20 Questions for 20 Twins Pitching Prospects in 2025

[ashbury]

3 minutes ago, Linus said:

Yep but imagine the heater being 93 or whatever he throws plus some sort of legit breaking ball.  I don’t recall any knuckleballers with that.  That would be really fun to watch.

Probably add 10 MPH to those old-timey figures.  It has to be difficult to throw something super-slow and still keep the same basic pitching motion, otherwise you're back to hitters sitting on what they have a fraction of a second's notice on from your windup and delivery.  Also, there are diminishing returns on how much slower an off-speed pitch should be - hitters are pretty talented and if they can detect the slow pitch early enough they can adjust at that last instant.   I'm sure the pitcher and his coach could explain many other details I'm not even capable of imagining.

[Senior Softball Guy]

29 minutes ago, Linus said:

Yep but imagine the heater being 93 or whatever he throws plus some sort of legit breaking ball.  I don’t recall any knuckleballers with that.  That would be really fun to watch.

Just don't bring him in with the go ahead run at third!

[Finlander]

I'd be just as concerned about which catcher would be assigned to attempt to catch the knuckleball reliably.

A pitcher can mess with hitter's timing by varying his delivery to combat their sitting on a pitch. Luis Tiant's array of moves, Muscat Grant's double toe tap, Jim Kaat's quick pitch and eephus pitch - and more recently, Luis Garcia with Houston, all come to mind.

If memory serves me correctly, Tim Wakefield had some sort of fastball to keep hitters honest. He did give up a few dingers, but being a knuckleball pitcher in Fenway is pretty brave! He had some nice seasons. I can't wait to see Lewis and some of the others (Soto, Prielipp, et.al.) in action against established MLB hitters and see how they do.