Rick Kranitz Talks Changeups

Rick Kranitz has seen a lot of good changeups over the years. A minor league pitcher in the Milwaukee Brewers system for five seasons beginning in 1979, he joined the coaching ranks in 1984 and has been tutoring hurlers ever since. As noted when I talked pitching with him for FanGraphs three years ago, “Kranny” has served as the pitching coach for multiple big league teams, including the one he joined in 2019, the Atlanta Braves.

Unlike our 2021 interview, which covered a variety of pitching topics, this one focuses exclusively on one offering. I sat down with Kranitz to talk changeups when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.

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David Laurila: I want to ask you about a pitcher you were with 40-plus years ago, a guy who had a great changeup.

Rick Kranitz: “You must be talking about Greg Maddux.”

Laurila: Actually, no. I’m referring to Doug Jones, the longtime reliever.

Kranitz: “I played with him in the minors. I also had Maddux [as a pitching coach] when he was very young — his first year [of pro ball] — but Doug Jones. Wow.”

Laurila: Did Jones already have a great changeup in the minors?

Kranitz: “Yes, he did. He was a starter when I played with him. The thing that was so unique about him is that he could change speeds with it. He could also turn it over. He had such great feel with a baseball. He didn’t particularly throw hard, but that changeup — he would just throw it, and it was really good. Jamie Moyer is another guy who had a really good changeup. I’ve been blessed to see some guys who have had tremendous success in the big leagues, and had phenomenal changeups.”

Laurila: A fact I like about Doug Jones is that he had seasons with 20 or more saves with five different teams.

Kranitz: “You know what’s crazy about this? I was drafted and signed in 1979, and back then it was just show up with the team and then you pitch. There were no mini-camps or anything like that. So, I show up — I want to say we were in Quad Cities — and we are playing a doubleheader. He’s starting the first game and I’m starting the second game. I walk out and see that the score is 0-0. I go back in, then come back out in the eighth inning — doubleheaders were seven innings — and it’s still 0-0. Ninth inning. Tenth inning. Eleventh inning, 12th inning. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on here?’ Doug Jones goes out for the 13th inning, and with two outs a groundball goes through our second baseman’s legs and we lose 1-0. I’m on the bench thinking, ‘I hope they don’t expect me to go 12, 13 innings.’ That’s kind of what it was back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

Laurila: How many innings did you end up going?

Kranitz: “Six. We were on the road, and lost, so it was a complete game. That’s what we were expected to do. We weren’t looking over our shoulder.”

Laurila: Did you have a changeup?

Kranitz: “Not a very good one, I was more of a sinker/slider guy. But just talking to guys, and seeing how big their hands are… generally, when you put a changeup in somebody’s hand and they throw it, sometimes it’s, ‘Oh my gosh.’ But a lot of guys have never been able to throw one. They just don’t have the feel. Mike Morgan played for 23 years and he always struggled with throwing a changeup. His last year in the big leagues, he said to me, ‘I think I found it. I think I found my changeup.’ It was the exact same one that he’d started with, back when he first started pitching. He’d gone full circle.

“For other guys, like Jamie Moyer — it was so natural to him. And the whole idea is to really sell it. You want the grip to kill the speed of the pitch, and I believe that you’ve got to feel like it’s a power pitch. Too many guys slow their arms, trying to kill the speed of the pitch. That’s not what it is.

“Greg Maddux’s changeup was about 4-5 mph off his fastball. I’ll hear people say, ‘It should be 10.’ No. What you do is look at the individual and see what works. Some guys are eight, some guys are 10. Some guys are 12. Maddux happened to be four or five. You work with the individual and find a speed differential that works for him.”

Laurila: You’re a fan of good changeups…

Kranitz: “Yes. If you have a changeup — a good changeup — you can start in the big leagues with two pitches. In my opinion, you’ve got a better chance to navigate through a lineup with fastball/changeup than you do with the other two combinations [fastball/curveball and fastball/slider]. It’s about managing bat speed, right? If you start getting hitters back and forth, it’s more difficult for them.

“Back in the day, you had Mario Soto with the Reds. He had a tremendous changeup. I had Marco Estrada in Baltimore. He had a great changeup. And now, more right-handers are throwing the changeup in on right-handed hitters. That’s a great place for guys to go. Guys with great changeups, they throw it and hitters see fastball. The first time I really saw anybody do that was Trevor Hoffman. He had great command with his fastball, then he would use that changeup to keep guys off balance. Consistently.”

Laurila: You mentioned Doug Jones throwing variations of his changeup. That was presumably a big part of his effectiveness?

Kranitz: “Absolutely. He figured out that people will sit on a pitch, which they do. Especially now, because there’s so much information out there. If they know that Doug Jones is throwing 50% changeups, they’re going to possibly eliminate his fastball and sit on his changeup. Now, if he’s got a different version of it — maybe one sinks and another one will cut — that’s not as easy. Kyle Hendricks with the Cubs. He started having different versions of his changeup.

“And let’s not forget that these guys have great command. You can’t just throw the ball. Doug Jones had great command of his fastball, Hendricks has great command of his. They know where they’re throwing the baseball. There’s feel there already, so now it becomes, ‘OK, let’s see what I can do with my changeup. Where can I command it? How many different quadrants can I throw it in? What can I make the ball do?’ It’s a great pitch if you know how to use it.”