In the course of a couple of days, we’ve entered full-blown gyroball mania. The pitch’s creator, Kazushi Tezuka, is on a spring training tour. There are a lot of different takes on this pitch; let’s survey the field.
CubDumb believes that in the course of baseball history, many pitchers have already experimented with this type of pitch.
Yesterday, I linked to this Jeff Passan article. Passan straightens things out by talking to Tezuka and throwing the pitch himself. He also shows video of it to Barry Bonds.
Will Carroll teaches some variation of the pitch, which he says is quite different than the one taught to Passan. He can teach his in 10 minutes.
Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson also talked to Tezuka and hopes to add it to his arsenal. Crazy lefty. It’s possible some other Ranger pitchers will pick it up too.
Bottom line is that the pitch appears to be a telegraphed changeup, which doesn’t seem terribly useful.
ESPN writer Patrick Hruby has been researching the pitch for months, and in the end seemed let down.
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