A new left-handed reliever with a potent four-seamer and breaking ball arsenal is finding tremendous success in the Dodgers‘ bullpen. Before the season, the assumption about this prediction would’ve been that it’d be referring to Tanner Scott, but no, that’s not who we’re here to talk about. Jack Dreyer has one of the more intriguing relievers in the National League, and if he continues on this trajectory, he might very well be pitching crucial innings for this team down the stretch and into the postseason.

For anyone not familiar with Jack Dreyer’s game, you’re probably not alone. After all, he did go undrafted out of college, which is not something you normally see from someone who didn’t take that long to pitch in the bigs, starting his pro career in 2022. Dreyer missed the 2021 campaign recovering from Tommy John surgery.

After pitching only 12 innings in 2022, Dreyer got his first full minor league season in 2023, and the lefty blazed through the Dodgers’ system. Overall, Dreyer had 164 strikeouts and a 2.18 ERA in an even 100 games as a minor league across three levels.

Dreyer impressed enough in spring training that he earned a spot on the opening day roster. Now, amidst a loaded bullpen with the likes of Kirby Yates, Tanner Scott, and Evan Phillips, Dreyer has a strong case as one, if not, perhaps the most dominant Dodgers’ reliever across the first 25 games of the year. Dreyer was so good that despite a blow-up outing against the Cubs in his last appearance, he still has a sub-1.000 WHIP and 3.07 ERA.

Tossing his curve about 13 percent of the time, Dreyer has a pretty even split between sliders and four-seamers, both thrown at a rate of over 40 percent.

If you want to visualize a comp for Dreyer, think if the Dodgers could clone Alex Vesia, and that’s basically what’s happening here. Pitchers can throw the same pitches and be completely different from each other, but for Dreyer and Vesia, the similarities are clear.

Starting with the fastball, what makes it work for both of them is the induced vertical movement. In fact, if we look at the MLB rankings on Baseball Savant, here is where they rank:

• 1st: Vesia (21,7 inches)
• 7th: Dreyer (20.2 inches)

The only other left-hander ahead of Dreyer here is Yuki Matsui of the Padres.

Hitters aren’t swinging and missing at Dreyer’s heater as much as they do with Vesia’s, but the edge for Dreyer is that he is allowing weak contact at a significantly higher rate than Vesia on that specific pitch. Dreyer’s fastball is outperforming its expected numbers a bit as he has yet to allow a hit on the pitch, but the characteristics are there for it to do quite well in the big leagues.

Moving on to the slider, Dreyer has a swinging strike rate of 24.1 percent on the pitch, which puts him in the 85th percentile in baseball. Dreyer throws his slider in the zone more than league-average, it generates more swings than league average, and hitters can’t seem to do much of anything against it.

It’s still too early to make determinations about what Dreyer will be, but the upside is there. An issue that hurt his most recent outing against the Cubs was the failure to throw the four-seamer for strikes; only two of 13 were in the zone. Still, it was a type of appearance entirely different than most of his previous ones, which might have caused some jitters. One game won’t affect the Dodgers’ willingness to keep using him in bigger spots, and we’ll see how he responds. For a guy who went undrafted out of college, the Dodgers found a hidden gem.