Category Archives: Pitching
The First Rule of Changeups
Whether you have seen the movie or not, I think most people have heard that the first rule of Fight Club is that you never talk about fight club.
This quote came to mind a few days ago while I was working with a new student on developing her changeup. As I watched her it hit me: the first rule of changeups is that they can never LOOK like changeups – at least until you release the ball. After that, they’d better!
What do I mean by they can never look like changeups? Basically, you don’t want to have to do anything with your approach, your body, or anything else to make a changeup work.
The changeup should always look like it’s going to be a fastball until the ball is on its way, when suddenly the hitter realizes (hopefully too late) that the pitch they thought was coming is not the pitch that’s actually coming.
Yet people teach crazy and self-defeating stuff about the changeup all the time. So to help those of you who are just getting into it, here are some things you definitely don’t want or need to do to make a changeup work.
Using Strange Grips
This is something I see all the time. I’ll ask a new student who says she throws a changeup to show it to me, and the first thing she does is start tucking a knuckle or two, or go into a “circle change” grip where you hold the ball with the middle through little fingers while the thumb and first finger make a circle.
All of that is not only unnecessary but it’s actually counter-productive. What makes a changeup work is that it surprises the hitter.
If you go into some crazy grip that is easily spotted from the coaching box, or worse yet from the batter’s box, the only surprise that’s going to happen is you being surprised at how quickly that pitch leaves the ballpark.
If you really want to disguise the change you should be able to use your fastball grip to throw the changeup. Because, and I will say it loud for the people in the back, it’s not the grip that makes a pitch work; it’s how the pitch is thrown.
If you have a well-designed changeup you’ll be able to use your fastball grip, maybe with a slight modification such as sliding the thumb over a little, and still take the right amount of speed off.
Slowing Down Your Arm or Body
This is another one that is pretty obvious to the hitter, the coaching staff, the players on the bench, and even people just cutting through the park to get to the pickleball courts.
If you have to slow your arm down to throw a changeup, you’re not throwing a changeup. You’re throwing a weak fastball.
Think of a changeup as being the polar opposite of most people’s experiences hitting off a pitching machine fed by a human. The human slowly brings the ball down to the chute to put it in, maybe fumbles with it a bit, then the ball shoots out at 65 mph or whatever speed the coach thinks will help hitters hit better. (Spoiler alert: setting the machine too high actually hurts your hitters.)
The reason machines are so hard to hit off of is that the visual cues of the arm don’t match the speed of the pitch. Because if you actually threw the ball with that arm motion it would go about three feet away at a speed of 5 mph.
A great changeup turns that model on its head. The arm and body speed indicate a pitch coming in at whatever the pitcher’s top speed has been.
But because of the way it’s released, the ball itself actually comes out much slower. The mismatch between the arm speed and ball speed upset the hitter’s timing and either gets her to swing way too early (and perhaps screw herself into the ground) or freezes her in place while her brain tries to figure out the discrepancy,
Either way, the hitter is left wondering what happened – and now has something new to worry about at the plate because she doesn’t want to be fooled again.
Making a Face or Changing Body Language
This is something that often happens prior to the pitch.
Maybe the pitcher has developed a habit of sticking her tongue out before she throws a change. Maybe she changes where she stands on the pitching rubber or does a different glove snap or alters their windup or has some other little “cheat” that helps her throw the pitch.
All of these things can send a SnapChat to the hitter that a changeup is about to happen.
Smart pitchers will video themselves throwing fastballs and changeups , especially in-game, to see if anything they’re doing is giving away the pitch that’s about to be thrown. If there isn’t, great.
But if there is, they need to work at it until they’re not giving it away anymore. The pitcher’s chief weapon when throwing a changeup is the element of surprise.
They need to make sure they’re maintaining it until the ball is actually on its way.
Keep the Secret
A changeup that everyone knows is coming is not going to be very effective. And given today’s hot bats it can be downright dangerous for the pitcher.
Remember that the first rule of throwing a changeup is that it can’t look like you’re going to throw a changeup and y
Posting Up Properly Is Key to a Dynamic Drop Ball
Of all the movement pitches (i.e., anything that isn’t a flat fastball or changeup), the one with the highest reward v lowest risk is the drop ball.
At worst, if a drop ball doesn’t drop it’s still a low fastball. Low pitches are generally tougher to hit hard than higher ones, which is why many coaches love to the work the bottom of the strike zone.
I’ve sometimes used a drop ball that isn’t dropping to help solve the problem of a pitcher throwing fastballs that are rising out of the zone. Pitches don’t always have to “work” to work.
At best, if it doesn’t cause a hitter to swing and miss entirely it will often result in a weak ground ball. As long as you have a solid infield that should mean a lot of relatively easy outs and a low-scoring game.
Compare that to a curve or screw that doesn’t curve or screw, remaining flat and easy to hit. Or a riseball that doesn’t “rise” and ends up sitting in the power zone of a good hitter. All of those will get you in a whole heap o’ trouble.
if you’re going to throw a drop ball, though, you really do want it to work. Ideally it should come in flat, around thigh-high or just above the knees, until it’s a few feet from the plate – at which point it dives for the ground as if it hit the top of a frame and got deflected down.
Making that happen, however, is easier said than done. As any pitcher who has tried it can tell you.
One of the big keys you’ll hear to throwing an effective drop ball is to move your weight forward at release, sometimes referred to as “posting up.” This move essentially has the pitcher standing more vertical (straight up and down) at release rather than being tilted slightly backward.
One reason for posting up is to change the release angle of the pitch. If the ball is coming out flat, or moving upward only a degree or two out of the hand, it stands a much better chance of actually dropping suddenly versus a pitch with a higher angle of release.
Why does the release angle matter? The short answer is because you’re working WITH gravity instead of trying to fight it.
(If you’re curious as to what actually makes the drop ball drop, check out the explanation at the end of this post. For the rest of you, I won’t bore you with those details here.)
For most drops, the other key is to release the ball a little earlier than you would a fastball – basically at the back of the back leg instead of between the legs. Posting up will naturally move your release back to this point.
Try this: stand with your feet at a 45 degree angle to where you want to “throw” your imaginary pitch and your weight distributed evenly on both feet. See where your arm hangs.
It’s probably slightly in front of your back leg.
Now shift your weight so 95% or more is on your front foot, and you’re just using your back foot for balance. If you kept it relaxed your arm is likely hanging a little further back relative to your body.
Without even trying you shifted your release point back some.
Getting the feel of this position when you’re going full speed can be difficult. Many pitchers will tend to throw and then post up afterwards. Luckily I have a drill for that.
In the video below, Karsyn is standing completely on her front foot while leaving her back foot toe-down for balance. You can check this by having the pitcher lift her back foot off the ground then settle it it back down on top of the toe.
Now she throws with a full circle motion, focusing on a quick release. (While we’re demonstrating a pronation/peel drop here, it also works with a rollover drop release, as long as you’re not encouraging a release out in front of the body as some do.)
With a couple of pitches you should start seeing the ball come in flat, or slightly upward, then drop as if rolling off the proverbial table. Getting the feel from this position is pretty easy.
Just be sure the pitcher is throwing with a fast arm circle, i.e., at her regular fastball/drop ball speed. Otherwise, if the pitch is too slow, yes it will drop but it’s more of what I call a “gravity drop.”
That’s not what we’re looking for. We want a pitch that is about the same speed as the fastball (+/- a couple of mph) but has a dynamic drop to it at the end.
If you have a pitcher who is struggling to get the ball to drop, or is throwing it straight down into the ground, give this drill a try. I call it the Best Drop Ball Drill in the World, and once you do it you may call it that as well.
Why Drop Balls Drop
Ok, as promised, here’s the basic explanation of the physics of why a drop ball drops suddenly.
There are two key concepts here. The first is Bernoulli’s Principle, which is the same reason airplanes fly (only upside down as you will see).
In the case of the ball, the movement through the air and the spin direction of the ball (ideally straight over the top, or 12:00 to 6:00) creates a difference in the air pressure on the top of the ball versus the bottom.
Because the air has to travel a longer distance on the bottom versus the top (because of the forward spin) there is less air pressure on the bottom of the ball. When this difference is great enough the high pressure on the top will push the ball down and it will drop like a rock.
This pressure difference is aided by the seams and the Magnus Effect.
The seams help increase the effect of ball’s spin on creating a pressure differential. The higher the seams the more the airflow gets increase over the top and interrupted on the bottom.
The Magnus Effect build on Bernoulli’s Principle by incorporating the effect of the ball spinning (as well as the orientation of the axis).
Bernoulli’s Principle basically looks at the effect of a static object moving through the air (or in actuality liquid but let’s stay with air) and its spin axis. The faster the ball spins, the more of a pressure difference is created and therefore the greater the movement.
If the spin axis is perpendicular to the direction of travel (i.e., the spin axis is on the exact side of the ball as it moves forward) it has its greatest efficiency and thus will create the best ball movement.
Now you know.
Efficiency Is the Secret Sauce to Improving Performance
Everyone is always looking for that one magical drill, or technique, or exercise, or something else that will help them improve their level of performance in games.
Building strength is often where players and coaches turn when they don’t know what else to do. And yes, you can definitely drive some level of improvement through strength or speed and agility training. But often the results don’t match the expectations – or at least the hopes.
That’s because there’s another element to the whole process: efficiency, or the ability to improve output without increasing the level of input.
Take a look at these two illustrations. The first one shows a player whose mechanics are inefficient, such as a hitter who only uses her arms or a pitcher who pushes the ball through release with a forced wrist snap.
Let’s say she is working hard but not seeing the results. Increasing her input is only going to raise her performance slightly, because the rather flat relationship between input and output remains the same.
When you have high efficiency, however, as seen in this chart, the difference between input and output is much greater
Both players are putting in the same level of effort. But the second is getting much more out of it. In fact, while the first player’s performance is below the midline of the chart, the second player’s performance is already above it.
Which means if player one wants to reach the same level she is going to have to somehow double her input. Yet if player two only increases her input a little more, her output goes to the top of the chart.
Now, all of the objects and their placement here are arbitrary; they’re not based on a specific set of numbers but rather just an illustration of the principle. But the correlation is real.
It’s essentially a great example of the coaching phrase “Work smarter, not harder.”
When you are inefficient, increasing your effort (strength building, practice time, and so forth) even to a significant level often only results in a small, incremental improvement in overall performance. If you are highly efficient, however, the effect of putting in even a little extra effort is multiplied and you can make significant gains toward your performance goals.
Think of it this way: if you were running a 100 meter dash race with a prize of the latest, greatest smartphone would you rather be on the starting line with everyone else or 10 meters ahead of the pack? I know which one I’d choose.
Being more efficient through mechanics that are proven to be superior gives you that head start on the race to the top. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll stay there – you still have to keep working or the less efficient players could pass you eventually – but having a head start is definitely a significant advantage in anything where there’s competition for success.
That’s why it’s important for players, coaches, and parents to understand what efficient mechanics are for every skill – hitting, pitching, throwing, fielding, base running. There are plenty of great resources out there that can point the way, starting with where you are right now on Life in the Fastpitch Lane.
For pitchers you might want to also check out Rick Pauly’s Pauly Girl Fastpitch website as well as Keeley Byrnes’ Key Fundamentals Softball blog. The Discuss Fastpitch Forum is also a great resource for a wide variety of topics.
Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have some great content (along with a lot of not-so-great content so you need to be discerning about who and what you follow).
If you’re not sure if you’re using efficient mechanics right now, a great way to check is to watch high-level college and pro games to see what those players do, and compare it to what you (or your daughter/player) is being taught. If you don’t see the same things, you’re probably not learning efficient mechanics.
All you need is a smartphone and a TV and you can capture your own clips. Throw them in some sort of video analysis software and you are ready to spend hours upon hours going down the rabbit hole. But at least you’ll be informed.
The bottom line is working harder always works better when you work smarter too. Focus on improving your efficiency rather than just your input and you’ll see your output rise dramatically.
Why Telling a Pitcher to “Slow Down” to Throw Strikes Is Counterproductive
I wrote recently about things coaches should never say. But after talking to some parents and pitching coaches lately, I think the old standby of coaches telling pitchers who are struggling to throw strikes to slow down their motions requires its own blog post.
While I know the coaches are just trying to be helpful, telling a pitcher to slow down in order to produce more strikes is counter productive on several levels. Let’s look at a few.
What they’ve practiced
I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that no pitcher who is going to a pitching coach is being trained to throw slowly. The name of the game is FASTPITCH softball, so no matter what they’re teaching (and we can certainly debate on what the proper pitching mechanics are) pitching coaches are sincerely trying to get their student to throw with as much speed as they can.
At least if they want to keep those students.
That means they’ve been working on a developing a specific set of mechanics that they can execute quickly. After all, slow movements mean slow pitches.
So if you’re asking a pitcher to slow her movements down, you’re totally taking her away from what she’s being trained to do. In other words, you’ve now made it like she’s never had a pitching lesson and is just guess at what to do.
Fastpitch pitching requires a certain rhythm and flow. It’s a complex series of movements in all three planes of motion that require precise timing to do well.
Telling a pitcher to slow her motion down takes her away from all of that and actually makes it harder for her to do what you want her to do – throw strikes.
Basic physics
The longer it takes for a pitcher to go through her motion and deliver the ball, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong. It’s basic physics, coming out of Newton’s laws of motion.
If you apply enough force to an object in a particular direction, it will tend to continue moving in that direction unless some other force acts on it. As it moves it has momentum.
In a weightless vacuum, like in space, a small amount of effort will have that object going straight forever. But fastpitch softball isn’t played in a weightless vacuum.
So the pitcher has to apply enough force to overcome the friction of the air, any wind currents, and especially gravity.
Then there’s the path of the arm and position of the hand. If the hand and arm are moving all over the place it will be difficult to send the ball in a particular, desired direction. It becomes kind of a guess for the pitcher.
If the arm is going faster, however, its momentum will eliminate a lot of the wobbling and make it easier to throw the ball in the desired direction. Not easy, mind you, but easier than just pushing the ball out slowly.
Then it’s a matter of making sure the hand and arm are on-line at the time of release and that the release occurs at the proper time (not too early or too late).
Think about a bowling ball. If you roll it slowly, you are at the mercy of the lanes and how warped or slick they are. The ball will kind of meander back and forth along the path of least resistance until runs out of lane or hits the gutter.
But if you roll it quickly, it will overcome most if not all of the issues with the lane and take a direct path to wherever you sent it. Good or bad.
Player development
Look on the website of any program or even individual team and they will all profess that they are dedicated to player development. Uh huh.
Just once I’d like to see an honest website that says, “We are totally focused on winning as many tournaments as we can and will do whatever it takes, no matter what the consequences are or who suffers for it, to achieve this mission.”
But let’s assume the coach actually does want to help all of his/her players develop. That means letting them work at the top of their games, outside their comfort level, to develop the skills they’ll need to continue advancing in the sport.
In the case of pitchers, that means letting them throw hard so they can learn how to do so under pressure.
Ok, you say, but if the pitcher is walking everyone how do the rest of the players develop?
I agree they don’t. So if you want to stop the walks, don’t tell the pitcher to slow down her motion. Pull her and put someone else in.
If all you want is strikes, even if they’re slow and easy to hit, you can pretty much put in anyone. They can then come in and lob the ball toward the plate, and will likely give you the strikes you want.
Doing it that way isn’t that hard. And it might even be a thrill for that girl who has always wanted to pitch but never got the opportunity (because she hasn’t actually worked at it).
In the meantime, the pitcher will learn a lesson that she needs to work more at her craft so she can throw hard strikes with a fast motion if she wants more circle time.
Ok, you say, but I don’t want to pull her because she’s our best pitcher.
Not today. Otherwise you wouldn’t be telling her to slow her motion down.
Take her out and put in someone who can give you what you want – which will ultimately allow your best pitcher to continue developing. That will be best in the long run for her, and for the team.
Everybody wins
Telling a pitcher to slow down her motion to throw strikes is not the way to produce the results you want. It’s far more likely to make her pitches worse while taking her further away from her goal of becoming a quality pitcher you can rely on.
Instead, encourage pitchers to keep their energy high and trust their mechanics. You’re more likely to get strikes out of them that way (assuming they’ve been working at learning how to pitch).
And if they still don’t it’s time for a circle visit.
Tell them it’s not their day, put someone else in, and then tell them to keep working because you’re going to give them another chance. It could be the biggest benefit you ever offer that pitcher.
Photo by Song Kaiyue on Pexels.com
Brrrr It’s Cold; Take Advantage of It
As I write this we are not only in the beginning of the Christmas/New Year holiday vortex but also an actual polar vortex. Winter Storm Elliott is hammering much of the U.S., including parts that aren’t used to it, with snow, gale force winds, and bitter cold of the type that makes you run right back inside as soon as you feel it.
It’s so bad where I live that the facility I usually work out of has been closed for the last couple of days. No sense having people risk their health and/or their lives just to come to a lesson when there are no important games on the immediate horizon.
So does that mean all softball-related activities must come to a dead stop? Hardly.
In fact, times like this offer the perfect opportunity to really dig into mechanics and the mental game to work on the little things that can make a huge difference in a player’s overall performance.
It’s like when a player comes to a lesson and says they are feeling a little ill, or tired, or have an injury. I light up – not at their misfortune but at the chance to go deeper in aspects of the game that they might not want to spend so much time on ordinarily.
Not because it’s not necessary, but because it can be really boring to them. When it’s all they can do, however, those things become a lot more interesting.
So while it’s bitterly cold or snowy and you’re stuck at home (or even if it’s bright, sunny, and balmy for that matter) here are a few things to work on that don’t require a cage, a bat, a regular softball, or even much space.
Quick Pitching Release
I have yet to meet a pitcher who doesn’t want to be faster (including a few pretty famous ones). While speed alone isn’t everything, the more you have the better everything else seems to go. And the better you can get by until you can improve other aspects of your game.
One of the keys to speed is the ability to transfer as much of the energy the pitcher has generated through leg drive as possible into the ball. That requires a lightning-quick yet relaxed pronation of the forearm at release.
Building that pronation doesn’t require a lot of space or fancy equipment. You can:
- Throw a rolled up pair of socks into a wall or mirror
- Throw a plyo ball, foam ball, or regular ball into a net
- Walk around the house practicing releases, Ks, and full circles with nothing in your hand
- Perform various exercises (such as squeezing a stress ball) to build your grip strength
Focusing on that one little bit can pay huge dividends the next time you go to pitch at a full distance.
Leg/Body Drive and Timing Off the Rubber
Don’t worry non-pitchers, we’re getting to you. But this is another area that’s often under-trained when pitchers are left on their own.
A lot of pitchers have trouble generating effective leg/body drive off the pitching rubber. After they load they will start to reach forward with their stride (glove-side) leg while essentially standing on the drive (throwing-side) leg.
This type of movement is inefficient, even if it’s done quickly. To generate the kind of energy needed to throw hard you have to get the hips driving forward before the stride leg has gone out fully.
In other words, pitchers have to learn to use their legs together instead of one at a time. Fortunately, this is the same type of leg action used when you skip (or for you multi-sport athletes go for a layup).
Find a few feet of space and skip. Feel how the legs are working. Then try doing the same thing but adding a pitching motion to it.
Take video so you can see if you’re truly getting some spring in your step or if you’re just standing on the pitching rubber as the stride leg goes out.
You can also just stand on the ball of the foot of your drive leg, push forward, then “catch” yourself with your stride leg. This should all occur in a quick, short motion rather than trying to get out far.
Feel the legs working together, then start extending it until you can do it full speed, just as you would in a game.
Swing Mechanics
You probably know from endless hours of lessons what you’re supposed to do at each phase of the swing. But are you actually doing those things?
Here’s a way to find out. Set yourself up in front of a full-length mirror and watch yourself take a swing. If space is limited substitute a curling iron or a short pool noodle for the bat.
Go through it slowly and see what position your body is in at each phase. Check to see that you are:
- Getting positive movement forward
- Leading with your hips
- Getting separation between your hips and shoulders
- Keeping your hands up instead of dropping them to launch the bat
- Driving your back side around your front side
Do it slowly, over and over, checking each aspect. Then do it a little faster, then a little faster, each time checking all those aspects.
While this doesn’t do much for your timing, it ensures that if you are on time you’ll greatly increase your chances of hitting the ball hard.
Ball Transfers
While this applies to any position, it especially applies to catchers. The faster you can transfer the ball from your glove to your throwing hand, the sooner you can get the ball on its way so you can throw out even the fastest of rabbits.
This is a skill that can be practiced in a bedroom or living room.
Start out barehanded, with the ball in your glove hand. Then transfer it to your throwing hand by slamming it from one to the other.
Then add a glove, doing the same thing. Do it over and over, each time trying to go a little faster.
Before you know it you’ll be able to move that ball from one hand to the other with the best of them.
Mental Game
Ask any coach or player how important the mental game is and they’ll likely tell you it’s hugely important. Then ask them what percentage of their practice time is spent on the mental game and, if they’re honest, they will probably tell you little or none.
That’s because physical practice seems like practice. Mental game practice feels like you missed something you should have been working on.
This is your chance. While you’re stuck inside, do some visualization, seeing yourself making great plays or slamming great hits.
Work on your positive self-talk. A kind word from yourself at the right time can work wonders.
Look online for various stress-relieving techniques you can use during a game. Examples include:
- Squeezing a stress ball or other device
- Grabbing a handful of dirt, squeezing it tightly, then throwing it away
- Inhaling deeply through your nose and blowing the air out slowly through your mouth
- Washing your hands with water
- Creating a pre-pitch routine or ritual
Turn on loud music or a talking podcast then try to do something unrelated such as a reading or math problems. It’s amazing what this exercise can do for your ability to focus.
Time invested now in your mental game can pay big dividends when it’s actually time to play.
No Justification Needed
Really, these things aren’t just for bad weather. They are things you should be doing any time if you want to get better.
But bad weather provides the perfect opportunity because there is little else you can do.
Don’t waste this chance. Get on it now and you’ll find you’re than much farther ahead in your goals once you hit the field again.
Photo by Ir Solyanaya on Pexels.com
No Need to Paint the Corners with a Changeup
Recently my friend and fellow pitching coach Linda Lensch, a trainer with the NJ Ruthless and owner of Greased Lightning Fastpitch High Performance Instruction LLC attended an online presentation about how new technologies are improving and changing the game.
Linda was kind enough to share the PowerPoint of the presentation with a few of us pitching coaches. Included was some data, presented by Florida State assistant coach Troy Cameron, that came out of pitching tracking by YakkerTech at five D1 schools.
One of the things I found most interesting was the heat map on changeup locations and results, which you can see on the far left.
Notice how both the vast majority of pitch locations AND the vast majority of whiffs (swings and misses) aren’t on the corners. Instead, they are dead red.
I have been preaching this for years based on my own observations and experience, and have heard many college coaches say the same thing. You don’t have to be clever or try to paint the corners if you have an effective changeup. Just throw it down the middle, mid-thigh-high or below, and you’ll get the desired effect – a whiff.
Now we have the data to prove it.
I’ll say it again a little louder for those in the back, and for those who have been coaching he same way for 20 years and don’t like new information: YOU DON’T NEED TO PAINT THE CORNERS WITH A CHANGEUP. JUST THROW IT DEAD RED.
What does this mean from a practical standpoint?
For one, pitchers can quit wasting time trying to lean how to paint the corners with a changeup and instead focus their time on disguising the fact that it IS a changeup.
Most pitchers start out learning to throw different pitches down the middle, and then once they can do that will move on to moving them out. In this case, once a pitcher can throw it low and slow without giving it away in her motion she can move on to other pitches.
It also means coaches can quit insisting until their hair is on fire that their pitchers must be able to spot their changeups inside and out. Less stress for the pitcher and the pitch caller.
The pitchers’ parents can also relax in the stands if they see their daughters throwing changeups down the middle. It’s fine, dude or dudette. That’s where it’s most effective.
Why is it most effective down the middle? Now we get into speculation and theories, but I have a pretty good suspicion on that topic based on 20+ years of teaching that pitch.
The whole point of a changeup is to either induce a hitter to swing well ahead of the ball arriving at the plate or confuse her on what she’s seeing to the point where she lets the pitch go by before she can process it. The way you do that is by bringing the body and arm at one speed while having the ball travel at a different, slower speed. Easier said than done, by the way.
It’s like a reverse pitching machine. With a machine, the feeder’s arm usually moves glacially slow (and may even fumble putting the ball in the chute) while the pitch is delivered at 55, 60, 65, etc. mph. The arm speed and the pitch speed don’t match up, so the hitter is perpetually behind the pitch unless she know the keys to hitting off a machine.
With the changeup the opposite is true. The body and especially the arm are traveling through space at a rate of speed that matches the pitcher’s fastest pitch (usually the fastball), but the design of the pitch allows it to be delivered 12-15 mph slower than the fastest pitch without any visible clues that it will be slower.
That’s why you see hitters’ knees buckle when a well-thrown change comes at them. The visual clues and the reality don’t match up and they contort themselves into a pretzel trying to adjust on the fly.
And if you can do that as a pitcher, down the middle works just fine. In fact it’s probably preferable because it can fool umpires too, so why not make it easier for them to call?
Now, before anyone starts saying “Oh, that only works at the lower levels” remember where this data comes from. It comes from five colleges that tracked every pitch of their pitchers and their opponents during home games.
And since these are not cheap systems by any means, you can bet that these were some pretty big schools, i.e., ones you see on TV all the time. They’re the only ones with the budgets to afford it.
So if it works at that level, you can be pretty sure it will work at yours.
The data doesn’t lie. It’s all there in black and white and red.
Quit wasting time focusing on painting the corners with changeups and just turn your pitchers loose to deliver them where they will be most effective based on the data: dead red.
You’ll get better results. And your pitchers will have one less thing to worry about.
For the Love of Gaia, Please Stop Teaching Screwballs to 10 Year Olds
There is a phenomenon I’ve noticed lately in my area and seemingly is happening across the country as I speak with other pitching instructors.
When I start lessons with a new pitcher I will ask her what pitches she throws. For pitchers under the age of 14 my expectation is fastball, change, and maybe a drop ball.
These days, however, I have been shocked at how many, even the 10 year olds, will include a “screwball” in their list of pitches. Especially when I then watch them pitch and they struggle to throw their basic fastball with any velocity or semblance of accuracy.
Who in the world thinks teaching a screwball to a 10 year old (or a 12 or 13 year old for that matter) is a good idea? Particularly the screwball that requires the pitcher to contort her arm and wrist outward in a twisting motion that includes the “hitchhiker” finish?
There is simply no good reason to be doing that. For one thing, most kids at that age have rather weak proprioception (body awareness of self movement), which means they often struggle to lock in a single movement pattern.
So, since the way you throw a screwball is in direct opposition to the way you throw a fastball (especially with internal rotation mechanics but it’s even true of hello elbow pitchers) why would you introduce a way of throwing that will interfere with development of core mechanics? Pitchers who are trying to learn both will be splitting their time between two opposing movements, pretty much ensuring they will master neither.
Then coaches and parents wonder why the poor kid can’t throw two strikes in a row in a game.
Just as important is the health and safety aspect of twisting your forearm and elbow against the way they’re designed to work. As my friend and fellow pitching coach Keeley Byrnes of Key Fundamentals points out, “Boys at that age are cautioned against throwing curve balls with a twisting action because of the stress it places on their elbow joints. Why would you encourage a softball pitcher to do the same thing?”
Keeley also points out that most 10 year olds don’t hit very well anyway, so developing a screwball at that age is unnecessary. You can get many hitters out by throwing a fastball over the plate with decent velocity (which means it’s not arcing in).
Tony Riello, a pitching coach, trainer, and licensed doctor of chiropractic, is also concerned about the effect throwing the twisty screwball can have on other body parts. He says, “To be that spread out left to then force the arm and shoulder right seems not healthy for either the back or the shoulder,” he says.
Then there’s the fact that in 99% of the cases a screwball isn’t really a screwball. It’s just a fastball that runs in on a hitter.
Why do I say that? Because if you look at the spin on 99% of so-called screwballs, especially among 10 year olds but even at the collegiate level, they don’t have the type of spin that would make them break. They have “bullet” spin, i.e., their axis of spin is facing the same direction as the direction of travel.
For a screwball to actually be a screwball the axis of spin would need to be on top of the ball, with spin direction going toward the throwing hand side. Just as a curve spins away from the throwing hand side.
So if you’re throwing a pitch that isn’t going to break anyway, why not just learn to throw an inside fastball instead? If you want it to run in a little more, stride out more to the glove side then let it run itself back in.
But again, you’re now giving that young pitcher who’s just trying to learn to throw the ball over the plate two different mechanics (stride straight, stride out) to use, which means she’s probably going to be half as effective on either one.
Oh, and that hitchhiker move that’s supposedly the “key” to the screwball and places all the stress on the elbow? It happens well after the ball is out of the pitcher’s hand, so it has no impact on the spin of the pitch whatsoever. Zero. None. Nada.
Finally, and perhaps most important, once a young pitcher can throw with decent velocity and locate her pitches (or at least throw 70% strikes) there are simply better pitches for her to learn first.
After the basic fastball, in my opinion (and in the opinion of most quality pitching coaches), the second pitch that should be learned is a changeup that can be thrown with the same arm and body speed as the fastball but resulting in a 10-15 mph speed differential. Throwing both the fastball and change at the right speeds for 70% strikes should be enough to keep the typical 10- or 12-year old pitcher busy for a while.
Next you would want to add a drop ball. The mechanics of a properly taught drop ball are very similar to the fastball. In fact, I like to say they are fraternal twins.
Making a ball drop at the right spot, especially given so many young hitters’ desire to stand up as they swing, will get you a lot more outs, either as strikeouts or groundouts. A good drop ball will still translate into more groundouts as you get older too – just ask Cat Osterman.
From there it’s a little less certain. You can go either rise ball or curve ball. I usually make the decision based on the pitcher’s tendencies.
A well-thrown rise ball is still an extremely effective pitch, even though it doesn’t actually break up. And a well-thrown curve will actually break either off the plate (traditional curve) or back onto it (backdoor curve). Either way it moves – unlike the screwball which mostly travels on the same line.
I would save the screwball for last – unless you happen to play in an area where slappers are predominant in the lineup. Which in the era of $500 bats and quality, year-round hitting instruction is about as scarce as screwballs that actually change direction.
There are simply better pitches to learn. And if you do work on a screwball, there are better ways to learn it than trying to twist your wrist and forearm off in a contorted move that should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
The bottom line is that, for the love of Gaia, there is no good reason to be teaching a screwball to a 10 year old – or any pitcher who hasn’t mastered her fastball and changeup first. Let’s make sure we’re giving our young pitchers the actual tools they need to succeed – and avoid those that can lead to injury and perhaps a career cut short.
To Improve Pitching Mechanics Try Closing Your Eyes
One of the most important contributors to being successful in fastpitch softball pitching (and many other skills for that matter) is the ability to feel what your body is doing while it’s doing it.
The fancy word for that is “proprioception” – your ability to feel your body and the movement of your limbs in space. If you want to impress someone call it that. Otherwise you can just say body awareness.
Yet while it’s easy to say you should have body awareness, achieving it can be difficult for many pitchers, especially (but not limited to) younger ones. Keep in mind that it wasn’t all that long ago they were learning to walk, and many are still struggling to improve their fine motor skills.
Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to achieving body awareness, however, is our eyes. How often do we tell pitchers to focus on the target, or yell at catchers to “give her a bigger target” when a pitcher is struggling.
According to research, 90% of what our brains process is visual information. That leaves very little processing power for our other senses.
It makes sense from a survival point of view. We can see threats long before we can hear them, or smell them, or taste them.
But if your goal is oriented toward athletic performance instead of survival, all that visual information can get in the way of feeling what your body is doing.
The solution is as simple as it is obvious: if you can’t feel your body when you’re practicing, close your eyes. (I do not recommend the same during a game since there is a person with a $500 bat at the other end of the pitch waiting to drill you with a comebacker.)
With your eyes closed, you no longer have the distraction(s) of what your eyes see. You HAVE to become more aware of what your body is doing, and where its various parts are going, if you’re going to have any chance of getting it even near the plate.
I have done this with many pitchers over the years, and it has invariably helped to different degrees. Some start to feel whether their arms are stiffening up or they’re pushing the ball through release where they couldn’t before.
Some feel their bodies going off line, or gyrating in all kinds of crazy directions instead of just moving forward and stabilizing at release.
In some cases, girls who were struggling with control actually start throwing more strikes with their eyes closed than they did with their eyes open. Again, because they’re starting to FEEL the things we were talking about.
One thing I like to emphasize with eyes-closed pitching is for the pitcher to visualize where the catcher is before she starts the pitch. See it in her mind’s eye the way she would see it if her eyes were open.
Then, once she has it visualized, go ahead and throw the pitch.
Even if she struggles at first she will usually start to feel what her body is doing at a much deeper level, putting her in a position to start correcting it. Then, by the time she opens her eyes again she will be better prepared to deliver the type of results you’re hoping for.
If you have a pitcher who is struggling to feel what she’s doing, give this a try. It can be an eye-opening experience for pitchers – and their parents.
Want to Get Better? Try Doing Nothing!
Ok yes, today’s title was purposely click baity. Because I don’t mean literally to sit around all day on the couch staring at a screen or eating Cheetohs (or doing both; I’m not here to judge).
Sorry all you players who hoped to use my blog to justify telling your parents to chill, or whatever you say nowadays.
What I’m actually talking about is learning to use your body the way it’s meant to be used rather than trying to do too much and getting in the way of your best performance.
A great example, and one I’ve talked about many times here, is using “hello elbow” (HE) mechanics for pitching.
With HE, you push the ball down the back side of the circle and try to get your hand behind the ball early going into the release zone. You then pull your arm through the release zone with your bicep while (supposedly) snapping your wrist hard as you let go of the ball, finishing with your elbow pointing at your catcher.
While this may seem like a way to add energy into the ball in theory, in practice the opposite is true. It actually slows down your arm, because your using the small bicep muscle instead of the larger back muscles to bring the arm down, and gets in the way of your arm’s natural movements as it passes your hip.
It’s also an unnatural movement pattern. To prove it, stand up, let your arms hang at your sides, and see which way your hand is facing. Unless you have something very odd going on your palm is in toward your thigh, not turned face-forward.
Your arm wants to turn in that way when you’re pitching too. In order for that to happen, all you have to do is NOTHING – don’t force it out, don’t force a follow through, really don’t do anything. The ball will come out as your hand turns and you will transfer way more energy into the ball than you would have if your tried to do something.
This, incidentally, is something I often use to help pitchers whose arms are naturally trying to do internal rotation (IR) but are also using an HE finish because that’s what has been drilled into them for the last three years gain a quick speed boost. They start out using their HE mechanics from the K position and we look at the speed reading.
I then have them lose the forced finish and just let the arm naturally pronate at it reaches the bottom of the circle. They can usually add 2-3 mph immediately just by doing nothing.
Or let’s look at hitting. Many young and inexperienced hitters will try to over-use their arms and shoulders when bringing the bat to the ball.
It makes sense on some level because the bat is in your hands and you want to hit the ball hard.
Yet that is the one of the worst things you can do. When you pull the bat with your arms and shoulders you have to start your swing before you know where the ball is going to be (never a good idea).
You will also lose your ability to adjust your swing to where the ball is going because you’ve built up so much momentum in whatever direction your started. Not to mention that muscles get smaller and weaker as you move away from your core so you’re not generating nearly as much energy as your body is capable of producing.
Again, the better choice is to do nothing with your arms early in the swing, and instead let your lower body and core muscles generate energy and start moving the bat toward the ball (while the bat is still near your shoulder). Then, once you’re well into your turn and you see where the ball is headed you can let the bat head launch, resulting in a much better hit, and a more reliable process.
Does doing nothing work for overhand throwing as well?
How many times have you seen players lined up across from each other, throwing arm elbow in their glove and wrists snapping furiously while their forearms don’t move? Probably more times than you can count.
This is a completely pointless drill because no one, and I mean NO ONE, purposely snaps their wrists when they throw overhand. Instead, they relax their wrists and allow the whipping action to snap their wrists for them – which is far more powerful.
To prove it, close your fingers up and try to fan yourself by snapping your wrist. Not much air there, right?
Now relax your wrist and move your forearm back and forth quickly. Ahh, that’s the stuff. That breeze you now feel is more energy being generated, which moves more air into your face.
So if that’s the case, why would you ever try to do something when you’re releasing the ball rather than doing nothing and letting biomechanics produce better results for you?
There are countless other examples but you get the picture. The point is, forcing unnatural movements onto your body, while they might make you “feel” like you’re working harder, are actually very inefficient.
If you want to maximize your performance, make sure the energy you’re producing is delivering the results you’re going for. Just doing nothing and watch your numbers climb.
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com
The Case for Posting New High Pitch Speeds
You’ve probably seen the same Facebook posts I see: Internet pitching experts (I suppose taking a break from their other career of Internet virology or economics experts) complaining about coaches and parents posting when their pitcher daughter hits a new high speed.
They go into a whole rant about how pitching speed isn’t important, it’s more important to locate the pitch and spin it, blah blah blah. It reminds me of this clip from the Jim Carrey movie Liar, Liar:
I get their point to a point, though. Often times coaches become obsessed with raw speed to the point where they ignore other factors.
While it’s true that a pitcher who can overpower hitters with speed can rack up more Ks, that’s not the only way to get hitters out. I personally love a pitcher who can consistently close out an inning in 6-10 pitches – especially on a super hot, muggy day.
Let’s get the team off the hot plate infield as quickly as possible and into where the pop-up tents and sports drinks are.
So then why get so excited about new pitch speeds? It’s simple – it’s a way of measuring how well the pitcher is progressing toward locking down her mechanics.
The key is that these measurements should not be used to rank one pitcher over another. The value, at least the way I use them, is in ranking the pitcher relative to herself.
I have a Pocket Radar set up with a SmartDisplay at every lesson. The pitcher can see the speed results of every pitch. So can her catcher if he/she turns to look.
I call it my accountability meter. If the pitcher is slacking off from where her speed usually is I can see it right away and can “suggest” she put more effort in.
At the same time, it also clues me in to the fact that this pitcher just may not have it today.
Perhaps she just came from a two-hour basketball practice full of conditioning drills. Her legs are dead and she’s just not capable of generating max speed. So maybe we work on spins, or focus on her release point, or do other things that don’t rely on her legs.
Or maybe she’s starting to get sick, or nursing an injury. Whatever the issue is, the radar provides a quick clue that something isn’t quite optimal.
The important point is that we are measuring that pitcher relative to herself, not her teammates or some other random pitcher on the Internet. And I post the speeds to celebrate the individual’s achievement, whatever that may be.
If it was purely about speed, or promoting the pitching coach, those coaches would only post the new highs of their kids throwing 60+. I’ve certainly seen that.
But for me, I’m just as excited for the high school pitcher who came to me throwing 43 and is now throwing 48 as I am for the 60+ girls. Maybe even moreso.
You see, it takes a certain combination of factors (including genetics) to throw at higher velocities. Those who are athletically gifted can reach that level much more easily than those who are not.
But for some pitchers, especially those who are smaller and lighter, increasing their speed at all may take a lot more work than it does for the athletically gifted. So while in the pantheon of pitching prowess 48 may not sound like much, for that particular pitch it’s a huge deal, the culmination of a whole lot of effort and practice.
Achievements like that deserve to be celebrated.
Having a way of measuring progress, and celebrating it through social media, also provides some great incentive to those pitchers. Especially after they’ve been through it a couple of times.
They see the radar there. They want their picture taken and posted, and they want to be able to say they throw X, which is faster than they have before.
So I don’t have to do much to motivate them to work. They go for it themselves. And once they’ve hit it they work even harder to make it their baseline so they can move on to the next speed goal.
All of which helps them grow into the pitchers they’re meant to be.
Does that mean we focus on speed exclusively? Of course not!
Spot and spin are still incredibly important, as is the ability to throw a changeup that looks like it will be that fast while taking 12-15 mph off of the result. That’s pitching instead of just throwing.
But the name of the game is FASTpitch softball. Which to me means every pitcher should be doing all she can to wring every ounce of speed she can out of her body, because all those elements work better if you start from a higher baseline.
I tell my students we have four words to live by: faster is always better. That doesn’t just mean the speed of the pitch but also the approach taken to delivering it.
If you move faster your body will create and transfer more energy. That’s science (force=mass x acceleration). It will also disguise your changeup better.
So let the naysayers complain. In my mind, measuring the speed of every pitch helps keep pitchers focused and on upward trajectory.
Not so their parents or coaches can get bragging rights. But so they become the pitchers they’re meant to be.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 