I'll leave "young pitchers" fairly vague in definition although my dd's are 10 and 12. The younger one is strictly a fastball/changeup pitcher and the older one has a drop and her pitching coach is just starting to teach her the riseball.
I have some biases about how to teach my kids to throw inside/outside breaking pitches, but I'd like to hear what more experienced pitching coaches have to say about it. My question boils down to whether it's better to teach kids to acheive break, inside or outside, by manipulating their wrist as well as their fingers or keeping the wrist release the same and manipulating release off the fingers.
Based on my limited experience I'd say it's probably better to focus on the fingers and keep the wrist snap consistent. I help coach my younger dd's team and early on in the fall season I heard the pitchers talking about how one kid had four or five different pitches. A few practices later I ended up catching for her and it looked to me like she used three different wrist releases to acheive three different fastballs, topspin, bullet spin and reverse bullet spin. The kid was a good pitcher with a nice topspin fastball and changeup but I couldn't help but think that the curve and screw she was throwing were not helping her at all.
I suppose the drawback to emphasizing a breaking ball spin by manipulating the inside or outside fingers is that there would likely be less break and a young pitcher may not have the finger strength to acheive any significant break at all. At least they be less likely to lose their fastball and drop trying to throw a breaking pitch this way though.
I'd like to hear about the success and failures any pitching coaches out there have had teaching the above or any other techniques to throw breaking pitches.
Dusty
I have some biases about how to teach my kids to throw inside/outside breaking pitches, but I'd like to hear what more experienced pitching coaches have to say about it. My question boils down to whether it's better to teach kids to acheive break, inside or outside, by manipulating their wrist as well as their fingers or keeping the wrist release the same and manipulating release off the fingers.
Based on my limited experience I'd say it's probably better to focus on the fingers and keep the wrist snap consistent. I help coach my younger dd's team and early on in the fall season I heard the pitchers talking about how one kid had four or five different pitches. A few practices later I ended up catching for her and it looked to me like she used three different wrist releases to acheive three different fastballs, topspin, bullet spin and reverse bullet spin. The kid was a good pitcher with a nice topspin fastball and changeup but I couldn't help but think that the curve and screw she was throwing were not helping her at all.
I suppose the drawback to emphasizing a breaking ball spin by manipulating the inside or outside fingers is that there would likely be less break and a young pitcher may not have the finger strength to acheive any significant break at all. At least they be less likely to lose their fastball and drop trying to throw a breaking pitch this way though.
I'd like to hear about the success and failures any pitching coaches out there have had teaching the above or any other techniques to throw breaking pitches.
Dusty