There aren’t many knuckleball pitchers in baseball, but there are a lot of would-be knuckleball pitchers. Most everyone has tinkered with the butterfly. It’s common for players — particularly position players — to mix in knucklers when playing catch before games. A handful of them can really make it dance.

Who are the best among the wannabe Wakefields and Niekros? To answer the question most accurately that would require extensive polling throughout both leagues. I considered tackling the task, but ultimately decided that such an exercise was a bit too frivolous.

Querying a cross-section of players was far more practical. I talked to a dozen, most of whom have experience either throwing or catching the game’s most enigmatic and entertaining pitch. Along with asking who has the best they’ve seen, I had several of them to assess the quality of their own knuckleball.

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Alex Avila, White Sox catcher: “It would have to be Danny Worth. He’s actually pitched in a game with it. We were with the Tigers, it was a blowout game, and he came in. He’s got a great arm — he’s an infielder — and he’d always throw a knuckleball warming up, just messing around. He threw a bunch of them, and it was dancing pretty good.”

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Tony Barnette has been a pleasant surprise in Texas. Signed in December after spending several seasons in Japan, the 32-year-old right-hander is performing well out of a Rangers bullpen that is statistically the worst in the American League. He’s been especially sharp as of late. Over his last eight appearances, Barnette has allowed just four hits and one unearned run in 13 innings.

Drafted by the Diamondbacks out of Arizona State in 2006, Barnette changed continents four years later after a 14-win season in Triple-A. The reason was simple.

“They wanted me,” said Barnette. “The Diamondbacks didn’t protect me and I wasn’t taken in the Rule 5, so I was looking at going back to the minors. I was at the stage of my life where you think you’re on the cusp of the big leagues and all of a sudden the powers that be say, ‘No you’re not.’ It was basically, ‘You’re welcome to stay, but if you want a change of scenery, good luck on your travels.’ Japan made the offer, and I decided to pack up and take my chances.” Read the rest of this entry »

Six weeks ago, August Fagerstrom wrote about how Matt Bush’s fastball approximates Aroldis Chapman’s in terms of velocity and spin rate. Not much has changed. The Texas Rangers reclamation project — Bush was in prison and hadn’t pitched for four years — is still throwing heat. This past weekend the 30-year-old right-hander sat 98-99 in a scoreless inning at Fenway Park.

Much has been made of the former first-overall pick’s fall from grace and the Rangers’ willingness to give him another chance. (The attention is warranted: Bush’s substance-abuse and legal issues are serious matters.) Far less attention has been paid to the arsenal and mindset he brings to the mound. With that in mind, I sat down with Bush to talk pitching on the Fourth of July.

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Bush on why he’s having success: “I think it’s my arm action. My fastball has a lot of life to it. I’m also doing a good job of locating; I’m hitting my spots down in the zone. A lot of times it looks like the ball is going to be down and out of the zone, but it has extra life to it, which keeps it there in the zone. Other than that, I have an understanding that it’s not easy to hit a pitch that’s thrown as hard as I throw. I’m going out there with confidence.

“My spin rate is 2,500-something. Someone had mentioned it to me, so I looked into it and was pretty surprised to find out that it’s one of the highest in the game. That’s an indicator of why my fastball is tough to square up. I’m not afraid to go right after hitters, because with that spin, the ball has life. It’s not straight. You also don’t have very much time to pull the trigger. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Lincecum used to be freakishly good. He no longer is. Hampered by hip woes, the 32-year-old right-hander went from winning Cy Young awards and tossing no-hitters to the precipice of pitching oblivion. His velocity down and his ERA up, he succumbed to surgery last September.

He’s on the comeback trail, but not with the team he helped win three World Series. The former Giant signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in May and debuted with his new club in mid-June. His performances have been underwhelming. In four starts, the once-overpowering righty has allowed 29 hits in 18 innings. His fastball is averaging a pedestrian 89 mph.

The extent to which Lincecum can return to his old form remains to be seen. His surgically-repaired hip appears to be holding up, and his damaged psyche is healing as well. He’ll likely never be an elite power pitcher again — or a power pitcher at all — but he feels he can be a productive starter. Only time will tell.

Lincecum talked about his early development as a pitcher, and his career going forward, prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

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Lincecum on pitching: “When you’re younger, you don’t have a plan. You either trust your stuff or you don’t, or you just throw it and hope. I always trusted my stuff. My fastball didn’t always play, but my curveball made my fastball better. That’s what I could execute. Some guys have an idea of how they can pitch — what pitches they should throw in what counts — but guys like me just end up throwing the ball and trusting it. There’s an aspect of that even at this level. You have a plan, but you’re basically throwing the baseball. It all depends on how well you can execute.

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Collin Cowgill might be the most ambidextrous person in MLB. Currently playing for Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate, the Columbus Clippers, Cowgill explained his handedness as follows:

“I throw left-handed, hit right-handed, dribble a basketball right-handed, shoot a basketball left-handed. If I was going to dunk, I would dunk right-handed. I shoot darts left-handed. I golf right-handed. I bowl left-handed. I write and eat right-handed. I shoot pool left-handed. I kick right-footed. If I was going to punch you, I’d punch you right-handed.

The 30-year-old outfielder has done all of this naturally, for as long as he can remember. The first time he was handed a ball, he threw it left-handed. The first time he stepped in a batter’s box, it was right-handed. He tried switch-hitting at one point, but realized he was better from the right side and stuck with that.

Hand dominance at the dish is another area in which he’s different. Read the rest of this entry »

“Keep your eye on the ball” is one of baseball’s oldest adages. According to John Russell, it doesn’t apply to managers and coaches. The Baltimore Orioles bench coach and his professional brethren have responsibilities that go beyond watching the flight of the cowhide sphere.

Russell, who skippered the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to joining Buck Showalter’s staff in 2011, expounded on the subject during a mid-June visit to Fenway Park.

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Russell on watching the game: “I think different managers do different things, but you run little checklists in your mind. First, there’s a lot of preparation involved before the game begins. Once it does, you obviously keep an eye on your pitcher. But one of the biggest things — we talk to young managers about this when they first start out — is that you don’t want to be caught following the baseball. When the ball is hit, you don’t want to just lock in on it. If you do, you’re going to miss a lot.

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Jason Coats has had an unremarkable career thus far. In eight games with the White Sox, the rookie outfielder has one hit in 15 at-bats. He’s basically a spare part. An unheralded former 29th-round pick, he’s ridden the pine since getting his lone base knock a week ago today.

Of course, everything in life is relative. What qualifies as unremarkable to some could be unforgettable to another. Coats has had a pair of those moments in his short time with Chicago. The more recent of them came at Fenway Park.

Hitless in his first 12 big-league at-bats, Coats stepped up to the plate against Boston southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez and smoked a pitch to deep right field. Soaring beyond the reach of Mookie Betts, the ball one-hopped the short fence into the bleachers, not far from the visiting bullpen.

As the ball was caroming, Coats was motoring.

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Ben Smith has a 21.21 ERA in three appearances for the Tri-City Valley Cats. All told, the 23-year-old southpaw has allowed 19 base-runners and 15 runs in 4.2 innings for Houston’s short-season affiliate.

There’s a lot more to his story than numbers.

Smith will be watching this week’s College World Series with interest. The school out of which he was drafted in 2014, Coastal Carolina, is a surprise participant in the championship round. Several of the Chanticleers are former teammates, and he expects to be “sneaking into the locker room a couple of times” each night to follow their fairy-tale quest for a title.

The fact that the lanky left-hander is playing baseball is a real-life success story of its own.

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Yonder Alonso hasn’t been dealt a generous hand. Drafted seventh overall by the Reds in 2008 out of the University of Miami, the Cuban-born first baseman was shipped to San Diego three years later. The trade took him from one of baseball’s most hitter-friendly venues to one of its least friendly.

Last winter, the Padres sent Alonso to the A’s, who play in an equally unforgiving yard. You have to feel for him. Injuries have influenced his production as well — he’s no stranger to the disabled list — but one can’t help but wonder what his numbers might look like had he spent the last four-plus seasons in a cozier abode.

His splits aren’t extreme, but they’re emblematic. He’s hit .257 with a .697 OPS in home games and .283 with a .739 OPS on the road. Power has been at a premium, as he has just 33 home runs in 2,051 big-league plate appearances.

Alonso has never felt a need to alter his attack plan — “Generally, the way I swing pretty much works in any field” — but he’s aware that where he’s played has impacted his career. Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Bundy felt like he was throwing with someone else’s arm. The Orioles right-hander didn’t word it that way, but that’s how it sounded when I spoke to him earlier this week. It’s not unlike an out-of-body experience when the radar gun is at odds with your senses, in both directions.

Bundy had Tommy John surgery in 2013, and the road back wasn’t always smooth. Along with arduous rehab, there were sensory blips.

“I felt out of whack when I started throwing again,” said Bundy.” Something just felt off. It was like my arm was perfectly fine, but I was trying to throw the ball 70 mph and it was coming out 55. It was a weird feeling.

“Even when I got all the way up to 92, when I was rehabbing in the minors, I would have games where my arm felt perfectly fine, my body felt fine, mechanically I was fine, but it felt like the ball was coming out 85 mph and it was really coming out 91-92. That was even weirder. I wondered if the feeling was ever going to go away.” Read the rest of this entry »