Is this the craziest pitch grip we've EVER seen?
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You have to see how this MLB Draft prospect throws his breaking ball.
Reid Worley is showcasing some crazy spin rates at the MLB Draft Combine this week -- and an even crazier pitch grip.
The high school right-hander from Georgia was ripping off 3,000-plus rpm breaking balls on Tuesday -- the highest spin rates of the day, and elite spin even at the Major League level.
And the way he throws that pitch is one-of-a-kind.
It's part knuckle-curve, part slider … and it's not like any normal pitch grip you might recognize. Worley spikes his right index finger inside the "horseshoe" on the baseball, and then he wraps his middle finger from the right seam, around the top of his spiked index finger and all the way across to the left seam.
You kind of have to see it to understand it. Here's the grip:
Maybe the craziest part is, Worley's been throwing the ball like that since he was a young kid … because that's the grip he thought was comfortable.
"I was taught it as a kid," Worley explained at the Draft Combine. "Just found something comfortable about 8-9 years old."
Whether you call it a curveball or a slider, it's got some eye-catching metrics. Worley's breaking ball was sitting 82-83 mph with spin rates of 3,000-3,200 rpm and about 15 inches of horizontal break.
The 3,000-plus range is top-tier spin. Only 25 MLB pitchers are averaging 3,000-plus rpm on a breaking pitch this season -- whether it's a curveball, slider, sweeper or whatever -- out of the more than 1,000 different breaking balls thrown across the league. Less than 5% of the total breaking pitches thrown league-wide in 2025 have a spin rate of 3,000 rpm or higher.
Highest-spin breaking pitches in MLB in 2025
- Ryan Pressly curveball: 3,216 rpm
- Dustin May sweeper: 3,187 rpm
- Seth Lugo curveball: 3,184 rpm
- Phil Maton curveball: 3,169 rpm
- Lucas Sims slider: 3,154 rpm
It was certainly the pitch that jumped off the page at the Draft Combine for Worley, who's committed to Kennesaw State but also projects as a fourth-to-seventh round Draft pick this year, according to MLB Pipeline.