ang4yanks

I would like to hear some feedback on these two theories:

a) When hitting the corners, do you believe the direction of the front foot should point to the location...

OR

b) Front foot plants on power line and adjust the arm to the location...

My dd has had two reputable instructors teach her differently...will the real pitching instructor please stand up

Appreciate the feedback,

Ang

kenkrause

I like having the landing foot cross the power line to go inside and go slightly glove side to go outside. Just an inch or two. Offset the power line slightly, then follow your body. It's not perceptible by the hitter but that slight offset helps head the pitch to the corners. It seems to me that's a lot easier than trying to adjust the arm or hand alone.

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Amy in AZ.

Adjust the foot and leave the hand/wrist alone.

ang4yanks

We believe it is more feasible to work the foot, so I appreciate the input. Ken thank you for the specifics. Early on in my dd's pitching it took some time to break her habit of the arm crossing the body after her release. The occasional bruising on her right thigh helped that along. It still pops its ugly head now and again. We have been evaluating some local instructors and this really helps.

Ang

fivepotsogold

I went to a Michele Smith clinic and she recommended not changing foot landing ... thumb to the outside, thumb to the inside of the plate.

I actually have not discussed tis with our pitching group or even asked my daughter what she was doing....just saw that she was hitting corners well..


Hmm...will have to ask her.

Kman

To me from baseball pitching times(when i was teen)"the ball go where the foot is".So it depend what kind of pitch you need to throw to "hit the corner".If i need allpower fastball inside or outside i use foot position,if i throw a four seams fastball that usually don't cut even to the ground,same foot placement to correct direction.But,if you're going to throw an outside-two seams-fastball that usually cut outside itself i keep foot on powerline cause ball+grip+wrist action does the job anyway.If you throw same two seams fastball using horseshoe grip that usually cut inside itself same story,you could keep foot on powerline,it all depend...This is my experience.

StacieM

I'd go with the foot. Everything else stays the same is going "down the middle" just now your target is a little to the left or right and you just go toward there instead of in the middle. I mean, when you throw overhand, you almost always set your feet toward your target. You wouldn't leave your feet off to the left of your target and then try to adjust your arm or wrist so that your ball will go right of where your feet are headed in order to hit the target. Ideally, you get your whole body moving in the direction you want to throw. I think it's simplest if you do this for pitching too...you can always do small things with your fingers/wrist on top of that to modify things a bit more if you're comfortable with it, but if we're just talking basic lateral change here, I go with the foot.

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bigdaddy

Add me to the "foot placement" group. I want my DD's mechanics as repeatable and consistent as possible.

I don't want her to have to adjust her upper to hit the outside corner THEN adjust again to throw a pitch two inches off the plate THEN adjust again to throw a pitch on the inside corner!!!!

Much easier to keep everything the same and land 1" or 2" off the power line.

Keith

kenkrause

One other way to see the effect a slight offset has is to run a tape measure from the center of the pitching rubber to one corner of the plate. It doesn't require a huge offset at the circle end to move the 8.5 inches needed to hit a corner.

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ArmWhip

This something that I examined once and decided that it didn't make sense. My rudimentary geometry skills showed that you would have to be extremely precise with your plant foot to make this idea work. With a 40 ft pitching rubber each degree would equal 8 inches, a plate is 17 inches wide, this means that you would have to be approximately 1 degree left to hit the outside corner or 1 degree right to hit the inside corner. If you have a 6 foot step or stride then this means that to hit the outside corner you would have to land 1.2 inches left of normal and visa versa for the inside corner. If you land 2 inches left or right you've missed the plate. I just don't think that it is possible to be that precise with the landing foot. Plus you have the mental side of it to consider. It seems almost impossible to me to focus on a target, one corner of the plate, and at the same time think about where you are going to place your foot. I believe it is best to focus on the target and if the foot plant moves a little left for outside or right for inside that is fine, to focus on the foot plant first and hope that this leads to hitting the appropriate corner..... I'm sceptical about this working.