halskinner

Hi Mark. On all three of these videos, the camera does not show their feet or the rubber, until the stride foot touches down. Without being able to see their feet and the rubber until that point;

Osterman looks good and strong.

Finch appears to be illegal.

Ueno looks to be throwing with an aggressive step style.

Again, if the camera showed the feet for the entire motion and any pre-motions, it might appear to be different.

Hal
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With all due respect to you and others who like to say "Watch the elite pitchers and do what they do". If people do not know what to look for in the motions, they will not know good mechanics from poor mechanics, legal from illegal, etc.

There are things to be learned from watching elite pitchers. There are also MANY things in their motions that an untrained eye will NOT pick up on.

Watching older, more experienced pitchers pitch in their games is how I learned to pitch. However, that process took many years and I watched hundreds and hundreds of adult male pitchers in their games, starting when I was 5 years old and a batboy on my father's team.

If you told the average 14-year-old to watch (Lets say) Jennie Finch and do what she does, she will watch the video, probably many times.

Then she will go out and do her best to imitate what she saw.

It is likely she will pitch a little faster than she did before that, however, it is highly unlikely she will get it right. The timing, etc, will not be correct. Th mechanics will NOT be right.

Now we have that kid out there praticing what she saw and re-enforcing BAD MECHANICS and thinking she is doing awesome because she IS throwing a little bit faster than before.

Until she gets to an instructor that knows what they are doing and what to look for, she will setting bad habits in concrete, that the instructor will have to fix.

I don't feel anyone is doing a pitcher a great service by simply telling them to watch elite pitchers and imitate what they do. It is just too general a statement and request for something that requires many specifics to do correctly.

I think it would be better to break the mechanics down and have that pitcher focus on one aspect at a time. IE: stride length, stride speed, pre-motions, etc. They have to know enough to be able to focus on that one thing and do that. That normally takes an instructor.