How the kick change — MLB’s hottest new pitch — has kick-started the Mets’ rotation
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Clay Holmes, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning have a few obvious things in common. They’re right-handed pitchers. They’re members of a Mets starting rotation that has so far trounced external expectations, posting the lowest collective ERA in baseball. And, for different reasons, each is striving to prove he belongs.
Dig a little deeper, though, and another connection can be found, hidden within each of their pitch arsenals this season: the kick change, a changeup-splitter hybrid that has surged in popularity since San Francisco Giants right-hander Hayden Birdsong introduced it to Major League Baseball a year ago.
Holmes began working on the pitch in November, intent on mastering the offering to ease his upcoming transition from reliever to starter. Megill, seemingly always the odd man out of the Mets’ rotation since debuting in 2021, saw all the uproar around the pitch and tried it toward the end of the offseason. Canning, a once-hyped prospect seeking to rebound on a one-year contract, threw his first kick change warming up for his Mets debut in Houston, having fiddled with grips on the bench the day before.
Together they have combined for a 2.66 ERA in 108⅔ innings across 21 starts for the club with the third-best record in baseball. The kick change is just one factor in their success, and a recent product of a larger data-driven trend dominating the industry over the past decade.
“You have guys that are maybe looking for a job or they’re incentivized to try something new, and they get it to work and then it spreads like wildfire,” Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said. “It’s a copycat league. It’s always been a copycat league.”
THE KICK CHANGE, in layman’s terms, is a modified changeup. It features a changeup-like grip and generates changeup-like spin but has splitter-like movement — think vertical depth — and is thrown harder. A traditional changeup has more fade, moving horizontally to the pitcher’s arm side. When optimized, a right-hander’s kick change can resemble a left-hander’s curveball.
What makes the kick-change grip different is the middle finger is spiked — raised off the ball (pitchers’ fingers lay flat on the ball for traditional changeups). Spiking the middle finger “kicks” the ball’s axis forward through release, which alters how the ball spins and produces the pitch’s downward movement, while the ring finger cuts down efficiency, killing the spin to produce more tumble.
There are subtle variations to the grip: Megill, for example, has bigger hands so he spikes his middle finger more than Holmes and Canning; finger placement along the seams can also vary.
The pitch and its swift spread exemplify the technological advancements made in the sport and the resulting increased willingness for players to experiment to discover every edge possible. Accordingly, different pitches — whether new inventions, recycled offerings or conventional pitches used in other ways — have become en vogue seemingly every year.
“I think it’s just looking at, what do we know about the ball?” New York Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said. “What do we know about spin dynamics? And how do we keep evolving guys’ arsenals? And I think, with this one in particular, you see one guy get it and the league has all the tracking tools. So, anyone that comes through and throws a certain pitch, you get a look at it. It just gets replicated along the way.”
At the turn of the decade, the sweeper took the sport by storm. Before that, the high fastball became a geek favorite and filtered down to the players. This year, it’s the kick change’s turn.
THE THREE METS starters are part of a growing group of kick-change aficionados.
Chicago White Sox right-hander Davis Martin became an early adopter last season after Birdsong’s success. New kick-change operators this season include Texas Rangers rookie right-hander Jack Leiter and Minnesota Twins veteran right-hander Pablo Lopez, who has also continued throwing a traditional changeup.
“I picked it up toward the last one or two weeks of spring training,” Lopez said. “And right now it’s to the point that if certain days it’s moving, I’m like, ‘OK, it’s pretty good.’ Some days it’s just floating. Don’t want to throw a floater against Bobby Witt Jr.
“My normal changeup still gets movement. It still gets swings. I can locate it better. So, if I throw two in the pregame bullpen and that thing is just floating or sailing, I’m like, then it’s not the day for it. I’ll throw one in the warmups to see if it’s there.”
The best traditional changeups are usually thrown by pronators — pitchers with a pronation bias, meaning they tend to throw a baseball by rotating their forearm and wrist inward. Supinators rotate their forearm and wrist outward, positioning them better for breaking pitches with glove-side movement.
In 2023, Leif Strom, the director of pitching at Tread Athletics, an independent pitching development lab outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, sought to find a pitch for supinators to better neutralize left-handed hitters. Strom scoured Tread’s internal archives in search of pitches with the desired movement profile and found fewer than 50 thrown. Using those pitches as models to study, Strom is credited with identifying, naming and applying an understanding of the kick change.
“We started to see some on X or Instagram, and when I started to see those that’s when I thought it would probably be a big thing because effectiveness is one part of the equation,” Strom said. “If this pitch is effective, it’s going to spread no matter what.
“But in terms of a pitch spreading quickly, I feel like you have to have a visual component that the sweeper did. And it just so happened that the kick change had that visual component.”
Birdsong, a 2022 sixth-round pick who had reached Double-A in 2023, was the first major leaguer to throw one in a game in June. He developed it last year after reporting to camp frustrated with his changeup.
“I tried 100 different grips and nothing worked,” Birdsong, 23, said. “I was throwing just a really bad fastball.”
He finally found his answer when he watched a video of the kick change on social media. He started throwing it the next day in spring training and it immediately clicked. He used it in his next bullpen and managed to throw a changeup with a negative vertical break — a metric used to quantify a pitch’s vertical movement in inches — for the first time in his life. He honed it from there.
Birdsong made his major league debut in June and threw the pitch 18.4% of the time over 16 starts. This year, working out of the bullpen, his kick change usage is up to 24.1%. It has a 46.7% swing-and-miss rate and has held hitters to a .188 batting average. He owns a 1.47 ERA in nine relief appearances.
The White Sox’s Martin was introduced to the pitch between starts in August by Brian Bannister, Chicago’s director of pitching, and Ethan Katz, the team’s pitching coach. Martin reached the majors in 2022 and threw his changeup about 10% of the time that season. But in his first major league start of the 2024 campaign, he gave up four runs in 3⅔ innings without throwing one at all.
“I went out to play catch,” Martin said, “and they were just like, ‘Yeah, your changeup sucks.'”
On the spot, they showed Martin the kick-change grip, and he threw a few from 80 feet. The first one felt weird. The second one tumbled enough to think there was something there. He then threw a few off the mound and the movement remained. A day later, he held the Athletics to two hits over six scoreless innings.
“I threw like 21 or 22 of them,” Martin said.
By autumn, the pitch was no longer a secret — and one free agent in particular took note.
UNLIKE BIRDSONG AND Martin, Holmes was an established major league pitcher with two All-Star nods when he dipped his toe in the kick-change pool.
Last season, while still closing games for the Yankees, Holmes dabbled with a traditional changeup during bullpens at teammate Luke Weaver‘s urging. Holmes quickly developed one that wowed Weaver, a changeup specialist. But given his role pitching late in high-leverage situations, Holmes chose not to throw any changeups in games.
“His changeup was sick,” Weaver said. “And we would talk about it a lot, and I was like, ‘I’m done talking about it. Until you go prove it in a game, I don’t want to talk about it.’ Just joking with him. But then he went in the offseason, and he elevated it.”
When teams contacted Holmes in free agency with interest in converting him back to a starting pitcher — he broke into the majors as a starter for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018 — Holmes knew the move would require implementing a pitch against left-handers to complement his repertoire of sinker, slider and sweeper. The changeup he sharpened in those bullpen sessions during the 2024 season was good, but he probed for better. Eventually, Holmes, a supinator, landed on the kick change working remotely with Tread Athletics.
“I threw some good ones early on with it and definitely felt uncomfortable, felt different,” said Holmes, who signed a three-year, $38 million contract with the Mets in December. “But I kind of knew some good ones were in there and so I just kind of kept messing around, kept tinkering with it until I found something that felt good. And just kind of started to evolve over the offseason.”
Holmes’ kick change was ready by the time he showed up in Port St. Lucie, Florida, for spring training. Strom recalled seeing one Holmes threw during an exhibition game — 88 mph with a negative 10 vertical break — as one of the best he’s seen.
More importantly, the kick change has helped the 32-year-old Holmes record a 2.95 ERA through seven starts. He’s using the pitch 16.2% of the time, holding opponents to a .182 batting average with one extra-base hit and a 38.2% whiff rate. The kick change isn’t merely a luxury for Holmes — his pitching coach believes his shift to the rotation might have been a lost cause without it.
“I would say no, it’s not possible without the changeup, some form of the changeup,” Hefner said. “Whether it’s the split or a kick change or a traditional circle change, he needed that versus lefties just to give them another look.”
Late last month, Holmes assumed the role of kick-change instructor. Megill had used a kick change earlier in the season, replacing his splitter with it, but the pitch just wasn’t feeling right anymore. The grip seemed off and it wasn’t good enough to use in games. So, he sought help from Holmes during a bullpen session, and they worked together to change the grip.
“That made it a lot more consistent,” the 29-year-old Megill said.
Three days later, on April 21, Megill tossed 5⅓ scoreless innings and tied his career high of 10 strikeouts against the Philadelphia Phillies. Afterward, he highlighted his four-seam fastball and sinker, a pitch he incorporated last season, as the primary reasons for his success that night.
But he also generated three whiffs with eight kick changes, all thrown to left-handed hitters. When he found himself in his deepest trouble, with the bases loaded and two outs and slugger Kyle Schwarber at the plate in the third inning, he threw three straight kick changes and struck Schwarber out on an 88-mph offering. The pitch was out of the strike zone and Schwarber — who ranks in the 93rd percentile in chase rate across the majors — swung and missed.
Just like that, it became a weapon for Megill, who has a 2.50 ERA and 45 strikeouts across 36 innings through seven outings. He’s thrown 41 kick changes this season — 33 to left-handed hitters — with a 50% swing-and-miss rate and given up one hit with it.
“I got everything I need right now,” Megill said. “My first two times through [the lineup], I can get away all day with four-seam, sinker, slider. Third time through it’s like, all right, I need that fourth pitch. That’s where the changeup comes in.”
Canning’s relationship with the kick change is a bit different. The 28-year-old wasn’t desperate for a changeup after signing a one-year, $4.25 million deal with the Mets in December. Throwing a traditional changeup comes easy to him and he relied on one heavily during his five seasons with the Los Angeles Angels.
But Canning liked the vertical movement his kick change produced when he threw it for the first time warming up to face the Houston Astros on March 29. The grip alteration was minor; he spiked his finger ever so slightly to transform the ball’s trajectory. He ditched his traditional arm-side-fade changeup that day and held the Astros to two runs across 5⅔ innings in his Mets debut.
Canning incorporated both offerings in a few April starts, giving hitters slightly different looks at the same velocity, between 88 and 90 mph. In recent outings, however, Canning has ditched the kick change, at least temporarily.
“I think it’s actually helped me with my regular changeup,” said Canning, who is sporting a 2.50 ERA through seven starts after compiling a 5.19 ERA with the Angels last year. “It’s part of the season, part of the ebbs and flows.”
Canning said he could end up throwing the kick change again this season. But it’s not essential for his success, not in the way it is for Holmes. It’s another tool in his kit, one that is helping the Mets perplex opposing hitters this season — just as it is for a growing group of pitchers across the majors.
“Everybody thought I was weird for throwing it,” Birdsong said. “Then it took off and it moved to different orgs. And now it’s everywhere.”
ESPN’s Jeff Passan contributed to this report.
Sports
Ranking the Red Sox’s options at first base: Devers back in the infield? A prospect moving positions?
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Buster Olney
The Boston Red Sox front office dreamed that this would be the year that Triston Casas would fully blossom, mashing 30 homers and fully exploiting Fenway Park’s dimensions in a way that other left-handed hitters have. But Casas is out for the year after rupturing his left patellar tendon — and now manager Alex Cora must find a replacement.
But this is not a situation in which the Red Sox have to scramble for help outside the organization. Evaluators with other teams scan Boston’s big league roster and organizational depth and believe the Red Sox are in a strong position, with a lot of options.
Based on feedback from front office-types, scouts and major league staffers, here are the best first-base options for the Red Sox, in order of collective preference of those we spoke to.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Cora said he hadn’t asked Devers about a move to first, and some rival evaluators believe that makes sense due to the political complications. After Devers was surprised by the late-winter signing of Alex Bregman and initially rejected the idea of moving from third base, Devers eventually went along with a shift to designated hitter.
“He already made one big change, so it’d be tough to ask him to do another in-season,” one evaluator said. “Leave him at DH and let him get comfortable there.”
Said another: “He’s gone all-in at designated hitter.”
But that doesn’t preclude Devers from knocking on Cora’s door and telling his manager he would like to move, which could be the best-case scenario for the Red Sox. And in doing this, Devers could be embracing the inevitable — because eventually, he’s probably going to move to first base. Devers is in the third year of a 10-year, $313.5 million contract that runs through 2033.
“Are you ever going to move him back to third base after getting him off that spot?” one rival official asked rhetorically. “And he’s too young [28] to be settling into a full-time DH role. It’s better for him if you get him out in the field.”
It doesn’t have to happen all at once. If Devers volunteers, he could start taking ground balls for a week or two and then gradually play at first, getting back into the kind of shape necessary to play in the field regularly.
There would be natural concerns about his defense at a new position, but a couple of evaluators noted that Devers’ primary defensive problem at third base was in throwing, something he would do far less at first. At the very least, Devers would be wholly accustomed to the speed of the game for a corner infielder.
“I don’t think he would be bad over there,” one evaluator said. “It’s not like he was a total zero at third base. He was OK at times.”
If Devers were to play first, that would open the DH spot for Cora to use as a resting spot for position players dealing with weariness or nagging injuries and creating an opening for Roman Anthony or Marcelo Mayer to be promoted.
2. Marcelo Mayer
His future with the Red Sox is as a middle infielder, but there is precedent in Boston’s history of using a star prospect as a stop-gap solution. In 2013, the Red Sox needed a third baseman and promoted shortstop Xander Bogaerts to play the spot, and they went on to win the World Series. For Mayer to move from shortstop to first base would be a more dramatic change, but one staffer believes he could do this with relative ease.
“He’s athletic enough to do it,” the staffer said, “and he’d hold down the position offensively. You’d have some growing pains on defense, but he’s played on the right side of the infield before [at second] and he would hit enough to make it work.
“That’s the thing — they need offense from that position. If they weren’t trying to win, you wouldn’t think about it. But they are trying to win and it’s something you consider.”
Mayer is currently playing for Triple-A Worcester, though Red Sox fans are eager to see him with the major league team.
“It’d work for [Mayer] because it would get him to the big leagues right away,” the staffer concluded.
3. Give Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro a full shot to share the first base job
Gonzalez and Toro have been the two players to get reps at first base since Casas went down Friday night, with Gonzalez owning the biggest share of those — though, he exited Wednesday night’s win and is day-to-day after colliding with Texas Rangers first baseman Josh Smith while trying to beat out an infield hit.
Gonzalez is a right-handed hitter who’s been a good player for the Red Sox over the past two seasons and is batting .308 in 58 plate appearances this season. The utilityman had played only 20 games at first base at the big league level coming into this season, so the best that Cora could hope for would probably be league average defense. Gonzalez doesn’t hit for much power, but he will get on base regularly, if he can stay healthy. Toro is a switch-hitter who has played 368 games with five different teams, generating a career adjusted OPS+ of 80.
However, it seems more likely the Red Sox look for more thump at what is a power position.
4. Move Kristian Campbell from second base to first, with Marcelo Mayer getting a shot to win the second base job
Campbell is seen by one scout as “primarily an offensive player.”
“He’s going to hit,” the scout said. “He’s not especially good at any one spot defensively. He’s moved around a lot in his career, and he’d be fine at first.”
Campbell has played the infield plenty in his time in baseball, and at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, he would present a good target for other infielders at first. And Mayer did have a brief audition at second base in spring training.
However, one evaluator said that Campbell has already been learning one new position this season and asking him to learn another could be too much — and the Red Sox might be better just leaving him at second and allowing him to get comfortable at the plate.
5. Move Trevor Story to first base and promote Mayer to play shortstop
This was raised by ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez on the “Baseball Tonight” podcast. But as difficult as it was to ask Devers to move off third base, it might be even more complicated getting Story to buy into the idea of moving to first. He’s under contract for two more seasons after this year at $25 million annually, and he’s been a shortstop for almost all of his 10-year career.
Additionally: If the Red Sox are going to affect a major change, they’ll do it to enhance their offense — and Story hasn’t been a big run-producer. Over 105 games in the past three seasons, he’s slashing .233/.287/.354.
6. Move one of the outfielders to first — either Wilyer Abreu or rising star prospect Roman Anthony
Some rival evaluators believe this is the worst possible option because you would be asking two high-end outfielders to learn to play infield on the fly.
“What a waste that would be,” one scout said. “Anthony is going to be a star — a guy who hits .280 with 28-30 homers, and he can really play the outfield. A total waste. They’ve got enough guys in the infield to move somebody else there.”
7. Vaughn Grissom
The infielder acquired in the trade of Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves, Grissom was hurt much of last year, batting .191 in 31 games for the Red Sox. In Triple-A this season, he’s hitting a respectable .260/.343/.398. But two evaluators with other teams believe that there wouldn’t be much of a difference between the Gonzalez/Toro platoon and what Grissom could provide offensively.
“They’d probably just go with the guys who are in the big leagues already,” one staffer said.
With all four second-round series officially underway after the Dallas Stars and Winnipeg Jets played Game 1 on Wednesday, we now have a sense of all eight clubs. Will the two home teams from Tuesday night reverse course after losing in Game 1?
First up are the Washington Capitals, who lost 2-1 in OT to the Carolina Hurricanes; those two square off again Thursday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The nightcap features the Vegas Golden Knights hosting the Edmonton Oilers (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) after the visitors prevailed 4-2 on Tuesday.
Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, a recap of what went down in Wednesday’s games and the three stars of Wednesday from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
Carolina Hurricanes at Washington Capitals
Game 2 | 7 p.m. ET | ESPN
The odds have shifted sharply after the Canes took Game 1 in D.C.: the opening series odds were Hurricanes -195, Capitals +165. Now it’s Hurricanes -425, Capitals +300.
Jaccob Slavin had the OT game winner in Game 1, his first career playoff winning goal. There have been three other defensemen in Hurricanes/Whalers franchise history with a playoff overtime goal: Niclas Wallin (who scored three), plus one each for Tim Gleason and Ian Cole.
The Canes allowed 14 shots on goal in Game 1, the fewest allowed by any team in the playoffs this season and the second fewest allowed by Carolina in a playoff game in franchise history (12, in the 2024 first round vs. the Islanders).
Alex Ovechkin was held to one shot on goal in Game 1, snapping a streak of 18 games (regular season and playoffs) with multiple shots on goal. The last time he was held to one or fewer shots on goal in consecutive games was last year’s playoff series against the Rangers.
Pierre-Luc Dubois has now gone 10 games without scoring a goal (dating back to the regular season). His last goal? April 10 against the Hurricanes.
Edmonton Oilers at Vegas Golden Knights
Game 2 | 9:30 p.m. ET | ESPN
This series opened as a pick ’em, with both teams at -110 odds to win. After the Oilers’ Game 1 victory, they are now the favorites at -225, while the Golden Knights are now +190.
Connor McDavid‘s 39 playoff goals are seventh in Oilers history, behind Jari Kurri (92), Glenn Anderson (81), Wayne Gretzky (81), Mark Messier (80), Esa Tikkanen (51) and current teammate Leon Draisaitl (45).
Edmonton defenseman Evan Bouchard scored six goals in the Oilers’ run to Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, and he already has four goals through seven games this postseason.
With two goals in Game 1, Mark Stone now has 36 playoff goals since joining the Knights beginning in 2018-19. That is tied with Edmonton’s Zach Hyman for fifth in the NHL during that span, behind Nathan MacKinnon (50), Draisaitl (39), Mikko Rantanen (39) and Brayden Point (37).
According to Stathletes, the line of Stone, Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev has allowed more scoring chances against (seven) than it has generated (six) during the playoffs. In the regular season, the differential was 112-77 in Vegas’ favor with those three on the ice.
Öcal’s three stars from Wednesday
Another NHL record for “Moose.” He became the first player in NHL history with two single-period hat tricks in the same postseason. There have been only three other players with multiple playoff hat tricks in their career: Wayne Gretzky (three), Maurice Richard (three), Tim Kerr (two).
The former Canadiens captain scored the first goal and added an assist on William Nylander‘s goal in the second. He now has three-game point streak for the first time since 2021.
Scored the clutch third-period goal 17 seconds after the Panthers had tied the score, taking Game 2 and giving the Leafs a 2-0 series lead.
Wednesday’s recaps
Toronto Maple Leafs 4, Florida Panthers 3
TOR leads 2-0 | Game 3 Friday
With neither team willing to give an inch, Game 2 was another close final result. The Panthers struck first in this one, via a first-period power-play goal from Aleksander Barkov, answered later in the first by Max Pacioretty. Old Maple Leafs nemesis Brad Marchand scored 15 seconds into the second, followed by William Nylander notching his sixth of the postseason at 4:18. The score would remain tied until Max Domi scored his first regulation goal of the playoffs with under three minutes left in the second. Anton Lundell drew the Panthers even at 3-3 early in the third, but new father Mitch Marner scored the game-winning goal just 17 seconds later. Full recap.
1:27
Mitch Marner answers Panthers’ tying goal to clinch Game 2
Anton Lundell and Mitch Marner notch goals 17 seconds apart as Toronto maintains the lead.
Dallas Stars 3, Winnipeg Jets 2
DAL leads 1-0 | Game 2 Friday
As has happened in many Game 1s this postseason, the two teams went scoreless in the first period, measuring one another for the fight. Winnipeg’s Nino Niederreiter got the party started 3:30 into the second, but then the Mikko Rantanen Show began. The Finnish forward scored a natural hat trick — that’s two straight games with a hat trick — putting the Stars up 3-1. Mark Scheifele scored his third of the postseason at the tail end of the second, but the Jets could not get the equalizer despite a furious effort in the third. Full recap.
1:09
Stars desperately defend net in Jets 3rd-period onslaught
Jake Oettinger and company crowd the goal to keep the Jets from tying the score.
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