Caleb Ferguson was given a yo-yo from his pitching coach growing up. West Jefferson, Ohio, is definitely a football town first, but Ferguson was an outlier, a baseball player. To help realize that dream, he needed a curveball, so he was given a yo-yo, grabbed it by his middle finger and learned the motion that would eventually become his breaking ball. “I was a yo-yo kid,” Ferguson said. “Sure, it’s been fine-tuned a lot since, but I was always walking around the house with a yo-yo.” Today, Ferguson sets up shop about 200 miles east of West Jefferson at PNC Park. After a five-year run with the Dodgers to start his career, Ferguson was traded to the Yankees ahead of the 2024 season and hit a bump in the road. He righted the ship after a midseason trade to the Astros, and the curveball was a big reason why. Ferguson may mostly rely on his collection of fastballs -- a four-seamer, sinker and cutter -- but the curveball (classified as a slurve based on its movement profile, but a curveball in his heart) is a go-to put-away pitch. Hitters have whiffed on it 33.3% of the time in this young season, right in line with the 32.2% clip he had last year. In the last two months of 2024, when he pitched to a 3.86 ERA and 2.88 FIP, 12 of his 26 strikeouts came via his curveball. “I think it was just reemphasizing the pitch, confidence level with the pitch and everything that goes into it,” Ferguson said. “It’s always been a really good pitch for me. Just like with anything else, once you have some success with it, you trust it more. |
“I think it’s one of those things that comes with confidence,” Ferguson added. “The more confident you get, the better it gets.” Ferguson’s pitching mentality is to just stay out of the middle of the plate. The best way to do that is to make the ball move. Whiffs are great, but he can live off weak contact by just missing the sweet spot of the bat. The curveball offers him an avenue for both outcomes. He can miss bats with it when it falls out of the strike zone low and away to left-handed hitters, maximizing its nearly 3,000 RPM of spin that averages 57.2 inches of vertical drop. But if he leaves it up, it is seldomly hit hard, averaging an 85 mph exit velocity last year. And with that extra weapon, it can help keep hitters off his fastball, helping the arsenal play up. “Take tunneling out of it, you’re just putting thoughts in a hitter’s head of what pitches might be coming, and that I can throw three, four pitches for a strike,” Ferguson said. “Makes it hard on that guy. Pressure is really on them at that point.” It’s been a ride for a pitch he learned from a yo-yo, and Ferguson has been yo-yoed around a bit with his potential role. When the Pirates signed him, it was with the intention to stretch him out during Spring Training to explore if he could be a starter. He’s in a position now where he could go multiple innings if needed, but instead, he’s mostly pitched leverage innings in the seventh and eighth. The Pirates’ bullpen is in a state of flux after optioning David Bednar to Triple-A Indianapolis, and there’s opportunity to be had at the end of ballgames. Ferguson has only six saves in his career, but he hasn’t looked rattled in his leverage innings, tossing four scoreless frames. “His ability to pitch anywhere from the fifth to the ninth is something that’s very valuable for us,” manager Derek Shelton said. |
The role doesn’t matter much to Ferguson. The way he views it, there are 27 outs in a game, and none is inherently more valuable than another. He cut his teeth in Dodgers bullpens where pitchers’ roles were usually fungible. They just had a job to do. That’s his approach today. “I don’t care when they come,” Ferguson said. “Go get your three outs. My whole career, that’s all I’ve really thought about. OK, the manager is asking me to do my job? Let’s do my job.” |
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Oneil Cruz is one of four players since 1901 to start a season with at least two home runs and six steals in a team’s first seven games of the season. Who was the last player to accomplish this feat? A. Barry Bonds B. Andre Dawson C. Rickey Henderson D. Tony Womack |
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Pirates chairman Bob Nutting spoke with MLB.com in a small setting ahead of Friday’s home opener against the Yankees. Paul Skenes was one of several topics discussed, namely what having a player like him means to the organization and its expectations. • Paul Skenes Bobblehead! Get your Pirates tickets for April 19 "Paul's a special player. He really is a remarkable young man," Nutting said. "A combination of leadership characteristics that he brings, whether it's from the Air Force Academy or just who he is. The physical command that he has and just the raw character that he brings every day, it's a unique combination. “So we really love having him in the clubhouse and looking forward to see how he can impact not only his own performance, but raise the level of expectation and performance for the whole team." The full story can be found here. |
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C. Rickey Henderson Henderson hit two home runs and stole seven bags in the first seven games of the 1988 season. The other two players to match or better Cruz’s production through the first week of the season are Eric Davis (1987) and Joe Morgan (1976). |
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