While the split finger fastball, or splitter and perhaps the screwball as well, hold the most mystique to many baseball fans, its the changeup, once known as the slow ball that may be the most elusive beast of them all. There are many ways to throw a good one, and seemingly many more ways to throw a bad one. Whatever the grip and release it requires an enormous amount of feel for a changeup to consistently be effective against major league hitters. But a pitcher who has a good fastball and a good changeup is one of the toughest in the game for hitters to deal the last half decade, as the Detroit Tigers player development system has improved to become one of the most respected in the game, weve already seen several pitches and pitch concepts sweep through the system. From building seamshifted wake into bad fastballs, to the rise of the splitter in popularity, to the seamshifted changeup that turned Tarik Skubal from a promising young starting pitcher into the best in the game, there have been numerous instances of a pitcher or certain style of pitch becoming the rage in the Tigers kick change may be next. Last Thursday, 34yearold journeyman Dietrich Enns made his Detroit Tigers debut in style with a convincing performance over quality offense in the Athletics. The quality changeup weve noted in minor league recaps of his outings proved quite effective against major league hitters as well. Turns out, the Tigers helped Enns develop the pitch this spring, and its a kick change, a type of pitch weve never heard any Tigers prospect really discuss using lore is filled with secret grips and cues, along with all sorts of variants. You can think of the circle change, the most common type. There is the straight, usually twoseam changeup. The basic splitter with all its variants from the forkball to the vulcan changeup, each with little subgroups and variations based on pitchers who used it best. There is the Fosh grip. The star grip. The palm ball Tomas Nido Jersey. On and on. Plenty of the same pitch with different names based on the region of the country or the world, or who is teaching it, but also plenty of distinctly different no matter what you come up with, someone has tried that grip or release before. More than likely everything has been tried, but not everything has been latest hotness is the kick change, a pitch that Tread Athletics takes credit for developing and popularizing. You may have heard of it already, as Clay Holmes of the Mets and Andr eacute;s Mu ntilde;oz of the Mariners have already made a lot of hay with the pitch this season. A simple way to describe the grip may be to call it a spike changeup. Essentially the most common grip for it is the circle change grip but with the middle finger spiked somewhat to allow the ring finger to play on the ball through release more. In a normal circle change grip the middle finger tends to run through the ball as the pitcher pronates his forearm. That imparts sidespin and tailing action, while the lack of the index finger and less pressure in the grip helps subtract velocity without slowing ones armspeed and giving the game away. A kick change, like Skubals seamshifted changeup which you can see him explain here is a lot better for pitchers who dont pronate their arm well Johnny Pesky Jersey. You dont have to turn it over and it doesnt run as much as some circle changeups. The grip lets you throw it with a straight wrist, and spiking the middle finger gets the ring finger involved a little more to kill spin. It tends to drop more with less exaggerated horizontal movement, making it work more like a splitter or Skubals natural supinators think holding your arm out parallel to the ground and rotating your arm into thumbs up position, thats supination as opposed to thumb down pronation thats a huge selling point. They tend to throw straight riding fourseamers, and better cutters and sliders than guys whose body is more biased towards pronating. Pronators typically throw better twoseamers, sinkers, and circle changeups, which require a little more wrist action. Of course there are always youre up for a tutorial, you can get the basics of the pitch in the first five minutes of this video from Tread Athletics, a top private development facility. Stay tuned for plenty of variations on the basic kick change grip and Tigers clearly had a plan when they signed Dietrich Enns. They began working on the kick change this spring, and while weve noted that the changeup has been a weapon for him in Toledo, producing an outstanding 40. 2 percent whiff rate, it was Evan Petzold of the Freep who asked the questions and found out that Enns was using the kick can check out the changeup several times in his highlight reel against the As. It looks like a fourseamer and thus pairs well with it, both using vertical movement much more than horizontal tailing the pitch work very well off of Enns fastball against major league hitters is a little different story than just knowing its working against TripleA level bats. As he gets confident that hes still going to get whiffs against top competition, that comfort level in throwing it aggressively may only increase. On the other hand, hes only got five major league innings, so well have to see how things unfold for a worth noting that any changeup type can work well. A lot of the development of all these variations stems from the attempt to find ways for pitchers who dont pronate well, or whose hand shape and finger lengths make one type or another more difficult to throw, to develop a good offspeed pitch. So its not that the kick change is better than a circle change, or Skubals straight changeup with seam orientation that produces late movement, or a splitter, or anything else. Its not some secret wonder pitch for everyone. Its about trying to find grip and release combinations to kill vertical movement and speed while maintaining good command for pitchers who have often tried all those different types without much the same time, there really is another pitching revolution going on with changeups these days. The options have typically been to turn over a good circle changeup, or to throw some kind of a splitter. If you naturally supinate andor dont have the fingers or the natural release to throw a split, neither may be a good and consistent option. Its a baseball cliche that the failure to find an offspeed pitch is often the thing that moves starting pitchers to the , there are several new changeup variants that work for guys who dont pronate well. You still have to locate it, develop feel for killing the speed properly, and ideally have a great fastball too, but at least youre not forced to try and throw a pitch that just will never feel very comfortable through release. This is just another option that should help some pitchers who havent been able to master an offspeed pitch yet. The idea of the stud young pitcher with a big fastball and nasty breaking stuff, who just cant find an offspeed pitch to handle opposing handed hitters, may meet its match in the years has pushed velocity and spin just about as far as they can by natural means. The new frontier is a generation of up and coming young pitchers with more options to find an offspeed pitch that works well for them and can be thrown with basically the same release as their fastball, letting the grip do most of the work. A new era in changeups and splitters is here and the kick change is rapidly becoming a key tool in a good pitching coachs the kick change sweep through the Tigers player development system the way the splitter has? Well have to see, but its certainly good to know that the Tigers were right on the ball, as it were, when the pitch started gaining a bit of notoriety late last season Zach McKinstry Jersey. Theyre already identifying pitchers who would be served by trying the kick change and then teaching it effectively. Well see how far that takes them, and how far it takes Dietrich Enns in his quest to finally put together a steady major league career in his mid 30s.