Clemson received a verbal commitment from a talented pitcher in the Class of 2023 earlier this week. Aidan Knaak, who hails from Bishop Verot Catholic High School in Fort Myers (Fla.) is a right-handed batter and thrower, who has plus stuff on the …
Clemson received a verbal commitment from a talented pitcher in the Class of 2023 earlier this week.
Aidan Knaak, who hails from Bishop Verot Catholic High School in Fort Myers (Fla.) is a right-handed batter and thrower, who has plus stuff on the mound and can pound the zone with several effective pitches.
The right-handed pitcher caught up with The Clemson Insider regarding his decision to commit to Clemson.
“I was looking for a Power 5 school. I was looking for the academics, they had really good academics and I wanted to study Business and Data Science Statistics,” Knaak told TCI. “Overall, the campus is just a perfect college town and I basically like everything about it.”
Knaak was recently on Clemson’s campus for one of Monte Lee’s camps. He pitched there and the Tigers’ coaching staff really liked what they saw from Knaak. So, they made an offer.
After talking it over with his family, Knaak knew he wanted to be a Tiger. He verbally committed to Clemson on Aug. 3, choosing the Tigers over programs like Georgia Tech and West Virginia.
“I really like the coaches and how they set up the scrimmages,” Knaak said. “I really liked the pitching coach, Andrew See. I like what he had to say and the head coach.”
Knaak was intrigued by Clemson before they even knew about him. So, he contacted his travel ball coaches and from there, they contacted Clemson.
That ensured that the talented Florida right-hander would be on Lee and his staff’s radar while Knaak was camping there.
The rest is history.
Knaak’s relationship with Clemson’s staff is still pretty new, but he likes Lee because he cares not just about what his players are accomplishing on the diamond, but also in the classroom.
He again touted See, who is very analytically driven. That definitely piqued Knaak’s interest and was a part of what he was looking for in a college baseball program.
As far as his pitching repertoire is concerned, Knaak has five working pitches in his arsenal — fastball, curveball, changeup, slider and his splitter, a pitch he’s still mastering.
“They really liked my location and, of course, my fastball,” he said.
While Knaak already has four solid pitches, you may be asking yourself, why the splitter?
It came about while the Florida pitcher was playing catch.
“I always like to play around with different pitch grips when I’m playing catch and just see what my feel is,” he said. “When I’m playing catch, that pitch is breaking a lot. My catching partner would always say: ‘that’s a really good pitch,’ so I just started working on it and just kept making that pitch better and better, trying to see what I can do with that. That would be a very good pitch to add to my arsenal.”
He’d certainly like to master that pitch before he officially enrolls in Tiger Town.
Looking into the future, Knaak’s goal is to earn a future spot in Clemson’s rotation, but right now he’s focused on helping lead his team to a State Championship.
“I want to be able to master all my offspeed [pitches] and be able to throw it wherever I want in the strike zone,” he said. “Obviously you have days where you can do that, but being able to do it more often is basically the goal.”
While he’s his own pitcher, Knaak also happens to be a big Los Angeles Dodgers fan. It’s only rather fitting that he enjoys watching both Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler, who he described as his “two idols.”
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