Passan: The unbelievable tales and talent of Jacob Misiorowski

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MILWAUKEE -- Jacob Misiorowski is a human tall tale, Paul Bunyan in navy and yellow, Bill Brasky with a baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers right-hander does things that do not sound real, only they are. Misiorowski is 6-foot-7 and throws the baseball consistently harder than any man before him. He will start Game 1 of the World Series on Friday at 8 p.m. ET, every eye in American Family Field on him, the first Fall Classic game for the franchise in 44 years literally in his hands.

What comes out of Misiorowski's mouth is also the stuff of lore inside the Brewers' clubhouse. Almost every Brewer can recount a Miz story with glee and laughter. Some of them are, with strict adherence to the definition of the word, unbelievable. Others strain credulity. There might be exaggerations. All of them are pure, free of malice, stream-of-consciousness musings that make people love him for more than his fastball.

"It's such an endearing quality," said Bob Zimmermann, Misiorowski's longtime pitching coach from the Kansas City area, where he grew up. "He's a humble, innocent guy. I always think it's funny when he says, 'My speed was down today,' like it's a car. One time he called me and said he was only 97. And I'm like, 'You're worried about your velo? Miz, it's your first spring training bullpen. I don't want you throwing 104 now.'"

On 22 occasions this season, Misiorowski threw a pitch at least 104 mph, his need for speed as acute as Maverick's in a fighter jet. And that speed -- an average fastball of 100.5 mph this season, smashing the previous record for a qualified starting pitcher by 1.6 mph -- propelled the 24-year-old Misiorowski to a revelatory first full season. He led Major League Baseball with a 1.80 ERA, struck out 252 batters in 174⅔ innings, held opponents to a .157/.224/.246 slash line and is expected to win the National League Cy Young Award.

After an up-and-down debut season in 2025, Misiorowski returned to Kansas City over the winter intent on turning his wellspring of physical gifts -- from the MLB-best extension that sees the ball released a foot closer to the plate than the average big league pitcher to an innate ability to spin the ball at elite RPMs -- into something consistent. Outside of his sessions with Zimmermann, he told teammates, he threw to another person: his fiancée, Elle Nicas.

"I love him to death, man, but there are certain things that come out of his mouth where it's like, 'Really? Like, are you sure?'" said rookie right-hander Logan Henderson, expected to start Game 2 for the Brewers. "We're talking about throwing in the offseason when we ramp it up. And he's like, 'Yeah, Elle catches my bullpens.' And I'm like, 'No, she doesn't. She does not catch 99.' And he's like, 'Yeah, she does!' He may have like stretched the truth a little bit, but I have a crazy amount of respect for her like standing in there and saying, 'Hey, bring it. Let's catch it.'"

Misiorowski confirmed that Nicas, who was a softball catcher when they attended Grain Valley High together, does indeed help with his offseason work. At least until he suggests that he'd like to throw a slider.

"She gets pissed," he said.

Misiorowski himself played catcher when he was younger -- and, by his account, had the greatest arm in the history of the position.

"Yesterday in the outfield, he's trying to do catcher pop time, just messing around with it," Brewers left-hander Robert Gasser said. "And he's like, 'In high school, I threw one 97 to second base.' And I'm like, 'Miz, that's not possible.' "

It is true that Misiorowski played catcher when he was younger. And it is true that in high school his arm could reach 97 mph. But the hardest catcher throw in MLB's ball-tracking era was 89.3 mph from Christian Bethancourt in 2016.

There are always wisps of truth in Misiorowski's yarns. During spring training in 2024, veteran pitchers Wade Miley and Brandon Woodruff set up an outing for the Brewers' young pitchers at the Westin Kierland Golf Club in Phoenix. As they were figuring out how to divide up into teams, each player was asked for his handicap. Misiorowski's answer, according to Miley and multiple current Brewers there to hear it:

"I was a scratch golfer in high school."

Now, it's true that Misiorowski can drive the ball a mile. But after the ensuing round, the mythology of Misiorowski's golf game has taken on a life of its own.

"We go out there," Brewers reliever DL Hall said, "and it would had to have been the most extreme falloff ever for him to have been scratch in high school and go to what he was that day."

"He may have gotten this sport confused with cricket," said Aaron Ashby, another Brewers reliever. "He doesn't even know how to hold the golf club. The worst swing on the team. And that's hard to do behind DL."

There is no less forgiving place than a clubhouse, where teammates jubilantly twist words, stories and details into unrecognizable facsimiles of themselves. So perhaps Misiorowski wasn't that bad of a golfer. A group of professional athletes isn't necessarily the easiest against which to measure oneself.

Still, the Brewers needle Misiorowski because they genuinely like him and understand the number stardom can do on someone. Life arrives fast in the major leagues. Otherworldly talent is only as good as the ability to harness it. And that takes time. He has spoken publicly this year about growing up with dyslexia, the challenges it presented and the lessons it taught him. Last year, Misiorowski would not have known what to say to a question at a news conference about the labor battle between MLB and the MLB Players Association. On Thursday, he deftly handled it.

"He's grown up a lot in the last year," said Brewers first baseman Andrew Vaughn, who enjoys talking about deer hunting with Misiorowski -- who has proof of his 15-point bucks. "He's got picture evidence. No lies there."

Vaughn, 28, is among the veterans on a young Brewers team looking to win its first World Series title in the franchise's 58-year history. And for all of the excellence Milwaukee offers -- from outfielder Jackson Chourio to second baseman Brice Turang to first baseman Jake Bauers to the deep and multitalented bullpen that spearheaded a four-game sweep of the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series -- Misiorowski is something different altogether, a mashup of Bigfoot, Nessie and Charizard.

"It's like that next caliber," Vaughn said. "There were the Gerrit Coles, the Justin Verlanders, the Max Scherzers. Verlander was throwing 100, 101, but that was when he was reaching back and throwing an F-you ball. Miz is doing that every single pitch."

So, yeah, they tease him a little bit, almost reflexively, because greatness demands balance. And, sure, because he makes it kind of easy. On "The Dan Patrick Show," Misiorowski was asked for his welcome-to-the-big-leagues moment and answered when Juan Soto hit a grand slam off him at Citi Field. Only it wasn't Soto. It was Brandon Nimmo. Early in his career, Misiorowski acknowledged that he didn't know who Robin Yount was. Yount, along with Paul Molitor, is one of two Brewers inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

"I believe we made him do a book report on that," Miley said.

The learning for Misiorowski never stops. He'll get his first taste of the World Series on Friday night after a pair of solid-but-short starts in the division series and NLCS. The full breadth of his virtuosity has not been seen yet in October, but against a Rays team that struggles with high velocity, they will shorten their swings and fight for their lives against a heater that has jumped to an average of 101 mph in the playoffs.

Of course, Misiorowski's standards for a good start don't necessarily align with the rest of baseball. During his lone season at Crowder College, a junior college in Missouri, Misiorowski called Zimmermann to discuss his outing. He said he'd gotten rocked. Zimmermann asked him how badly. Misiorowski replied that the opponent kept hitting the ball. Zimmermann said it couldn't have been that awful. Misiorowski assured him it was.

"I looked up the stats and it was five innings, three hits, one run," Zimmermann said. "I said, 'What do you mean you got rocked?' And he said, 'They were putting the ball in play. I wasn't striking anyone out.'"