13U self-taught pitcher - please critique

[4green]

New pitcher for review.
I started working with her last week.
She is self-taught.
please critique

 

[Rolling Hard]

I'll take her on my team. Somebody will say something about FSR.

 

[BigSkyHi]

Exceptional!

 

[sluggers]

Looks good for upper body motion. Really needs work on FSR (Front side resistance.)

I would show her a video of any good D1 pitcher and ask her how many steps the pitcher takes after release. Then, I would show her a video of herself.

Then, do walk-throughs where she comes to a full stop after release. Work on getting her now to move forward after release.

 

[ArmWhip]

Obviously a very athletic girl with great potential but she has issues which will limit her development. I recently picked up a student with a remarkably similar motion and it's been slow going making any changes. Self taught pitchers often have mechanics like this, an overly long stride, too much hip rotation with excessive forward lean which causes them to override any front leg resistance. Basically they rush the plate with a big arm circle and a long follow through, ending in a step or two toward the plate. She has a good amount of IR so her arm action doesn't need any work. What catches my eye is the push off leg trailing behind with the foot rotated back toward the rubber indicating excessive hip rotation, this keeps her from getting back to a stacked posture and if you're not stacked you can't utilize front side resistance as a fulcrum. It's possible that her lower half mechanical flaws are the result of an intention to leap as far off the rubber as possible. Fixing this is difficult because she's going to feel like she's dialing back her velocity, which she is but only temporarily. I would cut her stride way back, have her do what I call 'mini leaps' with a jump back after landing. A pitcher needs to go from leaning forward at launch to leaning back at landing. Good luck this is a tough one to fix.

 

[BigSkyHi]

​

Yukiko Ueno finish to reach a fielding position rather than falling back is intriguing to me.

 

[DNeeld]

What catches my eye is the push off leg trailing behind with the foot rotated back toward the rubber indicating excessive hip rotation, this keeps her from getting back to a stacked posture and if you're not stacked you can't utilize front side resistance as a fulcrum.

Just to emphasize what @ArmWhip is correctly pointing out. Here is a snapshot of her position. This looks pretty good:


The problem is that image is actually a mirror image of her actual drive:



She needs to fight to keep that back knee pointed towards the catcher as much as possible.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Just to emphasize what @ArmWhip is correctly pointing out. Here is a snapshot of her position. This looks pretty good:
View attachment 27878

The problem is that image is actually a mirror image of her actual drive:

View attachment 27879

She needs to fight to keep that back knee pointed towards the catcher as much as possible.

And those still shots show a clear leap. Still, not bad for a self-taught girl.

 

[_MIA_]

And those still shots show a clear leap.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I know it's been posted many times on this forum, but this video by Amanda Scarborough is such a great depiction of clean mechanics.