Drop ball drills

[Shawn]

I take my two tripods run a Chinese jumping rope (it’s elastic) between them, 8 ft in front of home plate, just above the knees. You can do without a catcher as well. Just put down a bucket lid behind home plate. Try to hit the lid.

The way I see it is you’re shooting an upside down basketball shot. In basketball your brain calculates everything for the ball to go over the rim and into net. It calculates how much force, arc is needed. I apply the same thing to the drop. We are shooting a basket, letting the fingers put the desired spine, arc to go over the rope (rim) and into the basket (catcher or lid).

The way the fingers put spin on the basketball and how the basketball leaves the fingers is the same as a drop.

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[Ken B]

Oh my! I’m 10 years behind in responding…

As ArmWhip said, teach her to see axis/spin. A dotted, striped or darkened seams ball are great for this. A darkened seams ball is good in case they aren’t able to get perfect spin in the beginning.

Once they can identify the axis, I just have them change the brush spot on the forearm at release. A fastball generally brushes the pinky side of the wrist where a drop will brush more on the flat of the wrist. I have them adjust the brush spot until the axis becomes perpendicular to the trajectory.

Green line is fastball and blue is drop. Some girls end up needing to over-exaggerate the perceived brush point to get the spin.

 

[slowcelica]

Maybe this will help, from behind it looks to me lie she is not ever getting her hand behind the ball before release, causing the gyro spin?

 

[ArmWhip]

Maybe this will help, from behind it looks to me lie she is not ever getting her hand behind the ball before release, causing the gyro spin?

It looks like the ball is coming out between the index finger and the thumb, rather than rolling off the finger tips. Ask her what it feels like

 

[Hillhouse]

I’d like to hijack this a little because I came here for almost the same question, my DD has always thrown a version of gyro spin, either 3-9, or 2-8, 1-7. Any good drills to work on 12-6, we’d like to get her drop working correctly.

When a pitcher doesn't get 12/6 spin, it means 1 thing. They are turning their wrist at the release instead of rolling it off the fingers. The fix is simple, she needs to exaggerate. No, OVER exaggerate how hard she whips her arm at release. Make sure she forces her hand to whip so the hand ends up on the opposite shoulder. If she is whipping her arm as hard as possible, the wrist will naturally follow the elbow, and the fingers will then follow the wrist.

The hardest part about the drop is it's simplicity. There no need to pull up like you're starting a lawn mower, which is beyond stupid to me. And 99% of the people who think they're doing a turn over drop are actually peeling the ball off the fingers, then you see them turn their wrist over. But since the ball has already left the fingers, the turn over is a useless move. Usually these pitchers are taught to take a shorter stride on delivery, which is another fallacy. All someone is doing when they tell you to step shorter for the drop (or longer for the riseball) is get you to change your release point. That's basically it. To me, it makes more sense to keep my mechanics the same with each pitch, both so the hitters see the same thing with each pitch and to keep myself in a rhythm, instead of changing how I pitch every time I throw a different pitch.

 

[HunterMO]

Some may not like this, but these helped DD with the "feel". Because, like many, she often would release around the ball (creating bullet spin) rather than palm-forward with fingers pushing "through" the ball [towards the target] which helps create the 12-6 spin. She was taught to achieve drop ball spin by releasing palm forward and pushing through the ball with her fingers.

1. Ball flips (or that's what we called them). Many girls do this when just waiting around during a practice. While standing (or sitting), have the throwing arm at an "L" with the elbow tucked against the body. Forearm out away from the body, with palm up. The ball is gripped as you would when throwing a 4-seam fastball/drop ball. Letting the weight of the ball rest on the pads of the fingers. Using ONLY the wrist/fingers, flip the ball straight up in the air. The goal is to have the ball rotate in a 12-6 rotation straight up and then catching it with the throwing hand. Try not to include any assistance from the forearm.

2. Wrist flips/snaps. This is the only time I'm a fan of wrist snaps. Somewhat of an evolution of above. Get into K-position. Put throwing arm down where release should be. Hold ball as described above, and wrist/finger flip the ball into your own glove. Or into a buck. Or to someone catching for you. Goal is to achieve the 12-6 spin simply by pushing with the fingers.

3. From #2, we would evolve into the lock/unlock drill to incorporate more throwing arm motion but still focusing on palm forward, pushing with the fingers at release.

For full motion practice, we did the string about 10ft - 8ft from the plate. We had a version of Sluggers bucket target, except I just hung a cheap pizza pan on a Bownet. DD's ball had to pass over the string but drop and hit the pan. It was a great visual. I also took too many sling shots to the shins when she'd hit the string straight on. I would place the "target" at the front of the plate. Not behind.

Colored seams are a great visual aid. We simply used black electrical tape and made singular line down the middle/across the four seams. If the rotation was tight, it was a single line and you could see it's orientation. If rotation wasn't correct, the line was blurred or would look like it's tumbling.

Edit: And don't be afraid to practice the mechanics of the release up close (with a target, not a catcher). Focus on orientation and consistency, but don't slow down. Then from there it's simply working on fine tuning the release point so spin and gravity can do their thing.

 

[Mike-Coach Q]

Here’s an example of the string drill.

 

[Hillhouse]

One of the problems that needs to be said out loud, and it's a giant elephant in the room is, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

What I'm saying is, in the quest to learn one pitch or another, I've seen some of the most craz... no, unique "drills". But, in the desire to get that pitch, the pitcher creates a horrible habit that will effect the other pitches. Or, they teach themselves bad muscle memory that will come back and bit them later.

I know everyone is different. Not every kid reacts to instructional words the same way. Also, some kids pick up a pitch faster than others for whatever reason. A "drill" that helps one kid, may not work with another. Etc. etc. However, I live by a rule that has served me well as a pitcher and now in helping others: if the pitcher is being forced to change their mechanics for a particular pitch, then they are very likely being taught FORCED movement instead of breaking pitches. Kind of like how stepping wayyyyy out to the left while angling the pitch inside on a RHB is called a "screwball". No, you stepped left and threw right. If you wanna discuss the benefits of pitching inside, I'll do that with you all day long. But if we're not going to be honest about the pitch, that it didn't actually curve inward, then it'll be a short discussion. As I've said before many times, the hardest part about the dropball is it's simplicity. I find that the majority of kids have 12/6 rotation on their "fastball' and don't realize how easy that is to turn into a pitch that drops. Many many of them are doing it already and the ball is dropping, yet they are told they need another pitch, a "dropball". Then proceed to alter the mechanics of this pitcher in one way or another, butchering the original pitch which was correct in the first place. Sigh.

 

[BucketDud]

But if we're not going to be honest about the pitch, that it didn't actually curve inward, then it'll be a short discussion.

Given you probably forget more about pitching this week than I'll ever know, I hesitate to even question this.

But....thinking about baseball pitchers it is accepted that they can move the ball both directions horizontally. Wouldn't it stand to reason that physics would allow a softball pitcher to do the same through combination of body angle, release, and finger pressure?

I agree most screws are an exaggerated angle pitch, but not sure I fully believe it is physically impossible to curve the ball horizontally away from glove side.

 

[Hillhouse]

Given you probably forget more about pitching this week than I'll ever know, I hesitate to even question this.

But....thinking about baseball pitchers it is accepted that they can move the ball both directions horizontally. Wouldn't it stand to reason that physics would allow a softball pitcher to do the same through combination of body angle, release, and finger pressure?

I agree most screws are an exaggerated angle pitch, but not sure I fully believe it is physically impossible to curve the ball horizontally away from glove side.

well, considering I've never played baseball, I can only go on what I've been told by guys that I've played with who DID play baseball, including one who pitched in MLB. What I can say is this, pressure points on the ball can make it "cut' one way or another in both softball and baseball. In my case, I could make the drop cut inward on a RHB but the dominant movement is still the down spin, dropball. If you look up my name on YouTube, there is a game called "Perth Shootout" on there I pitched in 1993 vs Toronto Gators. I was 21 at the time and probably way out of my league playing in such a tournament!!! Toronto went on to win the World championship that year, I came in relief after pitching the semi-final. (the announcers asked why I didn't start and it's cause I threw the semi final and it was simply the other guy's turn!!). Anyway, the first few pitches I threw in that game to the hitter were cutter drops. Then I hung a change up belt high and he RIPPED it. lol. But that video shows the cut drop action.

I hold a simple philosophy: For any pitch, the ball needs to be spinning in the direction of it's movement, this is true in baseball and softball. A BB curveball, spins down and away from the RHB and that's how it moves. A slider is the same thing but faster. Sinkers drop down like a softball dropball. There's no equivalent to a riseball in baseball, except when the ball stays high when the pitcher throws it from the elevated mount. When it doesn't go down to the catcher, it gives the appearance of it "rising".

In softball, the dropball needs to spin forward, regardless of if it's a "turn over drop" or a simple peel. A curve needs to spin sideways, a riseball needs to go backwards. This is what's required for breaking pitches as opposed to forced movement. I was a pretty ok pitcher, but as a RHP, I could never make a ball spin sideways, where it would break into a RHB. And nobody that I've ever worked with or played with/against could either. The best you can hope for is bullet spin. And with all things bullet spin, the most important factor is the angle in which it's thrown.