KNUCKLER WRIGHT CUTS PATH
Mixing pitches brings success for Red Sox starter
More than halfway through the 2016 season, Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright is drawing comparisons to a vintage R.A. Dickey, and for good reason. The 31-yearold led American League starters with a 2.68 ERA heading into the All-Star break, and his .270 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) remained the eighth-lowest among all major league starters with at least 130 innings pitched through the end of July.
Knuckleballers are rare, and those who find success with the pitch at the major league level are even more scarce. While Phil Niekro and Tim Wakefield perfected the art of the slow, dancing knuckleball, current major league knuckleballers such as R.A. Dickey and Wright have gained recognition by tweaking the conventional approach to an unconventional pitch.
The technique varies from pitcher to pitcher, but an effective knuckleball delivery depends on a pitcher’s ability to manipulate two factors: movement and velocity. Unlike most pitches, knuckleballs are thrown with little to no spin, and their slow speed — ranging from the mid-60s to low-80s — allows them to move in unpredictable and erratic patterns before they reach the plate. Without the ability to estimate exactly where a ball will land, hitters are left scrambling to make hard contact with the pitch, if any contact at all.
During Dickey’s breakout season in 2012, a higher velocity appeared to be the driving force behind his dominance on the mound. Though conventional wisdom holds that a knuckleball loses movement with increased velocity, thereby diminishing its ability to induce weak contact, Dickey developed a faster knuckleball that allowed him to better control the location of his pitches and catch opposing batters off guard. As his average knuckleball velocity rose, so did the percentage of pitches that landed for strikes. Wright is using a slower knuckleball to induce weak contact from his opponents. His overall contact rate is down to 75.5%, and his soft contact rate of 23.9% ranks fourth among qualified starters.
Wright’s knuckler isn’t exceptional because it’s slow, however, even with the additional movement that a slower knuckleball delivery offers. Rather than increasing the speed of his knuckleball, as Dickey did in 2012, Wright has used his fastball and sinker with more regularity and expanded his pitch repertoire to include a changeup and curveball. His pitch usage chart shows that he’s relying on his knuckleball less and simultaneously seeing a significant spike in his strikeout and soft contact rates from 2015.
In 2016, with the introduction of a curveball and changeup, Wright has expanded the usage of his secondary pitches in almost every situation.
The biggest alteration to his approach occurs when right-handed and left-handed batters are ahead in the count. Although his curveball and changeup have been used sparingly, Wright leans on his sinker and fastball when he falls behind in counts.