DENVER — When the Dodgers traded for Craig Kimbrel, they got themselves a “turn-key” closer, ready to move right in.

“I mean, he’s been doing it for a long time so there’s not much to do,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “Just give him the ball and get out of the way.”

Kimbrel has taken the ball for six different clubs now – riding into the ninth inning for the Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox before this – and closed out 521 games (37th all-time). Only eight players have saved more games than Kimbrel (373) and half of them are in the Hall of Fame.

But the 33-year-old Kimbrel has gone through some rough patches in recent years and he is evolving in response.

Each of the past four seasons, Kimbrel has relied less on his fastball – still powerful at an average of 96.5 mph last season – and more on his sharp-breaking curveball. He once threw the fastball 70% of the time or more. Last season, he used it just 59% of the time.

“When guys hit the fastball you have to throw the breaking pitch,” Kimbrel said of the change. “I think the game – some guys’ swings have really shifted to hit the ball at the top of the zone. It’s where I’ve really gone a lot in my career and to combat that I’ve just had to throw my offspeed pitches more. When I do it effectively, it works just fine.”

Kimbrel attributes some of his struggles with the White Sox last season (13 runs on 18 hits in 23 innings) to his inconsistency throwing that breaking ball for strikes – though his discomfort pitching in non-closing situations speaks more loudly.

“I think pitching-wise, there were some pitches that I wasn’t landing, and I was getting myself into some counts where I had to attack a little bit more,” Kimbrel said.

“I think at times, not being able to throw my breaking ball for strikes when I knew they were gonna give it to me, not be able to do that, I think I kind of put myself into a hole. I had outings where I got out of it and threw just fine. And other ones that weren’t so well. And it’s really just staying in control and making sure I can throw all my pitches.”

Prior and the Dodgers’ staff know the numbers and what they show about the changes in Kimbrel’s plan of attack over the past few seasons. But there is a grace period before they offer Kimbrel their spin on how he uses his pitch mix.

“We’re aware of it. I think we kind of want to see where it plays out,” Prior said. “With most things, we do have this, like, orientation-type period where we know what our numbers say but we want to see what he feels and what he thinks. Then we try to merge and marry the two.”

The percentages only show one part of the picture, Prior said. The Dodgers plan to dig a lot deeper than that.

“When you look at it in a vacuum and you look at usages, that’s one thing. Then it’s breaking it down layer by layer,” he said. “Okay, when are those usages? Is it early (in counts)? Is it late? Is it middle? Is he ahead? Is he behind? Obviously, there’s a lot more nuances to it. One thing we never want to do is make it such a black-and-white thing. We have to really understand what he thinks about it, where his confidence level is in certain situations rather than be, ‘Hey, we want to restructure this completely.’ Unless we see it’s a real blatant thing like, ‘This is a really good pitch we’re not exploiting.’

“For us, over the next couple weeks we’ll kind of see how he pitches – is he using it more early? Is he using it more late? Just trying to understand the dynamic of that.”

The cat-and-mouse game that has prompted Kimbrel to adjust his game is a familiar one. The Dodgers also saw it with their previous closer. Kenley Jansen has tried to evolve in recent years, no longer able to rely exclusively on beating hitters with his cut fastball thrown to the top of the strike zone.

Kimbrel has maintained his velocity better than Jansen. But his recognition of how hitters have adjusted in recent years is one Prior shares.

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“I completely agree with that,” said Prior, who joined the Dodgers as bullpen coach in 2018 before succeeding Rick Honeycutt as pitching coach in 2020. “Even just in my short time since I started here … you’ve seen a drastic change in hitting philosophy and the ability to teach how to get on top of balls and how to attack guys who are attacking the top of the strike zone. They’re doing a much better job of teaching and relaying to their hitters how to approach different types of pitchers, where before it was about groove your swing.

“You can’t live up there now. It was a similar thing with Kenley in years past. They’ve learned how to get on top of balls so you’ve got to do some different things – change eye levels, give them different looks to kind of throw them off the scent.”

Kimbrel said he “definitely” pays attention to all the increasingly sophisticated analytics that are available to pitchers – and that the Dodgers will, no doubt, use to try to maximize his performance. But that only goes so far.

“There are counts and tendencies that I want to pay attention to,” he said. “But at the same time, I can’t get too wrapped up in it. End of the day, I just got to lift up my foot, get balanced and go to the plate and hope they swing and miss.”

“Some guys’ swings have really shifted to hit the ball at the top of the zone,” new Dodgers closer Craig Kimbrel said. “It’s where I’ve really gone a lot in my career and to combat that I’ve just had to throw my offspeed pitches more. When I do it effectively, it works just fine.” (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)