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The thing about throwing a knuckleball in baseball is that no one, not even the pitcher, knows which way the ball breaks. One could say the same about the direction of Matt Waldron’s baseball career since his days at Westside High School and the University of Nebraska.
“That’s definitely the beauty of it. That’s what makes it hard to hit,” said Waldron regarding the pitch rarely thrown now in Major League Baseball. In 26 starts for the San Diego Padres in 2024, his first full season in the majors, he threw the “knuckler” 38% of the time—the most of any pitcher in MLB since 2018.
Waldron was picked by Cleveland in the 18th round of the 2019 draft after four years with the Huskers. The Guardians then traded Waldron, now 28, to the Padres organization during the off-season between 2020 and 2021. He broke into the big leagues in 2023.
Matt and his twin brother, Mike, had always loved baseball and played together with the Huskers. With Mike as a catcher, Matt had toyed with the knuckleball while both attended Westside High School.
“He had asked to throw it in a game and I know I said, ‘I don’t care,’” said Bob Greco, Waldron’s baseball coach at Westside who has since retired. “I honestly didn’t know if he had thrown one.”
However, Waldron said he didn’t throw the knuckler in actual competition until 2021 in professional baseball.
Waldron finished his Husker career ranked fourth on the school’s all-time career strikeout list.
When Waldron said the Padres front office encouraged him to throw the slow fluttering knuckleball with more conviction after the trade, it was a lot to contemplate. He largely relied on his velocity with fastballs and more conventional breaking pitches as his ticket to the big leagues.
“That’s a big, big change that I had to really sit down and think about,” said Waldron, who still maintains his residence in the Omaha area during the off-season. “It was a very tough and dark spot.”
Ultimately, the results of successfully retiring hitters on a consistent basis was the final convincing factor toward throwing the knuckler more often. So much so that in 2021, between minor league stops in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and San Antonio, Texas, Waldron threw the pitch at a 70% rate.
“I had a really good feel for that pitch, even if I hadn’t thrown it for 10 years,” Waldron said. “I felt it’s like riding a bike. I just knew once I learned it I knew how to throw it.”
Apart from Waldron’s high school dominance with raw pitching ability, his alacrity to adjust his body while implementing subtle changes in pitching mechanics stood out to Greco at Westside.
“It was absolutely amazing,” said Greco, who specialized in working with pitchers on the high school level. “In many instances, he didn’t even have to practice it. That’s how aware he was of where his body was moving.”
Greco was gifted with coaching two future major leaguers at that time. Jake Meyers, now a center fielder for the Houston Astros, also doubled up as a pitcher with the Warriors, the three-time Class A state high school baseball champions from 2013 to 2015. Meyers was a Husker teammate, too, of the Waldron twins. Waldron got a taste of the October baseball playoff atmosphere last year when the Padres reached the postseason.
“That was amazing,” he said. “It’s so intense and important.”
Though Waldron was omitted from the team’s playoff roster, he was still in the dugout for the Padres postseason games. They won the National League Wild Card Series against Atlanta, but bowed out in the league Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the eventual World Series champions.
“You don’t always get a chance to soak it up in the moment,” said Waldron. “When the season ended, it was very bitter, but I’ll think back on that and how it was.”
After reaching the big leagues, the challenge now for Waldron is how to stay there.
“To stay No. 1 would be consistency,” said Waldron. “Being reliable week in and week out.”
Waldron acknowledged his unconventional path to the big leagues: throwing a pitch hardly anyone else uses in the big leagues and by doing an about-face in the minors on his pitching style.
“It was a very unique route for sure,” said Waldron. “I wouldn’t wish it on some people that have big aspirations.”
But Waldron is looking to continue paying off his aspirations.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
