by James Copeland, Cronkite News
November 5, 2025

SCOTTSDALE – In an era centered around max velocity and hitting triple digits on the speed gun, the art of finesse and fooling hitters with unique pitches and sneaky stuff has become one of baseball’s rarer art forms.

The infamous knuckleball, once a relative staple in more than a few pitcher’s repertoire, is now nearly extinct. The last pitcher to throw a knuckleball in a big league game was Matt Waldron for the San Diego Padres in 2023. Before that, Steven Wright threw it in 2013 for the Boston Red Sox, creating a decade gap between the two. While Waldron is still with the Padres, he only pitched 4.2 innings for the club in 2025, and as the only active knuckleballer in the majors, the pitch was almost nonexistent this past season.

Detroit Tigers rising pitching prospect Kenny Serwa looks to add himself to that rare list. At 28, he has vast experience with the knuckleball, since he has been throwing it since he was in Little League.

“I started throwing when I was about 9 or 10 years old,” said Serwa, who is currently playing with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. “My dad showed me in the front yard. I was trying to throw breaking balls, and he thought I was too young, so he was like, ‘Yeah we’re going to have to throw some knuckleballs’. He showed me a grip and I adjusted from there.” 

From there, Serwa shined through the high school level in his senior season in 2015, wondering if anyone could hit his special pitch, posting a 1.57 ERA. However, college was a different beast. Competing for four different colleges in seven years, Serwa’s journey was bumpy and full of unexpected turns. But he was determined to chase his dream of making the majors.

“I guess I have always had that (confidence) deep down,” Serwa said. “I’ve always known that I can do it at the highest level and I’ve kept pushing myself just waiting for that opportunity.” 

That opportunity came with the Tigers, by the way of a viral video when Cody Whitten, a teammate at the University of Dayton, introduced Serwa to Tread Athletics, a next-gen pitching development company that specializes in helping pitchers increase velocity and performance. There, Serwa got the chance to showcase his blazing 90 mph knuckleball, with his offspeed “Yoshi” version bottoming out in the low 70s. 

Serwa uses this pitch much more frequently. Its name came from the Nintendo video game Mario Super Sluggers, as it looked like Yoshi’s special rainbow floating star pitch. Whitten was the first to notice it when catching for Serwa at Dayton in 2022.

Serwa’s performance at Tread went viral, garnering millions of views and  showcasing his stuff in front of dozens of MLB scouts.

“Without (Tread), I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said. “They helped me a lot mechanically and with some pitch scripts. My coach, Cody, told me why not try to throw it a little hard? And that’s probably the video that everyone saw from Tread that changed my career.”

Now, in the Arizona Fall League, Serwa’s pitch is featured on one of the biggest stages for prospects. And luckily for him, his manager caught a knuckleball or two in his day. Rene Rivera, with 17 MLB seasons under his belt, was the batterymate for Chicago Cubs starter Eddie Gamboa, and knows how hard it is to corral a knuckleball.

“It’s just special man,” Rivera said. “I myself got the opportunity to catch one, and you have to  understand it’s a tough pitch. You might miss it and you have to be OK with that. I think when you put yourself behind the plate, I’m just going to do the best I can to catch it.”

The art of the knuckleball is fascinating, especially because it is just as tough of a pitch to catch as it is to hit. The movement is mesmerizing, like watching a floating cloud. Walker Janek, a first round pick for the Houston Astros in the 2024 MLB Draft who is playing for Scottsdale in the AFL, had the tough task of never catching the pitch before he got behind the plate with Serwa on the mound.

“I went into it pretty blind, so it was definitely a challenge,” Janek said. “But the night before I saw him throwing and was like, ‘Oh this is gonna be fun.’ That’s kind of how I treated it and it has been a blast.”

Besides the two knuckleballs in Serwa’s repertoire, he also has four other pitches including a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter and breaking ball. 

Amazingly, none of these pitches come even close to eclipsing 95 mph, going against the norm of today’s game. In Serwa’s mind, this gives him a competitive advantage.

But for him, the “Yosh” is his bread-and-butter pitch. Through one month in the AFL, he has a 10.74 ERA in three games started and 9 2/3 innings pitched. It might be a shaky start, but he has time to improve.

“I love, love, love for them to see the Yoshi first,” Serwa said. “Dance around and go all over the place and then speed them up a little bit with the harder one. 

“Some guys struggle with fastball, some with cutters, so just getting a scouting report on each guy and using one of the other pitches at the right time, too.”

While Serwa’s road ahead is tough, in his eyes nothing is impossible, and with the Fall League’s vast exposure, his secret is out and here to stay. But his job is still far from finished, and he knows what he needs to do to reach his ultimate goal.

“Keep getting people out, keep showcasing myself at the highest level against some of the top prospects out there and let God do the rest,” Serwa said with a smile. “All I can do is throw the ball over the plate and whatever happens, happens.”

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Super Kenny Serwa: Detroit Tigers prospect unveils the ‘Yoshi,’ bringing back one of baseball’s trickiest pitches

James Copeland, Cronkite News
November 5, 2025

SCOTTSDALE – In an era centered around max velocity and hitting triple digits on the speed gun, the art of finesse and fooling hitters with unique pitches and sneaky stuff has become one of baseball’s rarer art forms.

The infamous knuckleball, once a relative staple in more than a few pitcher’s repertoire, is now nearly extinct. The last pitcher to throw a knuckleball in a big league game was Matt Waldron for the San Diego Padres in 2023. Before that, Steven Wright threw it in 2013 for the Boston Red Sox, creating a decade gap between the two. While Waldron is still with the Padres, he only pitched 4.2 innings for the club in 2025, and as the only active knuckleballer in the majors, the pitch was almost nonexistent this past season.

Detroit Tigers rising pitching prospect Kenny Serwa looks to add himself to that rare list. At 28, he has vast experience with the knuckleball, since he has been throwing it since he was in Little League.

“I started throwing when I was about 9 or 10 years old,” said Serwa, who is currently playing with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. “My dad showed me in the front yard. I was trying to throw breaking balls, and he thought I was too young, so he was like, ‘Yeah we’re going to have to throw some knuckleballs’. He showed me a grip and I adjusted from there.” 

From there, Serwa shined through the high school level in his senior season in 2015, wondering if anyone could hit his special pitch, posting a 1.57 ERA. However, college was a different beast. Competing for four different colleges in seven years, Serwa’s journey was bumpy and full of unexpected turns. But he was determined to chase his dream of making the majors.

“I guess I have always had that (confidence) deep down,” Serwa said. “I’ve always known that I can do it at the highest level and I’ve kept pushing myself just waiting for that opportunity.” 

That opportunity came with the Tigers, by the way of a viral video when Cody Whitten, a teammate at the University of Dayton, introduced Serwa to Tread Athletics, a next-gen pitching development company that specializes in helping pitchers increase velocity and performance. There, Serwa got the chance to showcase his blazing 90 mph knuckleball, with his offspeed “Yoshi” version bottoming out in the low 70s. 

Serwa uses this pitch much more frequently. Its name came from the Nintendo video game Mario Super Sluggers, as it looked like Yoshi’s special rainbow floating star pitch. Whitten was the first to notice it when catching for Serwa at Dayton in 2022.

Serwa’s performance at Tread went viral, garnering millions of views and  showcasing his stuff in front of dozens of MLB scouts.

“Without (Tread), I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said. “They helped me a lot mechanically and with some pitch scripts. My coach, Cody, told me why not try to throw it a little hard? And that’s probably the video that everyone saw from Tread that changed my career.”

Now, in the Arizona Fall League, Serwa’s pitch is featured on one of the biggest stages for prospects. And luckily for him, his manager caught a knuckleball or two in his day. Rene Rivera, with 17 MLB seasons under his belt, was the batterymate for Chicago Cubs starter Eddie Gamboa, and knows how hard it is to corral a knuckleball.

“It’s just special man,” Rivera said. “I myself got the opportunity to catch one, and you have to  understand it’s a tough pitch. You might miss it and you have to be OK with that. I think when you put yourself behind the plate, I’m just going to do the best I can to catch it.”

The art of the knuckleball is fascinating, especially because it is just as tough of a pitch to catch as it is to hit. The movement is mesmerizing, like watching a floating cloud. Walker Janek, a first round pick for the Houston Astros in the 2024 MLB Draft who is playing for Scottsdale in the AFL, had the tough task of never catching the pitch before he got behind the plate with Serwa on the mound.

“I went into it pretty blind, so it was definitely a challenge,” Janek said. “But the night before I saw him throwing and was like, ‘Oh this is gonna be fun.’ That’s kind of how I treated it and it has been a blast.”

Besides the two knuckleballs in Serwa’s repertoire, he also has four other pitches including a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter and breaking ball. 

Amazingly, none of these pitches come even close to eclipsing 95 mph, going against the norm of today’s game. In Serwa’s mind, this gives him a competitive advantage.

But for him, the “Yosh” is his bread-and-butter pitch. Through one month in the AFL, he has a 10.74 ERA in three games started and 9 2/3 innings pitched. It might be a shaky start, but he has time to improve.

“I love, love, love for them to see the Yoshi first,” Serwa said. “Dance around and go all over the place and then speed them up a little bit with the harder one. 

“Some guys struggle with fastball, some with cutters, so just getting a scouting report on each guy and using one of the other pitches at the right time, too.”

While Serwa’s road ahead is tough, in his eyes nothing is impossible, and with the Fall League’s vast exposure, his secret is out and here to stay. But his job is still far from finished, and he knows what he needs to do to reach his ultimate goal.

“Keep getting people out, keep showcasing myself at the highest level against some of the top prospects out there and let God do the rest,” Serwa said with a smile. “All I can do is throw the ball over the plate and whatever happens, happens.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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