11yo pitching

[ddose]

Hi,

Here is a video of my 11 yo DD. We are in between pitching coaches and just bought the Building the House video as a tool to help us evaluate new coaches and keep her moving forward. Her old coach was pretty much on board with what Hillhouse teaches. The last thing we worked on with the old coach is more explosion with the legs and getting the stride leg higher. From the video we tried having her think of striding over an obstacle (even put a ball down on the power line). That seemed to help a bit. Thanks for any input.

carrie pitching jan 2012_0001.wmv - YouTube

 

[tojo]

A very strong looking 11 yr.old pitcher. Is the 1st PC not available any longer? From what I can tell she is on the right track.

 

[ddose]

No, she is cutting back to a couple of high schoolers because of family obligations. We really miss her.

 

[Jojo]

ddose, aside from kick out drills, I use a dish towel on the ground to stride over. It's a little more safer.

 

[tojo]

Has she recommended someone to contact for future instruction? I hope you find an instructor who will continue down the same path.

 

[ddose]

We have a couple of leads, but we will have to evaluate them. Her TB coach was a D1 PC and coached our old PC, but he's overbooked if anything. They will start pitcher and catcher practices next week, so she'll get a bit of instruction then. We can also probably get with a D1 pitcher in June when she is back from college as well if nothing else turns up.

 

[ddose]

I forgot ask about her flip change. She tends to finish high, shouldn't she finish more out in front? She generally throws it pretty well when she remembers to "think fastball" when throwing it. We are still working on locating it, she's a ways behind the fastball when hitting corners. Thanks.

Carrie pitching changeups - YouTube

 

[MandM]

I think she looks really well for 11 and I bet she has good speed. If the flip change is not working for her- why not try a circle change? That has worked well for my daughter. One thing I noticed is she starts with her "push off" foot heel to the rubber, which I know Bill recommends- what can happen as she pushes off though- is that as the heel lifts, her foot will no longer be in contact with the rubber at the beginning of the pitch. I have seen this called illegal, its a small correction for her now, but she may be better off pushing directly off the rubber with the ball of her foot.

 

[tojo]

ddose, I am going to assume that her speed varies from change to change. She forces the follow through and she does start lifting the pitch a couple of times in the video. You notice the changes that were thrown that stayed down were released in front of the hip, but the ones that went high were from the elbow bending prematurely at the hip as she forced a follow through. Have her concentrate on flipping the ball out towards her target and let the follow through be a result of the pitch and not part of the pitch. Hopes this helps.

 

[ddose]

Thanks for that suggestion tojo. We will try it the next time we go out. I remember my dd's old pitching coach saying something about flicking the catcher's nose when throwing a flip change.