Velocity or Accuracy?

This is exactly what is going on with my daughter. It's a challenge to say the least and it has my daughter all crossed up and not trusting herself or her mechanics. Working all week throwing within herself, but with velocity as she builds accuracy is hard work.... especially, when her TB coach message on the weekend is to, stop trying to strike everyone out, slow down, throw strikes and just get ground ball and fly ball outs.

My daughter is not a pitcher that can easily "come off" her pitch and "just throw strikes". I know some pitchers (especially "steppers") that are able to adjust velocity to increase accuracy but my daughter isn't one of them. She's a elevated/driving pitcher that uses everything she has in her lower and upper half to generate velocity. Trying to "just throw strikes" leads to her lower and upper half being out of sync and location accuracy actually decreases. Explaining this phenomenon to her TB coach took a while but I think he is figuring it out. Through experience he's now seen that her accuracy doesn't get any better when she "comes off" her pitch AND he loses the potential KO's from when she throws hard. When we started with this team she dominated games with her velocity but also, walked a few batters along the way. As he became more involved with giving her direction she "came off" her pitch, continued to walk the same (if not more), Ko's went down and she began to get hit HARD. This led to her confidence plummeting and we all know confidence is everything for a pitcher. Finally, this last weekend he went to her at the beginning of the tourney and said to her that he needed her to get back to what she was doing when they started together. He actually asked, what as a coach did he need to do to get her back to that form. That's all she needed to hear and she went out and dominated and threw hard over the weekend.

My $.02 is to play the way that you practice. Changing things on game days to make a coach/parent/etc. happy typically isn't a road to success.

Chicken and egg kind of question DD is 11. AT 10, Took lessons from organizational PC and was learning HE. Started with a former D1 college player and pitching coach after a couple of months of HE. She learned and taught IR. Throw hard every pitch and get the mechanics correct throwing hard. Did not want dd thinking about strikes for the 1st month we went to lessons. Get form better. Pitches off the backstop were praised if the form was good. Her plan was that form had to be correct and consistent. Then the misses would get consistent. Corrections couldn't be made if everything else wasn't consistent. Cant learn to control when throwing hard if you dont throw hard all the time. Very frustrating at times. DD was #2 for last 2 seasons. Her control has gotten better than the 1 as well as getting much faster, but has still not caught her in speed. Other girl is bigger and stronger so far. As we know speed is king. #1 gets more opportunities because she can get strikeouts to get her out of innings. As the defense gets better, control may win out. With no control, you cant get innings. PC said practice fast as you can, get the mechanics down, and control will come. Funny thing with DD is that when we pull out the radar and she throws all out, her control improves because her timing is better. Yet in games, she slows down when she needs a strike.

Stutz said:

Neither have been jerks about it. They just have different philosophies and I am uncertain about what advice to provide. The PC says, "I would rather have a HS pitcher (Junior or Senior) come to me and say I throw 60+, but I need help with mechanics rather than a player who says, my mechanics are great, but I only throw low 50's".

I refer to DD as Ebby Calvin LaLoosh when she is trying to throw hard. Everything is a full count and her strikeout to walk ratio is not what you would like to see. But, then she has games where she settles in ("cruising speed") and has a very solid outing (especially in regards to Strikeout to walk ratio). Just torn at this point. I have told her to get through the next few weeks and then we will spend some time working on drive mechanics and arm strength. Hopefully, the two (speed and accuracy) will merge at some point.

Thanks for the input.

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This is what the 12Year old is hearing from her Team: I must throw strikes. If she is like the majority of 10 and 12s that I see, she is slowing down to ensure she throws strikes. Yes, her mechanics should be good enough to allow her to throw strikes at will but she is still 12 and in her mind, she probably thinks she needs to be more careful with her mechanics, which leads to slower arm speed. I'd have the team coach tell your daughter she will throw more strikes if she trusts her mechanics, which includes faster armspeed.

Strikes are not a goal. Strikes are a result. If you use good mechanics, as others have said, the ball will go where it's supposed to.

It's no different than dropping the ball. If you let go of the ball it will fall because, well, gravity. Mechanical forces act on it and it goes where those forces tell it to. So when you're pitching, if you're using good, clean mechanics the ball will go where those mechanics propel it.

The trouble is a lot of people separate strikes from mechanics. They apparently think you have to do something different to throw strikes than to throw hard. You don't. You just have to use the right mechanics WHILE you're throwing hard. That's the challenge, especially for younger players who maybe don't have full control of their bodies yet. Control of the body starts in the center and works its way outward, as in out to the arms and legs.

Believe me, I've watched enough games to know if you throw strikes but you don't throw them very hard sooner or later you're going to get pummeled. Get pummeled often enough and the result will be the same as if you can't throw strikes.

The two are not separate. You want to throw hard so you learn to throw hard, especially in a game. If you just lay back in games you'll never be able to bring it. I've seen that happen too.

OP, you and your PC are taking the long-term view. That's good. Just understand that the team coach has a short-term view - this inning, this game, this season. There may be zero benefit to him if your daughter becomes a great pitcher two years from now because she's moved on. So you may end up with fewer innings now as she continues to develop. That's ok. Develop the right way, for the long term, and she'll still be pitching in a few years when the slow but accurate girls are playing other positions behind her.

grcsftbll said:

I've got a 2nd year 10U pitcher. I tend to favor location and movement over velocity because DD hits her spots and has great movement for 35 feet. Probably if she were throwing 55 down the middle all the time, I'd say speed is more important. lol. Really though I think at younger ages precision is under-valued, because only the really good hitters can catch up to the speed. The girls throwing faster than average tend to dominate in 10U anyway. But eventually that changes and the girls who have mostly been focused on speed are getting clobbered. Plus there is the fact that coaches can't be expected to give a girl circle time if she can't get the ball across the plate. Too many walks aren't fun for anybody.

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The girls that dominate in 10U with mid-50's speed down the middle get crushed in 12U when they have to throw the 12" ball from 40...and their parents lose their minds.

It drives me crazy that so many people approach this as an either/or proposition. Focus on proper mechanics and quality practice time and, surprisingly, she will throw will throw with both accuracy and velocity. There isn't one you focus on over the other to start out. Work them both at the same time.

The either/or mentality comes from coaches incorrectly believing a girl with little or no control needs to "slow down and throw strikes" while the real answer 99% of the time is the lack of control is either caused by a lack of focused practice or a lack of some fundamental technique. My DD the entire year she was in 10U never once outside of a game threw 35 feet or to a catcher. She threw into a tarp about 15-20 feet away focused on nothing but proper mechanics. When we moved up to 12U, we started throwing to a catcher, playing "hit the glove", over and over and over.

If a coach is focused on throwing strikes, that coach is lost when it comes to pitching. One of my 12U pitchers looked at me like I was insane the other day. She's been getting hit hard recently and asked me why. I told her she was throwing too many strikes and was too afraid to throw balls. This meant she was working the middle of the plate and not trying to work the corners.

DNeeld said:

If a coach is focused on throwing strikes, that coach is lost when it comes to pitching.

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But if you can't throw strikes you are not a pitcher. I don't care how hard you can hit the backstop.

Eric F said:

The girls that dominate in 10U with mid-50's speed down the middle get crushed in 12U when they have to throw the 12" ball from 40...and their parents lose their minds.

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This is absolutely true. I know of 3 girls that were beasts in 10U but when they went to 12U, those balls needed a passport for how far they were traveling.

DNeeld said:

If a coach is focused on throwing strikes, that coach is lost when it comes to pitching. One of my 12U pitchers looked at me like I was insane the other day. She's been getting hit hard recently and asked me why. I told her she was throwing too many strikes and was too afraid to throw balls. This meant she was working the middle of the plate and not trying to work the corners.

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For a pitcher with good control, a lot of strikes can be had on pitches outside of the strike zone. Not only strikes, but weak balls in play that are easy outs.

My dd throws around 35mph 10u. Speed never changes much. She looks pretty
Fast at the rec games. Coach has told her to just play "catch" with the catcher a few times.
I told him that I've told my daughter to throw harder when he says that.
She pitches a lot. Getting more strikes every game.
Keep throwing hard!