Matt Waldron channeled Tom Cruise’s San Diego jet pilot of “Top Gun” fame.
He felt the need — the need for speed.
If the Padres pitcher could quicken not just his two fastballs but also his knuckleball, then he’d have more freedom to carry out the art of pitching in this supersonic era of baseball.
So it was decided this past offseason that the 29-year-old righty would lose weight, increase his strength and explosiveness and see what comes from his faster body movement and arm speed.
For now, it seems to be working, albeit in the Pacific Coast League.
Waldron has gained modest but helpful zip. And he has refined the fastball command that got him drafted out of the University of Nebraska seven years ago by Cleveland.
“I feel really good,” Waldron said Friday, a day after shutting out the Seattle Mariners’ Triple-A hitters across four innings in chilly Tacoma, throwing strikes with 71% of his pitches.
“I feel just very sharp and prepared.”
With the El Paso-based Padres’ affiliate, Waldron has nine strikeouts and zero walks or runs allowed across seven innings.
He’s thrown strikes with 77% of his fastballs, a near-must for him.
The Padres, for sure, have paid attention.
Because he’s out of minor-league options and on a rehab assignment that will end soon, the team will have to either put him on the big league club or expose him to a waiver claim.
My guess is the Padres this month will promote Waldron, either to their bullpen or starting rotation.
The pitcher, who has a 4.86 ERA across three partial seasons with San Diego, has done what the team asked of him entering the winter.
He dropped 15 pounds, heeding a team nutritionist.
It took eating fewer late-night snacks, less pasta-type food — and more chicken.
He became more explosive by throwing weighted balls and making high-speed flings known as pulldowns.
Driving the aggressive offseason plan was this: Waldron decided that he would be a pitcher with a knuckleball, rather than a knuckleballer.
This meant throwing more four-seam fastballs and sinkers, which had lost speed as Waldron had leaned into the knuckler. The dip went from 91.3 miles per hour in 2023 to 90.4 mph in 2024 and 90 mph in 2025.
But that wasn’t all. After digging into knuckleball characteristics, Padres analysts sought a faster knuckler, despite its upticks from 76.6 mph to 77.6 mph and 79.4 mph since Waldron reached the big leagues.
“When that knuckleball is above 81 miles per hour,” Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla said, “it’s a much better performing pitch. And so, we knew that if we could build fastball velo, the knuckleball itself, he’s going to be able to throw it hard. So, we were matching two positives in one.”
In a warm-weather Cactus League game late in February, the sleeker, stronger Waldron flung the fastest knuckleball many Padres had seen.
It went 87 mph.
“I just ripped it,” he said.
On the same day, Waldron reached 94-95 mph with the fastball and threw seven consecutive first-pitch strikes.
Set back soon thereafter by hemorrhoid surgery, he has regained his footing in recent weeks.
He’s throwing harder than last season: 91.4 mph across 52 fastballs, up 1.4 ticks from his brief stretch with the ’24 Padres. At 81.5 mph, the knuckleball is 2 mph quicker.
Waldron said he’s pitching better. That is, after all, the point.
The fastball command that Niebla described as his superpower has accompanied the gains in velocity.
“I truly think I have top-five fastball command out of probably everybody, and I mean that and believe that,” Waldron said. “I feel like it can be a lost art a little bit.”
Reviewing his recent start, he said his first priority was to “maintain control” of four-seam fastballs and sinkers that ranged from 90 to 93 mph in 45-degree weather. He succeeded, but also mixed in knuckleballs, cut fastballs and sweepers.
Knuckleballs are scarce in the big leagues because they’re too hard to throw for strikes.
Last year, Waldron maxed out on the pitch, throwing three knucklers out of every four pitches in just 4 1/3 innings with the Padres. Today, it makes up just a quarter of his offerings.
“I know how much the hitters hate it,” he said. “It’s a nice weapon to have. It’s a lot harder without it, that’s for sure.”
MLB, meantime, has become even more power-hungry. Among righty starters, the average fastball sits at 94.7 mph. There’s still a niche, though, for the righty starters who bring less heat. Jameson Tailon, averaging 90.8, is a pitching artist with the Cubs who sent the Padres toward the offseason last October. Friday, Padres hitters seldom solved Red Sox starter Sonny Gray, who averaged 92-plus with his sinkers and four-seamers but began 17 of 22 at-bats with a strike.
Waldron developed a knuckleball, no small feat. It got him to the big leagues and, thrown 40% of the time, helped the ’24 Padres reach the playoffs via a 12-game stretch with a 3.41 ERA before he finished with a 4.91 ERA
The latest version of Waldron would seem worth a look.