9 year Old Pitcher

[Eric F]

This is the statement that makes me doubt this whole thread. a 5'10" 9 year old girl that throws 50? "a lot of 10 year old pitchers in tourneys that throw 50-52 with great consistency?" Either this is complete BS or someone is using the metric system accidentally. I don't doubt that there is the occasional phenom out there that is throwing mid 40s at 9, but this whole thing just screams troll/BS to me.

The #1 pitcher from Los Alamitos 8U All-Stars was throwing 48-50 (on radar, 10" ball @ 30') last Summer. We saw a couple other 8U pitchers during the All-Star season that were not far behind. Those girls are out there.

At the 10U pitcher evals for our league last weekend, we had a 9yo and a 10yo each hit 44 (on radar), with others at 42-43. These girls will get faster as we head into the Spring season.

I do agree that using a stopwatch to calculate velocity is prone to a LOT of error.

 

[JJsqueeze]

I'm not saying they aren't out there, I am saying they are rare. low 40s at 10U is not rare at all, it is average. Mid 40s is good, high 40s touching 50 is rare. As for the 8U pitcher in all stars throwing 48-50, I'll say it is possible, but I have never seen it and I have seen a lot of pitchers at that age so I will say it is really really rare.


The 5'10" 9 year old throwing 50 is the thing I call BS on and the statement that there are a lot of girls at 10U throwing low 50s is BS.

 

[Madsdad]

Don't think that it is entirely impossible, even knew a young lady who at age 12 was 6' and threw low to mid 50s. Now at 17 is 6' 2" and does not pitch much.
What I do see a lot at young ages are girls that are strong and can throw hard for whatever reason. Some will change mechanics, slow down only to come back stronger and healthier. Others stay the same and never get better. We have even seen the clip of one of our banded friends students with what look like awful mechanics throwing pretty darn hard.
To answer the original question, if she can throw that hard, teach her to throw slow. Change up, change up, change up.

 

[jlob]

This is the statement that makes me doubt this whole thread. a 5'10" 9 year old girl that throws 50? "a lot of 10 year old pitchers in tourneys that throw 50-52 with great consistency?" Either this is complete BS or someone is using the metric system accidentally. I don't doubt that there is the occasional phenom out there that is throwing mid 40s at 9, but this whole thing just screams troll/BS to me.

I have personally seen this girl on several occasions and my daughter has played against her since 6U ball and she has always been rather tall girl for her age. If you look at the USFA website she was on the team that won the 8u national championship last season and now that same team has stayed together in 10U. I guess it goes with territory because we play alot of the Houston, tx area and there are a few teams who have girls that throw really hard (high 40's to low 50's). Like I had stated earlier my daughter does not throw that hard all the time she may only get 1 out of 10 pitches to that speed but she does throw 35 to 41 very consistent. My daughter is not a really big girl but she is stout, really strong and athletic. She plays soccer, basketball, gymnastics as well and is very good at all them. I really credit gymnastics for alot of her strength cause thats when I started to notice a jump in the rest of her sports. Im not trying to make you believe me and we are all entiltled to our opionions and that what I asked for so I do appreciate all the input thus far. We start seeing a new coach next week so we will see where this leads.

 

[jlob]

How many strikes? My 8U team, our pitching coach is focused on form/technique. I don't know or really care how fast they are pitching...I do know out of 7 girls I have 3 pitching over 50% strikes (2 have been over 60% strikes every week this month). I have complete confidence in our pitching coach she is teaching the correct form/technique to get the max speed out of each girl.

She has put in alot of work and we try to pick up the ball everyday and throw for at least 30 min. but we try to go an hour when we can. I think she probbaly throws 60% to 70% strikes but there are some days when she is just not feeling it. The good thing about her is I dont have to force her to practice, she comes to me 80% of the time to go practice. I plan on getting some video fottage at our next tournament so I will post soon.

 

[softball88]

She has put in alot of work and we try to pick up the ball everyday and throw for at least 30 min. but we try to go an hour when we can. I think she probbaly throws 60% to 70% strikes but there are some days when she is just not feeling it. The good thing about her is I dont have to force her to practice, she comes to me 80% of the time to go practice. I plan on getting some video fottage at our next tournament so I will post soon.

60-70% strikes is awesome. My oldest daughter was similar, threw hard, threw strikes and always wanted to practice. DD was in 10 and 11U we played 2 teams, each had a girls over 6ft. At 11U one of the teams had a girl that was 6-2 and our shortest girl was 4-2. We took a picture of the girls standing together after the game. I will look for the picture.....

 

[bucket pinata]

This is why I always shy away from pitch speed discussions, cause the next thing you know your dealing with 6+foot ten year olds and 6'2 11 year olds. Not doubting it but wow, just wow.

 

[JJsqueeze]

I have personally seen this girl on several occasions and my daughter has played against her since 6U ball and she has always been rather tall girl for her age. If you look at the USFA website she was on the team that won the 8u national championship last season and now that same team has stayed together in 10U. I guess it goes with territory because we play alot of the Houston, tx area and there are a few teams who have girls that throw really hard (high 40's to low 50's). Like I had stated earlier my daughter does not throw that hard all the time she may only get 1 out of 10 pitches to that speed but she does throw 35 to 41 very consistent. My daughter is not a really big girl but she is stout, really strong and athletic. She plays soccer, basketball, gymnastics as well and is very good at all them. I really credit gymnastics for alot of her strength cause thats when I started to notice a jump in the rest of her sports. Im not trying to make you believe me and we are all entiltled to our opionions and that what I asked for so I do appreciate all the input thus far. We start seeing a new coach next week so we will see where this leads.

that's just the thing....a girl that tall at 9 is not "rather tall"...she is "holy cow that girl is tall....tall". She is "here is a news story from a local paper showing her dunking over Dwight Howard tall", she is Guiness book of world records tall, even in Texas this is tall. And a few posts ago it was "a lot of teams", now it is "a few". The OP was "DD throws 43-46 consistently with a few 35-38" now it is 35-41 with a 1 in 10 at 46. You backpeddaled so much that you are going to have to play the next season in Louisiana.

 

[lhowser]

Forget about the speed debate for a minute. Let's hope jlob and RAZORWEASEL post a video before we scare them off. I would like to see the players mechanics. The young ones and also the 13 y/o throwing near 60. We might see some natural IR working there of other stuff that will help us all.

Regarding the PC worrying about you DD losing her unique natural spins...don't work to much about that. Think about how big a 9 year old's hand is, how weak their fingers are and how undeveloped their wrist and forearm is. Be assured the spins she has on her fastball will change over the years no matter what through the process of growing.

It is fun and useful for 8y/o and 9y/o to mess with change-ups. The nice part is they get the confidence most and joy of crown feedback when it works and they start to learn the value of mixing pitches. Go for it but make sure you get plenty of reps before and after on the fastball.

 

[JJsqueeze]

jlob and RazorWeasel-

don't be scared off!! just come correct....this is the best place for any father of a pitcher to get/share information. You can always count on getting the good, the bad and the ugly truth here.