Riseball spin

I wish I had a dollar every low to high forward-spinning ball that people have called a "riseball."

Back 15 years ago when my oldest was pitching, people thought of her as a riseball pitcher, as she liked to throw low to high to the outside. She never threw a back-spinning pitch, so I would chuckle under my breath when opposing players and coaches would say, "Watch her riseball."

I can only imagine how much better that DD would have been has she had a back-spin and had mix a low and high true riseball with her inside fast-dropball.

I threw this together quickly this afternoon so pardon the roughness. As I say in the video, I doubt many/any pitchers get true 6/12 backspin so I am not proposing the Sarah gets it either. But the spin axis you see here is definitely good enough to make the riseball a very effective pitch. Not everyone can throw this pitch......it takes talent and a lot of work. So if your pitcher is short on either (especially the work part) I would suggest not putting a lot of time into it.
Also, as I suggested at the end of the video, I don't expect this clip to convince any hardline "the riseball is a pitch waiting to get hit out of the park" viewers to change their opinion. But for those on the fence it may give you a better frame of reference of what a riseball is and how/why it fools a hitter. Enjoy!!!!

Riseballs don't rise even with perfect backspin. Even with perfect backspin at double human spin rates, the balls barely deviate off the trajectory of a non spinning or bullet spin pitch.

The only reasons we teach kids to throw with backspin is twofold: First, what we do understand of physics dictates that SOMETHING must be happening if we throw it right, so why not try, and second, some college coaches will dismiss a pitcher if they cannot demonstrate "proper" riseball spin.

Elite pitchers throw it with bullet spin. Some can skew their bullet a few degrees so they can (barely) get away with calling it backspin, but that's really pushing it.

The pitch is effective because of the angle and the fact that so many batters will chase high pitches.

-W

Awesome video! What camera are you using for those shots?

starsnuffer said:

Riseballs don't rise even with perfect backspin. Even with perfect backspin at double human spin rates, the balls barely deviate off the trajectory of a non spinning or bullet spin pitch.

The only reasons we teach kids to throw with backspin is twofold: First, what we do understand of physics dictates that SOMETHING must be happening if we throw it right, so why not try, and second, some college coaches will dismiss a pitcher if they cannot demonstrate "proper" riseball spin.

Elite pitchers throw it with bullet spin. Some can skew their bullet a few degrees so they can (barely) get away with calling it backspin, but that's really pushing it.

The pitch is effective because of the angle and the fact that so many batters will chase high pitches.

-W

Click to expand...

Elite pitchers throw it with bullet spin? Why would you say that? If they can't throw it with reasonable backspin then it is a high pitch. Granted bullet spin is better than down spin but how can an "elite" pitcher not get the proper spin?

Rick,

In your description of a perfect riseball, you only mentioned the axis being horizontal to the ground. Given a pitch that looks more like a bullet spin that backward spin is possible with a riseball attempt, I think it's important to describe the perfectly square riseball pitch as having an axis that is horizontal to the ground and perpendicular to the path of the pitch. What say you?

CoachFP said:

Elite pitchers throw it with bullet spin? Why would you say that? If they can't throw it with reasonable backspin then it is a high pitch. Granted bullet spin is better than down spin but how can an "elite" pitcher not get the proper spin?

Click to expand...

How would you define Elite Level? Many folks think D1 is elite level which is certainly not the case.

RB
I use a Casio Exilim....it is a great camera that can shoot up to 1200 FPS. The close up of the rise spin in the video is at 600 FPS and the other two clips are at 300 FPS. Unfortunately, this camera is not sold any more. I put these clips into my Motion Analysis software to be able to run one frame at a time and to produce the video with voice over.

riseball said:

Awesome video! What camera are you using for those shots?

Click to expand...

Doug
Right on.
Certainly don't want anyone to confuse a riseball with a bullet spin fastball.......

Doug Romrell said:

Rick,

In your description of a perfect riseball, you only mentioned the axis been horizontal to the ground. Given a pitch that looks more like a bullet spin that backward spin is possible with a riseball attempt, I think it's important to describe the perfectly square riseball pitch as having an axis that is horizontal to the ground and perpendicular to the path of the pitch. What say you?

Click to expand...

starsnuffer said:

Riseballs don't rise even with perfect backspin. Even with perfect backspin at double human spin rates, the balls barely deviate off the trajectory...
-W

Click to expand...

With all due respect, I somewhat disagree. All pitches fall from original trajectory. It's that the back-spin falls less. How much less in a relative sense depends on the drop from original trajectory the pitcher's other pitches realized. This the importance of having a great dropball as a riseball pitcher.