Mat Latos Throws a Pitch That Nobody Else Has Thrown
Mat Latos throws a pitch that nobody in the big leagues throws. For good reason, too. He has no idea where it’s going.
“I was told in high school that it would never be a realistic pitch in the big leagues,” Latos said when I asked him about the pitch that he gripped like a knuckle curve but released like a changeup and was neither his breaking ball nor his changeup. Yeah, I said, sure, but what is this pitch?
Sometimes it goes straight down, Latos said. Like the time he struck out Bryce Harper with it and the ball just fell off the table.
Sometimes it acts like a normal changeup, the Marlins pitcher thought. Like the time he got Dan Uggla to whiff. That one looked almost conventional.
Other times it veers for the arm side like a reverse curveball. Like something that makes your bullpen catcher pop up out of his squat and nod like a bobblehead. Like something you’ve never seen before. Or something Seth Smith had never seen before, at least.
Then there are the worst times, when it just rolls and acts a bit like a hanging breaker. But even then, it’s so strange that you can get a Michael Taylor just to look it into the catcher’s glove for a called strike three, if you’re lucky.
Yes, I said, sure, but what is it? “What is this thing?” I asked as I mimicked the pronating knuckle-curve motion I’d seen in the clip that Kyle Cunningham-Rhoads and Greg “Giff” Gifford from STATS Inc had emailed me with the big question marks in the subject line.
Marlins reliever Mike Dunn looked up and saw what I was doing. His eyes lit up. “What are you doing? That’s the…” Marlins bullpen coach Reid Cornelius was walking by at that moment, and finished Dunn’s sentence: “The Critter. Don’t know where it’s going, don’t know where it’s been. The Critter.”
The most extraordinary grip and pitch in the game?
It probably shows up as a split finger in the Brooks Baseball system, in which case it’s an effective pitch despite strange movement. It averages almost no fade at all, but has five inches more drop than a regular changeup — and gets whiffs nearly a quarter of the time, about 50% better than average for a splitter. It has the drop of a curve and the horizontal movement of a slider, and the velocity of a changeup.
And we know that’s just what the pitch averages. It might do anything at any moment.
In some ways, Latos’s high-school coach was right. If you have no idea where a pitch is going and how it’s going to move, it’s hard to use it much. R.A. Dickey doesn’t really know how the knuckler is going to move, but at least he can hit the strike zone with it.
Latos admits it’s a two-strike pitch in most cases. He can’t command it, but it can give him a wrinkle hitters haven’t seen in a big moment, after a long at-bat or in a pinch with a great hitter. The swings and even the takes above show that it’s a unique pitch that can give hitters fits.
What’s maybe most impressive about the pitch is that it leaves his hand at a decent speed — around 80 mph on average. “I like it because I can throw it as hard as a fastball, but it’s much slower than a fastball,” Latos said. “Maybe because I flick the ball with my index finger at the end.”
If most people threw a knuckle-grip changeup in which they flicked the ball with their index finger as they threw it, it would bounce about twenty feet away and be a laugher. Maybe it would be an eephus. Latos throws a knuckle-change that he flicks with a finger, and sometimes it looks like the most ridiculous changeup you’ve ever seen. And other times it looks like a hanging breaking ball.
The Critter.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
this is awesome
I think every pitcher has something like this — a toy they play with in bullpen sessions that does some interesting stuff…..the crazy part is that Latos throws this in games with some regularity. While pitching seems like just throwing a ball toward the plate, a ton of work and lots of hours go into a particular pitch before you dare throw it in the direction of a major league hitter — so the fact that The Critter has made it this far is impressive.
Marlins reliever Mike Dunn looked up and saw what I was doing. His eyes lit up. “What are you doing? That’s the…” Marlins bullpen coach Reid Cornelius was walking by at that moment, and finished Dunn’s sentence: “The Critter. Don’t know where it’s going, don’t know where it’s been. The Critter.”
I’m imaging this taking place in an anime, in which you’re holding the ball, and then Dunn looks over his shoulder at you, the frame switches to the ball in your hand with a musical exclamation point, frozen, background is some solid color with a white pointed area surounding your hand, at that moment Dunn gasps: “Ahhh! That’s the…!” Then Cornelius enters the frame, looking down adjusting his glasses which are only there for effect as he sagely explains “The Critter.” the camera now focuses back on you still holding the ball as before “Don’t know where it’s going, Don’t know where it’s been. The Critter.” The camera moves back to you letting out a shocked stammering of nothing. In my imagination, this is a series I might watch, even though it uses every anime cliche possible in just one scene.
#BRINGBACKNOTGRAPHS
If you want baseball anime you should really check out Major or big windup.
Unfortunately, I have seen these on Netflix, otherwise I’d give them a shot. Right now though, I’d just be happy to have anime-ted adventures of Eno in the clubhouse. Someone’s gotta be able to make this happen.
*haven’t
This is just fascinating and awesome
The way this season is going for him, he’d better train that critter or throw it when the game is out of hand until he teaches it how to behave.
Meh. It’s a knuckle curveball. Nothing here
… A knuckle curve if people pronated on knuckle curves and flicked their fingers, neither of which people do on knuckle curves. Also, the seams are all wrong for a knuckle curve.
I recall Neal Heaton talking about a screw-knuckle-change pitch he threw in the late 80’s during an interview on TV. Reminds me of that
In addition to what Eno said, Latos doesn’t throw it like a knuckle-curve either. He’s releasing it like it’s a change-up.
Seriously, how can you say “Meh, hundreds of pitchers throw that” with something this cool?
I’m not well-versed in pitch types to weigh in on what to call this thing, or whether it’s a knuckle curve. I would submit, though, that what he does to produce this pitch isn’t really that interesting. It’s a quirk, sure, but lots of players have quirks. What the pitch DOES is interesting (or not). If it behaves like a knuckle curve, then I’d agree with Tesseract. If it actually does something different (and it looks like it might), then it’s a unique pitch.
Put it this way: Jon Jay has a goofy double-clutch in his swing, right? Do we care very much? We care about the results, not the methodology. Figuring out how to get common results out with uncommon methods is, again, just a quirk.
I did spend a couple sentences on this, but yes it’s unique. It has five inches more fade than the average knuckle curve, and five inches less drop. It’s a Knuckle Change, which has’t really existed in the research I’ve done, until today.
Thanks for the reply, Eno. It’s cool that it’s actually performing like a unique (or at least very uncommon) pitch.
I will call it the knuckle screwball. It would be interesting to see what he could do with it out of a different arm slot.
Back in the day, we called this one the knuckle screw. Two in the pink, one in the stink, amirite?
Geez. If he could ever figure out how to consistently make it do what it did to Bryce Harper, he’d probably ascend to being a true ace rather than a very good (though oddly declining) pitcher…
That decline might have something to do with the 3 mph he’s lost on his fastball in the last 4 years…
I’m aware his velocity has been decreasing, I just find it odd because he’s a bit young to lose his fastball that quickly.
Great article Eno.
Great article but I hate the name for that pitch.
“R.A. Dickey doesn’t really know how the knuckler is going to move, but at least he can hit the strike zone with it.”
Lol, you really should fg him…
It doesn’t say how often he hits the strike zone, or which actual strike zone. Perhaps he was referring to the zone in which a particular hitter strikes the ball over the fence.
ive thrown this pitch before they teach it in new york city as the cisco, named after the supposed to be inventor francisico, the difference is you put two knuckles on instead of one.
Why can’t everyone who throws a weird pitch like this just play along and claim it’s a gyroball?
I would name it the Knucklehead.
Too many dirty minds on this comment thread to call it that.
To everyone that says throwing 95 is important, please stop. Tons and tons, in fact mostly everyone in the minor leagues can throw that fast. Then why are they in the minors? Because it barely matters.. Jayme Moyer, one of the greats, pitched what.. 85? Couldn’t hit 90 if I pumped him full of “speed”.. Cliff lee throws a70-75 mph ball then throws 90 tops, same career era as randy Johnson.. Get over it you guys the difference in time between a 95 mph and 105 (fastest ever recorded) is .02 seconds.. .02 seconds, something your eye couldn’t even see on a stopwatch.. Quit listening to meatheads with mics!
Usually I’m all about not listening to meatheads with mics, but this is a case where the former player version of the meathead will tell you that it definitely matters. They’ll tell you that from experience. Terrifying, pants-wetting experience.
See, Jamie Moyer is the exception (and not included in my list of greats, but different strokes for different folks I suppose). Nearly every great pitcher pitched 90+. Pointing out a few who didn’t isn’t proof, it’s expected variance.
There’s a reason Aroldis Chapman struck out more than half(!!) of the batters he faced last year, and it’s 3 digits long. Of the top 20 qualified pitchers in K% this year, 0 have a sub-90 average fastball.
But then again, Cliff Lee and Randy Johnson have the same career ERA (note: not actually true, Johnson’s is .23 lower with a 9 point ERA+ difference) so velocity must not matter.
And in this case, the exception that proves the rule was Maddux (who, unlike Moyer, does make a list of greats). He’s the one freak of nature that comes to mind who had years where he struck out more than 20% of batters he faced without ever hitting 90.
Except Maddux did throw 90, especially in his peak years. Late Maddux was a soft tosser, sure, but at his peak he was sitting in the 90s with pinpoint accuracy- a frightening combination. I’d also note that Maddux only topped 20% in K rate three times in his career.
That’s as close to Maddux-bashing as I’ll get, though, because criticizing Greg Maddux is dumb.
Hmm. My memory of those years says he was hitting 88, 89 in those peak years, and later dropped to 84-86. But yes, criticizing Doggy would be dumb.
Correct, Maddux rarely if ever threw 90. Sat in the high 80’s at his peak which was around the MLB average in those days.
If Maddux, with his command amd movement, were able to throw in the low 90’s, he would have been even greater than he was, if that is even possible.
Maddux (Greg) COULD hit up to 90-94 mph some times, just not routinely, and he knew that pitchers for decades and decades had dominated by changing velocities and not relying on one pitch. Diversity is what kept those amazing pitchers of years past dominating and pitching all those games and all those innings.
Some say that pitchers from yesteryear would not be able to dominate in today’s MLB because hitters can now hit 95 mph pitchers any day of the week because pitchers now rely mostly on fastballs as their primary pitch, but they forget to consider that modern batters are not acustomed to face a pitcher mixing in pitches with 20 mph of difference. Imagine a 90 mph pitch followd by a nasty 70 mph slider, a 89 mph fastball at the knees in the inside part of the plate followed by a 12-6 65 mph curveball that falls of the table. That’s basically how Greg Maddux pitched.
What was customary in the 40’s and 50’s nowadays is a lost art in the USA.
Wrong way to look at it.
If we assume the average ML fastball is, say, 88 MPH, moving from 88 to 95 is an increase of eight percent in speed, more than enough to disrupt a swing.
Everything else being equal, each mph subtracts around .15 runs from your RA9, if I remember correctly.
Wade Davis, similar grip, 85mph, BB calls it a knuckle-curve:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=451584
Nowhere near the same movement. Davis’ moves like a curveball, Latos’ moves like a change, sorta.
Carson and August did some gifs of both Davis and Herrera last year doing stuff with similar breaks but quite a bit faster, Davis a 94mph cutter not much different from Latos 80mph critter and Herrera’s 90-something change also with big movement. It’s all about the spin. Keep your thumb on the seam and fingers on the smooth and use the fingers to induce a little horizontal spin.
One high school in long island teaches a pitch similar to this and call it the knuckle drop.
http://www.msgvarsity.com/long-island/papa-s-knuckle-drop-pitch-lifts-division-1.1473195
Quote from the article: “You don’t break your wrist, you just flick your fingers and it goes straight down. No strain on your elbow,”
That is so cool. I was thinking you could call it the knuckle knuckle, but that’s stupid. Knuckle Drop is okay!
So someone else above talked about it being taught and called a Cisco, Latos calls it The Critter, and this school calls it a knuckle drop. With it seemingly developing independently in multiple places at roughly similar times, I rather wonder if it isn’t just steam-engine time for this pitch. Perhaps in another decade it’ll be the hot new thing every other pitcher throws, and it won’t seem unusual at all.
Oddly enough I grew up in Western Canada and also accidentally discovered a likely very similar two knuckled version when I was about 16 or so. I called it a “knuckle sinker”.
Well 8 called it that the 1 out of 10 times it actually worked. The other 9 times it was just called a crushing line drive.
Enos – The pitch to Seth Smith was not the same as the other three pitches shown. It was slower (75 MPH start speed) and had more estimated spin (1600 RPM instead of 300 to 600 RPM)like Latos’s normal curve ball according to Pitch Fx.
Weird, but I think it’s just that it was weird, but it was still this pitch. Latos pointed out all these pitches to me, and if it was his curveball, why did it have fade? I think it was this pitch, just a weird version.
Or maybe it wasn’t and he just liked how it moved, that’s a better explanation than the “I remember that I threw him X pitch of Z at bat for the Nth pitch of that W game”, too many variables to remember, sure you can remember bits but nah, Pitchfx is way more accurate than memory.
Besides, remember how Mussina had different knuckle curves? similar to how Tanaka has variations of his pitches or how El Duque varied his pitches. They do it because you can have different versions of a good weapon, and you should not utilize the best version of it unless you needed, otherwise it would not be a weapon. Kinda like how a 96 mph can be devastating, but throw 5 consecutive 6 mph in the same spot to the same batter and see how he can adapt to it.
Talking about Mussina, seriously try to contact him, he had that same knuckle pitch that dropped like crazy and batters at mid swing noticed how it was dropping, tried to correct and ended up with decomposed swings (if only he had thrown that pitch to Carl Everett in that game after the umpire pardoned Carl in what was clearly out #27).
Given the different breaks the pitch can have, there’s probably some variable that he’s inconsistent with, such as the way the finger flick strikes the ball, which then affects the spin and thus the break. I don’t doubt that Latos is remembering correctly because he’s obviously played with this pitch enough in practice to know the various ways it might break.
Wicked movement! Never seen him throw it in a game. Has he always thrown it?
Gotta give it a name, is the critter it’s name?