Who's your best Knuckleball Pitcher?

[Bluenoser]

Lester Brown, still just 27 years old. If he stays healthy should put up some nice numbers.
_

[polydamas]

Mine is having a fantastic season

[Friendly_Beaver]

How are Knuckleballers throwing 94-96?

[biggamejrs]

I was wondering that as well. I wonder if the speed were lowered if they would not be so successful. This is good stuff.

[r0nster]

I bet Wakefield could throw in mid 90s in his prime years

[biggamejrs]

Originally Posted by r0nster

I bet Wakefield could throw in mid 90s in his prime years

OK, Wakefield could throw mid-90's? Let's say that is true, cause I don't remember, but what pitch was that, his fastball, slider? Did he throw a splitter. I don't think he did. These guys only throw the knuckle and curve or knuckle curve. None of those pitches should be hitting the plate mid-90's

[Friendly_Beaver]

Originally Posted by r0nster

I bet Wakefield could throw in mid 90s in his prime years

Wakefield was drafted as a first baseman, he didn't pan out but was messing around with a knuckleball and decided to try and make it as a pitcher, which he clearly did. However his fastball never topped 75, he also threw a very slow curve in the 65MPh range.

No knuckleballer will throw mid 90s it's just not realistic for the type of grip used plus the floating movement would not happen at such speeds.

I think it would be pretty fun if there was someone with a mid 90s fastball and a 65mph knuckler in his repertoire, that would lead to some hilarious at bats.

[David Watts]

Both the pitchers displayed have amazing strikeout numbers. Look at Conley's current season. 24 starts, 300 strikeouts.

[NYY #23]

This was the best knuckleballer that I've seen -



Unfortunately this was his downfall:

[Kent814]

Oh my god thats upward of like 30 injuries. He is rich harden times 1000000000000000

[ConStar]

R.A. Dickey can get his knuckleball into the mid-80s, according to one of the talking heads on MLB Network. Obviously I haven't timed the guy myself so I'm just repeating what one of those guys said at 2 a.m. while I was flipping channels.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, either. What I question is how effective the pitch is if it's going that fast. It seems to me the ball would need to run slower in order to avoid going too straight. Aerodynamics are the key to the pitch.

I do remember the differences between the Niekro brothers; Joe's knuckleball appeared to me to be substantially faster than Phil's.

I will add a caveat here that because of watching Joe Niekro for the Twins during their first world series run under Tom Kelly, I started throwing a knuckleball in high school and it became my No. 2 pitch. Sort of. Mine ended up being more like a knuckle-curve because it still had spin. I was using Joe's grip but I couldn't kill the spin. So what I REALLY ended up with was a pitch that moved almost like a forkball and probably had 90-ish percent of the speed of my two-seamer. Ergo, I don't think it's impossible to throw a fast pitch from that grip, but I wouldn't expect the movement to be as good.

[Doc_Brown]

Has there ever been a left handed knuckleball pitcher in the bigs?

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by Doc_Brown

Has there ever been a left handed knuckleball pitcher in the bigs?

Wilbur Wood is the most noteworthy. There is a wiki page that noted a few. Gene Bearden won the play in game and was key in the Indians 1948 championship. I actually forgot he was a lefty.

Oddly enough I have a lefty knuckler in my online league. I almost waived him in spring training and now he leads the league in ERA in May. Go figure.

[Friendly_Beaver]

Originally Posted by NYY #23

This was the best knuckleballer that I've seen -

[

Was wondering when you'd come in here with Cano, loved reading about him in your worst to first. You left out that he pitched a no-no in game 7 of the series for you.

[NYYANKS98]

Has anyone just considered the 96-98 is a stat meant to add meaning to an arbitrary "speed" rating that, if higher improves pitcher's performance, and is simply based on fastball velocity?

[ttaka808]

Originally Posted by NYYANKS98

Has anyone just considered the 96-98 is a stat meant to add meaning to an arbitrary "speed" rating that, if higher improves pitcher's performance, and is simply based on fastball velocity?

I'm pretty sure that's what it means. If he had a fastball, he'd be throwing that hard, but he doesn't have one so he doesn't actually throw that hard.

[nightfly]

I believe Yanks is right, and the speed rating would be the speed a pitcher would throw his fastball - those pitchers who don't actually have one won't throw their other pitches at quite that speed.

My own knuckleballer (a lefty!) could throw his about 70; ironically his changeup was his fastest pitch, about 75. I couldn't care less - he was one of the all-time greats of our league: 5 Cy Youngs, 8 other top-3 finishes, had one of the best post-40 seasons of all-time, threw three no-hitters (including at 44 and 197 days - the oldest pitcher to ever do it - and it was a Maddux), and finished second all-time to Nolan Ryan in career strikeouts.



That age-41 season? He threw 16 complete games and 11 shutouts. It was ridiculous.

[kingcharlesxii]

In the OTBA, Richard Stinson is a 43 year old who is only now just slowing down. He might not get to 400 wins but we've learned not to bet against him.

Player Report for #3 Richard 'Barney' Stinson

The scary thing is how good he was at age 41.

[The Game]

I have only 3 knuckleballers in my all of my EBL vs MLB league that are at the ML level. There are 2 more that are in the MLB Ammy draft pool. Steven wright i think is real since he is 39 but he sucks. Tik'dosh only has his name edited. Silos is an edited player.

[jazzrack]

league is only 3 seasons in, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think this guy should be the best I have ever had in any league, any game version