This is actually not true. Even a drop ball is actually thrown with an intial upward trajectory. The force of gravity pulls the ball down at a rate 10 ft per second squared. If you threw with a downward trajectory from the windwill motion the ball would never reach home plate without bouncing the ball home. For an overhand throw leaving a players hand at 7' - 9' ft above the ground you might be able to throw the ball fast enough with a downward plane and still cross home plate before garvity pulled it to the earth. For a windwill with a release point 1.5' - 3' above the ground it is just not possible.
Breaking Pitches; Spin vs Speed
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There are a lot of things going on with an effective breaking pitch.
The physical movement of the ball is one thing. The amount of movement of the ball is proportional to the spin and the ball speed. A curve ball starts moving right to left as soon as the ball is thrown. There is also the affect of gravity no matter the spin, causing the ball to move downward. Once the ball is released, the path is determined by the spin and ball speed. There isn't some "surprise" movement at the end of the pitch.
But, that isn't the entire story.
What newbies don't understand that there is more to throwing a breaking pitch than simply getting the most spin possible on the pitch and throw it as hard as possible. Throwing an effective breaking pitch is an art.
The "break" is the point where the batter identifies the pitch as a movement pitch. The more time it takes the batter to identify the pitch, the less likely that the batter will hit the pitch.
E.g., an effective drop ball is actually thrown with a release angle of a belt high fastball. However, when it reaches the plate, due to its speed and spin, a batter anticipating a belt high fastball will perceive the ball as moving "suddenly" down. In fact, the ball does not suddenly move. Rather, the batter is "surprised" by the ball location.
A different batter who anticipated the pitch to be a drop ball will not see any "sudden" movement of the ball, and therefore will be able to hit it.
Unfortunately for Daddies everywhere, throwing an effective breaking pitch (i.e., a pitch that will fool the #4 hitter on a D1 team, as opposed to a pitch that will fool a 12U rec league player) is an art. The "wind up doll" approach that many people take with their DDs doesn't work when learning breaking pitches. It really is up to the pitcher to play with different speeds, grips and motions until she finds the one that works best for her.
But, of course, the questions are "Against who?" and "What is the speed differential?" Effective against rec league 12U hitters or effective against #4 hitters in the PAC-10? Are we talking about 60MPH vs. 70 MPH or 40MPH vs 55 MPH?
It is all about reaction time...the less reaction time a batter has, the less chance the batter will have to adjust to the pitch.
The physical movement of the ball is one thing. The amount of movement of the ball is proportional to the spin and the ball speed. A curve ball starts moving right to left as soon as the ball is thrown. There is also the affect of gravity no matter the spin, causing the ball to move downward. Once the ball is released, the path is determined by the spin and ball speed. There isn't some "surprise" movement at the end of the pitch.
But, that isn't the entire story.
What newbies don't understand that there is more to throwing a breaking pitch than simply getting the most spin possible on the pitch and throw it as hard as possible. Throwing an effective breaking pitch is an art.
The "break" is the point where the batter identifies the pitch as a movement pitch. The more time it takes the batter to identify the pitch, the less likely that the batter will hit the pitch.
E.g., an effective drop ball is actually thrown with a release angle of a belt high fastball. However, when it reaches the plate, due to its speed and spin, a batter anticipating a belt high fastball will perceive the ball as moving "suddenly" down. In fact, the ball does not suddenly move. Rather, the batter is "surprised" by the ball location.
A different batter who anticipated the pitch to be a drop ball will not see any "sudden" movement of the ball, and therefore will be able to hit it.
Unfortunately for Daddies everywhere, throwing an effective breaking pitch (i.e., a pitch that will fool the #4 hitter on a D1 team, as opposed to a pitch that will fool a 12U rec league player) is an art. The "wind up doll" approach that many people take with their DDs doesn't work when learning breaking pitches. It really is up to the pitcher to play with different speeds, grips and motions until she finds the one that works best for her.
But, of course, the questions are "Against who?" and "What is the speed differential?" Effective against rec league 12U hitters or effective against #4 hitters in the PAC-10? Are we talking about 60MPH vs. 70 MPH or 40MPH vs 55 MPH?
It is all about reaction time...the less reaction time a batter has, the less chance the batter will have to adjust to the pitch.
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Sweet Lou, you better get your book out again. The ball does not fall at a rate of 10 ft per second squared. It falls at 32 ft/sec2. This is not actual distance but a measure of acceleration. Two entirely different concepts. Throwing a drop ball with upward trajectory is a good recipe for getting knocked around.
do'h I mixed up my metric and english again with meters (approximating 9.8 m/s^2 with 10 m/s^2) and feet 32 ft s^2.
and you are correct with the the acceleration vesus distance concept but the ball will still drop approxametly 4 ft in the first half second from gravity alone just from the old physics formula (1/2 * 32 * t^2 - assumes 0 initial downward velocity) and 16 ft over 1 second. This assumes no other force such as spin adding to (drop) or hindering gravity (rise). Subconciously we adjust for gravity with a slight upward trajectory on all throws to comepensate for the pull based on our past experinece with throws over various distances without ever realising it.
A 60 mph pitch (approx 88 fps) released 37' from home plate (43' PP with 6' stride) takes approximately 0.42 seconds to reach home plate. Gives a nice appreciation for hitters reaction times.
You are absolutley right. There is a reason the fastest pitchers are generally the most sucessful in both softball and baseball. But pitching is all about disrupting timing. In my humble opinion Greg Maddux is the best pitcher I've had the pleasure of wacthing at the MLB level but he never had a fastball he could just reach back and throw past people, at least not after his first tour with the Cubs.
Now when you combine that great velocity with wicked movement you get someone really, really special.
Plenty of flame throwers with no movement have dominated lower level of softball and baseball a like but w/o some movement hitters adjust and start timing the pitch, no matter how fast. though the faster you throw, the more mistakes you can get away with.
Of course if you are talking about to D1 pitchers, most won't even get a look if they can bring it very relative speeds.
Probably because based on past experience, those have generally been the most sucessful.
Yeah that was a good story, for the mom & daughter. Doesn't say much for the coaches though.
Kids and young women can be sucessful at lower velocities - to a point - but they have to work much harder on location, movement and unpredictablity of pitch patterns to do so.
Ultimate speed is very nice and at the D-1 level you need at least the high 50's to be successful, generally no matter how much your ball moves. If you have that minimum speed and have fantastic location with it and great location with a changeup, you can compete and beat most teams in the country if you have good fielding. This would be with average type movement. The word command comes to mind. I don't see a lot of pitchers with that command. Mowatt is one that comes to mind initially. There are a lot of throwers out there who do throw 65 mph but can't win consistently enough to be an elite pitcher.
Absolutely true...Chelsea Thomas a couple of years ago was OK, even though she was throwing 70 MPH. Without any breaking stuff, when she played the top team, she was simply throwing batting practice to the top teams. She has more pitches now, and she might be good enough to win the whole thing this year.
My DD was a "good" D1 pitcher in college--she got to pitch quite a bit and won a bunch of games. She was not an elite pitcher. She threw about 62 MPH, with a top speed of around 66 MPH. She had a great drop ball and super control. She was probably 5MPH or a riseball away from being great. On the other hand, if she threw 55MPH or had a mediocre drop, she would never have played D1 or D2 softball.
Brombacher was pitching pretty slow for the Gators this year and she still had some pretty good results. Yes her command was great. I know she was recovering from injury but the games I seen on TV…she was slow but effective…for a top D1 college.
Here is an interesting article on pitch speed if you have never seen it.
How fast should a fastball be?
On the curve and physics…i am not a physicist…i get confused…on the sharp late break. I have tried to understand this before more in-depth…..and I understand some what…what reverie says. That both spin and speed are proportion to the break. But because there is a distance involved for the curve to be effective…everything i have read about it is confusing.
So my questions would be:
Don't all curves break most in the last 3rd or so of the pitch? I can see here that a faster curve would be breaking later and causing a reaction time problem…but is that because of an actual sharper break or the actual later break in the pitch or an optical illusion i have read before about the curve.
Isn't there a speed….that in the 43ft distance it travels…that would take out the curve…in other words it would break behind the catcher because the speed over rode the break for the distance traveled? Which results in you having to increase the spin for a faster pitch to get the same effective breaking ball in the distance you have for it to be effective?
Doesn't the increase of either spin or speed only affect the curve by one or two inches…Example: if a 80 mph fastball with 1800 rpm breaks 16 inches…and a 100 mph pitch at 1800 rpm breaks 17 inches (numbers are wrong…but i recall seeing a chart about the max potential of a ball to break…and the increase in speed didn't change that much. Those were baseball numbers and I expect a softball would be less? Does that one inch make a big difference? (trying to find that chart)
I guess i have always looked at it that to increase the speed of a curve…you would always want to increase the spin of the curve for it to be as effective and have as much break in the distance you have for it to be affective.
What am i missing? Other than a physics class.
Here is an interesting article on pitch speed if you have never seen it.
How fast should a fastball be?
On the curve and physics…i am not a physicist…i get confused…on the sharp late break. I have tried to understand this before more in-depth…..and I understand some what…what reverie says. That both spin and speed are proportion to the break. But because there is a distance involved for the curve to be effective…everything i have read about it is confusing.
So my questions would be:
Don't all curves break most in the last 3rd or so of the pitch? I can see here that a faster curve would be breaking later and causing a reaction time problem…but is that because of an actual sharper break or the actual later break in the pitch or an optical illusion i have read before about the curve.
Isn't there a speed….that in the 43ft distance it travels…that would take out the curve…in other words it would break behind the catcher because the speed over rode the break for the distance traveled? Which results in you having to increase the spin for a faster pitch to get the same effective breaking ball in the distance you have for it to be effective?
Doesn't the increase of either spin or speed only affect the curve by one or two inches…Example: if a 80 mph fastball with 1800 rpm breaks 16 inches…and a 100 mph pitch at 1800 rpm breaks 17 inches (numbers are wrong…but i recall seeing a chart about the max potential of a ball to break…and the increase in speed didn't change that much. Those were baseball numbers and I expect a softball would be less? Does that one inch make a big difference? (trying to find that chart)
I guess i have always looked at it that to increase the speed of a curve…you would always want to increase the spin of the curve for it to be as effective and have as much break in the distance you have for it to be affective.
What am i missing? Other than a physics class.
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Perceptual science--the study of how a people and animals perceives the universe. E.g., 'flicker rate'--if something flickers at more than 40 times per second, then a human cannot perceive the object correctly. (You probably know all about TV and movies and why we perceive a series of still pictures as moving.) But, a four seam fastball has a flicker rate over 60, so most batters cannot perceive the seams on the ball, and therefore cannot accurately judge its position. The result: four seam fastball appear to be faster and have more movement.
Get this: not all of us have the same flicker rate threshold. So, some people (e.g., Pujols) has a much higher flicker rate threshold than others, so he isn't fooled as much.
You have to separate perception of movement from actual movement. Article about perception of a breaking pitch
As to actual movement, a baseball or softball doesn't have a "late break". A ball moves along a path based upon speed, spin and gravity. The ball doesn't suddenly move or jump.
However, the perception of movement by the batter is very different. The mind (which is more than simply the brain and conscious thought) has to evaluate and make judgments about the speed and location of the pitch. If the mind incorrectly 'guesses' the final location of the ball, then the mind perceives the ball as having a "late break". If the mind correctly 'guesses' the final location of the ball, the ball doesn't have a late break.
Good pitchers learn how to fool the batter--but no one can teach them how to be effective There are subtle variations in throwing the ball that makes a breaking pitch effective. Throwing *effective* breaking pitches, as opposed to simply breaking pitches, is an art that has to be learned by the pitcher almost completely on her own.
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