Easily one of the most improbable redemption stories of the past couple of years has been the tale of a certain bearded, CS Lewis reading, funny pitchface making, UCL-less 36-year old journeyman knuckleballer named Robert Alan Dickey. Last year's journey, from free agent scrap heap pick up, to Buffalo, to bullpen relief, to his complete game one hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies in August was the stuff of Metropolitan legend. The contract he signed this offseason assures that RA Dickey will be in the Mets uniform until 2012 (option '13).

From a complete unknown to New York folk hero -- what's the deal with Dickey?

As I mentioned in this earlier article, much of Dickey's success has come from his abandoning of awful secondary pitches and sticking solely to a plus knuckleball and fastball. His scouting report is highly intriguing: he sports a mid-70s "fast" knuckleball that has a surprising amount of horizontal movement and little vertical movement, the exact inverse of earlier in his career when he rarely threw it. Dickey mixes up his fast knuckler with a Bugs Bunny knuckleball that drops in at around 58 miles per hour. An extremely rare pitch, the eephus knuckler is thrown only a handful of times a game as a change of pace pitch. His final pitch is a low 80s fastball, thrown usually when behind in the count or if Dickey needs a strike. Earlier in the spring, Dickey stated that he was adding a cutter, which he has thrown this spring predominantly to right handers.

The most interesting thing about Dickey is that fast knuckleball. Traditionally knucklers sit in the mid 60s but Dickey's is about ten miles per hour faster. Part of his success last season was due to the fact that he kept the ball in the ballpark, surrendering 0.67 HR/9, thanks to his extremely low fly ball rate, which was at 28%. His FIP was about a point higher than his ERA, but not a substantial difference. Considering the extreme pitcher-friendliness of CitiField, I don't believe that a Dickey regression will be that great, unless he cannot keep it in the ballpark which appears somewhat unlikely as a) knuckleballers traditionally outperfom their peripherals and b) his peripherals don't point solely to luck as the cause of his success. There is definitely something else going on.

Dickey has been an interesting study so far and has been the subject of a lot of debate in concerns to his low fly ball rate. My theory on this is that due to the speed of his knuckler and the fact that no one really has ever thrown a knuckleball this fast in the past, is either that a fast knuckleball is more difficult to get under or that players will eventually adjust to the difference and begin to modify their approach.

Dickey is an easy guy to root for and all signs point to more success in the future for him.