Looking for Suggestions on 11 Year Old Pitcher

My daughter is 11 and making the transition to a 12" ball and 40' distance this fall. The distance hasn't been a big issue, but the larger ball has been. She has pretty small hands and is afraid of having the ball slip out of her hand inadvertently. She has been pitching for a little over two years. We are looking for suggestions for overall mechanical improvement as well as any thoughts on easing the transition to the 12" ball.

A few things that I see in the video:

She is leaping a little. It looks a lot more obvious in super slow motion than it does live. We are working on it.

I would like to see her more palm up just before rotation and release. This is something we have been working on for a while.

Her arm is straightening too early and she isn't catching the whip. Sometimes she is right on with the whip and other times she pushes as you can see in the video.

Her one arm back swing is something we started doing to get more on the pitches this fall. Last year she kept the ball in her glove and rocked the baby ala Bill Hillhouse. We will get back to that as soon as she feels that she can throw as hard that way as she can with the back swing.

I would like to see her shoulders behind her hips at release. She is a bit more bent at the waist than I would like.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

[video=youtube_share;bIR_VfNbIzM]http://youtu.be/bIR_VfNbIzM[/video]

Robert,
It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what she's doing and needs to do. Start working on whip with minimal lower body action. Stress the following points:
-good posture,
-a loose lower arm,
-pulling the lower arm into release,
-locking/pausing the upper arm at the side,
-brush and
-releasing from the pocket/thigh.

Play lots of catch like this. Praise it when you see it and give cues when needed. Be sure to ask her how it felt and what she thought with the goal of helping her learn to feel, become aware of what she's doing and eventually self-correct.

As she gets the feel of whip, add more arm circle, distance and lower body.

BTW, I have girl who is very small for her age and will be a second year 10U. She showed up with a 12 inch ball (playing 12U for fall ball) and when given the option to work with an 11, she opted for the 12. I believe she uses a 2 seam grip and does not seem to have any issues with the big ball.

When DD made the transition from 11" to 12" we bought her a 14" practice ball. She did all her warm up drills with it including throwing overhand . After her warming up with the 14" ball the 12" ball felt tiny to her. Now we use it to work on spins and exaggerated grips to help with dexterity and flexibility in the fingers.

I second the 14" ball. I have several 10u students but I always make them pitch the 12" ball for the final 10 min of pitching practice. The 14" ball will stress finger dexterity and should be a small part of the warm ups.

I wish that we weren't even using the various small balls. I don't know when they became popular, but My 26 yo DD never had them. Anyway, I move the pitchers back to 36 feet with the 12 inch ball, and then, the next lessons 37, 38, etc.

And yes to the 14 inch ball. And I also use a 16 inch ball. The girls love the huge slo-pitch balls and think they are funny. But, by the time you get to the 12 inch softball, it feels like a baseball.

Yes, to turning the ball for a 2 seam grip, too.

Thank you for the suggestions. We will go out and get a 14" ball and work with that. Do any of you see things in her mechanics that we should make sure to retain as we work on the development of the items I mentioned?

Out in Left Field said:

I posted this before for another young pitcher or maybe this one, but don't have her spread her pinky under the ball like that at that age with small hands. We never have issues at clinics with ball size. By the end of 6 clinics we have 9u's throwing the big ball. If you are trying to grab the ball you end up with slow pitches and it tenses up the arm.

Click to expand...

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying, you want her to throw with four fingers rather than three? We can try that for sure.