11
2012
Knuckleballers… They Are Like The Kickers Of MLB
An article by 
It comes as no surprise to most Mets fans, but the team has officially been eliminated from the NL East race. They are 22 games behind the NL East leading Washington Nationals and only have 21 games to play.
The team has little to play for the rest of the way, and the majority of the team has probably started booking some off-season vacations. The one player who still has a lot to play for is RA Dickey. With a potential Cy Young Award hanging in the balance, we can only hope the Mets will put those off-season plans on the back burner, and focus on playing mistake free baseball while Dickey is on the mound the rest of the way.
Image Credit: Charles Miller
Dickey, with all of his success this season, still seems like an underdog to win the Cy Young this year. The reason is obvious – he is a knuckleballer.
Early Wynn won the Cy Young in 1959, and used the knuckleball as part of his arsenal, but he was never considered a knuckleballer. Famed knuckleballer Joe Niekro only finished as high as second in Cy Young award voting. Could this be the year that a knuckleballer finally gets recognized as the leagues best pitcher? Mets fans, don’t get your hopes up just yet.
The knuckle ball is still considered a gimmick pitch. Baseball traditionalists will tell you that the art of pitching is changing speeds, moving the ball around the strike zone, and keeping hitters off balance. It’s a game of cat and mouse, and the pitcher is usually the cat. The pitcher holds a huge advantage over hitters because the hitter has no idea what the pitcher is going to throw next. The hitter has to decide whether to swing at a pitch in the blink of an eye when that ball is released from the pitcher’s hand. Hitting a baseball is still the most difficult thing to do in sports, and as the old adage states, good pitching beats good hitting any day of the week.
When a pitcher is on that mound, putting the ball wherever he wants, mowing down hitter after hitter, it’s like hearing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. It’s a masterpiece. You don’t get that same feeling when it’s a knuckleballer. There is just something about that knuckleball pitcher that doesn’t feel right. It’s almost as if a pitcher was striking guys out using the eephus pitch. In the MLB, you have pitchers…then you have knuckleballers. That says it all. Just like in football you have football players…and then you have kickers. Kickers are important, teams rely on them to win games for them, they wear helmets and pads, have to make tackles like the other football players…but they’re kickers, not football players.
Will knuckleballers ever gain the respect they deserve? Maybe if Dickey wins the Cy Young Award this year, they will for a little while. But it will be short lived. The knuckle ball will always be viewed as a gimmick pitch, and knuckleballers will never receive the type of respect that traditional pitchers do. They will always be the kickers of the MLB.
About the Author: Mitch Petanick
Mitch is currently an Editor and Minor League Analyst for Mets Merized Online. His baseball experience includes being a former All-Conference collegiate baseball player who had numerous professional tryouts, and he is currently a hitting instructor. He has been involved with the game of baseball for over 30 years now as a player, coach, and consultant. Mitch is also a former Featured Columnist on Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @FirstPitchMitch.
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Good post mitch. THe CORE salute you as usual. I watched good knuckleballer pitch, but again, they don’t get the recognizition they deserve i agree.
Gimmick pitch or not, the person the Cy Young award was named after had a few gimmick pitches of his own. Sadly, if it comes down to similar numbers between the Cy Young finalists, I’m certain the vote will go against Dickey and for the exact reasons you mention, namely a lack of respect for kuckleballers.
I really hope you’re wrong Mitch on the respect of knuckle ballers going forward. But I can understand the mindset.
Read somewhere recently that a young high school pitcher got in touch with RA Dickey on the art of throwing a knuckle ball. Are there now a couple of these young guys out there that are evaluating themselves honestly thinking they don’t have the traditional ‘stuff’ to get to the big leagues, but can possibly have success as a knuckle ball? If yes, I have to think that Dickey’s perseverance and ensuing success lends a lot to that.
And just to add….I think one of the things that made RA eventually successful is the fact that he was once a traditional pitcher. Even though he predominately throws the knuckle ball, he’s got 2-3 different speeds on that knuckle ball. He knows even with one pitch, you’ve got to have something to keep batters off balance.
My favorite is when he occasionally lobs that 59 MPH knuckler out there.
Agreed, I think he just added that one this year. Basically he has a fastball, a 2 seam fast ball that rises, a cutter that cuts in on LH, a sinker that drops off the planet and the change up. People that think he is a one trick pony has not seen him pitch.
That being said, I don’t think it’s a pitch that HS should be relying on. Dickey is doing something that has NEVER been done with the knuckle ball. His ability to control and command the pitch is utterly amazing.
My dad was and still is a high school baseball coach. He used to coach little league before that too. SRT reminded me of a discussion that came up at our 4th of July barbecue about that same thing, two of his pitchers were seeking out instruction on learning to throw a knuckleball and one of them went so far as to reach out to Tim Wakefield who graciously replied and told him if he aspired to be a major leaguer to focus on throwing a better curve or hitting his spots with his fastball. His student was kind of disappointed in the response but he did take it to heart from what my dad told me.
Yup, I have a basketball player whose shot is unusual to say the least. However, when I got here he was making it so I had no desire to change it. However, there is no way that I would ever teach a kid to shoot that way.
I was actually at a tryout for the Atlanat Braves once back in my glory days, and there was a guy there trying to get signed as a knuckle ball pitcher. His knuckle ball was great, and the scouts seemed impressed with it, but needless to say he received a quick exit from the tryout. I don’t think scouts will ever be looking for knuckle ball pitchers…it’s something that pitchers turn into as they try to hang on to their careers for a few more years.
Where you an actual participant in those tryouts, or just observing?
Participant. I had many tryouts with various teams, and have the distinction of saying I was never sent home from a tryout early…but never signed either lol…oh well.
Very cool. You’re like the character Moonlight Graham. Came close to that early dream.
My Dad was approached by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization when he was a senior in HS playing SS for the school team in the early 50s. They wanted him to come try out. As much as he loved baseball and would like to have dreamed, he said he knew he didn’t have the bat to ever be successful in the majors. Think Buddy Harrelson. Back then Dad was barely a 5′ 9″ wiry shortstop with a lot of speed, great defense and a very light bat.
Moonlight Mitch ha! I gave up the dream when I was 22 – that’s usually the cutoff point for a young man looking to get signed unless you are a freak of nature. It was after a tryout with the Cincinnatti Reds. I remember I had just started working for a company that I won’t publicize here, had no vacation time yet, and had to call in and tell them that I was going to the tryout and would be late for work – I was nervous that I would lose my job, but they were actually pretty cool about it. So I get to the tryout in the best shape of my life – run my fastest timed 60yd dash ever – so fast that I thought it was a mistake. But they plan for that and make everyone run it twice – sure enough I ran the same thing the second time. Then on to the throwing portion – they make the outfielders throw from Right Field and you get three-five throws across to third base and then home plate. Based on a 60yd dash, and then 5-6 throws, the scouts determine if you have good enough tools to waste their time and watch you hit. They make cuts and if you don’t make the grade throwing and running you get sent home, if you make the grade you get to hit. So I get invited to hang around to hit with about 15 other guys…there was well over 300 guys at the tryout…all invited from accross the tri-state area and beyond driving hours to have one shot to impress a scout. After hitting, the scout invites three of us for an extended workout and sends everyone else home. At the end of the workout he sits us down in the dugout and says to us…and I will never forget it…you three guys are good enough to be in our minor league system, we just can’t sign you today – then offered to get us on an independent league team to play and if an opening in the organization opened up, we might get the call. Well at that time I was making more money than an independent league player, so I decided right then and there to give it up. I think hearing the scout say I was good enough to at least be in the system gave me some closure. I walked away with no regrets. But even I sometimes wonder if I grew up in a warm weather state…or not in the steroid era…would things have been different?
Sounds like the makings of a good book.
I read a book a couple of years ago, the title and the author skip my mind, but basically similar story for a kid with the Angels who pitched in an Ivy league school. It was an incredible read on what a young prospect who doesn’t quite make it goes through.
I will say this, I bet you GM’s across the league are itching to give Dickey the respect he deserves with his next contract.
Better be our FO….
Agreed, in our contract negotiations with Dickey and Wright one thing they need to consider is that they have proved that they can perform in NY without controversy while bringing nothing but respect to the organization. How much is that worth?
I think a lot.
Look at AJ Burnett for one. Success the year before he joined the Yankees and the year he was traded from the Yankees. I know some write off that ‘NY mentality’ idea, but I think there is something to that for some players.
Look at Heath Bell. Suckitude to the highest here and then heads off to nothing land and excels only to choke again when the pressure of a big contract was on.
For those worrying about our FO signing dickey i’d say don’t worry guys. Our FO personal is among the best in baseball, and i am sure our Beloved GM will do what’s best for the org.
LGM!
I think R.A. Dickey is the exception to the rule. He is rewriting the book on knuckleballers (literally) and more and more people are starting to take note. Where in the past most knuckleballers lacked the ability to locate their pitches, Dickey operates with the precision of a surgeon. His walk rate is always one of the best in the league, and as you know most knuckleballers in the past had the worst walk rates in the league. Dickey is a special case. A knuckleballer who can actually pitch with the best of them.
Right, but I think as you said he most likely is just that. An exception to the rule, not someone setting the rule.
Whatever you think, or they think, about the knuckleball, comparing Dickey to a football kicker is unjustified. I think he’d he deeply insulted by that comparison.
Dickey is a complete baseball player: he fields, he hits, his in game savvy is amaziing, and he gets guys out. No, he aint no one D football kicker.
You failed to connect the dots that kickers don’t get the respect they deserve in the NFL similar to the way that knuckleballers don’t in the MLB. This is not comparing Dickey to a kicker – it’s pointing out the lack of respect knuckleballers get.
I picked up on the nuance of your piece. The straw man is the NFL kicker which sets the tone of an argument not worth having.
The same thing that scouts and GMs ignore about a Knuckleballer are the same things that lead them to have so many busts with the conventional pitchers!
The Knuckleball isn’t a Gimmick it is the quintisential pitch in that it is one where theb Pitcher knows where he is trying to throw it and the batter does not!
Thats pretty much what a fastball Curve pitcher tries to do only he does it vis pitch spection as opposed to pitch location.
A good Knucklballer has some idea where that pitch is going (Dickey does!) and the fact the pitch disguises it’s path until the last minute is no different than a backdoor slider, late breaking Sinker or Curveball that looks like a ball right up until it crosses the plate as a strike!
That is the REAL essence of pitching, getting a batter to think it’s going one place only to have it goes someplace else!
Thats how you get guys out not by throwing it faster than he can swing because if the batter is ready for a 98 MPH fastball he will crush it, Expects a curve in the zone and if it’s in the strike zone it’s a hanger to him.
The Art of pitching is as much about setting up and fooling the batter than it is about how good your fatball hops, Curve Curves,or Sinker Sinks!
It is an art of FOOLING the batter!
And the Knuckleball does that as well as any pitch that exists!
Unfortunatly the scouts, coaches and GMs don’t look for the ability to win the MENTAL battle and rely too much on Radar guns and pitch arsenal.
Well you could be able to throw every pitch ever invented that is not a fastball but if you can’t fool the batter and use your pitches to set him up and fool him you won’t succeed!
Not all Knucklballers have the ability Dickey has to locate and set up batters. And truth is neither do many of the coventional pitchers you see these days.
Which is why a guy with 3 or 4 Pitches like McHugh and Hefner get beat up on!
Because being able to thorw a pitch isn’t as important as knowing how and when to throw it and fool the batter so he doesn’t know it’s coming and getting him to swing badly at it!
Pitching is a mental art as much as a physical one!
Too bad the scouts haven’t figured that out yet!
Pitching is not about fooling the batter. A good hitter doesn’t get fooled by pitches. There are times when hitters “lock in,” meaning they are looking for a specific pitch to try and hit out of the park – generally this is the only time they get fooled.
A gimmick is defined as a device or scheme which is designed to increase appeal. At this point, the knuckleball is being used by pitchers as a last ditch effort to remain in the MLB, because their skills have eroded to the point where that may no longer be able to keep a job. That would mean a knuckleball is a gimmick. It’s being used to increase the appeal of the pitcher that may be on his last leg in order to remain relevant. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an effective pitch – it certainly is. But nobody will ever be drafted as a knuckleballer. The way the knuckleball is thrown is mechanically unsound – so it is not a pitch that any pitchers would be taught to throw unless it was a last resort.