Why is the knuckleball dying off?

[Shamoan]

 

[Shamoan]

context would be helpful...was watching an MLB game the other day and i think it was smoltz that said nobody is throwing it anymore. it gives your arm longevity and it certainly can fool those hitting and trying to catch it. gonna be a sad day when nobody throws the knuckler anymore.

 

[Goat Holding Inc]

Advanced stats stuff. Nobody cares about anything but but velo and launch angles.

Somebody could probably innovate by getting a bunch of Maddux 'locator' types and Wakefields, and play small ball, simply because everybody else is obsessed with throwing 120 mph and hitting bombs.

 

[BlueRidgeMtns]

Was thinking about this the other day watching the CWS.

 

[tired]

It's difficult to throw. How many guys have successfully used that pitch?

 

[BassinDawg.sixpack]

As my juco pitching coach once told me, “Knuckleballs are for pitchers who can’t get anyone out. “

 

[Shamoan]

wakefield and dickey are the ones that did it quite successfully recently. i guess its viewed as a novelty, but for guys that arent that gifted, but have the ability, it would make sense. seems like some people would want to focus on it to separate themselves from the pack if its clear they struggle to get traditional outs.

 

[57stratdawg]

My guess is that they’re very difficult to sustain success with over a long projection. And the one thing today’s analytics have unquestionably improved is the projection of sustainability.

 

[Drebin]

Main reasons:

1. It's just not taught anymore. There's too much emphasis on velocity.

2. It's difficult to command. Even the pitcher doesn't know where it's going to go. In this era of shifts and hitting spots, there's no place for knuckleballers.

3. The margin for error is too slim. If you're on, you can be unhittable, but if you can't get a feel for it, you're going to give up 14 runs in 2 innings.

 

[Goat Holding Inc]

My guess is that they’re very difficult to sustain success with over a long projection. And the one thing today’s analytics have unquestionably improved is the projection of sustainability.

But if everyone does something, the analytics change. Then it is all reverts back to talent. And talent gaps is why people have to innovate to begin with.

 

[Mjoelner]

3. The margin for error is too slim. If you're on, you can be unhittable, but if you can't get a feel for it, you're going to give up 14 runs in 2 innings.

I think this is a big one. A knuckle ball that doesn't knuckle is a batting practice fastball. You may be on and have it dancing all over the place and still walk 3 straight if they can lay off of it then throw one with just a little spin and 1 bad pitch on your part just costs you 4 runs.

Interesting thing I heard back in the day was Phil Neikro saying that you couldn't throw it too hard. Once it reached a certain velocity it would flatten out even if it wasn't rotating. I think Phil threw mostly in the upper 70's.

Another thing I remember about that era of baseball was Willie Stargell saying "Its like trying to hit a butterfly with hiccups"

 

[Go Budaw]

There is a lot I don’t know about knuckleball pitchers. How hard would it be for a pitcher that already has good velocity / pitch selection to add the knuckleball to his repertoire? Is it something you have to throw a whole lot to get the feel for it?

 

[Shamoan]

im guessing that high velo guys would be really bad knuckleballers for the reason mentioned by mjoelner via neikro.

 

[Drebin]

There is a lot I don’t know about knuckleball pitchers. How hard would it be for a pitcher that already has good velocity / pitch selection to add the knuckleball to his repertoire? Is it something you have to throw a whole lot to get the feel for it?

you can't really have a knuckleball as a pitch in your repertoire. It looks so different coming out of your hand and the velocity is so much different that hitters would just lay off it. If you're going to throw the knuckleball, you have to throw it a lot, and you can mix in a little fastball to change speeds, but you don't want that fastball to be super fast.

 

[Mjoelner]

Did any pitchers in this thread ever try to learn it? I'm left handed and was P/1B. In highschool I had GREAT control with my FB and curve. The only problem was my FB was so bad that it wouldn't even piss you off if I hit you much less hurt you. So, I relied on reading batters (distance from plate, hand height in relation to their waist...etc) and pitch control to get outs. Having never seen a LH knuckleballer, I started fooling around with it at practice and during pre-game warmups but I never got close to being consistent enough to use it. One day during pre-game warmups I was totally on. I was bullseyeing fastball locations and my curve was breaking sharp so without telling the catcher what was coming, I threw a knuckler. I can't describe what it did in flight but my jaw had already dropped before it beat the **** out of the catcher who came up and threw off his mask yelling "What the 17 was that!". It truly looked like a Neikro special. Once the game started, my fastball and curve continued like they had during warmups and I was getting K's and weak contact so I got brave and threw a knuckle ball. I bounced it about 15 feet in front of the plate. It wasn't due to movement of the ball. I flat out bounced it so I never tried another one in a game.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Don't I remember some knuckleballers pitching til they were like 45 yrs old or am I dreaming that up ?

 

[turkish]

Don't I remember some knuckleballers pitching til they were like 45 yrs old or am I dreaming that up ?

Yes. The print on the back of my Charlie Hough baseball card was so small that even my 8 year old eyes couldn’t read it.

 

[Bulldogg31]

If you’ve never seen this documentary it’s really really good:

Knuckleball! https://g.co/kgs/8Sc9KN

 

[Gus Fring.sixpack]

See, if Wakefield is one of the first guys you bring up, there's your problem

wakefield and dickey are the ones that did it quite successfully recently. i guess its viewed as a novelty, but for guys that arent that gifted, but have the ability, it would make sense. seems like some people would want to focus on it to separate themselves from the pack if its clear they struggle to get traditional outs.

Wakefield had 3 good years--1 as a reliever--and was tremendous in one start on a huge stage (03 ALCS vs. Yankees....edit, I also see that he was good in the playoffs his rookie season for the Pirates) but otherwise was a .500 record, 4.5-5 ERA, 1.4 WHIP guy who didn't pitch well in the playoffs. Solid career....but when that's the "patron saint" of modern knuckleball pitchers, that aint good.

Really, Dickey has put up better numbers than Wakefield but is more maligned because he signed that big contract after his Cy Young season.

Someone above mentioned consistency, and I think that's the big thing. Go look at Wakefield and Dickey's numbers. I may be wrong on this but that seems like a hell of a lot of variability from season-to-season--more than your typical MLB pitcher. Wakefield had an outstanding 1995 (2.96 ERA) and was up to 5.14 the next year. He was above 5.00 for most of the next several years and then was 3.90 - 2.81 - 4.08 - 4.87 - 4.15. Dickey has been a little more consistent in terms of ERA but you do see a lot of fluctuation in WHIP, strikeouts, and walks. He went from being a 5.5 K/9 guy to 9 K/9 his CY season and then was back down to 7 the next couple years and then 5.3 the next year and then 6.5 the next couple

Plus, it's really hard for catchers.

Intuitively, it makes a lot of sense that more of your standard 3-4 pitch, 90-93 MPH starter who can't get past AA looks and says, "Maybe I should learn the knuckleball." But it is really, really hard to do and there are few that can teach it. And it's not a pitch that you can just learn to throw to compliment your other stuff.

 

[Philly Dawg]

Was it ever really taught? I always thought it was something that individuals developed because there were so few of them.

 

[BrunswickDawg]

you can't really have a knuckleball as a pitch in your repertoire. It looks so different coming out of your hand and the velocity is so much different that hitters would just lay off it. If you're going to throw the knuckleball, you have to throw it a lot, and you can mix in a little fastball to change speeds, but you don't want that fastball to be super fast.

Smoltz used it some as a 5th pitch. He mainly used it when he was gassed and needed something different to get an out. Even then, he didn't use it a lot.

 

[triton28]

Isn’t that what they are supposed to do?

 

[PineGroveBully]

Wasn't it Mark Lemke that after his playing career ended went back to the minors to try and become a knuckleballer