- 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
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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