MLB player chats are back! Last year, MLBTR readers chatted with 13 different former and current MLB players, and it was a blast. This year, we’ve got more than 25 on tap. If you’re a former or current MLB player, we’d love to host you for a chat! It’s a great time, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer. Click here to contact us.
Today’s chat guest, pitcher Mickey Jannis, is a study in perseverance. Mickey was drafted by the Rays in the 44th round out of California State University, Bakersfield – a draft round that doesn’t even exist anymore. By 2012 he found himself in independent ball, at which point he converted to a knuckleball pitcher. After grinding it out for four years with teams like the Lake Erie Crushers, Bridgeport Bluefish, and Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, Jannis managed to land a minor league deal with the Mets.
Jannis honed his craft for three years in the Mets organization, reaching Triple-A. He then inked a deal with the Orioles, only to see the minor league season cancelled in 2020. Jannis stuck with the O’s, and was rewarded with his lone big league opportunity to date in 2021. On June 23rd, 2021 at Camden Yards, Jannis entered the losing side of a 6-0 game against the heart of the Astros’ order. His first opponent was the dangerous Yordan Alvarez, and Jannis caught him looking. Though Jannis was not able to make it through the rest of the outing unscathed, he’d made it to the big leagues as a 33-year-old rookie knuckleballer after 12 years of minor league baseball.
19 months later, Jannis remains the last knuckleballer to pitch in the Major Leagues. The knuckleball is a lonely road and often a last resort for a pitcher, but this spinless wonder has given us multiple Hall of Famers and All-Stars. The most recent major success with the pitch was R.A. Dickey, who won the NL Cy Young award in 2012 and pitched successfully through 2017, his age-42 season.
MLB teams haven’t cracked the code on the knuckleball, and most seemingly have not figured out a way to teach the pitch. Who knows, maybe the pendulum will swing and the lowest possible spin rate will become the new market inefficiency. For Mickey Jannis’ sake, we’d love to see it. As Mickey puts it, he’s “currently working out for teams, trying to keep the knuckleball alive!” You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @mickeyjannis.
Today, Mickey answered questions from MLBTR readers for over an hour. Click here to read the transcript.
Oh mt gosh, its the Knuckle God himself!
I love it when guys get rewarded for busting their tails for years in the minors.
Yeah, no matter what happens in the future you can’t take away from Jannis that he was a Major League Baseball player!
The 550k doesn’t hurt either lol
I hope another emerges, my favorite pitch
Sadly, it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Teams are so obsessed with Velo now that a guy throwing 70-80 MPH, regardless of the pitch he’s throwing, is considered a dinosaur.
I miss the days of contact hitters, SB’s and crafty pitchers. We’ve still got Waino, but who else?
It makes me remember Uecker’s line about catching a knuckleball, something along the lines of, “It’s easy. Just wait til it stops rolling and go pick it up.”
@greg1 i agree with you tbh i still think there is a lot of value to guys that can pitch and get inside batters heads instead of just reaching back and throwing as hard as you can. heck greg maduax made a hof career doing so and iirc the hardest he ever threw was 92, but when the rest of your pitches barely reach 65, it makes 85 look like 95
Me too. Growing up as a Rays fan, I’d go to all the games when Tim Wakefield was pitching against them. I love watching it live, it is a thing of beauty.
I’d like to see it come back because it extends a pitcher’s career. The White Sox’ Wilber Wood threw and and he pitched both ends of doubleheaders more than once. I’d al so like the screwball resurrected.
Love these player chats!
Seeing guys like this make it to The Show is indeed a glorious thing. Hoping he gets an opportunity this season to stifle some bats! I love me a big ole’ swing and a miss against a floating knuckler. It’s a beautiful thing. Good luck, sir!
MLB needs knuckleballers. There are way too many bad pitchers with high 90s fastballs not to justify more teams taking a chance on a knuckleballer here and there. RA Dickey wasn’t even that long ago, we have recent proof that guys can dominate with the pitch.
CS Bakersfield wow I didn’t even know they had sports teams.
Hopefully when MLB expands it creates more opportunities for knuckleballers. Interesting fact about him getting traded for himself. I can’t say I’ve heard of that before.
It happened in the 1980’s with Dickie Noles. He was traded to the Tigers for a PTBNL, and like three weeks later he was traded back as that player.
That was great! Thank you, Mickey, and thank you, Tim!
Ain’t no way this going to be real!
The slo-mo video clip of Mickey’s knuckler with the Orioles is other worldly as you watch the zero spin rate. Insane.