I first learned of the kick change while in Chicago for Saberseminar in late August. Chatting with Garrett Crochet and Jonathan Cannon in the White Sox clubhouse prior to a Saturday game, I heard the term from Cannon, who was describing a new pitch that one of their rotation mates, Davis Martin, had recently begun throwing. Needless to say, I was intrigued. The following day, I learned even more about the atypical offering. Brian Bannister presented at Saberseminar that Sunday, and the kick change was one of the subjects he brought up. Moreover, the White Sox Senior Advisor to Pitching subsequently spoke about it in more detail while taking questions from the audience, this particular one coming, not surprisingly, from my colleague Michael Rosen. As luck would have it, two opportunities to hear even more about the kick change were right around the corner. The White Sox visited Fenway Park this past weekend, and with Boston being my home base, I was able to sit down with Martin to get his perspective on the pitch, as well as the story of why and how he learned it. Then the Orioles arrived in town, so I talked to reliever Matt Bowman, who not only has something similar in his arsenal, but he also is Bannister-esque when it comes to the art and science of pitching. I spoke to the veteran right-hander about the kick change and its close-cousin relationship with the better-known split change. Here are my conversations, lightly edited for clarity, with Martin and Bowman.
David Laurila: What is the kick change?
Davis Martin: “It’s basically for supinators. I’ve never been a pronator. It’s for guys that have really good spin talent and have always had the ability to get to that supination plane. But pronating is very unnatural for us from a physiological standpoint. “I’ve just never been able to pronate, and post-TJ it got even worse. I’m more of a supinator now than I was before surgery [in May 2023]. So, the kick change… basically, you kick the axis of the ball into that three o’clock axis. You kind of get that saucer-type spin to get the depth that a guy who could pronate a changeup would get to. You’re not using a seam-shift method. You’re not truly pronating. It’s kind of this cheat to get to that three o’clock axis.”
Laurila: You’re spiking a seam with your middle finger, correct?
Martin: “Yes, but the spike isn’t this huge thing. Basically, I grab the two seam and trace the seam up to where I feel comfortable. A lot of times it’s just a nice little arc, so I can feel the fingertip on the seam. Then I throw the crap out of it. I joke with [pitching coach Ethan] Katz, ‘I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to see it on Edgertronic. It does what I want it to do. I throw it hard and don’t want to think about it any more than that.’”
Laurila: Which finger is generating the spin?
Martin: “The middle finger. As I’m releasing the ball, that middle finger extends out, pushing the ball into this axis. If I had a normal [grip] it would be like a 12:45 rather than a three o’clock. The middle finger is the last thing to touch it, which spins it into that axis. The middle is kind of the prime motor with the pitch.”
Laurila: What is the story behind your learning a kick change?
Martin: “We were in Oakland. Banny and Katz were both kind of like, ‘Hey, Davis, come here.’ I was like, ‘What’s up guys?’ They were like, ‘Hey, your changeup is terrible.’ I was like, ‘OK. Is there any more to that story you’d like to tell me?’ “Banny had worked with a guy [Hayden Birdsong] with similar mechanics as me. He had a little bit of stab in the back, good spin talent, but could never find the feel for a changeup. So he introduced the kick change to me. I played catch with it that day and actually got the ASR — the arm-side movement — almost like a lefty slider at 90 mph. We weren’t expecting that. The next day [August 7] I had a start in Oakland and they were like, ‘Hey, this lineup is really good for changeups, so if you can throw it, let’s do it.’ I threw one the second pitch of the game and just rolled with it. I think I threw 18 of them that day, and it’s only gotten better as I’ve had more feel for it.”
Laurila: What are the metrics on it?
Martin: “Last time I checked, on average it was right around +1/-1 vert, and anywhere from 10 to 20. I think the best one I’ve ever gotten was 20 horizontal [arm side]. The best one I’ve ever thrown was probably -1, 20, at 90 mph. “I’ve only been throwing this for probably less than a month. Sometimes it’s more of a splitter where it’s zero and 8, and sometimes it has this big movement. Now it’s a matter of trying to figure out, ‘OK, what’s making this happen? Why is this happening?’ Then I can become more consistent, which is going only to come with throwing it more in games.”
Laurila: How does it differ from a two-seamer?
Martin: “It has a lot more depth. With sinkers, it’s going to be 5-6-7 vert, and this one is almost zero. Watching Kirby Yates throw against us the other day, it has very similar vert metrics to a true splitter.”
Laurila: You told me that a kick change is similar to a split change. How so?
Matt Bowman: “With a lot of pitches in this age you get blending between shapes and characteristics. I would say the kick change is along the spectrum that a lot of the current splitters people are throwing exist on. I would technically classify mine as a split change. “In this modern age, it probably starts with Kevin Gausman. I think the Giants perfected that and realized how good that sort of pitch is. He would call it a “splange,” but if you looked at it, it would have a lot of the same characteristics as this kick change. I think the differentiator is rpm. The lower you get, the more you would classify it as a splitter. The mechanics of how it comes out of the hand are similar.”
Laurila: How does it come out of the hand?
Bowman: “I haven’t done a deep dive into it, but I’m pretty sure with the kick change, as well as the split change and a lot of splitters, is that the middle finger is the last to touch the ball. It’s really the inside of the middle finger. So, the middle finger as it skews toward the index finger is the last thing to touch the ball, and that is the kick aspect; you’re kicking the axis at the very end with the side of your middle finger. “The idea that the White Sox pitcher is throwing one isn’t super surprising to me. Bannister was with the Giants around when Gausman went over. I think he taught that pitch to a lot of guys over there. Logan Webb certainly throws it. They brought Jordan Hicks over and he started to throw a similar pitch. They’re not all exactly the same, but the mechanics of how it comes off the hand, and how you feel it come off the hand, are the essentially the same. “Bannister goes to the White Sox, and I don’t know if Erick Fedde threw the version of his changeup before then, but I’m sure he learned a lot of things from Logan Webb, as well as maybe some training with Bannister. I would assume that Bannister’s fingerprints are on Martin as well. It’s sort of like the sweeper. You can kind of trace the beginnings of a pitch that you can teach to some guys quickly. That can be the kick change, or the splitter, the split change.”
