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BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2011		After his brief flash of success in late 2009, the Dodgers gave this knuckleballer a shot at their fifth-starter job out of spring training. Haeger struck out 12 in six innings in his first start, but turned into Haeger the Horrible thereafter, with an 18/22 strikeout-walk ratio in his final 24 innings, an imbalance no pitcher can survive. After May 8 he made just two brief cameos with the big club, and while he kept the ball in the park at Albuquerque, his control there was nothing to write home about. Tim Wakefield broke through at age 28 and has enjoyed a lengthy big-league career, so it could still happen for Haeger. He's now the Mariners' R&D curiosity.
2010		Like wine, cheese, and many of life's other fine things, knuckleballers generally need to age before they're much good. More than three years after debuting with the White Sox, Haeger put together his first major-league quality start in late August, then followed up with seven shutout innings against the Cubs. The magic ran out just as Garland arrived, and Haeger pitched sparingly in September. Though his command of his signature pitch is improving, Haeger doesn't vary his speeds much, so more than two-thirds of his knucklers sit in the 70-73 mph range, producing less break and less variation than Tim Wakefield's 60-70 mph offerings. Fans of the flutterball can hope he'll be ready to hold down a job by the time Wakefield retires. He'll be in the mix for a back-end rotation spot come spring.
2009		Charlie Haeger's brief stint with the Padres got his name into this chapter, but accomplished little else. He continues to mark time until he's old enough to be a successful knuckleballer—age-wise, he's approaching his goal, but performance-wise, he's heading in the wrong direction.
2008		Everybody loves a knuckleballer, but no amount of heavy breathing is going to get him to the Show. According to past master of the flutterball Charlie Hough, Haeger's got the best knuckler since Tim Wakefield first arrived, but it's still a work in progress. Haeger had his moments in a brief July stint, and had his best run in Charlotte's rotation after being sent back down for August, making five quality starts in six and putting up a 34/10 K/BB ratio in 46 2/3 IP, but as you can see above, it was a rough year overall. Sox catchers gave up a quarter of their season total of 20 passed balls in his 11 1/3 IP with the big club, which complicates his chances of making a rotation he could help.
2007		Although there is no official list of knuckleball pitchers, you probably have to go back to Charlie Hough in 1970 to find a true knuckleballer who made his major league debut at a younger age than Charlie Haeger. Hough was 22 years and 219 days old when he pitched in his first game for the Dodgers; Haeger was 22 years and 233 days old when he made a surprise start against the Angels in May. Hough is now mentoring Haeger, though the apprentice might do just as well to study tape of Tim Wakefield. When he`s on, Wakefield will vary the speed of his knuckler--from about 60 MPH to 69 MPH, the slower version having correspondingly more break--to the point where he`s almost throwing two different pitches. When we watched him, Haeger almost always kept the pitch in the 70 to 72 MPH range, alleviating the hitter of a certain amount of guesswork. In any event, the lack of precedent makes Haeger`s PECOTA almost useless. He`s in the White Sox`s plans for 2007 as either as a fifth starter or a set-up man. In the latter case, the contrast between his knuckler and the hard heat of Bobby Jenks and Matt Thornton could leave hitters truly baffled.
2006		Haeger retired from baseball at 20, only to figure out that trying to make it as a knuckleballer would be a far more interesting career choice than anything on the curriculum at Madonna College of Livonia, MI. He benefited from the buzz effect surrounding the very good rotation in Winston-Salem, and his organization takes him seriously, adding him to the 40-man roster this winter in lieu of more traditional prospects. Unlike other knuckleballers, he`s shown the ability to keep the ball down, but otherwise his presence here rests more on backstory than stats.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Charlie Haeger threw 1,173 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2007 and 2010, including pitches thrown in . In 2010, he relied primarily on his Knuckleball (72mph) and Fourseam Fastball (84mph). He also rarely threw a Slider (82mph).