Q. What different pitch grips are there?
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Sinker
Cutter
Splitter
Knuckleball
Learning & Developing Pitches
Interviews with David Laurila, Fangraphs
FASTBALL
Matt Andriese (Rays) on His Four-Seamer
“I was a sinker/slider guy coming up through the San Diego system. I thought my sinker was a good pitch — I was having success with it — but when I came to the Rays in 2014, the data we had showed that my four-seam was actually better. As a result, I kind of stopped throwing the two-seam. I was in Triple-A at that time.
“I started working more vertical, up and down instead of east and west. That helped me use my other pitches — my changeup, my curveball, and my slider — with more depth, instead of working side to side. Since that time, it’s mostly been a matter of fine-tuning things. It’s not like I was learning a new pitch, because the four-seamer is something I already had.
“The data we have now, the spin rate and all that stuff, shows that it works better in the top half of the zone, or above the zone. That’s if I want a swing and miss or a pop up. I don’t know what my spin rate is off the top of my head, but I’ve been told it’s pretty good. [So far this season Andriese’s four-seam has averaged 2,425 rpm.]
“In 2014, I was working with Neil Allen. Then, in 2015, Kyle Snyder was in Triple-A as pitching coach. That was the year I kind of fine-tuned my repertoire. I stuck with a good plan and started seeing more consistent results.”
Gerrit Cole, Astros
“It’s all about the fastball. From a young age, I’ve thrown both the two-seam and the four-seam. I just try to keep my fingers on top of the ball and get after it, man. It’s pretty simple.
“You try to locate it the best you can, knowing that overcooking the pitch — whether that’s overthrowing it or overthinking it — can cause you to maybe leak the ball over the plate or simply lose some of the quality of the pitch. You try to be as relaxed as you can, and have the most-connected delivery that you can. You keep your fingers on top of the ball, spin it, and take it right through the glove. Don’t try to do too much. Just let it eat.
“The fastball is important for sustainability. It’s important for the baseline. Regardless of a starter’s repertoire — and everyone will tell you this — it boils down to fastball command. When you can throw strikes and establish all four quadrants of the zone… you have to get ahead of guys. You have to put pressure on hitters. You have to be able to establish the strike zone with your fastball, whether it’s a four-seamer a two-seamer, so that you can get swings and misses on breaking balls outside the zone.”
Dallas Keuchel, Astros
“I had a standard two-seam grip. I was in college — I think this was 2008, my sophomore year — and one of the ESPN games was on. Jon Lester was throwing. He had this one-seam grip. He offset the two-seam in a way that when he throws it, the hitters only see one seam. That’s why they call it a one-seam.
“They were showing his pitch grips [on the broadcast]. They were saying how he offset his two-seam because of Tim Hudson and how he got better action out of it. I started tinkering with that. I’d always had run on my two-seam, but then I started getting sink and run. Two-plane movement is better than one-plane movement.
“Something that that works in my favor is that I’ve always gotten great extension out front — I’m above league average — and I think late movement happens with full extension, as opposed to when you’re cutting yourself off. I think it’s one of those things where it kind of naturally comes out of my hand the right way.
“Everybody has their quirkiness about them. Everybody has their specialty, and mine is late movement. I don’t really know how to teach that, other than full extension out front and just letting the grip do the work. Some guys have high velocity and some guys, like myself, have late movement. Part of that is God-given ability, and conversations and adjustments also factor into it.
“I’ve never talked to Lester about it, but I do talk to our guys. We have a pretty good group, and as pitchers, if you don’t have conversations, you’re missing out on stuff. There’s always room for improvement, whether you’re the worst pitcher in baseball or the best.”
Seung Hwan Oh (Blue Jays) on His Four-Seam Fastball
“This is maybe going to be boring, but the grip on my fastball is a little different than the standard [four-seamer] that most guys throw. There’s a little bit of gap between my hand and the ball. I also have my thumb on the side of the ball, and if you watch closely enough, with kind of slow-motion video, when I release the ball my pinky lifts up a little bit. Maybe that’s interesting.
“I learned that grip when I was in middle school. My coach taught it to me. He told me that I could pitch faster. That was the only reason he gave. I practiced that pitch and somehow it worked out pretty good. Pitch grips [in Korea] are pretty similar to here, it just happens that my fastball grip is a little unique.”
SLIDER
Lance McCullers Jr., Astros
“After my freshman year of high school, I committed to the University of Florida as an infielder. I didn’t really pitch yet. But I would go to Perfect Game events and whatnot, and would throw hard from shortstop; I would get my velo up from shortstop. Then I started getting on the mound at those events and would be throwing 95-96, as a 16-year-old. At that point, no one really cared if I could play the infield or hit anymore. It all became about pitching. That’s when I met Jose Fernandez and started working out with him. That’s when I started making the transition.
“Going into my junior summer is when I really started pitching more. Our pitching coach, Geoff Goetz, who was the sixth-overall pick back in 1997, threw a spiked curveball, similar to how Drew Pomeranz throws his. He showed me the grip, told me to work on it, and I was feeling good with it, but it never really had the break I felt the pitch needed.
“One day I was out there messing around with it, and I put the spike in the middle of the seam instead of doing a full knuckle curve. I put my fingernail right in the middle of that seam, ripped over it, and it had the same spin as before — but with more depth and bite. And it was late. That was a very quick moment for me, the moment where it clicked. This was probably after a couple months of working on the other curveball and getting the spin.
“When you’re working flat ground, you’re looking for spin. If you can see movement, there’s going to be too much when you get on the mound. The hitters are going to be able to recognize that movement. So, if you’re on flat ground, working on a pitch — a sinker, a changeup, a curveball, whatever it is — just look at how it’s spinning. Is my two-seam spinning on the right axis? Is my curveball ripping over the way I want it to? If it is, that spin should translate over to the mound and to hitters not being able to recognize that pitch coming out of your hand.”
Dennis Eckersley (Hall of Famer) on His Slider
“I couldn’t throw a curveball because of my angle. I couldn’t get on top of it. That’s all they’d ever tell me. Every time somebody would whistle at me, it would be, ‘Get your arm up! Get your elbow up!’ But a slider came pretty easy. It was just, ‘Turn your wrist a little bit.’
“I went straight from high school to pro ball [in 1972], and all of a sudden my fastball didn’t play. I was in the California League when I was 17, and they could hit. The next thing you know, I’m throwing a lot more breaking balls than I ever did in my life. I didn’t have any choice.
“I still relied a lot on my fastball when I got to the big leagues [in 1975] — I threw hard when I first came up — but then I developed a better slider. It got to where I could play with it later in my career.
“I had one that I threw real hard, and I had one where I kind of took a little off. But I didn’t always have the depth that I wanted. I tried to get on top, but on top for me… you still have to have some depth on your slider. You can’t have a flat one. I fought that flat slider my whole life.
“I actually had a third [slider]. My slider almost became a changeup when I threw the slower one and got underneath it with my middle finger. If you do that it’s going to back up and run out of gas. I would just spin the ball sometimes. I didn’t want it to break. Guys used to say, ‘What is that thing you’re throwing?’ I’d do it against a left-handed hitter, because he’d see spin — he’d think it was a slider — but it would stay there and he’d pull off. He’d better pull off.
“What happened is that they figured out I could get out right-handed hitters, so next thing you know they put all-left-handed lineups against me. I had to come up with something else. In another universe I would have had a good changeup, but I didn’t have one, so I used my slider, a little backup piece, as a changeup. I got good at it.”
Jeff Hoffman (Rockies) on His Slider
“The one pitch in my repertoire that I haven’t thrown my whole life is my slider. I picked that up in college. It actually started as a cutter, but I couldn’t really keep it small, like a cutter, so it turned into a slider. I’ve kind of just hung with it through the years, embracing it as a slider.
“Again, the original plan was a cutter. My curveball tends to be bigger, and we wanted something smaller that was just enough to miss a barrel. When I was in college, I tended to cut fastballs once in awhile, so it was one of those things where, if I do it by accident, I could probably do it on purpose. Dan Roszel was my pitching coach at East Carolina and he said, ‘Let’s try it.’
“When I got to pro ball, the Blue Jays weren’t a fan of cutters. When I told them that I was working on one, they kind of said, ‘Either it’s going to be a slider or it isn’t going to be anything at all.’ So I started throwing a slider.
“I didn’t actually change anything. Like I said, my cutter came out big, so I simply stopped calling it a cutter and started calling it a slider. It’s the same pitch.”
CC Sabathia (Yankees) on His Slider
“It would be my slider. I learned it in 2005. Carl Willis was the pitching coach in Cleveland at the time, and he wanted me to start throwing a cutter so I’d have something to get in on righties. He showed me a grip, we started throwing it in the bullpen, and it turned into my slider. I had only thrown a curveball and a changeup to that point.
“I threw it in the bullpen that day and then took it into my very next start. It was 83, like a good slider, and I was throwing it well. I had something like six strikeouts on it. Ichiro took it deep twice, though, so I had both good and bad results.
“Why [did it end up being a slider]? It’s just the way I throw it. That was just me… What’s weird is that, in my head and my mind, I still call it a cutter. And I throw a traditional cutter now, too — I started throwing that in 2014 — so I kind of throw two cutters.”
Sergio Romo (Rays) on His Slider
“My senior year of college, I went to school in Grand Junction, Colorado. The thin air and altitude there made my breaking ball really inconsistent, so when I came home for Christmas break, I talked to my dad and grandpa about it. They both played ball in Mexico. I was playing catch with them and my grandpa said, ‘Hey, how about if you grab it like this?’ My dad was like, ‘Yeah, grab it like that and think this’ — certain concepts about it — and I started to throw it that way. It was pretty decent, so I was like, ‘Hey, all right.’
“The one I had been throwing came out like a slurve. It was right in between — I couldn’t tell you if it was a slider or a curve — but it was kind of loopy. Playing in Colorado, it would just kind of float in there. The new grip allowed me to get more revolutions on the ball, and the thin air didn’t really affect it. Even when I go to Colorado now, to play the Rockies, it doesn’t really change.
“I’ve been told that I get a different rotation on the ball, a different spin, and that you can’t see the dot on it. But it’s a pitch I throw a lot — it’s my 95 mph fastball — so the league started to adjust. I had to refine it, so that I wasn’t throwing the same slider every time. I learned to throw the short harder one, and thought, ‘Man, if I can add, I wonder if I can subtract?’ So I learned to subtract, and all of a sudden it started going down. Now I have the short hard one, the one that goes down, and a big loopy one.”
Jakob Junis (Royals) on His Slider
“It’s technically a slider, although sometimes it has more of a curveball break because of the way I release it. I’ve always looked at it as a slider, because I also throw a curveball — a traditional type of curveball — with a different grip. The grip I came up with for my slider is fairly new.
“I started throwing a slider in Double-A, and it really wasn’t a very good one. It was with a standard, trying-to-learn grip. That offseason I went home and said, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ I knew that I needed a new grip to get more shape and to throw it a little firmer.
“In spring training [of 2017], I was fumbling around with a ball, trying to get something with good feel in my hand, and I came across kind of a little different, untraditional grip. I don’t know of anybody else who throws it this way. When guys ask me about it, I’ll show them and they’ll say, ‘I never would have guessed you throw it that way.’
“The ball… you have the two horseshoes running on top, like a two-seamer, and I move it over onto that one seam and put my fingers on top of the ball. Usually, a slider is thrown from the bottom of the horseshoe, not up on top. I try not to manipulate the hand too much. I just try to grip it and rip it, really. I throw it hard and let the spin to the work.
“Nobody really taught it to me. Again, it’s just something I felt out on my own. I started playing catch with it and guys were saying, ‘Oh, man, that’s pretty nasty.’ I took it to a mound in bullpens, and eventually into games, and it kind of took off for me. It’s become my go-to pitch.”
Kyle Ryan (Cubs) on His Cutter/Slider
“In my opinion, the pitch that got me to the big leagues was my cutter, which is now more or less a slider. It started as a cutter — a very horizontal pitch — and now it’s got a little depth to it.
“The process began with looking at video of Drew Smyly. That’s back when we were both in the Tigers system. The cutter helped him get to the big leagues, and he got there fast. After seeing that, I started messing around with one.
“I fiddled with it on the side, and then before I introduced it to a game, I talked to Mike Maroth, who coached me in High-A Lakeland and again in Triple-A. It was nice having a let-handed pitching coach. He’d thrown that pitch, too, and was able to help me refine it.
“But again, I’ve added depth to it. The cutter is a good pitch — don’t get me wrong — but when you add depth it’s even better. That was prompted by the Tigers. They liked the cutter — the tight, short action — but they wanted me to add depth and not just be horizontal.”
Blake Treinen (Athletics) on His Slider
“I’ve always had a breaking ball, but it used to be 82-83ish and more slurvy. In 2014, after a start in Pittsburgh, it was kind of, ‘We have to figure something else out, because it’s too inconsistent. It’s backing up on you. It’s not great.’ Steve McCatty was my pitching coach in DC at the time. In Triple-A it was Paul Menhart, and he taught me kind of a cutter grip. He was like, ‘Just learn to feel this off your fingertips first, then we’ll work on manipulating it a little bit.’ It kind of evolved from there.
Treinen’s old slider grip.
“Whenever I have to reset it, I just try to throw it like a cutter. I throw it as hard as I can and let it work. I’m not out there trying to sling it with snot flying out of my nose, but I do throw it with a purpose. Velocity is great, but I just like the late action on it, the depth. I don’t know the sabermetrics or the science behind it, I just know it’s been effective for me.
“If you look at the horseshoe on a baseball, and you point the horseshoe opening down, I used to put my fingers up in the top right-hand corner. But again, they were like, ‘Hey, why don’t we try throwing it more like a cutter.’
The new grip.
“Some people teach cutters on a four-seam grip and you just angle the ball a little bit in your hand, and your wrist stays behind it — not straight behind it, but slightly at an angle on the edge. I did that, then it turned into, OK, if that’s four-seam, high-seam/low-seam, long-finger/short-finger. Right? I would drop my hand down, and I want the seam to line up the same across my fingertips. I tilt it to where it’s the same, across my fingernails, like underneath the pads of my finger.
“From there, I just think out front. It’s fastball until the very last minute. Maybe it’s more wrist than I realize, but a lot of it is just finger pressure and pushing my finger through. That’s my slider, right there.”
David Cone, Former Cy Young Winner and Five-Time All Star
“I grew up gripping the baseball the same way. Right along the seams, on top of the baseball, was a two-seam fastball. I threw my slider the same way. All I would do was bring both fingers inside the seams a little bit, just to get some friction. I basically threw a two-seam slider my whole career. I’ve seen a few other pitchers who do it that way. Not many.
“I was probably around 11 or 12 years old, so I was one of those kids who learned to throw breaking balls when I was young. There are a lot of people who don’t feel that’s a good thing, for kids to throw curveballs or sliders too early. My contention is that if you wait until you’re 17 or 18 to learn how to throw a curveball, you’re probably not going to learn to throw one very well. There has to be a balance there. Nonetheless, for me, the grip was the grip.
“I feel that it gave me kind of an unusual break on my pitches. The key for me… a lot of guys do spiked curveballs, where they want all of the pressure on their middle finger. I put a lot of pressure on my index finger when I threw my breaking ball. Most coaches teach just the opposite. To them, the index finger — the pointer finger — is more of a guide, or just in the way.
“My index finger was on a seam, and that was important to me. I could sweep it a little more that way — I could get a little more side-to-side break — and then, if I wanted to get on top of it, I could make it break down a little more. I also felt that I could control the pitch better that way.”
J.A. Happ, Yankees
“I always threw a slider, although I said ‘cutter’ to myself, even though the play on it, the size of it, was actually more of a slider. I said ‘cutter’ to keep it short. Every time I thought ‘slider’ I’d get around the ball.
“I’ve thrown variations of the grip and changed sizes of it. I still try to change the size a little bit. I manipulate it, depending on whether I’m facing a righty or a lefty. It’s also a matter of what feels comfortable. The grips have always been pretty standard, though. No knuckle or a crazy one-seam or anything like that.
“Sometimes grips feel stale. The ball isn’t moving the way you want it to, so you try to find another one, and hopefully you get there. How you lose the feel for a pitch is one of those weird things. You pick up a baseball and all of a sudden a pitch you’ve been throwing for months, or even years, feels awkward or uncomfortable. Or maybe it just isn’t moving right. And sometimes the ball feels different, but I don’t think that’s because the ball is any different. Something just happens to feel different.”
Jake Petricka, Blue Jays
“It’s a pitch that’s been working for me this year, so we’ve kind of just kept going with it. I can rely on it more now. In the past, my [primary secondary pitch] always had to be a changeup, because the slider was inconsistent. It was more of a ‘here it is,’ just for show. Basically, it’s gone from a work-in-progress to something I can use on more of a regular basis.
“One problem is that I was always changing the grip. Any time my slider would finally get decent, it would become, ‘Well, let’s make it better,’ and I’d change the grip again. I’d kind of hit reset. Now I just stuck with a grip long enough to make it work. Most people might say it’s more of a curveball-type grip, but to me it’s just a normal breaking-ball grip. Each arm slot will dictate if it’s more curve or slider.
“If anything, I’m trusting it more and not trying to force it. Before, I would always try to force it and would end up wrapping it, and making it bad. Now it’s, ‘All right, you’ve got the grip. Throw the grip and here we go.’
“I used to throw a bunch of sliders on the side, thinking that, if it worked good there, it would carry over into the game. What I found is that good on the side is completely different than good on the mound. On the mound, you’re throwing downhill, while on flat ground everything is level. So, as long as the spin is good on flat ground, I’m happy. I’m not trying to make it break.”
CURVEBALL
Drew Pomeranz (Red Sox) on his Curveball
“It would have to be my curveball. Everybody I play with is like, ‘How the hell do you throw that?’ That’s because I flick it forward. I don’t turn my wrist like a normal person does.
“My dad taught me and my brother when we were young. I was probably nine or 10 and my brother was 13 or 14. It’s a pitch to put less pressure on your elbow, because you’re not twisting like on a normal curveball. You just throw it like a fastball and use your finger to flick it forward. It’s a spiked curveball, but a real spike. A lot of guys spike it like I do, and they turn it.
“I’ve talked to [Red Sox VP, Pitching Development] Brian Bannister about it and it breaks as much as any other lefty who has a big curveball — and it’s a late break — but my spin is a lot lower. That’s probably because I throw it differently. My spin rate is way down from guys who have similar curveballs. For instance, [Clayton] Kershaw has a higher spin rate, but we get almost the same break. It’s weird. I have a high four-seam spin rate and very low curveball spin. “
Max Fried (Braves) on His Curveball
“I learned my curveball when I was pretty young, maybe nine or 10. It started out as more of a knuckle curve, although I didn’t really spike it. I would kind of curl my pointer finger down on the ball.
“I thought of it as hitting with a hammer. If there was a wall right here, the hammer — the side of my hand — would hit the wall. There wouldn’t be any twisting.
“It evolved from there. I changed my grip when my hands got bigger — I’ve actually changed it a few times — although I’ve kept it in the same kind of realm. I still don’t turn my wrist. If I turn my wrist it gets more of a side spin, and what I want is topspin. I keep my hand on the side and use my middle finger to pull down on the seam as much as I can, and try to get as much rotation as I can.
“I stopped spiking it later on in high school. Along with my hands getting a little bigger, I noticed that I wasn’t able to throw it as hard as I wanted to. Once I changed to a more traditional grip, I was able to throw it a little harder and little sharper.”
Jerry Blevins, Mets
“The story starts as a kid. You start learning about curveballs, and the reason mine is big and slow is because I wanted to visualize it. A lot of those smaller breaking balls you don’t really see from the perspective of a pitcher. I wanted to see the big break. That’s why mine is how it is.
“Did anyone ever try to change that? All the time. Every step of the way, coming through the minor leagues. Even in high school and little league. They were always telling me, ‘Look, you need something tighter.’ I always fought against that, and I think it’s done me well.
“I do throw different variations of it. Different shapes. It’s one of those things where you read a hitter. You read a swing and slow a guy down, you read a swing and speed him up. You do that with arm speed, hand speed, release. A little of everything.
“The grip is always the same. I don’t put the second finger down. Sometimes if I want to speed it up a little, I’ll apply more pressure — I’ll bring my other finger down a little bit onto the ball — but I mostly throw it with my middle finger across. So I will tweak. The pitch has kept me in the game for a long time. I’m 35 now.”
Taylor Guerrieri, Blue Jays
“My curveball grip was self taught. When I was 12 years old, my dad and I were throwing in our front yard. It was the first day I was allowed to throw curveballs and he said, ‘Get something that’s tight in your hand, and make sure you can spin it.’ The first thing I did was grip it and roll it deep in the palm of my hand. That’s kind of what I came up with, and I’ve been throwing it that way ever since.
“I want all the pressure to be on the middle finger. Whenever it comes out of there, it feels like it just shoots off. The ideal is to get as much spin on it as possible. The more spin you have, with the right hand placement… that’s going to equal more depth. More spin, more depth.
Taylor Guerrieri’s unusual curveball grip.
“That middle finger causes most of the spin, so if you can wedge it in between the ring and the middle… personally, that’s where I get the most spin. I haven’t gotten too in depth with it, but I think I have one of the better spin rates on my curveball. I think I’ve been around 3,100.
“Where I place my finger on the ball will change a little bit. Sometimes if I put it on the horseshoe it will spin more — it might have a little tighter spin with more depth. Sometimes, if I put it on the actual two seam, it will spin more. It just depends on the day, really. But the actual grip stays the same.
“I’ll show guys my grip when they come up ask how I throw my curveball. When that happens, they usually give me this look like, ‘Man, are you serious?’ It’s different, but it’s what works for me.”
CHANGEUP
Jacob deGrom, Mets
“My changeup. I was new to pitching and… I ended up getting Tommy John surgery shortly after I got drafted. Coming back, the whole thing was about trying to get my arm slot up a little bit. We wanted to get my elbow above my shoulder. I didn’t have good secondary stuff at the time.
“I was playing catch one day with Johan Santana, who was also rehabbing. I ended up talking to him about his changeup. We sat in the trainer’s office for pretty much a whole Gulf Coast League game. He explained to me how he held his, what his mindset was throwing it, and kind of how he developed it.
“He said he would play long toss with his changeup, so I went out and tried to do that. At first I could make it the whole way, however far out I was. I could get it there from 200 feet. Then, as I really started to get a feel for the grip I wanted, it would kind of die before getting there. It wouldn’t make it to my catch partner. Same arm speed as a fastball, but it just doesn’t get there. That’s how [Santana] described how he got his to be what it was at.
“It’s a two-seam grip. I try to stay behind it and pronate at the end. It’s a little different from how [Santana] held his. I try to keep my finger, the tip of my ring finger, off the ball and really stay inside of it. But when you’re playing long toss you’re letting the ball go. You’re throwing it, and that’s how I developed my changeup.”
Kyle Freeland (Rockies) on His Changeup
“I never really threw a changeup in college. When I got into pro ball, that was our main focus to help me develop throughout the minors and get to this point. We had to find a grip that I was comfortable enough with to throw it in any count.
“It took some time. I probably went through half a dozen different grips before I finally found one that fits me, that works with my arm slot and my arm speed. It wasn’t until the end of last season that I finally found what I think works best. I had one that was working well for awhile, but it kind of tapered off. I wasn’t really comfortable throwing it off my ring finger and my pinky finger.
“I’ve switched to more of a full-grip changeup, to where it’s all the way in my hand. I feel more comfortable throwing it like a fastball, and I’m also getting better action with it. I throw it just like my two-seam fastball and it’s coming out with about an 8-to-10 mph difference to it. At the start, my changeup velo was only about a 5 mph difference unless I slowed down my arm. With the new grip, I can keep the same arm speed.
“I have it deep in and most of the pressure is on my middle finger, on the inside of the seam, where I can really feel myself turn it over and get the rotation that I want. One of my focus points when I’m throwing that pitch is to make sure I get pronation over the seam.
“When I was messing with grips, I talked to different players. I talked to Jon Gray about his. I talked to Chad Bettis, who has a really good changeup. He showed me his grip, and where he puts some pressure, and that kind of helped me form my own sort of grip and what I was comfortable with.”
Bobby Poyner (Red Sox) on His Changeup
“I threw a traditional straight changeup in college and in Low-A. When I got to High-A, the pitching coach there, Paul Abbott, changed my grip from my traditional to an offset circle changeup. I started working on it in 2016, I continued to work on it in the offseason, and when I went back to High-A [in 2017] I kind of finished refining it.
“I throw a lot of four-seam fastballs, and this is more of a four-seam changeup. It’s going to look more similar out of the hand. I kind of pronate inside of it and create that four-seam spin. It also has more movement — it’s more vertical, arm side — because my hand is more off the baseball.
“There’s a difference [between the old and the new changeups] analytically, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what the difference in drop is. I just know that analytically it became a better pitch.”
Tommy Kahnle (Yankees) on His Changeup
“Growing up, in Little League and such, I never threw breaking balls. I always threw changeups. My dad didn’t want me to throw a curveball at a young age, so I’ve really thrown a changeup my entire life.
“I would say it’s gone through two or three iterations. I always threw like a circle change as a kid. Growing up into college, same thing. Then, one year in college, I decided to change the grip into more of a two-seam changeup. I don’t really know why, to be honest. Maybe I had better control when I changed the grip to a two-seam?
“In 2011, my pitching coach [at Low-A Charleston], Carlos Chantres, asked me why I throw my changeup with a two-seam grip when I throw four-seam fastballs. So I changed to a four-seam grip. I’ve been throwing it that way ever since.”
Danny Duffy (Royals) on His Changeup
“My changeup used to be a two-seam circle. It was a really good pitch in the minor leagues because of the difference in velocity — I could get away with lack of movement — but, up here, it was starting to get ineffective.
“I watched Edinson Volquez in a super slo-mo , how he gripped his, and I was like, ‘That looks pretty good.’ He was gripping it four-seam. He had the pinky on the equator of the ball — right between the two seams that are closest together — and he turned it over a little bit. I don’t pronate, but I gripped it like that and made sure that my pinky was the last finger to touch it. I kind of buried it in my palm.
“It had that dead-fish action where it’s kind of diving off, arm side and down. It worked for me, so I ran with it. This was two years ago, in midseason. My changeup had been garbage and now it’s my best pitch, so a shout out to Volky.”
Chase Whitley (Braves) on His Changeup
“I’ve had a pretty good changeup, and the story behind it is that I threw the ball with three fingers for a long time growing up. When I was young, that’s how I threw to first base from shortstop, because my hands were so small. I didn’t throw it with two fingers like you normally do.
“As my hands grew a little bit, I started fiddling around with the changeup. In a way I kind of already had the grip — all I had to do was move my [pointer and pinky fingers] off to the side of the ball. It’s a circle change.
“One way it got better over time was with long toss. For pretty much my whole career, I would long toss with a changeup grip, having it come out with the same arm speed as my fastball. If I was just doing normal long toss it would be around 180-200 feet, and with the changeup grip I’m throwing it around 90-100 feet, maybe up to 105.”
Sean Manaea (Athletics) on His Changeup
“My college roommate, Tyler Pazik, showed me his changeup before the last start of my sophomore year [at Indiana State]. Three days later I took it to our regional game against Austin Peay and threw it pretty well. It was one of those things where I could just pick it up and throw it, and not have to think about it. Then I took it to the Cape and had a good summer there. Then I took it to my junior year.
“After I got drafted, the Royals scrapped it. They didn’t want me to throw [that particular changeup] — I don’t really know why — so from 2013 to 2016 I didn’t throw it at all. I tried to learn a regular circle, a four-seam change, a two-seam grip. I tried everything I could, and nothing felt right.Top of FormBottom of Form
“When I got called up here [with Oakland], I made two starts and had no feel for a changeup. I couldn’t throw it for a strike. I couldn’t do anything with it. I asked Curt Young and Emo [Scott Emerson] if I could go back to the changeup I threw in college, and they were like, ‘Sure, let’s see what you have.’ I threw it in the bullpen in Baltimore and they were like, ‘Alright. That’s pretty good.’ My next start was against the Red Sox, and I didn’t have a good showing, but from then on it’s continued to get better and better.
“I don’t really know what you’d call the grip. I call it a split change. The horseshoe is on the bottom and I hook my thumb on the seam. When I throw it, I try to roll it off my finger so that I can get that tumbling action. That’s why I get a lot of depth with it.”
Brad Brach (Orioles) on His Changeup
“”It’s weird. In college, my changeup was probably my best pitch, but when I got to pro ball [in 2008] I wasn’t able throw it. I don’t know if it was the minor-league balls or what, but I kept cutting it all the time. It was hard for me to throw strikes with it, so I pretty much got rid of it and started throwing a splitter.
“I’d thrown a splitter in college, too. I’d gotten comfortable with it in high school, and in college it was basically my out pitch to lefties. I just kind of split my fingers on the ball — it was more like a forkball — and I was able to throw it over the plate better than my changeup when I was in the minor leagues.Top of FormBottom of Form
“In 2012, in San Diego, for whatever reason, I started being able to throw my old changeup again. It’s a two-seam circle. Nothing crazy about the grip, just ring finger and middle finger on seams, and the circle on the side.
“The bullpen coach in San Diego at the time was Darrel Akerfelds, and in spring training he saw me throw my split and my change. He asked, ‘When do you normally throw your splitter?’ I was like, ‘0-2, 1-2 to lefties with nobody on base.’ That’s because it was good, but I didn’t always know where it was going to go. My changeup was more consistent at the time, and had the same downward action, so he said, ‘Get rid of the splitter.’ I did that, and started going with my old changeup.”
Daniel Mengden (Athletics) on His Changeup
“My changeup is one of the better pitches for me — an off-balance pitch for me — and I think it’s the greatest pitch in baseball. A fastball-changeup combo is something a lot of pitchers can live off of for a long time. Trevor Hoffman… I loved watching him throw. His changeup was devastating.
“For me, a changeup was a really hard pitch to throw. It took me from high school to the end of my college career at Texas A&M before I finally had one. It’s one of those things where I literally just kept trying something new, trying something new.
“I think it was a mix of arm angle and arm speed, but I could never throw a changeup soft. I tried probably every grip can you think of. Nothing really worked, nothing really moved. Was just kind of a straight, slower fastball. I wanted something with a little bit of depth and a little bit of run to it, and with this crazy, weird grip I came up with it’s become a good, dive-y changeup. When I’m really on with it, some guys say it’s almost like a backwards slider.
Daniel Mengden’s unorthodox changeup grip.
“The grip is extremely unorthodox. I choke it, and basically my middle finger and ring finger are the two main fingers. One day, I just started dabbling with that, playing catch with it at 90-120 [feet], and it started coming out with really good sink and fade. When you’re throwing at 90-ish, you can really see the movement of it — exaggerated, of course. From there I worked with it on the
mound and it slowly became a pitch.”
Pedro Martinez (Hall of Famer) on His Changeup
“My first changeup was a full wraparound, a full hand, and then Guy Conti, my pitching coach in A-ball, decided that I needed more movement. He came up with a circle changeup for me. He figured that I was flexible enough to throw a circle changeup.
“He taught me different things — movement on the fingers to create more movement, how to subtract velocity, more command by holding the ball more in the center. Stuff like that, where you have to go out there and put it into practice.
“I kept that grip my whole career. It never changed. But you make adjustments with your mechanics. As you mature, you learn to control your body better and that’s how you learn to actually bury one, locate one, and add or subtract velocity. You do that by balancing your body better, by understanding your body and your arm angle better.
“I’m also more flexible than your average pitcher. My fingers are double-jointed and that makes me a little more unique than most guys you find out there. That had a lot to do with the way I spun the ball.
“And a changeup is going to be good if you have a good fastball. If you don’t have a good fastball, your changeup… it doesn’t matter how much you rotate it, how much you can spin it. If you can’t bring a good fastball with it, it makes no difference. I was lucky enough to have both.”
Brandon McCarthy (Braves) on His Attempted Changeup
“I haven’t thrown a changeup in two years now. Early in my career, when I was straight over the top, it was my best pitch, but once I dropped down I couldn’t throw the old one anymore. Since then, everything I’ve tried has been a sloppy A-ball rendition of a changeup.
“A couple of years ago, I tried to make Zack Greinke’s changeup. The grip, what he was trying to do with it, how he would try to turn it over, what he would do with his body. I wanted it to follow his numbers. One thing I found is that he can keep the spin rate on it extraordinarily low. That’s why I think he gets so much vertical depth. Same with Felix Hernandez. We ran the numbers on Felix Hernandez and it’s like a 1,700 spin rate. I don’t know how they can throw a ball as hard as they can and not make it spin.
“I would try to throw the ball the exact same way [Greinke] does, except mine would come out at 2,400. Everything else would be the same. It was the same spin axis, everything. But it just wouldn’t go down. At the moment where you need it to go down so the hitter swings and misses, mine would just keep going on its plane.
“Not being able to figure out how to take that much spin off the baseball is when I truly realized there are fundamental differences in the way people throw the ball. Some can make a ball do something different than others can. I’ve tried to do it with other pitches too. The way Corey Kluber throws a breaking ball — there’s something he does differently that you can try to aim for, but you can’t all the way get there.
“Another thing that makes pitch development is difficult is that it takes so many throws. That’s why Trevor Bauer building pitches at the Driveline lab is… I mean, his arm health is incredible that he can throw as much as he does in the offseason to build a pitch that’s ready to go into the season. I feel there are limited bullets to actually build a pitch. Maybe if I had unlimited throws where I could throw it 10,000 more times, Greinke’s changeup would come — I’d be able to figure it out — but I probably have 50 bullets. That’s not nearly enough.”
Michael Fulmer (Tigers) on His Vulcan Change
“When I got drafted in 2011 and came to pro ball, the pitching coordinator for the Mets, Ron Romanick, told me I needed to develop a changeup. I’d had one in high school, but it wasn’t any good. I threw it just to show it.
“We went through probably seven or eight different grips, and still didn’t find one. None of them really worked. Then all of a sudden he recommended a vulcan change. It was kind of a last-ditch effort. I’d never thrown anything like it before, but it felt comfortable enough that I said, ‘Hey, let’s try it and see if we can stick with it; let’s see if we can stop tinkering.’ I spent time playing catch with it, and it stuck.
Fulmer’s vulcan grip.
“I’ve had that pitch since 2012, but I didn’t really start throwing it consistently until 2016. Whether or not it was the practice, or whatever, I decided to start throwing it in games more. At first it was kind of living and dying by the fire, but it’s turned out to be pretty good.
“It acts more like a split than a regular changeup — it’s got splitter action — but you can also manipulate it. You can add more fade to it, or you can add a little cut to it, or you can have it straight down. I’ve been trying to mess with it a little bit, playing with it here and there, throwing it to righties and lefties.”
Tyler Clippard (Blue Jays) on His Changeup
“My changeup is a pitch I’ve been throwing since I was 13 or 14 years old. It’s always been the same grip, kind of a circle change. The grip itself isn’t that unusual as far as how most people grip their changeup. The biggest thing I think I do a little differently than most guys is that I have the ability to kind of kill my lower half. That stems from a pitching coach I had at an early age. I took what he said to heart and developed a feel for not pushing off the rubber, for having a soft front side.
Ryan Borucki, Blue Jays
“When I was 12, I hurt my arm. I had ‘Little League elbow’ from throwing too many curveballs at a young age. Because my elbow didn’t feel so good, my dad canned my curveball. He was like, ‘Alright. You’re just going to throw a fastball and a changeup.’
“My dad played professional baseball — he was a third baseman who batted righty — and he always had trouble against lefties with changeups. I’m obviously a lefty, so he knew that was a good pitch for me to learn. It took a bit of time to get the feel for it. I played with a lot of grips when I was in high school,. My changeup is just three fingers. I remember my pitching coach back home saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you try that?’ and the first time I threw it, it was coming out exactly how I wanted. From there it just kind of blossomed into the pitch it is now.
Ryan Borucki’s changeup grip.
“There are so many different ways to grip a baseball. I talk to so many guys about how they throw certain pitches. When I throw my changeup, I really just focus on pronating and getting over the ball, and I end up getting that late tumble. I’ve thrown it so many times — I have so many reps with it — that’s it’s become a pitch I can throw any time. It feels just like my fastball.
“I get fade on it — a tumbling fade — although this past offseason I learned how to cut it a little bit, too, so that I have a changeup to throw to lefties. Sometimes I end up cutting it not on purpose. That frustrates me a little bit. I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my changeup. I expect it to be really good, because that’s always how it’s been.
“As for why it works… there’s arm angle, hand action, arm speed. There are a lot of things. When you’re comfortable with a pitch, you just feel it. And a lot of it is confidence. You’re throwing it with a mindset of, ‘I know this is going to be a really good pitch.’ The hitters notice that.”
SINKER
Charlie Morton, Astros
“My sinker is a pitch that developed over the course of five years. My two-seam used to not do anything. When I got to High-A, Bruce Dal Canton — he’s since passed away — was there. He was a really good man, and a really good [pitching] coach. I worked with him in Myrtle Beach, and he recommended that I offset the grip on my two-seam.
“With a normal two-seam you might be between… the bottom of the horseshoe, how it comes together — where the two seams become the closest — that’s where a lot of guys put their fingers. They put their two fingers between those seams, right at that spot. He showed me a grip where I moved it down, closer to the bottom of the horseshoe, and I have my index finger up against the seam. My middle finger was dry. So both of my fingers were inside that half of the ball. It actually started moving a little bit. That was a pretty big deal for me, because now I had a fastball that was moving.
Charlie Morton’s two-seam grip.
“I kind of stuck with it here and there. Then I got to the big leagues. It was a pitch I threw a decent amount of the time, but then in 2011, when I changed my arm slot… that arm slot, coupled with that grip, made my sinker a lot better. It made it more dynamic. It started [to move] more vertically, as opposed to horizontally.
“I’ve tried to grip it normally — like it would normally be gripped — since, and I don’t get as much movement. I don’t get as much sink on it; I get some run. So for me, that was a pitch that developed over time, based on a few changing variables.”
T.J. McFarland (Diamondbacks) on His Sinker
“It would be my sinker, which is the pitch I’ve relied on for my whole career, but there wasn’t a particular moment when I found it or someone taught it to me. I kind of just morphed into it from high school. Everything I’ve done has been mostly on my own. I’ve always messed around with different grips.
“When I got drafted, I threw harder. I topped at 94 and stayed around 93, but then I got in the minor leagues where the season was longer. My arm started taking a toll. I was only throwing 88-90, and because of that, I started to throw a two-seamer to try to make the ball move more. For whatever reason, it started to sink. I developed it myself.
“It was an unorthodox sinker. I actually threw a one-seam. Normal guys throw it with the two seams. I turned it so I’m across the seams, but then flipped it even more, so that I only have one seam. I used that one seam to pull down on. When I let go of it, I flipped it so it’s always out front. I’m pronating, kind of like it’s a screwball.
“But now I’ve changed it to a normal two-seam. I get more control and throw it a little harder. I started doing that a few years ago, in Triple-A. I wasn’t commanding the one-seam as well — I wasn’t as consistent with it — and while it had more movement, sometimes that’s not a good thing. A sinker can move too much.”
Jim Johnson (Angels) on His Sinker
“Everybody’s story is a little bit different, but when guys get to the big leagues they’re usually trying to get used to the ball. The ball is a little different than in the minor leagues, and pitching is a lot of feel, so pitchers are always messing around with grips. I didn’t really throw a sinker until I got to the big leagues, and it’s pretty much been my main pitch since I got here.
“I started throwing a sinker in 2008. I started throwing it because I needed something to get more contact outs, instead of having long at-bats and so on and so forth. Having a sinker that I can throw bottom of zone and get an early ground ball is kind of how it started. Then I kind of learned how to pitch off of that, moving the ball around, this that and the other.
“The sinker was a suggestion from Dave Schmidt, who’d pitched for the Rangers, Orioles and a few other teams. We were working together in the offseason. At the time, he was the Orioles’ minor-league pitching coordinator, but he lived in Sarasota and so did I. It wasn’t like we sat there and messed around with grips or anything. It was basically about how to use it, and I went from there. It’s just a traditional two-seam grip. There’s nothing crazy about it.
“With a two-seamer, you have to know that where it starts isn’t going to be where it finishes. And on certain days it might sink more, while on other days it might run more. It’s about knowing how to read it on a given day, and being able to move it around and locate whatever you’re working with on that single day. A lot of that is feel, and trial and error.”
Andrew Cashner (Orioles) on His Sinker
“I got cut with a knife in 2013, in the offseason. I cut the flexor tendon in my right thumb. That was when I really learned a sinker. After I got cut, I had to learn a new pitch.
“My slider wasn’t the same pitch after that. I had a hard time getting extension with it, getting out front. The cut healed, but the tendon was tight. I think it just took time for the tendon to lengthen. It’s a feel pitch and it just never felt the same. It took a long time, but I’ve got [the slider] back now.
“The good thing is that I gained another pitch. And the sinker isn’t just arm-side run. Once you can learn to locate it back-door, it’s almost like a reverse slider for s lefty. You throw it at the hip and it comes back.”
Zach Britton (Orioles) on His Sinker
“In 2007, I was in short-season Aberdeen and my pitching coach, Calvin Maduro, tried teaching me a cutter. It kind of developed from there. No crazy story, really. It’s just that, with my arm action, the ball never cut. It went straight down like a sinker. He said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ and over the years I started throwing it more and more, and getting comfortable with it.
“A lot of guys throw cutters the way I grip my sinker, and others actually throw their curveball like that. Again, it’s arm action. I’ve shown it to guys and they haven’t been able to do it, so I can only assume it’s the way I throw.
“While I haven’t had much success teaching it, I remember showing the grip to Jake Arrieta, and he actually threw it for a little while when we were in the minors. I don’t think he’s using it anymore — I think he’s just using a traditional two-seam grip — but he was one of the only guys that threw it OK. He has a pretty short arm action, up top, like I do.
“I’ve worked on commanding it over the years, but I haven’t changed the grip or the way that I throw it. I don’t manipulate it. A lot of guys manipulate their sinkers, trying to make them move more, whereas I just throw it like a four-seam fastball and it naturally does what it does. I don’t move my wrist — turn over my wrist — or anything like that.
“One thing I’ve learned how to do is use it more to my advantage, rather than just trying to throw it down the middle or on the corners. When I get ahead, I kind of use it like a breaking ball. A lot of times when you’re 0-2 you’ll bounce a breaking ball to get a swing and miss, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make a sinker look like a strike and bounce it. That’s kind of developed over the last three or four years.”
CUTTER
Drew Smyly (Cubs) on His Cutter
“I have a pretty crazy story about how I learned my cutter. In college, I had a pretty big blister on my pointer finger — it was very sensitive — so I couldn’t really push off with that finger. To stay in the game, I kind of had to — and this is probably not the best thing to do — throw on the side of the ball. I started putting more pressure on my middle finger to take away the pain and sensitivity from my pointer finger, and the ball naturally stated cutting.
“I’ve never thought much about throwing pitches off pressure of my fingertips, but the cutter — I think most people will tell you they put more pressure on that finger when they’re releasing the ball. That’s how my cutter was born. I ended up dealing that game. I remember thinking, ‘This is a sweet pitch.’ This was in my junior year, and at that point my career kind of took off.
“I have [worked to refine it]. I talk to a lot of pitchers. I’ve already talked to Jon Lester about how he throws his. You’re always trying to make a pitch better. When I was in Detroit, Max Scherzer told me, ‘Every year, you either get better or you get worse.’ But originally, it was, ‘Either I throw the ball this way and see what happens or I take myself out of the game.’ Basically, I learned the pitch by default.”
Kris Medlen (Diamondbacks) on His Cutter
“Just in the last couple of years, I’ve thrown a cutter. I felt I needed something that was a little more unique for me, something hitters hadn’t seen. As the game evolves, you have to evolve with it. Everybody is either throwing 95-plus, or they’re throwing a cutter, and the first one is something I don’t do.
“The last time I pitched with Kansas City, I tried throwing a slider. It wasn’t bad, but I felt it kind of threw me off my arm angle and arm action, because I was more of a curveball guy. I felt like I was throwing through it a little bit differently. I also ended up having rotator cuff issues in 2016, and while I don’t necessarily think it was because of that, I could maybe attribute it a little bit to it.
“I talked to Wade Davis, who has one of the best cutters in the league. I was always trying to throw it over there [in Kansas City], but it would never really do what I wanted it to do. Over the course of a couple of years I kind of figured it out and I’ve been throwing it way more consistently now.
“[Davis’s] advice was pretty much to do less — just grip it and let the grip do what it’s supposed to do. Throw it as straight as you can. A cutter is supposed to be smaller and look more like a four-seamer, and if you start trying to manipulate it, it gets bigger, and because the spin changes, it might be more visible to the hitter.”
David Price (Red Sox) on His Cutter
“I’ll go with my cutter. When I first came up, I was four-seam fastball and slider, and I only threw my slider to the glove side of the plate, inside to righties. Being in Tampa with James Shields — being a teammate with him for so long — I watched him throwing his cutter to lefties and then front-door it to a righty. That was a pitch I wanted to learn how to throw.
“Facing Cliff Lee as many times as I did, being in the same division with Roy Halladay — watching how they manipulated the baseball… Again, that was something I wanted to learn how to throw. Playing catch with Shields every day, learning how to throw it arm side, throwing it back door to a righty… that really opened up a lot of the plate for me.
“I learned my changeup from Shields, as well, and I still hold it the way he taught me. I’d gone through a bunch of different changeup grips, and he had one of the best changeups in baseball at that time. I played catch with him every day and got feedback from him.
“His grip is on the horseshoe with the fingers spread pretty far apart. I don’t think it’s very conventional. It’s more of a two-seam changeup, but when you throw it right it has four-seam spin. It’s different. I’m hooking the seam and pulling down. It looks like a four-seam fastball, so it’s really deceiving to a hitter.”
A.J. Minter (Braves) on His Cutter-Slider
“I’ve thrown a cutter since high school. My pitching coach at the time, Travis Chick — he played pro ball and debuted with Seattle in ’06 — introduced me to it. When I got to [Texas] A&M, my first two years were out of the pen, so it was mainly fastball-cutter. My junior year, I became a starter and would throw a curveball and a changeup a little bit, but unfortunately I blew out and had Tommy John. Once I came back, it became strictly fastball-cutter.
“I call it a cutter, but at times I’ll try to make it a little bigger, maybe if I want a swing and miss. I’ll kind of get around it a little bit and get more slider depth to it. It’s the same grip, just a slightly different angle on the ball. It’s not much — we’re probably talking centimeters — and I’m always thinking fastball and trying to throw it in there as hard as I can. There are just times where I manipulate the ball a little bit. I’ll put more pressure on my middle finger and get a little bit more on the side to try to get more depth.
“You never want to become complacent. These hitters have a 50/50 chance of guessing either fastball or breaking ball against me, so I wanted to make my cutter-slider different at different times. I’ve never tried to turn it into an actual slider, though. I like more horizontal movement. I don’t want a dot on the ball. I always want that four-seam-action spin so hitters can’t pick it up as much."
SPLITTER
Tyler Clippard (Blue Jays) on His Splitter
“My split is kind of an interesting story. I was playing catch with my brother during an All-Star break — I think it was 2012 — and he threw this pitch to me, kind of playing around, and I threw it back. After that, I would play catch every day and mess around with this splitter grip that he showed me. We both have really big hands, so it was a pitch that almost knuckled.
“When you’re messing around playing catch on the side, you’ll throw knuckleballs to guys, and that was kind of my way because I was never good at throwing an actual knuckleball. My way was to split my hands and let the ball slip out, and it would dance. My catch partner that year was Ryan Matthews and he fought me. He said, ‘Man, you’ve got to throw that pitch in a game. It’s really nasty.’ I was like, ‘OK, I’ll give it a shot.’ So I did. It was an easy pitch for me to throw, I got some good late action action on it, and it was very different from my changeup, so I decided, ‘Why not?’”
Miguel Gonzalez (White Sox) on His Splitter
“I used to throw a forkball in high school. I started throwing it when I was 12 years old and in Little League. Just imagine, 12 years old and throwing a forkball. It put a lot of stress on my elbow, and I ended up having Tommy John in 2009 because of it.
The old forkball grip.
“I knew I had to switch up my grip. I got closer to the seams, so I wasn’t wide open as much. A guy back in California who played in the big leagues for 10 years told me to do that. His name is Chuck Crim. He said to get my fingers closer on the ball, because that way I’d have less stress.
The new forkball.
“The velocity difference between the two is about 4 mph. If I could throw this one 4 mph less, I think that would be ideal. If I could get it 82 like my forkball was, instead of 86, that would be awesome. No one has taught me that, though! But it’s been working. I can’t complain. I’ve been here a long time and have been able to accomplish things because of my split-finger fastball. It’s what kept me in the big leagues.”
Anthony Bass (Cubs) on His Splitter
“I learned a split from my friend Matt Shoemaker, who is with the Angels. That’s his out pitch. I picked it up from him, and then when I was overseas in Japan [in 2016], I watched the way they threw their splits and started incorporating that into the way I use mine. It’s started becoming a swing-and-miss pitch for me.
“A lot of guys there throw splits, and they hold them a little bit differently than I do. I hold it with the horseshoe and they throw it against the horseshoe of the seams. The biggest thing for me is having it look like a fastball as long as possible, until 10 feet out in front of the plate, and then the action of the pitch is a sudden drop, down and away to a lefty. I tried it the Japanese way, but it just went straight; it didn’t have much bottom to it. It was like a straight changeup.
“I think it’s more of a comfort thing for me. I guess it’s more like a forkball when you’re throwing it with the horseshoe, versus against, which would be more of a true split. I do call mine a split, though.
“In Japan, they’re all about the pressure of the thumb underneath, or on the side of, the baseball. Then, depending on the count, they’ll throw it harder or softer. They’ll try to get a chase for a swing and miss or they’ll ease up on it to throw it for a strike.”
Kirby Yates (Padres) on His Splitter
“I started mixing in a splitter in the second half of last season. It ended up getting pretty good — when I throw my good one I get swings and misses — so I’ve been going to it a little more. I basically needed another pitch. I felt I had to rely on my slider too much, and at times my slider wasn’t good. When it wasn’t good I was getting hit pretty hard.
“A split-finger is something I knew I could throw. I didn’t feel like it would be a difficult pitch for me to learn, it was just a matter of getting a grip and a feel for it. When I was in New York there were a couple of guys who threw splitters — Chasen Shreve, Nathan Eovaldi, and Masahiro Tanaka — and I talked to them, and they showed me some grips. I liked Tanaka’s grip — it made sense the way he held it — and Shreve talked to me a lot about arm speed and how to throw it.
“I played catch with Alex Cobb a lot in the offseason that year, too. That helped me a lot. Some days we’d be out to 90 feet, trying to get on top of it, but for the most part we were in close trying to get the action we wanted. It took a few of months before I was able to command it and get the consistent movement I wanted, but it eventually became a comfortable pitch for me.”
John Smoltz (Hall of Famer) on His Splitter
“I learned to throw the split. Early in my career, I was basically a two-pitch pitcher and left-handers were having a field day against me. I decided I needed something else.
“I could never learn a changeup. I tried it a million times. I had Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine show me their changeups, but it was something I just couldn’t do. I couldn’t throw a pitch slow enough with any grip they showed me.
“In 1991, I came up with the split right around close to playoff time. I utilized it against Barry Bonds, who I knew I would be facing, and the pitch was a difference-maker for me. It took me to the next level. I’d had two pitches going the same way to lefties, and now I had a pitch going the other way.
“Nardi Contreras, a pitching coach in our farm system, showed it to me in spring training, and I just kind of kept bringing it along, bringing it along. Basically, he told me, ‘If you can hold this in your hand upside down, and turn it over, that’s the grip strength and the ball shouldn’t fall out of your hand.’ From there, I messed around with positioning my thumb, and the pressure points in my knuckles, to try to perfect it.
“It wasn’t a forkball. The forkball you dig, and this was no digging. This was just inner pressure amongst your knuckles. I could vary the speed by moving my thumb up on the ball, but I primarily kept it below the ball. I would throw my fastball around 93-94 on average, and my split would be 87-88 — and it would just disappear. It’s a big reason I won the Cy Young in 1996.”
KNUCKLEBALL
Steven Wright (Red Sox) on His Knuckleball
“I started throwing it when I was about nine years old. Frank Pastore, who I was taking pitching lessons from, threw one back to me, and I was just so intrigued by how you could throw a baseball forward with no spin. Over the years, I kind of messed around with that.
“Fast forward to 2010. I was struggling majorly in Double-A and Triple-A — I was kind of bouncing back and forth — and I didn’t have a swing-and-miss pitch. One day, Greg Hibbard and Jason Bere, who were the pitching coaches at the time, saw me messing around with it on the mound. They told me, ‘Hey, this could be your swing-and-miss pitch.’ So I kept messing around with it. In 2011, I went down to Low-A, then back up to Double-A and Triple-A, messing around with it even more.
“In 2012, I started working with Charlie Hough. That’s when my eyes really got opened up to how it can be more controlled, how it can be thrown for strikes and utilized at all levels. From that point on it started to really click.
“A big key to throwing a knuckleball is keeping it simple. Overthrowing it is when I get in trouble, because overthrowing creates spin. I need to stay calm, cool, and collected, no matter the situation, because you have to stay behind the pitch and kill the spin. As far as the specific grip, Tom Candiotti told me that it’s whatever feels good in your hand; just kind of grab a grip and if it feels good, that’s what you work with. I kind of just hold it and chuck it.”
