant to work with a select group of minor leaguers on pitch design.
Foley estimates he threw three bullpens in front of the consultant. And the early takeaway was stark. That hard four-seamer Foley threw? It wasn’t any good. That helps explain why the pitcher with great extension and high-end velocity ever went undrafted in the first place. […]
“I knew I threw hard, but (the fastball) would just kind of get hit around a little bit,” Foley said. “That was due to the lack of very good metrics on that pitch, whether it was spin, vertical break, all that stuff.”
The solution: Throw a sinker instead.
“That was a super important moment in my career,” Foley said. “Kind of changed the path of my career, in my opinion.”