PORT ST. LUCIE — Jon Niese is a changed man.
The transformation began near the end of 2011, when the Mets lefty began dabbling with a changeup. He entered last spring training sold on the pitch and dedicated to mastering it. By the end of 2012 it was nearly mission accomplished for Niese.
“He’s getting very close to being perfect,” pitching coach Dan Warthen said yesterday, when asked to assess Niese’s changeup. “I think it contributed to him finishing the season strongly.”
The 26-year-old Niese had his best season in the big leagues last year, going 13-9 with a 3.40 ERA with 155 strikeouts and 49 walks in 190 1/3 innings. By Warthen’s accounting, just two to three percent of Niese’s pitches were changeups in the first half of last season, but that figure increased to the 12-15 percent range in the second half.
Throwing more changeups, Niese went 6-5 with a 3.01 ERA in the second half of last year, marking the first time he avoided a late-season fade. The goal now for Niese is to refine the changeup even further.
“It’s something I’m going to be working on a lot more this year and hopefully incorporate it into more games,” Niese said after pitching three shutout innings in the Mets’ 6-2 exhibition victory over the Tigers yesterday at Tradition Field. “I see the success Johan [Santana] has with it and I want to get that pitch as best as I can.”
Niese throws his fastball in the low 90s, with his average changeup around 83 mph. The pitch complements his curveball and cutter to give Niese four weapons.
“The changeup has helped him economize his pitches a great deal,” Warthen said. “He started getting two and three outs a game, which equates to an inning — an inning where he would throw four or five pitches to a hitter, and now he’s throwing one or two. I think it’s a huge coup for him.”
Santana, one of the best changeup pitchers of this generation, has discussed different grips with Niese, leaving the teaching to Warthen. But Niese’s results have been difficult for Santana to miss.
“[Niese] can be pretty good with it because he has other pitches to make it better,” Santana said. “When you put that into hitters’ minds, you become a better pitcher. You can see he’s improving, so I’m pretty sure he will get better and better and better with the changeup.”
Santana said it took him “at least a couple of years” throwing the changeup to have full confidence in the pitch. The lefty broke into the big leagues as a reliever with the Twins and barely threw the changeup until joining Minnesota’s rotation.
“If you put yourself into it, you will learn it,” Santana said. “When you talk about that pitch, you make it look like a fastball and keep hitters off balance.
“It takes a little bit of time, because you’ve got to develop your arm speed. Your delivery has to be the same, so sometimes you don’t have the confidence out there you can get it. But it takes time and once you do repetition after repetition you get it and you get the arm speed, you get the arm release, you get everything.”
Niese’s belief in the changeup, according to Warthen, is strong.
“When he has success with it, he says, ‘I cannot believe I have not used this more,’ ” Warthen said. “He still gets mad at himself at the end of a game when he’s thrown just six or seven or eight changeups.”