News Flash: Rise Balls don't Rise!!!!!
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JJsqueeze
Dad, Husband....legend
you mean I just got Olafed? Curse you northern whitewalker dude.
A screwball is absolutely possible.
Here is a singular example from Youtube. This girl doesn't even appear college age and there is plenty of movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xklHS18jW5Y
JJsqueeze
Dad, Husband....legend
She does a good job of throwing in to out. Break....not so sure about that. I think you can make a ball cut a little but I think there is a reason the true screwball is absent in the repertoire of the really great pitchers.
Seems that the greats all have drop/rise and then either a curve or CU.
Oh the horror!
Over the past several years the battle cry of college coaches is that a pitcher needs to specialize in 2 pitches... 1 off-speed pitch and something else. The screw moves much less then the curve so it makes a choice between the two very easy. Now, there is a call for girls to be more well rounded and have a mastery of multiple pitches, which is the way it should have been all along.
For me, "riseball" implies backspin.
Velocity being constant, a ball thrown with backspin will end up higher than a ball thrown without backspin.
For me, a ball ending up higher than the height of release does not mean the pitch was a "riseball."
For me, a ball throwing with backspin (whether it ends up high or low) is a riseball because it holds on to initial trajectory than other pitches thrown with the same velocity.
As mentioned before, I have a pitcher who loves to throw a low inside rise-curve. Why? Because it looks like it's going to be too far inside, only to drift into the inside edge of the strike zone for a called strike (right-handed batter, of course). Mixing this pitch with an upper outside corner rise-curve, or an outside curve, works quite well (batters tend to swing at these because they look like they are well inside the strike zone).
So, do "riseballs" rise? Relative to what? They don't rise from original trajectory. If they do, provide the evidence with a clip.
Velocity being constant, a ball thrown with backspin will end up higher than a ball thrown without backspin.
For me, a ball ending up higher than the height of release does not mean the pitch was a "riseball."
For me, a ball throwing with backspin (whether it ends up high or low) is a riseball because it holds on to initial trajectory than other pitches thrown with the same velocity.
As mentioned before, I have a pitcher who loves to throw a low inside rise-curve. Why? Because it looks like it's going to be too far inside, only to drift into the inside edge of the strike zone for a called strike (right-handed batter, of course). Mixing this pitch with an upper outside corner rise-curve, or an outside curve, works quite well (batters tend to swing at these because they look like they are well inside the strike zone).
So, do "riseballs" rise? Relative to what? They don't rise from original trajectory. If they do, provide the evidence with a clip.
Last edited:
- Feb 7, 2013
- 3,188
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To the OP, one important factor that gets overlooked in the rise ball discussion is that as soon as the ball leaves the hand it immediately starts losing speed and revolutions per second (RPS) because of drag and gravitational forces on the ball, as well as the energy source (the human arm whip is no longer applying force on it, unlike an airplane that has a constant and increasing jet engine to lift a plane off the ground). But somehow this pitched ball can make a dramatic "jump up" after it's traveled 40 feet, losing speed and spin along the way?
A rise ball when thrown correctly is great pitch but what it doesn't do is jump over the bat as it approaches home plate. Rick Pauly has some great video of his world class DD pitching and he demonstrates and acknowledges that her rise ball actually flattens out as it reaches home plate and has never jumped up off its original plane of trajectory.
The talking heads on TV don't know any better and keep talking about this "late break" nonsense. Michelle Smith is the worst at describing the rise ball on TV.
On this site, for the last 7 years, no one had produced any video that shows a rise ball "jumping up" off its original plane of trajectory. Why is that in the age of smart phones that millions of people with iPhones can't produce 1 little clip of a rise ball "rising".
Could it be that a rise ball is an optical illusion, that doesn't drop as much as other pitches like a fast ball, curve ball, etc and therefore the batter swings under the pitch thinking it will be dropping more and it appears to magically have jumped up over the bat? Hmmmmmm.......just maybe.......
A rise ball when thrown correctly is great pitch but what it doesn't do is jump over the bat as it approaches home plate. Rick Pauly has some great video of his world class DD pitching and he demonstrates and acknowledges that her rise ball actually flattens out as it reaches home plate and has never jumped up off its original plane of trajectory.
The talking heads on TV don't know any better and keep talking about this "late break" nonsense. Michelle Smith is the worst at describing the rise ball on TV.
On this site, for the last 7 years, no one had produced any video that shows a rise ball "jumping up" off its original plane of trajectory. Why is that in the age of smart phones that millions of people with iPhones can't produce 1 little clip of a rise ball "rising".
Could it be that a rise ball is an optical illusion, that doesn't drop as much as other pitches like a fast ball, curve ball, etc and therefore the batter swings under the pitch thinking it will be dropping more and it appears to magically have jumped up over the bat? Hmmmmmm.......just maybe.......
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