Screw the Screwball?

Relative to the screwball......I like the pitch.....but am extremely careful with how and at what age I teach it. Several posters on this thread suggested it negatively affects their other pitches.....I have seen this to many times. Lots of pitchers disconnect their upper and lower torso when throwing a screwball in an attempt to get an inside-out angle on the release (often they use what is referred to as "the hitchhiker" release).....it may be better described as an extreme butt out posture......very bad for mechanics. This is a weakened position and not conducive to achieving brush interference.

The number of screwball pitchers I've seen who truly get any measurable inward ball movement is probably less than 3 in all my years.

For a pitcher just learning a screwball I would suggest keeping it simple: 1) Simply stride/land about 6 inches to the left of the powerline (RHP).....the drag toe will naturally drag such that if you draw a line connecting the toe tips on each foot you will have created a new powerline that angles to the inside corner.
2) Throw your fastball or dropball release action down the new powerline
3) Throw the pitch low at knee high like you would a dropball

Here is what the action will look like: 1) An angle inward that is another factor for a hitter to deal with (that's a good thing for the pitcher) 2) A ball that drops (another good thing for the pitcher) 3. The axis of rotation will usually be tipped slightly off parallel to the ground so the ball actually has a very slight sliding action inward. If you have a visual stripe on the ball you will note the tipped axis. (also good for the pitcher)

Is this pitch different then an inside drop....not much different, but the angle is just enough to maybe give the hitter a little extra difficulty.

If a pitcher displays a reasonable riseball then the exact same guideline can be used....just change the release angle to a riseball release angle.

The number one caution is to not let your pitcher disconnect. If she can't throw a screwball without disconnecting, I'd recommend scrapping it.

Most young pitchers lack the fine motor skills to properly throw a breaking pitch and for the most part are literally just going through the motions. They grip the ball a certain way, release it like this, wiggle their butt just so and then call it a certain pitch. But if you have them throw a taped ball the truth comes out like a speeding bullet(spin). I have had students come to me claiming to throw a specific pitch but when I toss them a ball and tell them to show me how the pitch spins they fail big time. Know that I am not talking about actually throwing the pitch, just spin the ball with their fingers. Worse yet some could not even describe the proper spin for their pet pitch that they learned a the big D1 clinic last year.

On the up side with specific focus and some time the fine motor skills necessary to throw a true breaking pitch can be developed. I have had a handful that could throw virtually any pitch. Were they all game ready with sick movement? They would be the first to tell you of course not. They had a couple that were rock solid and were their "go-to" pitches and a couple more that in certain circumstances served a purpose.

I suggest that you work on the pitches that your DD is naturally inclined to throw. There are some typical paths but there no magic road map starting with this and working up to that. Keep having her try to spin various pitches until you find something that works and then stay after it. A pitcher with 2 great pitches is far and away better than one with 5 mediocre pitches. I would suggest to you adopt what I insist on with my students - Unless your are warming up with a game ball prior to taking the circle you will throw only taped/painted balls. Otherwise she is just guessing what is actually happening when she throws a pitch. Expanding on that, if she is not aware and able to describe the actual (not intended) spin after each pitch she throws in workout she is wasting her time. And yours.

We'll grip it exactly like a rb, except the fingers release a bit more inside the ball rather than under it. This is thrown to the hands, up and in, with posture back and a low release, just like a rb. It has a slight inward movement and is effective when your up in the count or facing an overagressive hitter. (also works well with lefty slappers)
As Rick said, when throwing with the hitch - hiker release, the body contorts in unnatural ways and if someone is picking signs, they'll easily know what #3 was supposed to be.
IMO one should absolutely master the ability to throw 3 pitches, at a couple different speeds. This gives the effectiveness of many pitches. Rise, drop, and change. Learn how to get cutting spin to make the pitches move a bit in or out combo'd with the up or down movement. Less is more in the number of pitches. Dont be a jack of all trades that's just okay at everything.... instead, be an absolute master of 2 or 3.

At 14U my dd had a decent drop curve at 16U she developed a very good rise ball and locates it
inside. She fell in love with the rise and sparingly threw the drop curve as the rise was very effective.
Fast forward to 18U and she again put the drop curve into the arsenal as it allowed her to command
the high inside zone and low outside when throwing both pitches consistently. At 18U she found that teams would
sit on the rise so she had to have something completely different to remain effective. Her
college coach recruited her for the rise though.

I agree with Sluggers though-very few pitchers throw the rise with a 6-12 spin. If they can throw it close
they will be effective at any level.

Rocketech1 said:

For what it's worth, I was watching a recording of one of the NPF playoff games between Monica Abbott and Sarah Pauly and they had super slo mo cameras of and videos of both pitchers riseballs and both of them were throwing titled axis up, bullet spin riseballs. The same spin and axis angle that Rick Pauly demonstrated in his videos. Monica throws a riseball in the low 70s and is arguably the best female pitcher in the world. I would call her riseball a "real" riseball even though she doesn't get anything close to 6/12 spin on that pitch.

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If you had a chance to watch the championship game there were some good slo mos of Cat's RB and it had great backspin with perfect seam orientation, the backspin was about halfway between bullet and perfection. She threw it up and in for great results. The spin rate was great. You could actually count the number of times you saw the ball logo and get an idea of the rate...it was right around 30 RPS. You could do the same with her drop on a couple of replays and the rate was much lower.

There was also a very nice clip of Abbot throwing an inside pitch as a two seamer.

I think it is pretty telling that neither of them throws a screwball.

For a pitcher just learning a screwball I would suggest keeping it simple: ...

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Rick, you are gold. Thanks so much. Your clarity of thinking and willingness to share your insights are incomparable.

I'm sure she threw other pitches, but at some point she had to cut back or drop the other things to focus on this pitch to become proficient with it.

Or am I thinking about this wrong?

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No, you are thinking 100% correctly. Step back and look at your DD's pitches. Which pitch seems to have come "naturally" to her? Focus on making that a great pitch.

Getting batters out is all about "location, location, location". Your DD has to be able to pitch along the edges of the strike zone. You don't need a PC for that...you need time and perseverance.

In HS, my DD was trying to learn a bunch of pitches. Her pitching coach (the WOC/Snake/Coach from Hell) told her she was wasting her time. He said, "Learn one pitch really well." It was the best pitching advice she ever got.

We stopped working on the curve, screw, rise, and just worked on the drop. (The curve drop and the drop are only slightly different from a mechanics point of view. If your DD gets good at the drop, she'll also get good at the curve drop.)

This is what my DD could do with a drop "on command":

1) Throw it inside, down the middle, or outside.
2) Throw is at different speeds.
3) Throw it at different vertical levels at the plate (which is extremely difficult)
4) Make the drop look like a belt high fastball until it got to the plate.

She also had extremely good control with her fastball...as I've said before, she went something like 47 innings in HS without a walk.

In college, she learned a curve. She threw the curve as something like a waste pitch...she wasn't consistently effective with it, but it was nice to throw.

If we had it to do over again, I would:

1) Teach her the drop (which we did).
2) Work on her control (which we did)
3) Teach her a "real" changeup (which we did *not*)
3) Work on throwing a bullet spin pitch (which we did *not*)

sluggers said:

3) Work on throwing a bullet spin pitch

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*GASP*...

There is an interesting slowly-evolving mind-shift occurring in this forum...

Rick Pauly said:

The number of screwball pitchers I've seen who truly get any measurable inward ball movement is probably less than 3 in all my years.

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Just curious - did Taryne Mowatt (now PC at Ole Miss) actually throw a screwball? Or did she just get all the movement from stepping way outside the pitching lane (hence the creation of the chalked pitching lane)?

I thought she was effective because she never gave away the location with her eyes...

corlay said:

*GASP*...

There is an interesting slowly-evolving mind-shift occurring in this forum...

Click to expand...

Throw that bulletspin pitch. After all it is much easier to be lucky than throw a good breaking pitch.