pitcher mechanics

This girl is 12 yrs old and avg 52,53,54 mph she has a great change up but struggles with her control from time to time. When she misses its usually low and in the dirt. What do you guys think?

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First, tell her that she won't get beaten if she doesn't finish with her hand next to her shoulder with the palm facing 2B. Someone told her to do this and she does it religiously every pitch. She does the internal rotation correctly, and then pulls her hand up and flips her palm around.

Second, you can tell she is starting to mature. Her body is going to be changing rapidly. She is going to be inconsistent until her body stops changing. So, her daddy needs to take a deep breath and relax.

Other than that:

1) She throws her glove off to the left a little during her pitch. It is not too bad, but in a perfect world the glove would point at the target.
2) She hurries too much at the beginning of the pitch. She needs to practice the mental part of pitching just like in a game. Notice that her breathing is off. She should (a) present the ball, (b) take a deep breath and (c) start the pitch.
3) She needs to start working on hiding the ball. She drops her glove hand to her left at the beginning of the pitch. She should cover the ball with her glove when she brings it down. At 14U and in HS, the batters will know if she is throwing a change.
4) As to control, her practice session should consist of speed work and control work. What is she doing to work on control?

Dan

It would appear is pitching around her hip instead of past it. The ball and the hip are closed or close to it at release. Does she throw inside a lot and low? In the back view clip notice that her hand wraps around her back side. Not a lot but just enough that she has to bring it back around to start the windmill. That could be throwing the windmill off and could be the reason sluggers saw the glove hand off to the left. She might be compensating by turning the shoulders.

The other aspect I dont like is the arm snapping up as mentioned by sluggers.

Dana

ifubuildit said:

It would appear is pitching around her hip instead of past it. The ball and the hip are closed or close to it at release. Does she throw inside a lot and low? In the back view clip notice that her hand wraps around her back side. Not a lot but just enough that she has to bring it back around to start the windmill. That could be throwing the windmill off and could be the reason sluggers saw the glove hand off to the left. She might be compensating by turning the shoulders.

The other aspect I dont like is the arm snapping up as mentioned by sluggers.

Dana

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Could some of this be because she is striding over the powerline? Watch her foot position from behind.

On another hand I really think there is a large group of people that need to get their guns calibrated, there seems to be loads of 12's throwing in the middle 50's.

Jeff

Could be, but now that I have gone back and looked at it again she has a couple of things here that could be causing inconsistent delivery to the target. She swims that glove more than I thought. That is what sluggers was talking about I think. I missed that from the rear view the first time. That in itself will cause her to open the shoulders and throw to the outside.

I am not sure what kind of pitch she is throwing in these vids. A couple looked like screwballs and not fastballs. Some coaches teach to stride to the left big time on the screw ball. That doesnt appear to be what she is doing but the arm and wrist motion almost appear to be a screw release.

All pitches in the videos were fastballs. When she is struggling she misses low and inside most of the time in the dirt.

Dan

That would be a prime indicator that she is pitching around her hip as I saw in the video. She needs to keep her front shoulder, hip, and leg pointing at her target (Catcher) until after release.

This happens sometimes because coaches put too much emphasis on bringing the hip around to get into a fielding position. So the pitcher in an attempt to do what they are being taught ends up closing the hip too soon. Been there and done that in my early years. Learned the hard way.

I like to use the perfect circle training device on the front of the leg and tell them to slap the flap as they come through with the ball. Take the DVD and throw it away. Its useless as a good friend of mine would say. They show it being used on the side of the leg which promotes pitching around the hip.

Never a good teach. She needs to learn to open up and stay open until the hand passes the back leg at release.

Dana.

Dan,

Fix the rear leg action. It goes out but never comes back in (well is does, but too late to matter).

The knee turning back in sooner will put the hips in a better position for the arm to deliver the ball.

By the time the foot is down the rear knee should be on its way to pointing forward again. Just like a good overhand throw.

Leaving the rear leg behind like she does absolutely effects speed as well.

She resembles Cat a little in her leap, but Cat agressively rotates the knee back in.

Hope this helps.

Ray

One thing that is causing her location to be off IMO is her plant foot lands at almost 90degrees in most of the video, On one of them she toe touches at 90 and heal plants at around 45. In the second video she doesn't rotate to 45 at all and it caused her to fall to her right. When a pitcher lands at more than 45 degrees her hips really have a hard time closeing properly which in turn if they are taught to throw from the hip, they will bring the arm in causing the swing plane to be off. It doesn't take much to change a swing plane but the results are pretty significant. Also, with no proper hit follow through I doubt she is in the mid 50's unless she has Popeye forearms.

Side note, that is a weird follow through, I guess she can disguise her drops with that follow through.

If she is trying to throw an outside pitcht assuming a right handed hitter, with that huge step over of the power line, she will miss that location alot. her swing plane dramatically changes when that happens. The power line should be no more than 3 inches off of center for inside and outside, also assuming pitcher starts drive leg in center of mound.

Along with what the other posters described that's all I seed. And so you know my points are my opinion and not gospel. I could be way off, so please feel free to ding me.