KNUCKLING DOWN
Sticking with unorthodox pitch saved Jannis’ career
THE taboo pitch that Mickey Jannis wasn’t supposed to throw is saving his career and placing him on the Mets’ radar.
For years the floater was in his arsenal, but only theoretically. He had never thrown it in a game, through his Cal State Bakersfield career, through two years in the Rays system after being a 44th-round draft pick in 2010.
He would fool around with its grip, get a feel for the pitch that only two current major leaguers (R.A. Dickey, Steven Wright) bother with, its unpredictability scaring other pitchers away.
So with one game left in his 2011 season with Single-A Hudson Valley and nothing to play for, Jannis approached one of his coaches.
“‘Hey, can I throw a knuckleball in my last outing?’ ” Janis, over the phone, remembered asking him. “And the coach was like, ‘Yeah, sure, let me see it first.’ And I threw it and the guy who I was playing catch with almost got hit in the face with it — completely missed his glove, completely missed everything. The coach looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, go ahead and throw it.’ ”
But the chance never came, the team reneging in the next few days, trying to avoid a minor league game turning into a circus. And after the knuckleball rejection came an outright rejection, the Rays releasing Jannis after two professional seasons, his second in which he went 4-3 with a 3.30 ERA in 20 games.
Then a 24-year-old, Jannis was at a turning point not just in his career, but in his life. He didn’t see a major league player in the mirror.
“I just kind of looked at it like I was an average right-handed pitcher, topping out at 91-92 mph,” Jannis said. “Not very bad, [but] already out of college, so I was getting a little older. I just looked at it, like, ‘hey, you want to keep playing, you have to stick out and be different than everybody else, can’t just be the same.’ I knew I had a pretty good [knuckleball], so I was like, ‘all right, let’s run with it and let’s try to develop it.’ Took a while, took a couple years in extended ball, but it got me a second chance with the Mets.”
Jannis caught on with the Mets in 2015 as an already older prospect, but one who had seen the rise of Dickey in Queens and knew the Mets would be amenable to and helpful for a knuckleballer. The Carson City, Nev., native has hung around the Mets’ system since. The 29year-old enjoying his best year in Double-A Binghamton this season, in which he has pitched to a 3.77 ERA and struck out 80 in 114 2/3 innings.
And as the end of the season approaches, when rosters can expand and he has a chance to make his major league debut, his knuckleball has dipped and dove more: In his past 21 ¹/3 innings, Jannis has allowed three runs (1.27 ERA) and struck out 21.
“In a sense, you’re kind of lobbing it up there and wishing for the best almost,” Jannis said. “But you’re not, you have to throw it with conviction, just like any other pitch.”
It’s a pitch that, almost literally, no one throws. For a team with a prized stable of hardthrowers who prefer fireballs to floaters, he knows he is setting himself apart. And as Sept. 1 approaches, Jannis knows years of toiling and tweaking in obscurity can have their payoff.
“I don’t even think I could explain what it would mean to make it to the major leagues,” Jannis said. “It would be a dream come true obviously. It’s just something I’ve worked hard for my entire life. You see everybody else, with all the Mets making their major league debuts, and you just hope that one day you can be in that same spot.”