Latest news with #knuckleball
New York Times
12 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
The knuckleball's return? Plus: Sorry for the jinx, Aaron Judge
The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic's MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox. How much does a 'small market' team go for these days? We're about to find out. Plus: New hope for knuckleballers in the Tigers system, a reminder on something catchers can't do, and Ken (… sigh …) Ken jinxed Aaron Judge, you guys. I'm Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to the Windup! Yesterday was a big day for buying sports teams. First, the Rays announced that ownership was in 'exclusive negotiations' with a group headed by Jacksonville-based real estate developer Patrick Zalupski, likely signaling the end of a somewhat tumultuous last year for current owner Stu Sternberg. Last summer, things were looking up, with the team and the city of St. Petersburg in agreement on a $1.3 billion stadium deal. But that was before Hurricane Milton tore the roof off Tropicana Field, forcing the team to temporarily move to George Steinbrenner Field — the Yankees' spring training facility — for 2025. Advertisement It also set back the funding process; the city was, understandably, preoccupied with more urgent matters. But the Rays contended that the delays would increase the cost (since the timeline would be shorter) and the city should pay for the overage. No go. Ultimately, the Rays scuttled the agreement, city officials called for Sternberg to sell, and other owners and commissioner Rob Manfred also pressured him to sell. By then, it was not exactly a surprise. The reported value of the team is $1.7 billion. Meanwhile … if you think Dodgers owner Mark Walter has spent a ton on free agency recently, get a load of this: He just went out and got LeBron James and Luka Dončić, too. Well, sorta. He has agreed in principle to purchase the Los Angeles Lakers for somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion. Either would be a global record for a sports franchise. And lastly: BIG NEWS! John Fisher is selling the team!! … The soccer team. Not the A's. Nuts. Two Saturdays ago, while covering Red Sox-Yankees for Fox, I learned something interesting about Aaron Judge's offensive approach. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing that would earn me my long-awaited Pulitzer, but a decent angle I felt was worth pursuing. I couldn't talk to Judge that day, but I did some other interviews for the story during the week. We had Red Sox-Yankees again last Saturday, so I knew I would get another crack at Judge. I was on a mission. And I spoke with him before the game, completing my reporting. What could go wrong? At the time, Judge was the hottest hitter on the planet, batting .390 with 26 home runs. Any angle on him was a good angle, right? I wrote the story Sunday and planned to publish it Monday, excited to get it out there. Faithful readers will notice the story still has not appeared. Advertisement After the Yankees were swept by the Red Sox last weekend, we decided to hold off, thinking the timing was not appropriate. If we had published, our readers would have lit me up in the comments, saying, 'Not now, idiot!' and other such niceties. Mind you, I'm quite accustomed to readers lighting me up in the comments. But publishing the Judge story after the Yankees were swept would have been the journalistic equivalent of robbing a grocery store with two dozen cops standing outside. We figured we'd delay the story a day or two, then publish as soon as Judge got hot again. Well, we've waited. And waited. And waited some more. And now, I'm starting to wonder whether this sucker will ever see the light of day. Since I interviewed Judge, the day after he hit a dramatic, game-tying shot off Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet, he is 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts. His batting average has dropped from .390 to .366. And the Yankees have lost six straight games, getting swept by the Red Sox and dropping the first three games of four against the Los Angeles Angels. Their lead in the AL East is down to 1 1/2 games. I know what you're thinking: I jinxed Judge. Fair analysis. I also jinxed the Atlanta Braves and Texas Rangers, whom I predicted would meet in the World Series. Both will be lucky to make the playoffs. Jinxing, I guess, is what I do. But enough about my victims. What about me? I've got 1,700 glorious words waiting to be filed. What you eventually will read, if Judge ever snaps out of it, will be a different version. Revisions will be necessary. Words like 'historic' and 'Superman' and 'godlike' will need to be deleted. At this point, I'm just hoping the story appears before the All-Star break. Or before the decade is over. All you Yankee fans in a tizzy over the team's slump, I feel your pain. Maybe it's just me — after all, I once suggested a 621-foot 'crevasse' for a stadium — but I adore the weird and esoteric parts of this great sport. So of course I love the knuckleball. The pitch is — pardon a reference I'm not proud of — too weird to live, too rare to die. Except, in recent years, it has seemed rather dead. Adrian Morejon throws one once in a while. Matt Waldron threw it regularly last year, but he's back in the minors. The last knuckleballer to stick around? R.A. Dickey, who last pitched in 2017. Advertisement I know the game has changed, but c'mon — Dickey won 20 games and a Cy Young award in 2012. Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield, Phil Niekro and Hoyt Wilhelm pitched an average of 22.5 seasons throwing it. Surely baseball hasn't completely tossed it aside, right? Take heart. Cody Stavenhagen has a great story today about Kenny Serwa, a 27-year-old who was recently called up to Double A in the Tigers organization. Serwa throws two versions of the pitch: one is slower. The other? It's the hardest knuckleball in Statcast history, at 88.5 mph. Throw in a sinker, cutter, curveball and mid-90s fastball, and … I'm intrigued. Stavenhagen does a brilliant job not only of telling Serwa's story, but also explaining why the pitch has fallen out of favor in big-league front offices. It's for the same reason it can be such an effective weapon: It's unpredictable. Citing physics professors, former big-leaguers and the folks at Tread Athletics, Stavenhagen fills us in on the kid who was playing indie ball and delivering pizzas in Chicago last year. Here's hoping he makes it. The baseball world is a little weirder when there's a successful knuckleballer hanging around. I see this same play crop up once in a while online, and the comments are always similar: 'I didn't know you couldn't do that!' 'First time I've ever seen that' or 'What a stupid rule.' I have no opinion on the stupidity of the rule, but it is a rule! Here, watch this GIF and see if you can tell what Luis Torrens does wrong: The Braves take a 2-0 lead when Luis Torrens uses his mask to scoop the baseball and the runners on 2nd and 3rd are both awarded a base [image or embed] — Baseball GIFs (@ June 18, 2025 at 4:42 PM That's right: Torrens attempted to corral the ball with his mask. You can't do that. He knew it, too — if you watch again, you can see him attempt to drop the mask quickly, hoping the umpire missed the infraction. Home plate umpire Edwin Jimenez was on it, though. And unfortunately for the Mets, there were runners on second and third when it happened. Each was awarded one base, increasing the Braves' lead to 2-0. Advertisement It was but the latest Mets catching scenario to give fans a bit of agita. Francisco Alvarez made some miscues the night before, and his power has been nonexistent this year. The Mets say they're not yet inclined to send him to the minor leagues to sort it out, though — as Tim Britton reports — that's … yet. And of course, it's all magnified by the fact that last night's 5-0 loss gives the Mets a five-game losing streak. NL East lead down to one game. Thought we were done with the All-Quarter Century Team? Not quite! Jayson Stark and Tyler Kepner — along with help from fan voting — have now assembled a full 40-man roster. The Dodgers are expected to announce plans to assist the immigrant community in Los Angeles. This comes on the heels of some controversy earlier this week, when singer Nezza said a team official told her not to sing the national anthem in Spanish. After comments over the weekend about how the Nats' losing streak — now 11 games — is 'never on the coaches' … is manager Davey Martinez on the hot seat? Pete Crow-Armstrong's great season with the bat might be overshadowing it, but his defense has been special this year in Chicago. Tragedy in Florida: Orioles minor leaguer Luis Guevara was killed in a jet ski accident. Keith Law has his list of the biggest draft misses from 2015, and Melissa Lockard has notes from this year's MLB Draft Combine. After a stunning three-run, two-out ninth-inning rally to walk off Arkansas, LSU is advancing to the College World Series final. They'll face Coastal Carolina. On the pods: The 'Rates & Barrels' crew talks about Cal Raleigh's MVP case and the importance of good communication. Programming note: No newsletter tomorrow — we're taking today off from writing in observance of Juneteenth. 📫 Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters.
New York Times
19 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
The knuckleball is dying. Can a Tigers prospect firing 88 mph knucklers bring it back?
The knuckleball has long been one of baseball's most esteemed and bizarre traditions. Now it is nearing extinction. This year, major league pitchers have thrown only 15 knuckleballs. Those have come from two players: Adrian Morejon of the San Diego Padres, who throws an odd knuckleball-changeup hybrid about 1 percent of the time, and Jonah Bride of the Minnesota Twins, an infielder fooling around with the knuckler in blowouts. So the number of true knuckleballers in the major leagues today? It's more like zero. Advertisement If there is any hope for the knuckleball in the modern game, where statistical models and quarter-zip clad executives rule, it rests off the shores of Lake Erie. That's where a 27-year-old journeyman is tossing two variations of the dancing pitch — one slow, and one shockingly fast — at the Detroit Tigers' Double-A affiliate. His name is Kenny Serwa. When videos of Serwa heaving a knuckler at 88.5 mph hit the internet this winter, the baseball world noticed. At least since the dawn of pitch tracking in 2008, no one has thrown the pitch harder than Morejon's 88.3 mph in a major-league game. 'We knew it was incredible, and we knew it was a crazy pitch,' said Cody Whitten, Serwa's longtime friend and coach. 'But we didn't understand how viral it could go.' At the time, Serwa, who, just last year was delivering pizzas and pitching in an independent league, was clinging to his dream. In January, he stood on a portable mound at the Tread Athletics facility outside Charlotte, North Carolina. This was Pro Day. Scouts traveled from near and far and sat behind black mesh netting, clutching radar guns and clipboards. Serwa's adrenaline pumped. His palms sweat like he was in a Marshall Mathers song. He tried to tame his inner monologue. This is what you've worked for. Be Kenny. Do your thing. 'My entire life,' he said one recent afternoon, 'I've always felt like I could be the next knuckleballer. I want to carry on the tradition.' For decades, MLB seemingly always had one consistent knuckleballer plying his trade. The likes of Hoyt Wilhelm, Charlie Hough, Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield — 'the Jedi Council of the knuckleball,' R.A. Dickey, winner of the 2012 Cy Young Award, calls it — fascinated generations with a pitch that seemingly defies physics. Even as the practice of the pitch recedes, however, the science around it is advancing. Advertisement Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physics professor, is one of the preeminent researchers attempting to solve the mysteries of the knuckleball. Based on years of previous wind tunnel studies, Nathan theorizes that knuckleballs move the way they do because of the way a baseball's seams disrupt airflow. The best knuckleballs hardly spin. The magnus force that normally influences a baseball's trajectory is removed from the equation. Instead, the ball floats. A wave of air may tumble around a seam, creating wake effects that can push the ball in one direction or another. 'Have you ever heard of seam-shifted wake?' Nathan said. 'The knuckleball is basically seam-shifted wake on steroids.' Filthy as the pitch can be, it is a famously fickle mistress, unpredictable even to its greatest masters. The slightest changes in grip, seam orientation, spin, weather — even microscopic differences in baseballs — can alter how it behaves. At least in most cases, though, the ball actually follows a relatively set trajectory. The 'dance' of the knuckleball, like a 'rising' fastball or a 'late-breaking' slider, is often more perception than reality. Still, the small wiggles — essentially a baseball dancing inside a narrow tube — are not fully captured by pitch movement readings we see on scoreboards today. 'Although it has a smooth trajectory, it doesn't have a predictable smooth trajectory,' Nathan said. Since his retirement in 2017, Dickey, baseball's last renowned knuckleballer, has watched the pitch slowly fade in a game increasingly focused on velocity and strikeouts. Pitchers such as Matt Waldron, Eddie Gamboa and Mickey Jannis have kept the flame lit, but no one has grabbed the torch. 'It makes me feel super sad,' Dickey said. Enter Serwa, and the possibility that throwing the pitch incredibly hard may be the key to its renaissance. Advertisement Serwa has been honing his pitch since he was 9 years old, playing catch with his father in the backyard. His dad, Ken Serwa, told him he was too young to be throwing curveballs or sliders. If he wanted to try something different, though, Ken had an idea. Father got in a squat. Son began his pitching motion. One of the first pitches wiggled through the air, evaded Ken Serwa's glove and hit him right in the chest. And thus started Kenny Serwa riding the whims of the knuckleball. The native of Chicagoland made stops at four colleges, his trajectory interrupted midway through that journey by COVID, his fortunes impacted by the shortening of the MLB draft to five rounds. He struggled to stay relevant. Still, there were hints of something special. One day during a stint at SIU-Edwardsville, Serwa threw his knuckleball. A teammate said it looked like 'the Yoshi,' a nod to the Nintendo character, who throws a dancing special pitch in 'Mario Super Sluggers.' They went inside, fired up the video game and cackled at how closely Serwa's knuckleball resembled the pitch from an animated green dinosaur. And sometimes, it would translate onto the mound. When pitching for Dayton, Serwa threw seven scoreless innings and struck out 11 hitters against Ohio State. He went eight innings, gave up two runs and punched out 10 against Richmond. 'One thing about Kenny,' said Whitten, his Dayton teammate, 'He had always said, 'My knuckleball needs to be seen. It just needs to be seen. I can throw this thing in MLB. No one throws this like me.'' Why, exactly, has no other notable knuckleballer come along since R.A. Dickey? 'I think it's simple,' Dickey himself said. 'Nobody is out there looking for the next Hoyt Wilhelm. They're all looking for the next Stephen Strasburg.' The game's existing feedback loop rewards velocity, strikeouts, power. Advertisement Baseball's analytical bent, too, does not cater to the riddles of the knuckleball. Scouts and executives alike crave projectability. Pitch models are built based on the results of thousands of other pitches thrown in the major leagues. 'You can't do that with a knuckleball,' Dickey said. 'It befuddles every algorithm out there.' The knuckleball also takes patience. Few are spending their teen years crafting knuckleballs; even Hall of Fame knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm did not break into the major leagues until age 29. And there is one more factor. 'It is really, really hard to do,' Dickey said. 'This is a pitch you cannot be fair weather about. You have to really grow it, cultivate it, figure it out, ask good questions, be willing to fail — all the things that are really hard for human nature to take on.' The willingness to fail? Serwa had that part down. There was a year out in Montana, pitching in the Pioneer League. Then came a return home to Illinois. In 2023, Serwa battled arm soreness, had a daughter and dealt with other family issues. He did not throw a single inning. At that point, many people would have walked away. 'I love this game,' Serwa said. 'I feel like God has given me this gift of throwing a knuckleball, and I'm just trying to do the most I can with it. I got more in me.' In 2024, Serwa signed with the Chicago Dogs of the American Association. He delivered for Dino's Pizza and worked at a local gym to help make ends meet. He also threw a team-record 119 1/3 innings, with a 4.60 ERA. He walked only 23 batters. By this time, Whitten had started working as a performance coach at Tread Athletics, one of the game's leading training think tanks. Whitten kept trying to get his old roommate in the door. Serwa finally obliged. At Tread this past winter, Whitten asked a question few before him seem to have even considered. Advertisement 'When you throw your knuckleball,' Whitten asked, 'what would you say your perceived effort level is?' Serwa was known to play with speed, adding or subtracting velocity to his knuckleball based on feel. But mostly, he said, he was in the 70-80 percent range. 'So you've never thrown one at 90 percent?' Whitten asked. 'No,' Serwa said. 'Why do we need to do that?' 'Well,' Whitten said, 'we can break the Statcast world record.' Serwa started experimenting with a harder knuckleball. The results quickly proved to be more than a gimmick. He could run the velocity into the upper 80s. Everyone swears the pitch maintained its dancing effect even at this higher speed. 'One of the questions is, how does the speed affect the movement?' said Nathan, the Illinois professor. 'We don't really know for sure.' Years ago, Nathan studied the difference between movement on Wakefield's knuckleballs at 65 mph and Dickey's knuckleballs into the 80s. He found little tangible difference. Dickey threw the knuckleball harder than most of his predecessors. He says his ideal range was between 76-82 mph. Anything harder, and he tended to put too much spin on the pitch, causing it to lose its knuckling effect. In Serwa's case, Whitten says the pitch shapes even appeared more consistent at higher velocities. The harder knuckleball could serve as a bridge between his 93-94 mph fastball and the Yoshi. 'After I saw what he could do with this,' Whitten said, 'I said, 'OK, this is usable.'' Soon after the bullpen at Tread, teams started calling. 'Dude,' Whitten still says, 'when he stepped on that mound in front of the scouts, he flipped the switch. He was locked in. He was dialed.' Serwa ended up on the phone with Dickey, talking about the secrets and snags of the knuckleball. Dickey also ended up on the phone with multiple pro teams that were interested in Serwa. Advertisement 'No one really has a very good understanding of what makes a good knuckleball pitcher a potential piece to the puzzle,' Dickey said. 'That's the thing that he'll be up against his whole career.' Teams covet velocity and swing and miss. But as hitters tweak their swings to cover the high fastball, and as rules incentivize contact and speed, teams are also quietly finding new ways to get batters out, returning to pitches low in the zone and harnessing the power of outlier changeups and sinkers. Anything to be different. Could there be a new place for the knuckleball? Dickey sees it evolving to be less an every-situation pitch and more a key piece of a larger package. 'Somebody has a good knuckleball, but it's part of a repertoire. It becomes, in essence, a putaway pitch. Like a good split from Ohtani or a great wipeout sweeper or Max Fried's curveball,' Dickey said. 'You would be silly and short-sighted to think there wouldn't be a way to use that.' Already in the minors, there are glimmers of hope for the pitch's future. Like Serwa, Minnesota Twins prospect Cory Lewis throws a knuckleball in the upper 80s, topping at 87.1 mph. Lewis throws his knuckleball 24 percent of the time, but he currently has a 9.09 ERA in the minor leagues. A few days after Tread's Pro Day, after discussions with several teams, Serwa settled on the Tigers. Months later, in the tunnels below Comerica Park, Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris explained the team's rationale for signing a 27-year-old knuckleballer out of indy ball. 'He's a guy who dominates the strike zone in a different type of way,' Harris said. 'He throws half knuckleballs and half a traditional mix. We're always looking for new ways to try to keep hitters off balance. So we thought we'd take a chance.' On one of the first days of spring, Serwa stepped onto a bullpen mound. 'During spring training he was 'the knuckleball guy,'' West Michigan Whitecaps manager Tony Cappuccilli said. 'Everyone ran to the backfields to see Knuckleball Guy.' Still, no one quite knew what to expect when Serwa began the season. Advertisement In Serwa's first 10 minor-league outings, he posted a 2.75 ERA. He walked only eight batters and surrendered only one home run in 36 innings. Granted, he was facing hitters several years his junior. Serwa was born in 1997; some of his teammates were born in 2004. Still, so far Serwa has shown encouraging ingredients. Cappuccilli called the knuckleball 'a real weapon.' Consider how different his arsenal is from Dickey's or Wakefield's. He throws a fastball up to 94 mph. He has a sinker, a cutter and a curveball. 'When he throws the fastball up in the zone after a knuckleball, it looks like it's 112,' Cappuccilli said. On a June afternoon, Serwa sat on a dugout bench, talking about his path. 'I am the knuckleball guy,' he said. 'I will be. I want to be. I have other stuff as well, but that's always been my bread and butter.' As the conversation continued, Serwa grew fidgety. Near the dugout tunnel, someone was beckoning. Tony wants you. Serwa rose from his seat, hopped down the steps and went inside. Down in the manager's office, Serwa apologized, said he had been tied up with an interview. 'That's OK,' Cappucilli said. 'Did they ask you about starting Thursday in Erie?' Serwa was getting promoted to Double A. The knuckleball dances, winds, weaves its way to home plate. Some pitches look like they might never get there. But every now and then, one of those drunken fireflies wiggles back over toward the plate, the strike zone, dodging a hitter's swing and landing safely, right where it was meant to be. (Illustration by Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photos: Marc Cardillo)
