Using the change up

Development aside, if a batter can't catch up to her fastball, I wouldn't call a change. I've rarely seen hitters who were over-matched make an adjustment to catch up during one at-bat. The change is a gift to those hitters. One of my favorite wins last season was against a pitcher with a dominant fastball. She'd given up nothing until late when she ran into a control issue and loaded the bases. She got the batter to two strikes with fastballs she swung through and then threw a change for her grand finale. Tie game after that and a momentum shift.

I'm probably reading too much into pitch selection from your initial comment. I know you mentioned throwing it early in the count, too. But using the change most frequently with two strikes is a pet peeve of mine. At your daughter's age, pitchers who have a change (or people calling pitches) seem to love to throw it with two strikes. I bet easily more than half the changes we saw at 12u were thrown with two strikes. The hitters know that tendency too. It's a pretty common strategy for a hitter take a more aggressive swing early the count and to shorten up and try to make contact with two strikes. Going to the change with two strikes can make it less effective because good hitters are more on their guard for it. (And a well located fastball would have handled the lesser hitter.) I agree throwing it out of the zone can keep hitters off balance, and, again, I'd do that early rather than late in an at bat.

The change up speeds and FB are too close imo. The girl with the best 12u change I've ever witnessed had FB around 44 and her change was like 28. Team getting ate up by the change usually get coached to keep their weight back. Eventually teams get wise to it. Keeping the ball within the fence is as always a plus. I watched her throw 12 CU's consecutively in an inning and struck out the side. Of course it was executed perfectly.

Ksphenom said:

The change up speeds and FB are too close imo. The girl with the best 12u change I've ever witnessed had FB around 44 and her change was like 28.

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Just pointing out that 51/35 is an identical speed shift to 44/28.

Keep in mind the goal of change up is to fool a batter. I love nothing more that a change up that results in weak pop up or dribbler to 2nd base. Many pitchers parents are obsessed with strike outs.. the job of a pitcher is to get outs

shaker1 said:

I noticed with our bunch over the past few years, a flip is pretty common in 9-12, and very effictive. You'll see alot of bad swings, coaches, kids, and the parents love it. But as the hitters advance, the flip becomes less effective, they reload and usually hit it hard. And if it's a pitch that hitters are seeing every at bat, usually for the K, they just wait on it, especially if the pitcher has some heat. I never understood why a coach would throw a change to a batter that couldn't catch up to the fastball. If you can place it, keep it low or off the plate. Teams need to know you have it, but not every batter needs to see it. Not to say the flip isn't a good pitch for older kids, I just see more of a circle or horse shoe change these days.

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Out of curiosity, how do they reload and hit a flip change any differently than they would a circle change or other if the flip is coming in at the same speed differential as a different change?

I am not sure either, seems like the flip takes a lot of maintenance to be an effective pitch.

The flip is easier for the batters to pick up since the hand has to turn over and it tends to rainbow from what I've seen. DD threw a flip in the 10s but switched to more of a horseshoe and she keeps it down or it gets hit hard, this is 14u and the hitters are good

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I think most things have been covered:

- I have never understood throwing a change if they can't hit the FB...if I have a pitch I know they can't hit why am I pitching something else
- She should not be throwing for a strike for the most part but that is usually because it drops out of the zone not because it is off the plate
- She does need to keep working on this pitch but it should mostly be for those 3-6 batters that are starting to foul off her FB or hit it hard just at the fielders
- Finally get some game footage and watch really closely my guess is at this age she probably has a tell of some kind...I thought kids at this age did not really pick up on things like this but you would be surprised

Annesdad said:

Out of curiosity, how do they reload and hit a flip change any differently than they would a circle change or other if the flip is coming in at the same speed differential as a different change?

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Spin and maybe delivery. In our case it was both. Not sure about speed part.

Annesdad said:

My question after all that info that may or may not have been helpful is this: Because most of the batters she is facing are overmatched by her speed, is there even a need to use the CU other than to help her develop it. Are we helping the batters that swing way too late, or don't swing at all when she throws it now?

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I used to hate seeing a CU on an 0-2 get hit after whiffing on two FB’s. The reasoning was like everyone else that slowing down the pitch was allowing the hitters to catch up to it. This was completely false. The problem was the CU gets hit when it’s a bad pitch that hangs over the plate. Your post described my DD to a tee. Hitters were so worried about the speed it didn’t matter what she threw or where she put it. Why waste time with all that other stuff when she can just throw hard and strike everyone out? Everything came to a head in college. They aren’t the least bit intimidated by speed and Freshman year was U-G-L-Y. Last year was better, but she’s still missing a great CU.

Re: the speed, don’t go by a specific mph beneath her FB. The more important things are making it look exactly like her other pitchers and locating it where the hitter can’t reach it and close enough to get a called strike. Surprisingly there aren’t many pitchers even at D1 who can do that. Start now and let her master the CU and she can truly become an elite pitcher. If I could go back I’d have DD work on her CU more than any other pitch.