Late Breaking Pitches (Respect for Junk Ballers)

[Ken B]

Hopefully this will help simplify things..
View attachment 3862

Exactly! Thanks!

 

[Ken B]

Ken, thanks for pointing out the discrepancy. I re-checked and you were right.

No worries. Just glad that no one remembers my post from a couple years ago asking if a ball continued to gain speed after it was released!

 

[Greenmonsters]

No worries. Just glad that no one remembers my post from a couple years ago asking if a ball continued to gain speed after it was released!

That's OK, just claim that you're RayRay's father.

 

[Gbucz]

The rough side heading into the air (the direction of velocity) acts like a brake kicking up a high pressure area on that side of the ball, while the rough side heading away from the air moves easier. The ball moves toward the smoother flow side and away from the higher pressure.

The same thing with the NASCAR roof flaps. They mess up the smooth air on top of the car when it gets backward. This make a higher pressure on top and prevents the car from lifting.

The laces on a ball do the same. The more laces heading into the air the more braking you get. Thus, the two seam and four seam grips set up how much break you can get from the spin.

I know we call them 'breaking' pitches but I wonder if we should be spelling it 'braking'?

 

[sleepy]

sleepy,
One thing I noticed, and I'm not sure it matters, is that the MLB pitcher is using a splitter grip. In this case, it slowed the spin down to about 4 revolutions over the distance travelled. I'm wondering if the slow spin, combined with the orientation of the seams keeping that smooth side facing the batter made the difference. If the ball had been thrown with regular spin and with the same axis of rotation, I wonder if the effect would have been different?

Hmm, I hadn't noticed that before, but I think you may right. The slow spin must result in a lesser Magnus effect, which would allow the smooth/rough effect to dominate. That might explain the splitter movement, and perhaps knuckleball movement as well?

I guess there's a fastpitch knuckleball, so that might be one pitch that uses the smooth/rough effect for movement rather than the Magnus effect. Is there a fastpitch equivalent of a splitter -- basically a somewhat fast pitch with lesser spin?

Regarding late break, isn't the splitter a pitch that is supposed to "drop off the table?"

 

[sleepy]

The rough side heading into the air (the direction of velocity) acts like a brake kicking up a high pressure area on that side of the ball, while the rough side heading away from the air moves easier. The ball moves toward the smoother flow side and away from the higher pressure.

The same thing with the NASCAR roof flaps. They mess up the smooth air on top of the car when it gets backward. This make a higher pressure on top and prevents the car from lifting.

My head spins thinking about it, and I'm not sure what's right -- but I think what you're describing might be opposite of what is claimed in the YouTube video? I just watched it again, and I think it claims that the ball will move toward the rough side. But who knows...

 

[MandM]

Gbucz, how old is your DD- and what strategy did she use to work on varying spin speeds- just curious.

My DD is lefty , sometimes her pitches just do strange things. She was learning the curve, threw a pitch that appeared to be coming to the plate- and then just literally took a right turn (my right). Being a DFP devotee, I immediately thought, I did not really see that- it was some kind of perceptual distortion related to my initial impression of the potential ball flight . That thought was interrupted by DD who said- did you see that!! of course, she had no idea how or why that happened.

 

[Gbucz]

My DD just turned 17 today! Until we worked with the rev fire we just used a camera that shot video at 240fps (canon elph 520). We could see path and ball rotation. We would study film and make adjustments. Rev fire gave us rotation speeds. We only used it for two days but it helped her feel the difference between spinning speeds.

As far as weird movements ... get used to it!! She still throws some and we both wonder what happened. On some risers they wiggle on the way in but we cannot figure out what is going on. We keep blaming it on the fact that she does not understand physics so she can't follow the laws yet

 

[MandM]

Happy Birthday to your DD and congratulations!

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Happy bday!!

I know this has been beat to death too, but we always find what works for DD, I don't think we use any traditional grips except the 4 seam. Sliding the fingers just a tad from normal grips along with alternate finger pressure can do wonders. You just gotta experiment with what works for you.