Freep: Thanks to dad, Kenny Serwa throws a rare knuckleball — and he's no longer a secret

The Den
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Could we see Serwa in Detroit later this year…I wouldn’t be shocked just think what Hinch could do with him…

# Thanks to dad, Kenny Serwa throws a rare knuckleball — and he’s no longer a secret
Full article at Link

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… now with Double-A Erie. Signed in January 2025, he has already been promoted from High-A West Michigan. It’s the fastest knuckleball ever recorded, at 88.5 mph. The 27-year-old has a chance to become MLB’s next knuckleballer — and the Tigers’ first since Steve Sparks in the early 2000s.

“I may have shown him,” Ken said, “but it’s Kenny Serwa’s knuckleball.”

This is a Father’s Day tale.

Kenny wouldn’t be here without him.

His father always told him: “You’re the best kept secret in baseball.”

Kenny isn’t a secret anymore.

“I want to say all of me knew I was going to make it the entire time,” Kenny said. “But there was a small part of me that thought, ‘What if I didn’t get to the right place at the right time?’ Timing is everything — you have to be at the right place at the right time. I was like, ‘Maybe my time was in the past.’ But I knew I had this knuckleball. I was just waiting for the right place at the right time.”

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He pitched for four colleges in six seasons across seven years: Division II St. Joseph’s College in Indiana in 2016 and 2017, then up to Division I Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Central Florida in 2021 and Dayton in 2022. His first school closed for financial reasons. He battled an elbow injury and a knee injury along the way, and he even hurt his fingernail. He was named an All-American in 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic canceled the season after four starts and shortened the MLB draft that year from 40 rounds to five, derailing his chances.

In 2020, the Serwa family had an important conversation.

It wasn’t about giving up.

But it easily could have been.

The odds were stacked against Kenny. He wasn’t sure if he was good enough to keep chasing the dream — to become MLB’s next knuckleballer, let alone make it past college. He had a degree in integrated biology. He had a passion for coaching. His family could have encouraged him to take the safer path — the one without playing baseball.

Instead, they told him to keep playing.

“You’re absolutely good enough,” Ken said

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But that’s not what put Kenny on the map.

The credit goes to his former Dayton roommate and teammate, Cody Whitten, who introduced him to Tread Athletics, a state-of-the-art pitching lab in Charlotte, North Carolina — and, once again, to his family for getting him there.

“We got some help from family members to get it all done,” Ken said, specifically thanking Kenny’s grandmother, Helen “Honey” Greco. “It was expensive, but it was what needed to be done. No matter what happened, it was right. He was in the right place.”

Signing with the Tigers

For a couple of years, Cody had been urging Kenny to train at Tread Athletics, where he works as a performance coach. Each January, more than 100 pitchers throw in front of scouts from all 30 MLB teams during a three-day showcase. More than 200 pitchers from Tread have been signed by MLB organizations.

Kenny needed to be there.

“I wish I would have gotten there sooner, but I wasn’t able to afford it,” Kenny said. “Once I was, I got my foot in the door and took off from there.”

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Several teams were interested, including the Tigers — and Kenny’s hometown Chicago Cubs. The Tigers loved his knuckleball, appreciated that he threw strikes and had a plan for his development. Kenny came away impressed after conversations with people throughout the organization.

His agent, Alex Ministeri, handled the negotiations.

Kenny cried tears of joy when he signed with the Tigers. He then called his parents.

“I’m going to be a Detroit Tiger,” he told them.

https://x.com/TreadAthletics/status/1878193466565365876

‘Your time will come’

Kenny reported Feb. 11 to spring training in Lakeland, Florida — his first day with the Tigers. He walked into the minor-league clubhouse and immediately received recognition from his peers, almost like they were awaiting his arrival.

“You’re the guy, right?” a fellow player asked.

“What guy?” Kenny responded.

“The knuckleball guy,” the player said. “That’s you, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Kenny said.

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In 2025, Kenny has a 3.00 ERA with 11 walks and 41 strikeouts across 48 innings in 12 games for West Michigan (10 games) and Erie (two games). Opponents are batting just .205 against him, with minimal power.

https://x.com/wmwhitecaps/status/1913040029984686487

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He throws some nasty stuff, to my untrained I don’t know what I’m talking about eye, even the fastball looks to have some nice movement to it in video above

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Some nice movement for sure.

Would be nice if he can get in the show and see how the hitters handle him this year so he can adjust and work on what is needed in off season.

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I think he would make a great, and immediate, addition to the bully.

Bring him up.

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I always wanted a good knuckleballer, especially with our spate of hard throwers. A ridiculously good change of pace.

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I feel like every team should have a knuckleballer in the bullpen. Long relief role. Any time your starter gets bounced early… Bring in the knuckleballer to eat innings and save the bullpen. They can usually pitch frequently and require less rest days.

Plus it’s a fun pitch! Bring it back MLB.

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Yes to all of this.

I like knuckleballers in general, but this guy has an unusual repertoire. That seems like it should be valuable to any team, but it seems like he’ll be extra-valuable to a manager like Hinch. Chaos and what not.

Glad this guy is in our farm system. Hope he earns his way to the bigs soon.

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I only wish they would have called him up 3 or 4 days ago.

I would have loved to see that skinny little bastard from Cincy try to hit a 90 mph knuckle ball.

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Here’s that skinny Cincy guy when he visits Canada…

Food eric cartman GIF on GIFER - by Manahelm
@stephenboyd57

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Cartman went on Ozempic… He’s fit as a fiddle now. Hilarious episode by the way!

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Check out what this kid did today.

https://x.com/JeffPassan/status/1934713921467732175

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This guy might have to come with his own catcher.

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They usually wear a different glove to catch knuckleballers even.

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image_thumbnail_300
image_thumbnail_300300×234 16.1 KB

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The bigger the better!

Season 3 Nbc GIF by The Office

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TheAthletic chimes in on the Tigers Knuckleballer.

# The knuckleball is dying. Can a Tigers prospect firing 88 mph knucklers bring it back?
Full article at link

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Why, exactly, has no other notable knuckleballer come along since R.A. Dickey?

“I think it’s simple,” Dickey himself said. “Nobody is out there looking for the next Hoyt Wilhelm. They’re all looking for the next Stephen Strasburg.”

The game’s existing feedback loop rewards velocity, strikeouts, power.

Baseball’s analytical bent, too, does not cater to the riddles of the knuckleball. Scouts and executives alike crave projectability. Pitch models are built based on the results of thousands of other pitches thrown in the major leagues.

“You can’t do that with a knuckleball,” Dickey said. “It befuddles every algorithm out there.”

The knuckleball also takes patience.

A few days after Tread’s Pro Day, after discussions with several teams, Serwa settled on the Tigers. Months later, in the tunnels below Comerica Park, Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris explained the team’s rationale for signing a 27-year-old knuckleballer out of indy ball.

“He’s a guy who dominates the strike zone in a different type of way,” Harris said. “He throws half knuckleballs and half a traditional mix. We’re always looking for new ways to try to keep hitters off balance. So we thought we’d take a chance.”

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Serwa ended up on the phone with Dickey, talking about the secrets and snags of the knuckleball. Dickey also ended up on the phone with multiple pro teams that were interested in Serwa.

“No one really has a very good understanding of what makes a good knuckleball pitcher a potential piece to the puzzle,” Dickey said. “That’s the thing that he’ll be up against his whole career.”

Teams covet velocity and swing and miss. But as hitters tweak their swings to cover the high fastball, and as rules incentivize contact and speed, teams are also quietly finding new ways to get batters out, returning to pitches low in the zone and harnessing the power of outlier changeups and sinkers. Anything to be different.

Could there be a new place for the knuckleball? Dickey sees it evolving to be less an every-situation pitch and more a key piece of a larger package.

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For decades, MLB seemingly always had one consistent knuckleballer plying his trade. The likes of Hoyt Wilhelm, Charlie Hough, Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield — “the Jedi Council of the knuckleball,” R.A. Dickey, winner of the 2012 Cy Young Award, calls it — fascinated generations with a pitch that seemingly defies physics.

Even as the practice of the pitch recedes, however, the science around it is advancing.

Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physics professor, is one of the preeminent researchers attempting to solve the mysteries of the knuckleball. Based on years of previous wind tunnel studies, Nathan theorizes that knuckleballs move the way they do because of the way a baseball’s seams disrupt airflow. The best knuckleballs hardly spin. The magnus force that normally influences a baseball’s trajectory is removed from the equation. Instead, the ball floats. A wave of air may tumble around a seam, creating wake effects that can push the ball in one direction or another.

“Have you ever heard of seam-shifted wake?” Nathan said. “The knuckleball is basically seam-shifted wake on steroids.”

Filthy as the pitch can be, it is a famously fickle mistress, unpredictable even to its greatest masters.

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At the time, Serwa, who, just last year was delivering pizzas and pitching in an independent league, was clinging to his dream. In January, he stood on a portable mound at the Tread Athletics facility outside Charlotte, North Carolina.

…On a June afternoon, Serwa sat on a dugout bench, talking about his path. “I am the knuckleball guy,” he said. “I will be. I want to be. I have other stuff as well, but that’s always been my bread and butter.”

As the conversation continued, Serwa grew fidgety. Near the dugout tunnel, someone was beckoning. Tony wants you. Serwa rose from his seat, hopped down the steps and went inside. Down in the manager’s office, Serwa apologized, said he had been tied up with an interview.

“That’s OK,” Cappucilli said. “Did they ask you about starting Thursday in Erie?”

Serwa was getting promoted to Double A.

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That’s dangerous stuff there. Just ask Nate Burleson.

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