Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
Yeah, this is why we have to base asks like this on the actual data and not our feelings as to what should happen. Knuckleballers absolutely do get injured, for one. Steve Sparks threw the knuckler and missed a year and a half from 1996-97 (he also missed time in 1995 trying to rip a phone book in half but IIRC these were completely different injuries). Tim Wakefield missed time in 2006 and 2009 and even Phil Niekro didn't literally pitch every 4th game every season. I'm not sure what his usage patterns were towards the end of his career (he was really bad though) so maybe he was a Sunday starter but he was also only starting like 25 games a year, so something was limiting him.
It's also not just "hard" for guys to learn the dancer, it's basically something you can't count on. Former Rangers pitching coach Tom House wrote a book in the early 90s about some of the things he tried while he was in charge of the pitchers there and one thing he did do, given the success of Charlie Hough in the majors, was try to impart the knuckleball to a couple of minor league guys. Even from the beginning he was clear that the guys who he took time to teach were basically at the end of their minor league careers, like if he hadn't had them step aside and learn the pitch the Rangers would have cut them. I think of the two or three guys he put into that program, one guy lasted a couple extra years in the minor leagues.
I think teaching the knuckler is a fun idea but I think the success rate in the development lab should be very, very close to 0.
I think the real "issue" with the knuckleball is that it doesn't get outs the way other pitches do, i.e. by making hitters miss them. A knuckleball pitcher will generate a lower BABIP than another pitcher on average because making weak contact is somehow a thing for it. Well, that's one; the other is that it looks like the guy's throwing slow-pitch softball out there and if he gets hit around the manager looks like a complete fool for using him at all. So you wind up in a paradoxical situation where in order for a guy to get used at all, he's got to have an established record as a good pitcher, and almost by definition a guy with an established record as a good pitcher won't be switching to the knuckler (Jim Bouton was a rare exception although even he had a few years of ineffective play before the Pilots let him through the knuckler exclusively).
I'm not super sure the knuckler is necessarily any less reliable than any other pitch although it might seem that way because a. when it's not working it looks really stupid and b. since it's the only pitch a guy throws he can't just drop it from the arsenal. I'd actually like to see some kind of a "command check" on all pitches, not just knucklers, before a game and if the check fails then for that game the pitcher's stuff, etc. is compiled without that pitch (which, a 3-pitch guy with a not-working 3rd pitch turns into a guy who can maaaaybe give you 5 innings if you're willing to pitch him through jams in the 4th and 5th, and I think that's how it should be).
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The knuckler is also seen as a fringe pitch. It's seen as a novelty and discounted as such. This leaves a limited number able to teach it, an even more limited number willing to consider paying staff to teach it and an even more limited number of pitchers who would even consider learning it, let alone putting in the effort needed.
Teaching it should be limited to former knuckleballers, success rate can be a bit lower to due to all the factors involved with learning the pitch but the real limiting factor should be the number of coaches. It would be nice to be able to create an increase down the line by teaching more players, who then become coaches and pass it on.