Nicolino takes new tack to keep job
JUPITER Justin Nicolino is so devoted to a major change to try to get his pitching career back on track that the Marlins’ lefthander is taking his work home with him.
Nicolino not only carries a baseball with him constantly to practice the grip on the slider he has added to his repertoire, he practices his altered pitching motion in his living room at home — to the bafflement of his wife and infant daughter.
“It’s a big help,” Nicolino said. “There’s been times I tape a ball around my hand just to make sure that it doesn’t get out of my hand, because that’s how much I’m going through my motion and throwing the baseball in the house.”
As to the reaction of his 4-month-old daughter to the pitching pantomime, he said, “She just watches me like I’m crazy. My wife does the same thing.”
Nothing crazy about what Nicolino is trying to accomplish in abandoning his ineffective cut-fastball and resurrecting the slider he used earlier in his career in the minor leagues. It has given him a renewed sense of purpose and belief that he can finally succeed in the majors.
If you believe the definition of insanity is to continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results, Nicolino would be foolish not to make a significant change after his career regression over the past two years.
“We’ve never been a fan of the cutter,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “The cutter seemed like when he made mistakes with that it got hit hard. Obviously, you can’t force the guy to do anything, but we’d been talking about trying to get rid of that cutter for two years now.”
The only player remaining of the seven the Marlins received in the controversial 2012 trade with Toronto, Nicolino is at a crossroads that could become a dead end unless he impresses through spring training.
After three years of being shuttled between Miami and Triple-A New Orleans, Nicolino is out of minor league options. The options now: The Marlins must commit to keeping him either as a starter or reliever, work out a trade for him or cut him loose.
Since a dazzling debut in June 2015 with seven shutout innings at Cincinnati, Nicolino’s results for Miami have been mostly disappointing. In 20 appearances last season, including eight starts, he had a 5.06 ERA and 1.79 WHIP. Opposing batters averaged .324 against him.
After watching video, Nicolino saw that not only was the cutter getting hit, it was impacting his other pitches.
“What I was doing, I was getting on the side of the baseball with everything,” Nicolino said, noting that was causing his pitches to break to the side in the same plain.
In resurrecting the slider, he is throwing all of his pitches more over the top.
“Now with the mentality of throwing a slider, I’m basically throwing through the baseball instead of trying to manipulate the baseball. It’s allowing me to get on top of everything else – it’s out front, it’s better bite, better depth. I’m just gripping it and ripping it.”