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Dylan Dodd throws a sinker that doesn’t sink. Nor does it have much horizontal movement. For all intents and purposes, it isn’t a sinker at all. Despite it being classified as such, the pitch is functionally a four-seamer delivered with a two-seam grip.

Labels aside, it works just fine. The 27-year-old southpaw has thrown his signature offering 87 times (59.6% usage) this season to the tune of a .158 batting average allowed and a 26.3% strikeout rate while making seven appearances out of the Atlanta Braves bullpen. Limited to 10 2/3 big league innings due to an earlier stint on the IL for thoracic spine inflammation, Dodd has fanned a dozen batters, allowed seven hits, and issued just one free pass.

I learned about his atypical “sinker” when the Braves visited Fenway Park late last month. All I knew prior to our conversation was that Dodd’s player page showed him having transitioned away from a four-seamer, and that doing so was yielding good results. Interested in the reason behind the switch — ditto the process behind it — I began by asking him if what I’d seen was accurate.

“Kind of,” replied Dodd, who came into the current campaign having appeared in 36 big league games since debuting in April 2023. “Technically it’s a sinker, but the movement profile is actually pretty much identical to a four-seam. I create something called reverse gyro. I’m a big pronator. I’m inside the baseball, so I get a weird seam effect when I throw a two-seam fastball.

“I’d always thrown a four-seam,” continued Dodd. “When I went over to the two-seam grip, the induced vertical break went up. I didn’t really understand why. This year we took a deep dive, and what’s causing it is the seam-shift orientation. So yes, it’s a sinker, but the profile is very much a four-seam.”

That would be accurate. Metrically, Atlanta’s third-round pick in the 2021 draft out of Southeast Missouri State College is averaging 17.1 inches of induced vertical break, the most of the 280 pitchers who have thrown at least 50 sinkers (as classified by Baseball Savant). Moreover, his 9.6 inches of induced horizontal break is less than all but three pitchers.

Not only does his “sinker” act like a four-seamer, it has better four-seam movement than his old fastball. Dodd explained that his old four-seamer typically averaged around 14 inches of vertical break and anywhere from 8 to 10 inches of horizontal break, leaving it “kind of in the dead zone.” An alteration was in order. As chance would have it, those efforts unexpectedly led to what is now his best weapon.

Dodd was working with Wes McGuire, then Atlanta’s pitching coordinator and now the org’s Triple-A pitching coach, when the discovery was made.

“This was in spring training of last year,” Dodd recalled. “The initial thought was that it was going to sink or run, but that’s not what happened. I don’t think we even knew why it was moving like it did, but he said to keep throwing it. After dealing with the ups and downs of it for a year, I came to spring training and learned just why the pitch does what it does.”

Jeremy Hefner knows exactly why it does what it does. Asked about Dodd’s “sinker,” Atlanta’s pitching coach offered a succinct explanation that largely echoed what the lefty reliever had told me.

“It’s thrown in the two-seam orientation, but it has the characteristics of a four-seamer,” explained Hefner, who pitched for the New York Mets in 2012 and 2013, then went on to become that team’s pitching coach from 2020 to 2025. “He’s got reverse gyro. He’s tapping into seam effects, essentially, and creating carry on a two-seam-oriented fastball. There are a couple of guys who do that. Josh Hader is one. Jake Odorizzi, back before we completely understood what gyro meant — or at least, before I understood what gyro meant. But there aren’t a lot of them.”

Hader is a good comp. The Houston Astros left-hander has only taken the mound once this season due to biceps tendinitis, but last year he averaged 18.5 inches of induced vertical break and 9.4 inches of induced horizontal break — numbers very similar to the ones Dodd gets.

“He’s a natural pronator, so he gets inside the ball,” Hefner went on to say. “When you over-pronate a four-seamer, it turns into a bad sinker. If you put a two-seam into their hand, and they throw it the exact same, it ends up getting some carry. It’s an anomaly in a lot of ways. Most people are supinators, so they get into a position with their hands towards their face, but some guys are naturally away from their face. Dylan is one of those guys.”