Do softball pitches "move"?

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Jul 22, 2015
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Yes, softball pitches really move and they move a lot when a great pitcher throws them. I watched Sarah Pauly throw to a college baseball catcher (who also caught major league baseball pitchers in the off-season) and he didn't touch the first 5 riseballs she threw. Barely got his glove on the first few curves. He looked just as confused by her changeup as a hitter often does. On the other hand, I've caught girls who told me they had 5 pitches and I didn't see a bit of difference in any of them.
 
Feb 3, 2010
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Definitely! A good drop requires protective gear and a backspin rise floats as previously mentioned. Some riseballers, like Fouts or Garcia use 70+ MPH to make a bulletspin “rise.” The faster the pitch, the less time there is for gravity to pull it down. Most curves are angled pitches, but there are a rare handful who can spin a good axis for swings/misses or weak blips off the end of the bat.

 
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Apr 14, 2022
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Yes they do move.
Rise balls do rise, just do not overcome gravity. From the release the top of strike zone is 18” higher. So relative to the ground it can still be going up when it hits the hitting zone with slight lift from the spin.

 

radness

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Dec 13, 2019
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If there wasn't something elusive about Fastpitch pitching batting averages would be much higher!
 
Nov 20, 2020
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DD had a drop-ball that was really effective when she was pitching. It's breaking point was generally right at the time a hitter would trigger the swing. It looked like a top/mid of the thigh FB and then cross at the knees. DD was never a barn burner (low 50's), but she had movement. She said her favorite was watching the swing and miss from her POV. I always appreciated the easy outs from the mis-hits.

Catching her was difficult at times when the ball would break more than I expected. Out of pure survival, I did get good at reading the spin. Plenty of bruised shins, ankles, and thumb.
 
Jul 16, 2019
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Educate me. I honestly don't understand :) thank you!

I will bite the bullet. For soccer and Ping Pong, even tennis, it is very obvious that the ball break. Why not softball? It is physics. Once the ball left the hand, only gravity and air friction can move the ball. Any kind of break you want to see should be the result of air friction. a=F/m. Softball is too heavy compared to Ping Pong and the cross-sectional area is too small compared to soccer. So the spin rate needs to be much higher to make it break. Unfortunately, softball is too big (compared to baseball) to spin. There might be some players with big hands and strong fingers who could really spin the ball fast enough to make it move. But in most cases, no, it won't move.
 

LEsoftballdad

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Jun 29, 2021
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I will bite the bullet. For soccer and Ping Pong, even tennis, it is very obvious that the ball break. Why not softball? It is physics. Once the ball left the hand, only gravity and air friction can move the ball. Any kind of break you want to see should be the result of air friction. a=F/m. Softball is too heavy compared to Ping Pong and the cross-sectional area is too small compared to soccer. So the spin rate needs to be much higher to make it break. Unfortunately, softball is too big (compared to baseball) to spin. There might be some players with big hands and strong fingers who could really spin the ball fast enough to make it move. But in most cases, no, it won't move.
If you really believe that, I challenge you to sit on a bucket and catch my daughter's curve ball. And no, it's not simply an aimed fastball. Oh, and her change has filthy movement, too.

If you want to say a screwball doesn't move, I'm with you, but to claim a softball doesn't break is just naive.
 
Jul 16, 2019
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If you really believe that, I challenge you to sit on a bucket and catch my daughter's curve ball. And no, it's not simply an aimed fastball. Oh, and her change has filthy movement, too.

If you want to say a screwball doesn't move, I'm with you, but to claim a softball doesn't break is just naive.

It is physics. I just need to know how fast the spin rate is and I can calculate the moving distance in the direction of the spin

 
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