Notes, quotes and comment

Look closely at the bat knob, and you might see something
odd about Kurt Suzuki's current bat.

Interesting piece by the Pioneer Press' Mike Berardino about Kurt Suzuki's switch to an "axe-handle" bat. I had read a Baseball America piece on the (slightly) increasing use of the handle earlier this year, but I can't say I've spotted one in use.

Judging by the above photo, taken since Suzuki is said to have converted to the new bat full time, there may not be enough difference to really notice, especially when the hitter has both hands on the bat.

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Zack Jones, a high-velocity arm the Twins lost in the Rule 5 draft last offseason, was returned to the Minnesota organization by the Brewers over the weekend. He had shoulder problems early in spring training and never actually pitched for the Brewers, but he did get about two-and-a-half months of major league (minimum) salary while on the disabled list. (Jones did make a few minor league appearances on a rehab assignment.)

Jones has been assigned to Double-A Chattanooga, and we'll obviously see what happens from here.

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The Twins were off Monday, and I spent the evening running errands and mowing, but I did catch an inning of Steven Wright's knuckleball pitching. He went nine innings of one-run ball (unearned) against the White Sox, but the White Sox won in 10, beating Craig Kimbrel. ("Hey, a fast ball. I know how to hit something hard and straight!") The run was unearned because it scored on a passed ball, but really -- passed balls with a knuckleballer on the mound are more the fault of the pitch than of the catcher.

Wright has now made 14 starts for Boston this year, 98.1 innings with an ERA of 2.01. There is speculation that he might start the All Star game next month.

It's fun to watch a flutterballer work, partly because it looks easy enough. I can watch, say, Ervin Santana pitch and know I could never throw with that velocity (and he isn't a particularly hard thrower).

Looks easy but it obviously isn't. There are only two true knuckleballers in the bigs now -- Wright and R.D. Dickey of Toronto -- and they both spent years in the minors refining the pitch.

The knuckleball: The pitch of maturity

R.A. Dickey struggled Sunday against the Yankees.

Sabermetric types tend to be fascinated by knuckleballers, such as R.A. Dickey -- perhaps because the athletic skill involved in the pitch appears slight enough for us to imagine that we could be doing this.

But there are other reasons more tied to sabermetrics. Knuckleballers tend to break the mold of the statistics. The rules of thumb -- about strikeout rates, about batting average on balls in play -- that can be applied when evaluating pitchers through the stats generally don't apply to these guys.

Most obvious: Unlike most players (pitchers or position players), they usually reach their peak in their 30s. Dickey, for example, is a full decade past the age at which players are most likely to have their best season.

Which makes it impractical for an organization to try to develop knuckleball specialists.

The rules covering player contracts and team control of those contracts have molded themselves around the "normal" development of talent. Typically, when a marginal player reaches his mid 20s, the rules will either push him up to the major leagues or out of the organization.

And typically, knuckleballers are (a) marginal pitchers -- nobody with an adequate fastball takes up the flutterball; and (b) not ready at age 25 or 27 to pitch in the major leagues.

And so, as I described in the Monday print column, Dickey bounced around -- Texas, Milwaukee, Seattle, Minnesota -- before finally emerging. It wasn't that the other organizations didn't give him a chance; it was that he hadn't yet mastered what he needed to have mastered.

As for why most knuckleball specialists arrive late: I suspect emotional stability is a big factor.

Most athletes are aggressive people. They're not given to letting things happen; their preference is to force the action. One of the constant struggles for most players is to learn to "stay within themselves," to NOT always push the action.

That's even more true for knuckleball practitioners. Throw the pitch too hard, and it's going to spin, and if it spins, it won't do anything but get hit. Hard.

So the knuckleballer must develop a certain passivity, or at least a resignation to his fate. He is dependent upon a pitch he cannot command in the same way a conventional pitcher can command his stuff. The knuckleballer throws his pitch and hopes it does something.

Dickey has suggested that his current dominance is connected to his public disclosure of his sexual abuse and other demons. Purging his secrets in his memoirs leaves him with nothing to hide. Nothing that happens on the field can shame him. He is free to fail -- and free to succeed.

Knuckling down

Tim Wakefield on Monday pitched
seven innings against the Twins, allowing
three earned runs, striking out five
and walking none. 

I'd rather not see the Twins lose, but if they had to lose Monday night I would have preferred to see Tim Wakefield get the "W." No luck there, either; the veteran knuckleballer left with the lead, but Alfredo Aceves vultured the decision.

So we still don't have a truly active 200-game winner. Wakefield is stuck on 199.

Watching him toss his flutterball got me to pondering, once more, the apparently dying knuckleball. When I started paying attention to baseball (1969) there were quite a few accomplished knuckleballers — future Hall of Famers Phil Niekro and Hoyt Wilhelm, plus guys like Wilbur Wood (the rare left-handed knucklerballer) and Eddie Fisher — and a few others, such as Jim Bouton, throwing the pitch without great distinction.

Today there's Wakefield, 45 and clearly near the end of his career, and R.A. Dickey, whose record this season with the Mets doesn't look as strong as last season on the surface but really isn't that much worse.

The Twins had Dickey in 2009, and he gave them a half season of good work, then deteriorated rapidly. The Mets have used him almost strictly as a starter, and he's been pretty effective.

Dickey's 36, which is normally a bad sign. But it's a rare knuckleballer who flourishes before age 30. They start late and finish even later. I suspect the pitch requires a sense of fatalism a 20-something hasn't developed. Nobody really controls the knuckleball. The pitcher lets it go and hopes it does something between his hand and the bat.

Which is why knuckleballers are the last to get a chance. Managers like to be in control. We'll pitch this guy inside, that guy outside, and don't throw this one a breaking pitch in the strike zone. There's no control with a knuckleball.

Right now, Dickey is the future of the pitch, although I'm still holding out some hope for Charlie Haeger, who's only 27 and has had some moments in the bigs. None of those moments have come this year, however, and he's not fared well in Triple A this season.