Success with Barnhill “style”

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Sep 28, 2015
150
18
This is part rant and part curiosity for what others are seeing at the different ages or regions.

This year I have been watching 12uA tournaments with many of them being larger tourneys with teams from the surrounding states. The competition has been good and seeing all of these pitchers up till now all of them have been legal (yes, some kids get a little air on their drive).

This weekend was the first Barnhill style pitcher that I have seen this year. After one pitch it was obvious that this looked really different in a lot of ways.
1) It was arms up instead of out.
2) Fill in the hole in front of the rubber with dirt after every pitch (how ya supposed to replant in a hole!).
3) Completely intentional with care to not jump too high except when she needed a SO pitch or jump to the glove side, replant and throw it back in for the screwball.
4) Below average speed when trying to stay legal, 3-5 mph more with some good air and replant.
5) The varying delay in delivering the pitch with the different height of the hop and replant is a huge advantage. Add in an occasional slow arm CU in there and 12 yr olds have no clue how to swing.

This was a nice tourney with good umpires and I was disappointed that nothing was ever said, not even a warning. These umps see hundreds of pitchers a year and they didn’t notice or they didn’t care to fight that battle with the coaches/parents?

How often do you coaches run across this and have you had any luck in getting umpires to call it? Were these pitchers successful or could your teams hit against them?
Are these pitchers lauded or dismissed at the higher levels of TB?

RANT OVER


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Last edited:
Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
What many fail to understand is that Barnhill is successful in spite of her mechanics, not because of them. Were it not for her exceptional skills she would be just another illegal pitcher. For most, the emulation of what she does physically is a path to nowhere. Barnhill has also provided a perfect example that there is much more to pitching than mechanics. She is headed into her Senior year with a huge monkey on her back with regard to her mental game, which despite her earlier success was a train wreck at the end of the season when it really counted. Young pitchers should be encouraged to emulate the best of the best, not someone who is a huge outlier from the norm.
 
Feb 7, 2013
3,188
48
This was a nice tourney with good umpires and I was disappointed that nothing was ever said, not even a warning. These umps see hundreds of pitchers a year and they didn’t notice or they didn’t care to fight that battle with the coaches/parents?

How often do you coaches run across this and have you had any luck in getting umpires to call it?
Were these pitchers successful or could your teams hit against them?
Are these pitchers lauded or dismissed at the higher levels?

RANT OVER


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

These pitchers are successful IN SPITE OF their mechanics, not because of them. There is so much poor instruction out there that young pitchers develop poor mechanics and continue to ingrain these bad mechanics over the years which are hard to correct later on in their pitching career. I even had one dad tell me he thought "leap and drag" meant you can leap off the ground lol.

In addition, no umpire will consistently call illegal mechanics as they don't have the manpower to police the offenders nor do they want the game to slow to a crawl. I always said, if you wanted to stop illegal pitching then you hire a "pitching umpire" for every game just to watch the pitchers mechanics. Anything short of that, and you will at best have inconsistent enforcement, if any at all. I have seen hundreds of softball games for the past decade and the vast majority of games have only 1 umpire (even in HS, DD's league only has 1 umpire until playoffs) and they just don't have the ability to watch for illegal pitching, while watching the baserunners, calling balls and strikes, watching the batter in the box, etc. even if they know the pitching rules which I think most don't fully understand them.

If I was you, I wouldn't get too bent out of shape as most illegal pitchers are not gaining an advantage with their poor mechanics and I think you will see the women's rules conform with the international rules of pitching in the near future. 5 years from now, we will be discussing pitchers not staying in the 24 inch lane, not whether or not they are dragging their stride foot along the ground....
 
Jan 30, 2018
252
0
SE Michigan
I find it interesting that girls can change pitching coaches and styles completely be successful but people treat Barnhill almost like she is a victim and it is too late for her to learn proper mechanics. Also when talking about a 3-5 mph difference between when cheating and when not is "gaining and advantage".
 
Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
I find it interesting that girls can change pitching coaches and styles completely be successful but people treat Barnhill almost like she is a victim and it is too late for her to learn proper mechanics. Also when talking about a 3-5 mph difference between when cheating and when not is "gaining and advantage".

Most pitchers work very hard to gain 3-5 mph, others not so much. Is this any different than what you see in your professional life? There are those that are flexible, who can adapt to changing conditions and excel. Then there are those that are rigid, fear change and make excuses. Although Barnhill has unquestionably had a great softball career I have to wonder if she has learned the life lessons from the experience. I guess only time will tell.
 

marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
I find it interesting that girls can change pitching coaches and styles completely be successful but people treat Barnhill almost like she is a victim and it is too late for her to learn proper mechanics. Also when talking about a 3-5 mph difference between when cheating and when not is "gaining and advantage".

In many ways of course she is a victim. It is the adult enablers that made the decisions they made when she was younger and continued to make those decisions as she moved through the age groups. Even now it is not all on her - there are plenty of enablers still out there still enabling away. I am not going to blame some 12 year old for being taught to be illegal - that isn't on her.

At the core of the enablers is the ABC orgs who have refused to address this within the rule sets and often actively enabled others. At least he NCAA addressed the penalty part and outside of power televised playoffs, it was called a lot more in lower D1, D2 & D3 this season.


And as for the OP on what can you do... when you are facing one... Well that is easy if you believe it is worth the effort

1) Be DAMN sure your pitcher is legal.
2) Harass the hell out of the umpire. Every pitch. "Well that was a lot of airtime", "I didn't fly that far on my last vacation to Europe", "Is there a height she has to be off the ground before you call that", "she only got out 3 feet that time' and so on. Nickname her 'The Kangaroo'. Go stare at her drag marks between innings... Be creative.
3) At some point the umpire will either a) Call it or b) Tells you to knock it off.

a) Results in opposing coach flying out of his dugout crying and whining about the umpire being influenced by you and you can tell him straight out that he knows she is illegal and to teach her to be legal. Fun times. He will claim they are 'trying to fix it', you will say 'don't pitch her until she does then' or 'how many more seasons will you need to do that' and so on...

b) Gives you the opportunity to tell the umpire you will quit when he starts calling it. That is also an interesting discussion. If he says he sees it, but he isn't calling it, ask what other rules are not being called today. You get to call the UIC over and have another interesting discussion. Other coach will want to stick his cheating butt into the conversation and you can tell him to mind his own business... Fun times again.

You decide how far you want to go...

And yes I have done this. Third season against a pitcher who was truly blatant and had been since we first ran into her. I was in a foul mood the first time already. I have never had any respect for the opposing coach and that certainly didn't change that day.

Nothings much has changed today - the girl is still leaping, the coach is still an a$$ - the only difference is that we tee off her these days on the rare times we see her, so I care less. She really isn't much competition for us these days to be honest.

It may have been a little petty, but hey, at least I am not a blatant cheater.
 
May 16, 2016
1,024
113
Illinois
I have seen one girl so far this season that leaps and replants like Barnhill. Solid pitcher on a not so good team. My dd's team has beat her both times they have faced her. If her defense could help her out a little bit their team would do much better. I don't coach team so I don't involve myself in the situation.
 
Jun 1, 2013
847
18
I actually see this quite often. I saw something curious this weekend too, something that I had to bring up. So I walked over to the fence and spoke with ump in-between innings. (DD was picking up with a team that wasn't even playing at the time so it was pure curiosity). They had wet the pitcher circle down real good in between games and everytime this pitcher replanted she kicked dirt at 90 degree angle from the power line. The dirt was a different color because it was wet and dark and you could clearly see she was digging in and throwing dirt up to 5' outside of the circle. There is no logical reason for that to happen with correct pitching mechanics.
I thought I had the ump in a position where he would have to acknowledge the replant. He saw the dirt, he saw the replant, and yet he still refused to call anything. I watched the entire game and this pitcher did it everytime and nothing was called. They simply refuse to call it when they know it is happening. This was an 18u tournament.
The thing I see with all these pitchers that throw that way is that they dominate 12u-14u but (unless they are special athletes) they stall out and rarely throw above 60 and usually cruise around 57. There is a pitching coach close by (within a mile) and even though he doesn't specifically teach this, a lot of his girls do it with no correction from him. I have seen a ton of those girls and have clocked a big majority of them. Sometimes athletes do well inspite of their mechanics, most of the time athletes fail to reach their potential because of their mechanics. This guy is a "hello elbow" instructor. I have never seen an IR pitcher with a replant
 
Jan 28, 2017
1,661
83
This week saw a replant, crow hop, both feet not on the rubber, step with the back foot, and what was called not presenting the ball and a towel violation. The team the violations were called on was the worst team in the tournament. Drives me crazy!
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
what was called not presenting the ball and a towel violation.

I laugh at what these ups think is important. A towel violation. Thank goodness THAT lawlessness didn’t continue. And when pitchers don’t present the ball, people get hurt, lol.

Every *&$&#@ game last weekend the umps wasted time earnestly shaking bats, sliding hands up and down the bat and pulling on face masks. Not one of them even looked at the shark tooth cracks on one of the bats.
 

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