How Anthony Banda unlocked one of the best sliders in baseball — and found a home

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Months before he broke his hand and paused the breakthrough season of his career, Anthony Banda hit rock bottom.

Baseball had made a habit of chewing up the former top prospect and spitting him back out. He’d already been flipped in trades twice before his elbow gave way. Bouncing between 10 different organizations in nine years had worn on him. Failure had worn on him. All of it did.

So he considered quitting this past winter. He took a month off from throwing before taking up volunteer coaching at his nephew’s high school. He found joy and threw hard again. He got signed again and traded by May.

That he’s here now, broken hand and all, is astounding. That he’s emerged as a valuable bullpen piece for a Los Angeles Dodgers team that won the most games in baseball this season and has relied on a version of a pitch he’d never thrown before in his life?

“That,” Banda said this month, “is the beauty of baseball.”

It’s the scars and still-healing bones from that journey that have propelled Banda to blossom. He joined the Dodgers’ bullpen in May and has delivered a 3.08 ERA in 49 2/3 innings since. His fastball remains firm, as it has dating back to his days when he broke through as an Arizona Diamondbacks top prospect and headlined a return for the Tampa Bay Rays. Short big-league stops with the Mets, Pirates, Blue Jays, Yankees and Nationals had worn him down.

Now, he’s thriving.

Developing one of the most unhittable sliders in the game has unlocked everything else. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 200 sliders this season, only three — Josh Hader, Andrew Chafin and Michel Otañez — have gotten a higher rate of swings-and-misses on a pitch that Banda didn’t even throw before landing in Los Angeles. At least, he didn’t throw a slider quite like this.

Banda had fiddled with grips for years. Each stop, each failure brought with it a pivot. Each attempted change had a domino effect on the next one. An extended run of success in Triple A while on a minor-league deal with Cleveland (a 2.12 ERA in 17 innings) popped him on the relief-starved Dodgers’ radar. Within 24 hours of arriving in Los Angeles, Banda stood on the bullpen mound surrounded by Edgertronic cameras and a suite of potential pitch grips and mental cues at his disposal to find a pitch other than his changeup to keep hitters off his mid-90s fastball.

Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness noted Banda’s unorthodox slider grip — one that had just three fingers on the baseball — and tried his first suggestion.

He instructed Banda to try to grip the baseball with a “spike,” digging the nail of his index finger into the seam to impact movement and spin. The instruction was simple: Aim down the middle, throw it like a fastball and let it rip.

“It hooked right away,” Banda said. Rather than loop, the slider moved sharply. Instead of feeling like he was guiding the pitch, he threw it emphatically without sacrificing command.

“It was like a ‘thank you’ moment. I went through, what, 11 organizations? And no one could find that for me. He did it within 24 hours.”

Within his first day as a Dodger, Banda had discovered his new “toy.” And with each successive outing, his career has been resuscitated. He’s thrown the slider 28.2 percent of the time — hitters have hit just .154 against it, with minimal damage. He has utilized different sequences, which has allowed the lefty to maintain the best stretch of his career.

“He’s definitely put his name on the map,” McGuiness said. “He’s always had a great fastball, always had the power. It was just what are you going to do to keep guys off that fastball? How are you going to help complement it? He’s done a great job.”

That only added to the frustration that came amid his worst stretch of the season. After allowing two runs in an outing against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 9, a frustrated Banda retreated to the bathroom. He hit the outside of his fist against a paper towel dispenser; his hand swelled up.

Further testing revealed a hairline fracture. The ordeal, Banda told reporters, was “very embarrassing, very shameful.”

Fortune has given Banda another chance. The fracture was small enough that he was able to pitch without discomfort once the swelling went down. He retired all seven batters he faced over the final week after his return from the injured list. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has talked publicly about how Banda fits the Dodgers’ postseason plans. Not if.

Whenever Banda pitches for the Dodgers this October, it’ll be a first in a career of short-lived stints and stops and starts.

Given where things stood last winter, and this month, Banda will take it.

“That’s what I’ve always dreamed of,” Banda said. “To see the team that I’m on win the World Series, that’s what we play the game for.

“At the end of it all, when we get there and we do it, you’ll probably see some happy tears or something. I don’t know what I’m going to feel, but at the end of it all, I know that it’s been a hell of a ride.”

(Photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)