Twins Prospect Tom Hackimer on Being a Pitching Nerd
Tom Hackimer loves Driveline, uses a Motus Sleeve, and is one class short of earning a physics degree from St. John’s University. In other words, Minnesota’s 2016 fourth-round pick is a pitching nerd. He’s also an intriguing prospect. In 43 relief appearances this past season, the sidearming 5-foot-11 right-hander logged a 1.76 ERA and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings between Low-A Cedar Rapids and High-A Fort Myers. He followed that up with a strong showing in the Arizona Fall League.
Hackimer discussed his scientific and methodical approach, which includes slow-motion video and the modeling of his motion after Joe Smith’s, earlier this month.
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Tom Hackimer on being a pitching nerd: “Before I knew that I was going to be any good in baseball, I thought I would go to grad school and get a degree in civil engineering. I like to build things. That seemed like a logical step, as civil engineering would be building things on a bigger scale, such as bridges. I’ve always thought that would be cool.
“As it pertains to baseball… I try to build things that will help me. My senior year of college, I built sort of a pitch-tunneling device. At least that’s what it was in theory. It was basically a window that I could change the height of. I put it 20 feet in front of the mound and would work on throwing all of my pitches through it, wanting them look the same all the way up to that point, at least.