M’s Select Knuckler in Rule 5 Draft
The Rule 5 draft was this morning as the wrapup to the winter meetings. Last year, the Mariners grabbed Sean White, and this year, it was R.A. Dickey. Dickey was a former 1st round pick who never made it as a normal pitcher, so he’s taken up the knuckleball as a way to try to have a major league career. He threw 170 innings for Nashville in the PCL last year with typical knuckler results – lots of walks, not many strikeouts, but a lot of groundballs and weak contact, leading to a decent ERA.
Maybe Dickey will get to spring training, be lousy, and the M’s will be out $25,000 when they return him to the Twins. But, I still like this move – having a knuckler in camp fighting for a spot on the pitching staff will be fun, and if the M’s decided to use him in relief, we could see all kinds of hilarity when he comes in to replace Felix Hernandez.
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“Okay. I’m all tuned up for that 98 MPH fastball now. I’ve seen him three times. I’m good. Okay, pitching change. No biggie, lots of hard throwers in the pen…. And a 65 MPH knuckleball. That thing looks like it’s going in slow motion, and I feel like the hitter in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”
exactly my thoughts, Dave
Isn’t R.A. Dickey the guy with a congenital defect in his pitching elbow so he doesn’t have a UCL? Or am I thinking of someone else?
Did the M’s take, or lose, anyone in the minor league portion of the draft?
Yup, RA Dickey has no UCL.
If we can’t be good, maybe we’ll kill them with hilarity?
This could be a good pick up. Worst comes to worse, he’s gone. I might not be correct on this, but I believe Dickey hasn’t had any real chances to use it in the majors, outside of his debacle of a start in 2006.
That is chance to use the knuckler. IIRC, he was a worse then meh crafty-righty before the knuckler.
from Larue:
“Returning to the minor leagues and taking up the knuckler fulltime, however, Dickey seemed to find the touch on that pitch last year, when he went 13-6 with a 3.72 in Class AAA Nashville.
More impressive, after June 1 Dickey went 10-2 with a 2.50 ERA.
The Mariners had great scouting reports on Dickey, and will bring him to spring training as a starting pitcher/long relief candidate. As a Rule 5 draftee, Dickey must stay on the club’s 25-man roster all season or be offered back to the Twins.
Among the intriguing aspects of the move: The team isn’t certain catcher Kenji Johjima has ever caught a knuckleball.”
No one throws it in Japan. No idea why.
I like it, because odds are good that he’ll either prove he can be a real contributer to the team or he’ll be cut without much hesitation. $25K is not much of a risk for what could be a productive arm.
“Tim Purpura has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of minor league baseball. Purpura will monitor all business activities of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL) and its subsidiary companies. He also will be the primary liason with MLB.”
I believe Dickey hasn’t had any real chances to use it in the majors, outside of his debacle of a start in 2006.
He started using it during the 2005 season, so I think you’d have to include his four September starts that year as well.
oh, that Pat Gillick.
“Phillies selected LHP Travis Blackley from the Giants with the 14th pick of the Rule 5 draft.”
Among the intriguing aspects of the move: The team isn’t certain catcher Kenji Johjima has ever caught a knuckleball.â€
Has Burke???
Do we still have Clint Nageotte and can we trade him to Philadelphia quick?
Maybe Burke could be our Mirabelli. Just kidding.
Burke can throw one, so I’d bet he can catch one.
I’m not sure which is harder, throwing a MLB caliber knuckleball, or catching one. Sounds like the latter, if you listen to any of the catchers who ever caught one.
Maybe it’s considered dishonorable?
What’s worse for a hitter I wonder, facing a knuckleballer out of the pen after a flame thrower, or vice versa?
I’d imagine the former, because you see fastballs far more often, and it probably isn’t too tough to gear up for one.
20: I doubt that; there’s a pitcher over there who throws behind his back occasionally. My guess is that, between the slider, curveball, forkball, cutter and shyoto, and with the regimented nature of instruction in Japanese baseball, they just have too much to learn and not enough time to experiment. Two-seam fastballs and changeups are both uncommon as well, though not to the same degrees as the knuckler.
And.. I double clicked the submit button. Sorry.
But hey, msb, I got a kick out of the Blackley thing, too. Didn’t Gillick draft him here?
This is a nice move, if for no other reason than it gives us yet another option for the back of the rotation. Never hurts to have 4-5 options on hand to fill the last two spots.
As of now, we are looking at:
HoRam (please, Lord, no)
Baek
RRS
Morrow
Tillman (if he shocks the world in ST)
Random FA
Over all, I could live with our back-end starters coming out of that group, I think.
And, if we did acquire another great or good arm, that would push Washburn down to the 4-hole and we’d only have to take the one best pitcher out of the above group in the rotation. Then, it would look like:
Hernandez
Bedard/Colon/??
Batista
Washburn
5th
Changeups are uncommon in Japan? Wow. That’s such a powerful weapon when mastered.
25- it looks like unless something happens in shining a negative light on seattle during his trip, kuroda will probably sign with seattle…
Oh, and it appears RHP Juan Sandoval was the only player in the M’s organization selected.
Burke can throw one, so I’d bet he can catch one.
And Burke just continues to climb in awesomeness. Maybe he can give the kid pitching tips.
I love knuckleballers. Yeah, they have no idea what’s going to happen and sometimes they have no movement and get pounded, but they’re durable and entertaining and I’m far more likely to watch a game if there’s a chance of one pitching in it. The M’s just increased by viewership in ‘08 (assuming he breaks camp on the roster). Besides, the sequence Lowe-Dickey-Putz sounds like the law firm in some hilarious vaudeville sketch.
Paul -
Jamie Burke caught RA Dickey in 2006, in Oklahoma City.
Check it out.
30 – Interesting. That makes me wonder. What could we expect to see from Burke’s number’s if he gets more at bats from catching every 5th day.
His stats are basically identical from 2005 and 2007, but both were south of 60 games played. So, I suppose we could expect him to remain a solid backup to Kenji.
Its about time we have a knuckler on the squad. I love haveing a knuckler as a swing guy whom can start and relief. Good to use these guys to plug through blow out games.
Nice find, Marc!
The guy they drafted in the Rule 5 is 33 years old. How excited should we really be about that?
They’re not projecting Dickey as a starter. And I don’t think they’re going to sub Burke in behind the plate whenever they call Dickey in from the pen (if they did, Burke could get an at-bat 3 or 4 times a week, plus Joh’s off days). Joh is going to have to learn how to catch the dancing pitch, or we’re going to have to live with a lot of passed balls. But Burke can help Joh with that. Fortunately “weak grounders” frequently turn into double plays.
Everybody knows Burke’s clock is ticking as long as Clement is making progress in Tacoma. I hope he gets a few more days of glory (suicide squeeze bunts! Home runs!) because he’s bound to help the team in a lot of ways that aren’t as obvious.
Ooops, I used the wrong quote (how the heck did I do that?) That was actually in response to
What could we expect to see from Burke’s number’s if he gets more at bats from catching every 5th day
from Drayer:
“Bavasi told us that they were taking a flyer on him as a starter, but he could possibly pitch out of the bullpen. Dickey comes to the M’s on the recommendation of Matt Olkin, the Mariners numbers guy and the M’s scouts.”
Mat Olkin, of course, with one ‘t’.
(see our write-up of the consulting stathead)
I saw Dickey pitch an inning in spring training last year. I went to Surprise to catch the Royals/Rangers game and since no names are on the jerseys, this bearded dude comes out and throws these super slow pitches. I’m sitting right over the Royals dugout and can see the pitches move THAT is how slow this guy was throwing. After watching him throw the pitch 3 or 4 straight times, I asked my friend if he’s seeing what I’m seeing and it is the knuckler.
He did okay. I realized it was Dickey once I figured out the guy is throwing a knuckler. He was a NRI player so they didn’t have him listed in the program.
Could be a good pickup. If anything it will be interesting to see a knuckleballer since they are so rare nowadays.
33 – Agreed, however, with Burke’s experience not only catching knucklers, but this exact knuckler, that sure gives us a chance to rest Kenji more.
I think it more than makes sense to have Burke catch him if he should make it as a starter. But definately not replacing Kenji mid-game, unless it’s like a 12-2 game in the 5th when he enters.
#36– Drayer has already apologized for any spelling/grammer errors when blogging– she claims that is why she talks rather than writes
I less than three knucleballers. The fact that guys like Niekro and Wakefield have gone on to have pretty decent careers seem to be lost on a lot of MLB front offices.
MLB needs a rule requiring at least one knuckleballer in each organization. I hope he does well. I hope he pitches in Game Seven of the 2009 World Series for us!
40 -
But the fact that Charlies Zink and Haeger have sort of stalled out in AAA is also not lost on a lot of MLB front offices.
It’s not like there aren’t knucklers around, (ok, not a ton of them), but it’s sort of hard to find guys who’ve broken into MLB since Dennis ‘Not Russ’ Springer.
Maybe that’s evidence of a petty aesthetic bias or widespread weak-mindedness in baseball, but it’s also possible that bad pitchers turn to the knuckler when they can’t do anything else, and that, for 99% of them, not even the knuckler (with all of its rarity/curiosity) can turn bad pitchers into good.
There is a self selection bias with knuckleball pitchers. 99% of them are pitchers who failed because of lack of stuff or injury. Of those, only a fraction attempt to make a career with a knuckleball. Finally, only a small percentage of those are good enough to make it.
This assumes that the people best suited to be knuckleballers, were once regular pitchers. Is this a valid assumption? I have no idea, but it doesn’t necessarily strike me as logical. You don’t see many knuckleball pitchers as the high school and college level either. If it was more acceptable at that level, and MLB teams were more likely to give those guys a shot, maybe we’d see more in the majors.
This is a great THT article on Mr. Wakefield. I’m sure most of us have read it, but if you haven’t it’s a very good read.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/butterflies-are-not-bullets/
The problem w/ knucklers is they’re rreeaallllyy hard to throw an MLB caliber one. Lots of people can throw a 55 mph knuckler, very few people can throw a 68-72 mph knuckler, let alone throw strikes. 68-72 is the range where the real dancing happens, and it’s hard to throw, let alone throw for strikes.
Chris Miller,
I understand that (although I’d say 60-72 is more accurate from Wakefield’s graph on THT). What I’m curious about is whether the same people who have a skill for pitching in general have a skill for throwing the knuckleball.
When I played baseball in high school the coaches never attempted to see if anyone could throw a knuckleball. Finding pitchers simply meant taking the guys who threw hardest.
Perhaps if we were identifying potential knuckleball pitchers earlier, or even knew how to identify potential knuckleball pitchers, there would be more. I find it hard to believe that the best method for identifying them is allowing washed up pitchers to experiment with it.
Yep, you take Dickey out of Rangers Ballpark and his 6.26 ERA there, and he could actually be a decent pitcher.
from Drayer:
“Bavasi told us that they were taking a flyer on him as a starter, but he could possibly pitch out of the bullpen. Dickey comes to the M’s on the recommendation of Matt [sic] Olkin, the Mariners numbers guy and the M’s scouts.â€
Hmmm, interesting — I wonder if this is the first time the M’s have acknowledged a signing recommendation from Olkin. I could be wrong, but it’s the first time I’ve noticed it anyway. Is Bavasi finally listening to his resident stathead??? That can’t be bad thing…
I find it funny that Dickey was picked on Olkin’s recommendation. They hire a “stat guy,” seem to mostly ignore him, and then his publicly noted contribution is the acquisition of the type of player that doesn’t really fit into common methods of statistical analysis and projection.
#49: Maybe they are finally learning. Now let’s hope Dickey works out then they may listen to the guy more.
Are they listening to the stathead or just using him as a preemptive excuse for when Dickey doesn’t work out? Not saying I have any negative feelings about Dickey, just that by being an unusual style of player, a lot of people will jump on the move if it doesn’t work out.
MLB needs a rule requiring at least one knuckleballer in each organization.
Impossible. Everyone knows there can only be two Sith Lords at any one time.
Speaking of projecting movie plots onto baseball, does the report that Texas might sign Gagne again make anyone else think of Blondie and Tuco?
“There are two kinds of pitchers in this world. Those with no trade clauses, and those who pack their bags. You pack.”
I just read Derek’s 2005 post on Olkin. Do we know what Olkin has been doing since then? Does he only work for the M’s, or does he take other jobs (i.e. writing articles or sports columns) on the side?
I would like to think statistical analysis is worth a full-time position with the M’s.
Not sure exactly what to make of that. Smith might just be a fan of the pitch.
Real knuckleball technique seems to be passed down from pitcher to pitcher directly, rather than through coaches. It’s a real black art, and it may be something that’s almost impossible to teach if you haven’t done it yourself. That could explain why it’s almost never taught below the professional level: by the time you find someone who really knows how to help you with the pitch, you’re already pretty close to the bigs (either on your way up, or desperately trying to avoid being on your way out).
But hitters aren’t promoted based on their ability to hit knuckleballs, so there’s no reason to expect major-league hitters to be any better at hitting them than minor-league hitters are.
On catching them, Mirabelli says he can tell which pitches he can’t catch right out of Wakefield’s hand. I imagine that would give him a head start in getting into good blocking position.
According to Geoff Baker, the Phillies made room for Travis Blackley on their 40-man roster by dumping Julio Mateo.
About time the M’s got a hold of another true knucleball pitcher.
I just wasn’t expecting to be of all pitchers R.A. Dickey.
I remember him from his Ranger days and believe me he is last guy I thought would have the sense to turn to the knucleball to save his career.
If Dickey’s success in the Twins system isn’t just a MiLB phenom and does tranlate to success in MLB as either BOR SP or long reliever for the M’s.
He’ll be well worth the $50,000 fee to aquire him via rule 5 draft.
I remember quite clearly a quote from former M OFer Jay Buhner about facing a true knucleball pitcher.
Buhner said “Every time I face one be he a SP or RP messes up my timing and stroke for at least 2 games”.
I love this move.
I have an admittedly irrational fascination with the knuckleball. Would love to see this guy get some innings at Safeco next season.
Not saying I have any negative feelings about Dickey, just that by being an unusual style of player, a lot of people will jump on the move if it doesn’t work out.
No, they won’t. Seattle didn’t give up anything of value for him — no players, no draft picks, just $25,000. If he doesn’t work out, he gets released along with the non-roster invitees, and in two weeks nobody remembers he was here.
The only possible issue is the opportunity cost of him taking up a spot on the 40-man roster this offseason, and it’s not like the M’s booted a great prospect to create the space.
In fact, as Ace pointed out in an earlier thread, if Dickey takes the spot that would otherwise go to the Mateo/White/Parrish/”random-veteran-who-sucks” and thereby takes the gascan option out of Mac’s hands, it’s a net improvement even if he never actually pitches in a game.
The knuckleball is emblematic of one of the things I like best about baseball. There’s time to be quirky, space to be quirky, and a seeming appreciation of quirkiness. Hotfoots (hotfeet?), gum on the hat, shaving cream pies…. don’t see a whole lot of that in the NFL.
There are some great quotes about the knuckler out there.
Phil Niekro, on Tim Wakefield:
“Tim was so successful early, and then he just lost it. That’s when it becomes very tough mentally to throw a pitch that everybody knows is coming. I’ve told him that he’s got to keep learning, he’s got to eat, sleep, walk and talk the knuckleball until it floats in his bloodstream like a spirit inside of him.”
The classic Bob Uecker quote regarding the best way to catch one: “Wait’ll it stops rolling, then go pick it up.”
And, all the Jim Bouton quotes that y’all have memorized from Ball Four.
Maybe the knuckler is a cultural phenomenon.
Along with Dickey on the M’s site, I noticed a “Joseph Woerman” whose name is the same grey shade as Dickey’s. Was he another Rule 5 Draft selection of ours?
Or anyway, he doesn’t have a uniform number nor any bio information.
Mateo was cut yesterday, before the draft happened
Joseph Bernard Woerman
Born: 12/17/1982, Edmonds, WA
2-2 with 17K and a 6.86 ERA for the Peoria Javelinas in the Winter Arizona Fall League
Mariners’ 11th round selection in the June 2003 draft; signed by Mariners scout Tim Reynolds…graduated from Coronado High School in June 2001…played for San Diego City College…on the provisional roster for the Netherlands for the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
TNT, Nov. 20th:
“The Mariners will add two minor league players to their 40-man major league roster today – pitcher Joseph Woerman and second baseman Yung Chi Chen. Woerman, a 24-year-old right-hander who went 7-7 in Class AA last season, pitched well in the Arizona Fall League and caught the team’s attention there. “
#64– actually there was an odd note in the Philly Daily News about it:
“That case is still in the courts but, in the meantime, Mateo was quietly released yesterday. There are some indications that the Phillies weren’t fully aware of how serious his legal issues were when they made the deal.”
how could they be in the dark?
Ryan Franklin supposedly had a good knuckleball. The way I heard it, Lou didn’t want him to throw it. I always wanted to see him throw it in a game.
Ryan Franklin had lots of supposedly good pitches. I guess Lou told him not to throw any of them.
Dickey might prove to be an interesting pickup. As some have mentioned, BB’s only out $25k if he doesn’t work out…and if he does have a decent spring and earns a roster spot, he may wind up being a serviceable swing guy.
Never mind the Neikro Brothers or Wakefield…heck, if he turns out to be even somewhere in the vicinity of where Steve Sparks was throwing that knuckler, that’d still be an improvement over HoRam.
I have to say, I’m disappointed. I thought they’d signed a knucker! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knucker
Know that’d be something.
Well, if “knucker” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “nicor” which means “water monster”… What would you call a really, really good Mariner? Or a really, really bad one?
#68. Lou wouldn’t let him. Melvin wouldn’t let him. Price wouldn’t let him.
67 – Isn’t that the Pat Gillick we all remember and love, though?
We need more Saxon etymology jokes.
We need more Saxon etymology. You supply the vocabulary, we’ll supply the jokes.
Of course, we already have a Sexson joke playing first base.
#70: Even if he is a poor man’s Tom Candiotti (when the Candy man was in his twilight years) this will prove to be an excellent pickup.
Sheesh…I really hope this is the start of a new approach for BB and the FO.
77: You know, I almost forgot about the ole’ Candy Man…he had some pretty decent years, too.
67: Maybe the Nats can pick up Mateo — with the roster they seem to be building for next year, he’d probably fit right in!
KURODA (sEE # 26)
Seems to me that the guy should get some new agents.
Any agent who thinks that playing home games in warm weather is more important than the opportunity to pitch to the only MLB catcher that speaks your language should be dismissed already.
If Kuroda thinks that, his agent might try to dissuade him but ultimately it’s his job to do what his client wants. And each time I’ve seen the claim that Kuroda would prefer to pitch in a warm city (which, I note, is always at least second hand and never a [translated] direct quote) there’s no mention of his agent. It could be that Kuroda thinks he’s at more injury risk in cold weather, and avoiding injury is more important than pitching to a catcher that speaks his language. After all, there have been several Japanese imports who have pitched in MLB, and all of them managed to do so without Johjima as their catcher.
Kuroda ought to go down and throw a couple of innings in Australia while its summer there so he can see what it would be like pitching in Arizona or Texas. He might change his mind about pitching in a warm weather city.
Ahhhh, Jim Boutin relived!!!