Trey Cobb’s Sidewinding Journey – OurSports Central

May 8, 2023 – International League (IL) – Lehigh Valley IronPigs News Release

Allentown, Pennsylvania – Up until the summer of 2021, Trey Cobb was a self-described JARP. Just Another Right Handed Pitcher.

“Every right-handed guy you see come out. We’re all 92-95 miles per hour, with a slider, and maybe a changeup. And that was me, I was always a pretty good strike thrower, so I was able to make it up to Triple-A,” Cobb says.

Cobb came from a baseball household where his grandfather, Frank Linzy, played 10 years in the Majors, finishing his career in 1974 with the Phillies. Linzy was 62-57 for his career with a 2.85 ERA pitching for the Giants, Cardinals, Brewers, and then the Phillies.

Cobb followed in his grandfather’s footsteps, born and raised in Oklahoma and then playing college baseball for Oklahoma State. Cobb helped lead the Cowboys to the College World Series in 2016 before he was drafted by the New York Mets the next year in the 8th round.

That first time Cobb made it to Triple-A was with the Mets organization in Syracuse in 2021. While Cobb was extremely good at throwing strikes, “a lot of those strikes ended up over the fence.”

On July 28, 2021, Cobb was 1-2 for Syracuse with a 7.82 ERA and had allowed 10 homers in 35.2 innings. It was time for a change, but not one that was made at Cobb’s behest.

“Around June or so of that year I started to throw 95 or so from a normal arm slot. So, the Mets staff came to me and said why don’t we try dropping your arm slot down and have you be a sidearmer? And immediately I was 93-95 sidearm.”

Switching to becoming a sidearmer is no easy task. Cobb had thrown over the top for his entire life and had made it to the precipice of the Majors. Physically it was a tall order, but also mentally it can be hard as well. Nobody every becomes a sidearmer by choice, only by necessity.

“Me just being who I am as a person allowed me to become a sidearmer. If I was this big, tough, alpha male and they had asked me to go sidearmer I probably would’ve said, ‘No. I’m not doing that, I’m doing it my way!’ But me just kind of being a goober when they asked me I said, ‘Ok, yeah, let’s go!’ I figured I’d try it out.

Even though the velocity results were immediate for Cobb, the on field results take a little bit longer.

“I figured I’d go down to Florida in the GCL and start this transition, but nope it was straight in to a save situation against Rochester.”

Cobb blew the save that day. The first batter he faced was Derek Deitrich who…