'SubMariner' Cleveland finds success in Minors with an unexpected arm slot
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PEORIA, Ariz. – When Tyler Cleveland started his college career at Central Arkansas in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he was very much a generic right-handed reliever, coming at hitters with a standard delivery and a fastball that sat around 85-86 mph to go along with a pedestrian breaking ball.
The results were less than ideal: eight runs over seven innings before things shut down.
"I was over the top, like traditional, when I came out of high school," Cleveland said. "Things just weren't working out. It was my second year in college and they were like, 'Let's make a switch.'"
And that's where "The SubMariner" was born. It's been a gradual transformation for the Mariners' No. 30 prospect, first finding a sidearm slot and then eventually to his underneath, knuckles-nearly-scraping-the-mound style.
"I ran with it and just dropped down," Cleveland said. "It wasn't naturally where I'm at now. By the end of it, I didn't watch any video, I just continued to try to drop down and by the end of it, I kind of ended up where I am now.
"I was probably just a stock three-quarters guy, and now with the torso, I'm probably… 3-1 is the technical [term] where we're at when Trackman data comes out. So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun being able to do it."
He closed at Central Arkansas in 2021 during this progression, saving nine games and finishing with a 2.43 ERA and 11.3 K/9 rate. It worked in a starting role for the Bears in 2022 as Cleveland tossed four complete games and posted a 2.93 ERA and a 6.3 K/BB ratio. It was intriguing enough for the Mariners to take him in the 14th round of that summer's Draft and he even spent a year starting in the California League, where he led the Single-A circuit in WHIP (1.14) and placed second in ERA (3.56), albeit at age 23, a bit old for the level.
The move back to a relief role in 2024 has been a good one. He missed some time but managed to post a 3.38 ERA over 36 appearances for High-A Everett. Strikes were a bit of a challenge, but it was funky and deceptive enough to miss a lot of bats and not get hit too hard.
Then things really took off this season. Pitching his way from Everett to Double-A Arkansas, Cleveland combined for an absurd 0.87 ERA, 0.75 WHIP and .128 batting average against. He's added 12 K's over 6 2/3 innings of work in the Arizona Fall League, picking up his first save on Friday afternoon.
And he does all of it primarily with a "fast"ball that sits around 85-86 mph and a slow sweeper that can creep up on hitters in the low-70s. He'll mix in a changeup and an occasional cutter to keep hitters off of his typical one-two punch. His mode of operation might seem unusual, and it is, even for those other few arms in the sidearm/submarine community.
"It's a traditional four-seam; it plays more like the ride four-seam that you see," Cleveland explained. "Most guys from my slot will throw a sinker. For some reason, it doesn't work for me. I stuck with this one. The main one I throw is the slider. … It's more of that Tyler Rogers rising sweeper type deal. Just throw a frisbee, that's what I call it."
Rogers might be the only role model Cleveland can look at, even if his not-so-heater is a sinker. It's a short list of guys who have found success with stuff that is the pitching equivalent of the Walkman: peaking in the '80s.
"It was the hardest thing because obviously there's not many guys like me, so you don't know what's going to happen," Cleveland said. "But the Mariners did a really good job of instilling that confidence in me, showing me the guys who have thrown like me in the past and showing me how unique my shapes are with the stuff I throw compared to those guys.
"I went to University of Central Arkansas, a small college. I didn't know what was going to happen, but through the years of being able to do all this, I'm to a point now where I believe in myself to be able to get outs at the big league level."