Photo courtesy of Lon Horwedel-USA TODAY Sports

MILWAUKEE — Jason Foley trotted out of the American Family Field visitors bullpen April 25 to lights flashing and music blaring, looking to pitch the Detroit Tigers out of a jam in the bottom of the eighth. 

His opponent: Milwaukee Brewers right-handed hitter William Contreras.

“Foley against any right-handed hitter is usually a really good matchup if he can get to strike number one (right away),” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said after the game. “We wanted to give him as many looks as we could and the game lined up to where we could do that.” 

He did just that, throwing a 96 MPH sinker past Milwaukee Brewers right-handed hitter William Contreras to get ahead 0-1. 

Soon came a full count and the increase in volume of chirping fans.

After collecting himself on the mound, Foley went back to his sinker on the seventh pitch of the at-bat and got Contreras looking to end the inning.

“We called a few glove side sinkers to back door him and I was missing early on so 3-2 when he called another glove side, I knew that if I could get it there, he would roll it over or take it for a strike (which he did),” Foley said. 

Hinch sent Foley back out for the ninth, looking to secure the Tigers second series win of the season. The 6-foot-4 right-hander did that, working a clean 1-2-3 ninth for his second career save.

“You approach it the same way,” Foley said after the game on his approach in high leverage situations. “You know it is a little bit of a pressure situation but the same principles apply in any outing whether you are up 10 or anywhere between.  “As A.J. has talked all spring and all season, it’s attack the zone, get ahead and stay ahead and generally that works in any situation.” 

But pitching in high leverage situations wasn't given to Foley right away.

Neither was his path to the majors. 

Becoming a prospect

For that, one has to go back to the 2015 New England Collegiate League All-Star Game in Sanford, Maine when Foley played for the Mystic Schooners.

To get something out of the trip to Maine, as miserable weather conditions canceled the event itself, 30 major league scouts watched pitchers throw in the bullpen. Most were throwing upper 80s and as high as 91. 

Foley’s first pitch hit 93 MPH, which prompted all 30 radar guns to move 10 feet to the right and hover over his mound.

 It was like Moses parted the Red Sea.

“Sacred Heart is not a big school so he was kind of an unknown,” Mystic Schooners pitching coach Dennis Long said. “You could really tell he was really hard to hit to begin with but once that velocity was shown in that bullpen, that is when he became an automatic guy and a prospect.”

 Foley quickly became a name in the northeast corridor over the course of the next season. It led him to signing a contract to play for the Chatham Anglers in the Cape Cod League. 

But after a two week stint on the Cape, Chatham released him. Following a brief phone call with Long, Foley returned to Mystic. 

Long, a minor league pitcher turned pitching coach, said he noticed a difference in Foley the first time he threw. 

“It was almost like he wanted to become more of a drop in drive pitcher instead of a big tall, rangy, leverage type of pitcher,” Long said. 

So Long dug up footage from 2015 of Foley pitching against Newport and mirrored it to footage he had taken of the right-hander during that throwing session.

“I said, ‘Hey look at you now and look at you in Newport,’” Long said. “He goes, ‘Oh man, that’s a big difference.’ It was a case of getting a little taller and he went back to his old form and it was like the switch turned.” 

Foley returned to his dominance, with his two-seam fastball sitting once again in the mid-high 90s. This got the attention of Tigers Northeast Scouting Supervisor, Jim Bretz.

As the legend holds, one conversation over a meal at the Mystic Diner led to the start of Foley’s professional career as Detroit signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2016.

“Not getting drafted was tough,” Foley said. “But at the same time, it shows that if you keep working hard, keep grinding and put your mind to something that a lot more is possible than you might think so.” 

Foley’s journey up the ranks was halted first  by Tommy John surgery, which costed him the entire 2018 season. Then in 2020, COVID-19 canceled the entire Minor League Baseball season.

But since making his Major League Debut in 2021, Foley has seen an uptick in his role on the Tigers. 

“I've had quite a lot of roles and I think I've progressed quite a bit in the big leagues and there's more to come. I’m trying to take the mindset of wherever AJ (Hinch) wants me to pitch and whatever he thinks is the best opportunity for me to help the team is cool with me,” Foley said. 

Long said it was a feeling of “pure pride” the moment Foley made his debut. 

“It was emotional the day Jim Bretz told me at Fitch (High School) and he went ‘Hey, Foley got the call,’” Long said. “I dropped my fungo and went to see (Mystic manager) Phil (Orbe), who was hitting ground balls during batting practice, and went ‘Jason got called up.’

“We then proceeded to look at each other and it was one of those moments, since he was our first guy, that was emotional. We hadn’t had that experience before of seeing one of our guys go to the big leagues. It was a really proud moment for Phil, me and the organization.” 

Saving his career

Foley took his game and development to the next level last season as he became a backbone in the Tigers bullpen. The numbers prove that for the Long Island native as he posted a 3.88 ERA with 43 punch outs and 11 walks in 60 games, totaling 60.1 innings of work.

He said this was a direct result of building self confidence and comfortability in each outing. 

“A ton (of that) had to do with it,” Foley said. “You get to the big leagues and it’s nerve-wracking….The more comfortable that I got in the big leagues and the more times I strung together good innings or good pitches, I proved to myself I could do this more.” 

It also has come from establishing himself as a sinkerballer pitcher, which he threw 65.5% of the time according to Statscast. 

“It has the metrics of a lefty slider,” Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. “(From) facing him in Spring Training, he’s nasty so when I see him up there, I’m like ‘Good luck.’” 

But the irony here is, Foley didn’t start throwing his sinker until Spring Training 2020. 

That spring the Tigers brought in someone from Driveline, a third party data-driven baseball player development program, to help a few minor league pitchers, which included Foley, with pitch design. 

Foley throws hard, he has his entire career, but was told his four-seam fastball was “extremely average” from a metrics standpoint. Pivoting him to throw two-seamers and to form the sinker, which has arm-side run and depth to it.

“It pretty much entirely changed the landscape of my career. Up until that point I threw exclusively four seams and I would get away with it at the lower levels in the minor leagues because it was hard,” Foley said. 

“But by no means was it really like dominating hitters the way it probably could have or should have. So the more I've gotten comfortable with throwing sinkers, especially to both sides of the plate and using it backdoor to righties, it's been a great asset for me.”

Today, Foley’s sinker ranks at the top of pitchers in the Majors in terms of efficiency and usage.

The next step for the 27-year-old is improving his splits against left-handed hitters and pairing his change-up with his sinker. In 2022, left-handers hit .349 in 95 plate appearances against Foley, while right-handers hit .269 in 161 plate appearances.

“They tend to see sinkers from the opposite side better since it's going away from them which allows them to sit on it a little longer,” Foley said. “One thing I've been trying to do is throw some front hippers at them, which essentially looks like it's going to start at them and come right back on the zone.”

Foley’s path to the Majors started wobbly and much like the construction of a rollercoaster, there were ebbs and flows to overcome with it. 

But by paying his dues and adjusting his pitching sequence, Foley has gone from an undrafted free agent to a trusted bullpen pitcher.

“He’s a big weapon,” Hinch said. “We’ve shown patience with him over the last couple of seasons and he’s responded with subtle adjustments that have turned him into a legitimate leverage reliever.

“You have to experience something to feel good at this level and now that he has done that over the course of the last couple of years, we’re just seeing the maturation of a reliever.” 

By John Leuzzi // John Leuzzi served as the Director of Broadcast and Media Relations for the Mystic Schooners the last two seasons. He can be reached at jleuzzi@mysticbaseball.org or on Twitter @JohnLeuzziMU.