And oh yeah…
I forgot to add this in my last post. Today it was snowing back home in the Chicago area. But it was sunny and near 80 here in Texas. One more good reason to attend the class!
NFCC coaching class on offensive strategies – Day One
Greetings from Denton, Texas, where I am participating in the NFCA’s coaching college class on offensive strategies. So far it’s been a lot of fun. This particular group has been very open about sharing ideas and discussing strategies. I also think the instructors — Jay Miller, Carol Bruggeman, and Scott Centala are particularly adept at getting the discussions going.
This is a class I’ve wanted to take for a couple of years, so I’m glad to be able to do it this year. I feel strong on the technical aspects of the game, but have always felt I could use some improvement in the area of strategy. I’ve gotten better over the years through some effort, but I still felt there was more work to be done to become the coach I aspire to be.
In any case, the class has been very interesting. One of my favorites was the idea of using a fake bunt/slap to help a runner on second steal third. Covering a steal of third can be challenging for the defense under ordinary circumstances. Do they leave the third baseman back to cover third, thereby leaving themselves more vulnerable to a bunt (especially if their pitcher is not a particularly good fielder)? Do they have shortstop cover third, creating a foot race to the bag with the runner?
As an offensive coach you can take advantage of that. The fake bunt part will likely get the third baseman to come in another step or two at minimum, pulling her further away from the bag making it harder for her to cover. Showing slap will likely freeze the shortstop for a step or two, giving your runner more time to win the foot race. The beauty is the hitter doesn’t have to get the slap down. In fact, you can have her miss on purpose. You give up a strike, but advance the runner 60 feet. Sounds like a good idea, especially if your runner on second doesn’t have the speed to win the race outright. And you never know — it might create enough confusion to get a mishandle on the throw and score the runner.
One other thing they encouraged was taking more chances on the bases. For example, going for two bases instead of one whenever possible. Part of that depends on the speed of the runner of course. No sense being stupid about it. Another emphasis was on keeping the trailing runner running. If your hitter slashes a single to the outfield with a runner on first and no outs, your runner should be thinking of going to third instead of cruising into second. If she does, the batter/runner should be heading to second base, not watching the play from first. Even if the first runner is out, you’ll still have a runner in scoring position. And if she’s safe, you have two runners in scoring position with no outs, giving you a lot of options while putting pressure on the defense. Miller said you have to be willing to have runners thrown out now and then; if you’re risk-averse you’ll never create those opportunities. Lord knows I’ve had enough runners thrown out going for the extra base, so with a little smarter approach we should benefit.
Obviously there’s lots more to it. But those are a few highlights. If you have the means and opportunity to take this course, by all means do it. Makes me wish we had a game coming up (instead of more snow to shovel).
Oh, and one last thing. We went to dinner with a bunch of the other coaches and had some great conversations. The type of coaches who would take a class like this are pretty cool, as a rule!
There’s strong, then there’s…
Ok, I decided to borrow the Army’s slogan for this one. The full saying from them is there’s strong, then there’s Army strong. With a son who is on his way back to Afghanistan after a 15-day leave I guess the Army is on my mind. 
What made me think of this today was working with one of my students, a girl named Haley, tonight. With the holidays and all it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen her. Haley was working hard when I got to the facility tonight, really putting a lot of effort in. Yet because she was trying so hard she was forming a bad habit. As she moved into release, she sort of did this arm curl move where she pulled her hand straight up instead of letting the forearm and hand whip past the elbow.
I told her I realized she was doing it because it felt strong, but it actually was limiting her speed. It was also putting her at risk of injury, most likely to the elbow but also possibly the shoulder the way she was tightening everything up.
We worked on getting the arm long again at release and after a little while she was back on track and moving on to other things. As she got it corrected she could feel how much easier it was to throw hard by staying loose. I told her she’d last a lot longer at a tournament that way too.
Fortunately, Haley is very coachable as well as being talented, so it was easy to get her to change. Not every kid is like that, however. They will want to stay with what feels strong instead of what actually is strong. But just because something takes a lot of effort doesn’t mean you’re using strength efficiently. Most players who are “in the zone” will tell you the activity feels almost effortless. That’s definitely true for pitching. They’ll use a lot of energy, but it will be easy energy. If it’s not, something is wrong.
Get quicker earlier
There is pretty much always more than one reason why pitches go wild in one direction or another. Some are obvious and easy to spot, others not so much.
Here’s one for pitches going high. Check to make sure that the pitcher is accelerating her arm circle at the right time. There can be a tendency sometimes for pitchers to wait too long to start accelerating their arm. Instead of speeding up from the top of the circle to the bottom, they wait until they hit the bottom of the circle, then start accelerating.
The phrase I like is get quicker earlier. In other words, start accelerating as soon as you pass the top. If you do that, and use a long, loose arm, you’ll feel the proper release point at the bottom of the circle, and have the proper timing. It’ll help you throw harder, too.
Interesting article on pitch speeds
Just saw this article referenced at DiscussFastpitch.com. The article is on a site focused on fastpitch pitching called PitchSoftball.com, and represents the observations of Gerald Warner, a pitching instructor from Colorado.
For those of you whose 14 year old daughters DON’T throw 65 mph with eight pitches (as the daughters of most people on eTeamz’s boards seem to do), don’t despair. According to the site, while the average pitch speed at a particular age varies by region, Coach Warner puts an average 14U pitch speed at 50. A 13 year old will pitch between 40 and 50, he says.
That’s pretty consistent with what I’ve seen too. There are always exceptions on both ends, but the speeds listed here are more the norms. Incidentally, an average HS pitcher is listed at 53-57 mph.
As people point out in the DiscussFastpitch post, keep in mind that speed is only one element of a successful pitcher. You need enough speed to be respectable, but you don’t have to be overpowering to be successful. Movement, location, and intelligence/pitch selection are also important – perhaps even moreso, especially at the upper levels.
Check out the article. It’s a quick read, but a good one.
What will future you think?
On the show How I Met Your Mother, at one point the characters of Marshall and Ted know they should do something, but don’t feel like doing it. I can’t quite remember what the thing was, but it had some long-term implications. They decide not to do it, saying “We’ll let future Marshall and future Ted worry about it.” The show then flashes foward six months, where Marshall and Ted are mad that they didn’t do what they should’ve earlier.
The reason I bring this up (other than I am horribly addicted to TV) is we are at the part of the year when it’s easy to blow off practicing. The real season seems a long way off, so what can it hurt to skip a few sessions, or put in half an effort if you do practice? When you do that, essentially you’re saying, “I’ll let future me worry about it.”
Well, try to flash forward about six months, to when future you is in a tight game with the pressure on. What is he/she going to think about the you of today? Will he/she be mad that present you didn’t put in the work when you could’ve? Will he/she wish that present you had gotten off the computer, quit texting, or woken up earlier and gotten a few extra reps in? It’s very possible.
Give future you the help he/she needs. Put in quality time now so you’re ready for the season. Future you will thank you profusely.
Timing the weight shift
My previous post on timing the weight shift has spurred some comments on when exactly it happens. In one of the comments, Mike suggested he would like to see what a good hitter does when he/she doesn’t swing. Is the weight shifted because the hitter committed, or is it part of the setup to hit.
I just happen to have a video shot by Coach Rich of Albert Pujols. It’s not a standard 30 fps video (it was shot on a digital still camera) so I hope it plays ok. But you can clearly see here that Pujols shifts his weight onto his front foot , as part of the stride. without swinging several times. The hit doesn’t come until the end. Also interesting is that it doesn’t look like he has much intention of hitting the first pitch. Seems like he makes sort of a token effort, at least compared to what he does later.
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that spin
You would think this would be self-evident but apparently it’s not, so I bring it up here.
There are two things that make a pitch move — the direction of the spin and the speed of the spin. You need to have both in order for the ball to do what it’s supposed to do.
Still, I am amazed at how many times I will watch a pitcher throw a “curve ball” or a “drop ball” or whatever and see that it’s not spinning in the right direction. The Magnus Effect dictates that air rushing around a spinning ball will go across the sides at different rates, creating a difference in air pressure. When the difference gets to be enough, the ball moves. 
So, as shown in the illustration here, if you want the ball to drop sharply, it has to be spinning 12 to 6. No other spin will create that same effect. For a right handed pitcher to throw a curve ball, the ball has to be spinning 3 to 9 (from the pitcher’s perspective), or darned close to that.
So when you’re working with a pitcher, that’s the first thing to check on a movement pitch — the direction of the spin. Because if you don’t have that, none of the rest of it matters. You can do all the other mechanics perfectly, but if you’re not releasing the ball in a way that imparts the proper spin you’re wasting your time.
Keep in mind that a drop ball is not a ball that angles downward. It is a ball that comes in fairly flat, or maybe with a slight downward angle, and then drops suddenly — the old “falling off a table” description. A curve ball has to be more than a pitch that moves from throwing hand side to glove side. It has to be traveling in one direction, then suddenly change directions. If it doesn’t, it’s not a true curve ball.
The speed of the spin is the other factor. Once you have the direction correct, you need to make sure it’s spinning fast enough to move. The faster the spin, the more the ball will move because the bigger the pressure differential will be on the ball. Balls that spin in the right direction, but tumble more than spin, won’t move. You don’t need a lot of forward speed on the pitch to get it to move either. Even a 40-45 mph pitch can move if it’s spinning fast enough.
Once you have the spin direction and spin speed, then it’s time to worry about locating the pitch. Up until that point you’re wasting your time. Focus on good spin and the rest will fall into place. And if you have a pitch that isn’t moving sharply, check the spin. You may have some work to do.
Hitting and timing
Tried a little experiment this morning. We’ve been working on hitting mechanics for a while now, but last week during an indoor game we just didn’t hit the way I’d hoped. I would describe our hitters as looking surprised when the pitcher delivered the ball. We seemed to be defending more than attacking.
So we went back to the ol’ Jugs machine. I watched the first group as they approached their swings, and they were consistently behind the ball. Their timing just didn’t seem to be there. So we talked about loading and weight shift, and when to go about it. Essentially we went with a slower load and shift, with toe touch occuring about as the ball came out. The object was to get rid of the panicked or rushed feeling, and give the hitter more time to see the ball before committing.
The other thing we did was reemphasize turning the hips before the shoulders and hands move. This is kind of hitting101 these days. But I think because of that we’d quit looking at it, and our girls had started going upper body first. As we emphasized starting the swing from the hips, again it seemed to make a difference. They were in a better position to see the ball, the timing was better, and they started taking the fat part of the bat to the ball with more consistency.
Now, a pitching machine isn’t the same as live hitting. But it does give you a feel for how well you’re tracking the ball. Put another way, hitting off a machine doesn’t guarantee success. But NOT hitting off a machine is often a harbinger of failure.
Only time will tell how much difference it made. But right now it at least feels like a step in the right direction. Hopefully it will help make all the work on hitting mechanics pay off in a big way. You can never have enough offense!
Lighting a spark
This is one of those stories that again reminds me why I like coaching so much. It’s for those little breakthrough moments that crop up now and then.
I was getting ready to start a pitching last night with a girl named Ashlee. Her catcher didn’t show up so I told her I would catch for her. We did some warm-ups and she started pitching.
Now, Ashlee has developed a habit of stepping forward (off the pitching rubber) as she goes to launch. We’ve been working on correcting it for a while now, but nothing we tried seemed to work. She takes a very aggressive stride and as part of it would tend to shift her weight forward early. Her foot would move, then she’d plant and launch. The problem went from small to severe in various stages. And it is a problem for two reasons: 1) it’s illegal and 2) she loses drive and therefore speed (even though she feels strong doing it).
I came up to work with her on it, saying it was a good night to do it since her catcher wasn’t there, and she agreed. As I stood there, a sudden idea hit me. All this time we’d been trying to get her pivot foot to stay in place instead of moving forward. Whatever we’d tried just didn’t process with her.
So this time, I suggested that she start with her pivot foot well forward, with just the heel barely touching the pitching rubber. She would then go to her negative move like that. But as she brought her hands down below her waist, and before she made her positive move, pull the foot backwards so the pivot foot would wind up in the spot most pitchers start from (ball of the foot touching the rubber). That seemed to do it, at least last night. It helped her gather her energy more effectively, and transfer her weight with better timing. We walked through it a few times so she could get the feel of it, then started trying to go more aggressively off of it — none of this with the ball. You could see the light bulb come on for her.
As we stood there, she looked at me and asked, “Did you just come up with that right now?” I paused for a moment to think if I’d heard it anywhere, but couldn’t come up with a source offhand so I said yes. She got a little smile on her face, raised her hand and said, “Give me a high five on that one.”
Ashlee is not the sort who does that lightly, so it was pretty rewarding to have her feel that way. After the lesson she said, “We had a breakthrough tonight.” Of course, only time will tell if it sticks, but I think it will. I asked her to practice just that movement during the week and she said she would. I believed her too, because she seemed to like it. It felt “right” to her where previous ideas we’d tried just didn’t.
So yes, fixing the problem (we hope) was satisfying. But more satisfying, to me, was the reaction. I think Ashlee felt good that I’d come up with something specifically for her, and something she could buy into. Her high five gesture wasn’t a huge one. But it was very sincere. If I can help one pitcher make one breakthrough on one night, it’s a pretty darned good night.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 