Craig Kimbrel has arguably been the best closer in baseball in the past 3 to 4 years. His numbers speak for themselves, Kimbrel has a career 1.43 ERA in 289 innings pitched leading to 186 total saves. At his young age of 26 he is already the Atlanta Braves franchise leader in saves passing John Smoltz previous record of 154 saves.
Kimbrel features two plus pitches, a fastball and a breaking ball which serves as a very hard slider. Those are the only two pitches he has needed to have accomplished all this early success, but now Kimbrel might be tying to add to his repertoire.
In a full squad workout that included live batting practice, Craig Kimbrel appeared to have thrown some change-ups to some of his teammates. Now hold on a second, Kimbrel’s stats are already amazing the way they are, just think how much more filthy Kimbrel would be if he can implement a decent change-up.
“Chris Johnson told me he threw a couple of change-ups,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, who also stated that Kimbrel might just be playing with the idea of adding a third pitch, and that he is unsure if he will actually use the change once the season starts.
When we think of closers with a great change-up, Trevor Hoffman is the first one that comes to mind. Hoffman made a living off of his change-up and racked up 601 career saves. As for Kimbrel, it might be a great idea for him to add this pitch to his arsenal as it could help him preserve his arm a bit and eventually have a long career as a closer. With the recent epidemic of Tommy John surgeries in the MLB, it might be a reason why Kimbrel wants to add this pitch.
Last year we also saw Craig throw a change-up here and there in early Spring Training games, but he did not use it when the regular season started. It will be interesting to see how this all develops as major league hitters might have no chance versus Kimbrel if he can find a way to generate an above average change-up.
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