CINCINNATI — It was sometime last year during spring training when Hayden Birdsong was engaging in a Gen Z pastime: scrolling TikTok before bed.
The algorithm fed Birdsong a savory yet unsubstantial diet of short-form content. All the videos were forgettable. All but one — the one that introduced him to what would become his signature pitch. And to bullpen coach Garvin Alston, that pitch has dramatically raised the 23-year-old’s ceiling.
“It has changed him from being really good to a possible elite pitcher in baseball,” Alston said. “That pitch has the capability of swing-and-miss pitch at any given time. It helped him out tremendously.”
Added manager Bob Melvin: “We feel there’s a very high ceiling for Birdsong.”
The pitch that Birdsong learned on TikTok is the “kick change,” which is a modified version of a changeup. The key difference lies in the grip. With the kick change, a pitcher spikes their middle finger as if he was throwing a knuckleball. When Birdsong had an issue with his ring middle finger nail last week — a recurring issue — it was because of how he throws the changeup. The rest of the fingers hold the ball like a normal changeup. The result is a tumbling effect, making the pitch look similar to a splitter.
Birdsong started experimenting with the pitch the day after he learned about its existence. A week later, he threw it in a bullpen. The pitch had movement; Birdsong had something. Birdsong previously threw a traditional changeup with a two-seam grip, but scrapped it in favor of his new toy. Combining the kick change with his mid-to-high 90s fastball, slider and curveball paved the way for last year’s rapid ascension.
The right-hander didn’t throw the kick change in a game until his season started with Double-A Richmond. With that pitch in tow, he posted a 2.05 ERA over 11 starts and earned a promotion to Triple-A Sacramento. Following two starts with the River Cats, he made his debut when injuries decimated the Giants’ rotation.
He teased high-end potential as a rookie (88 strikeouts, 72 innings) despite a 4.75 ERA, then made the Giants’ 2025 Opening Day roster with an excellent spring. He didn’t win the fifth starter competition and will pitch in the bullpen for now, but Birdsong likely isn’t long for relief life.
“It’s helped a lot,” Birdsong said. “Before that, I could only throw inside to lefties, away from righties and that was it. Now, I have something going the other way, which really changes the eyes and helps being able to mix stuff off of it.”
Generally, there are two differences in how a kick change moves compared to the average changeup. The first is velocity as kick changes clock in faster than the traditional changeups. In 2024, the average changeup was 85.5 mph. Birdsong’s changeup, by contrast, was 88.1 mph.
The second deviation is more drop. Last season, Birdsong’s kick change averaged -1.9 inches of induced vertical break, or IVB. With changeups, the lower the IVB, the more the pitch drops. Logan Webb, for example, had -4.8 of induced vertical break on his changeup last year, the third-lowest in MLB (Birdsong was sixth). What this means, then, is that Birdsong is reducing spin and creating more drop than an average changeup.
Or, simply put, the pitch is just nasty.
“The main things you try to do with any changeup are you try to change tilt, you try to kill spin and you try to kill spin efficiency,” said pitching coach J.P. Martinez. “If a fastball is a high tilt, high spin efficiency, you want to go to the other end of the spectrum on the changeup.”
“It’s probably more splitter-like than like a changeup,” said catcher Patrick Bailey. “It’s hard and it’s got some good downward action. It’s nasty.”
The kick change isn’t new, though others know the pitch by different names.
When Alston worked in the A’s organization, he knew the pitch as “The Rhino.” Prior to Birdsong, the only person who Martinez knew threw the pitch was Mat Latos, though Latos referred to it as The Critter. While Birdsong isn’t the innovator, he jokingly wishes he trademarked the pitch before it gained popularity.
Along with Birdsong, the Chicago White Sox’s David Martin threw the pitch last season. This spring, the Seattle Mariners’ Andrés Muñoz, the New York Mets’ Clay Holmes and the Texas Rangers’ Jack Leiter incorporated kick changes. Despite the copycat nature of baseball, the kick change likely won’t become baseball’s latest fad for one simple reason.
“It’s not an easy pitch to throw, and that’s the crazy thing about it because it puts your hand in a difficult position,” Alston said. “For most who do try, it’s always uncomfortable to throw. That’s why I think, personally, it hasn’t been a huge trend.”
When Martinez was a player in the Minnesota Twins’ system, one of the team’s taglines was, “There is no changeup machine.” Pitching machines can replicate breaking ball spin all day. But changeups? No machine can match the human touch. And when Birdsong is commanding his pitches as he did during spring training, there’s a clear path for Birdsong to become a mainstay in the rotation for years to come.
“He’s got nasty stuff,” Bailey said. “Velo is there. Shapes are there. When he’s filling it up, he’s one of the best in the game.”
Source: Paradise Post
