Near the end of the season, Michael Lorenzen asked Trevor Bauer if he could take a deeper look at his delivery.

Lorenzen is one of the best athletes in the sport. He’s a hard-throwing reliever, one of the fastest players on the Reds and among their best defensive outfielders. But Lorenzen always thought he should be throwing harder, especially when he saw some of the other pitchers who could reach 99 mph with their fastballs.

“I said, ‘How am I this strong, how am I this explosive, how am I this mobile and how does this guy throw as hard as me?’” Lorenzen said. “We looked at it and he’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re losing energy in a couple of ways and there is more in there that you can just pull out pretty easily.’ I’m going to make that fastball better this offseason.”

Lorenzen plans to work with Bauer during the offseason, confident that he can add 2 or 3 mph to his fastball through a more efficient delivery. Lorenzen’s four-seam fastball averaged 97.2 mph this season, according to Statcast, and his sinker sat at 96.4 mph.

Bauer, known for his data-driven approach to pitching, offers to help teammates. When Bauer was in Cleveland, he helped starter Mike Clevinger increase the velocity on his fastball.

“A lot of people think, ‘uh oh, he’s going to try to gain velo and he’s going to get hurt,’” Lorenzen said. “That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about making my delivery more efficient where I’m actually able to throw harder with less effort. That’s a real thing if you understand human anatomy and human movement. It’s a real thing. With my strength numbers and my power numbers and my movement quality, I should be throwing harder. It’s in there.

“Me and Trevor have already found flaws in my delivery, which for me, I was pumped to hear about my flaws in my delivery because it tells me I have more. It proved what I have always thought. It shows I can get better.”

[Reds Beat Podcast: Breaking down the 2019 season and the Reds' offseason plans]

Lorenzen finished the season with a 2.92 ERA in 73 relief appearances, earning seven saves. He struck out a career-high 9.2 batters per nine innings and pitched 83 1/3 innings, one out shy of tying Milwaukee Brewers reliever Junior Guerra for the most innings by a National League reliever.

A turning point, he said, was a bad series against the Chicago Cubs in August. He faced five hitters, allowed three runs and recorded zero outs. He wanted to make changes in the way he attacked hitters but pitching coach Derek Johnson convinced him to stay the course.

After the August series against the Cubs, Lorenzen had a 1.50 ERA in his final 17 outings, which spanned 24 innings.

“D.J. did a really good job of keeping me accountable,” Lorenzen said. “There were times where I wanted to fight against it after a bad outing or something, just because I care so much, and I want to do so well. After a bad outing, it’s tough to not try to change everything up. D.J. did a really good job of keeping me accountable to that. I think that’s what led to the consistency for the second half.

“Without D.J., man, I’d probably would’ve made so many left turns and right turns and been distracted, ‘oh, this new pitch,’ and been distracted there and stuff like that.”

Lorenzen took pride in his second half of the season. He felt like he developed into the pitcher that he wanted to be, and the coaching staff gave him more opportunities to play in center field. He made six starts in center during September as manager David Bell used it as a trial for next year.

“To have all the jobs thrown at me and all these opportunities come, the questions were ‘well, it’s going to affect his pitching,’” Lorenzen said. “This is probably my best year on a mound when I’ve had the most responsibility when it comes outside of pitching. I think the sample size is there, a big enough sample size to say he can do both and it’s not going to affect his pitching. It’s actually made me a better pitcher, to be honest.”

When Lorenzen entered the offseason last year, he was searching for a putaway pitch because his strikeouts were down. Then he found success with his changeup, which played well off his fastball.

Now, he wants his fastball to be better than ever.

“I felt like after all the years of trying to figure out who I am and what I do,” he said, “I feel like that second half I really found who I am and what I do. I give all the credit to our pitching (coaches when it comes to the pitching side. They are the ones that laid out the map for me. They showed me why I should do this, which route I should take, why I’m good and we ran with it.”