Lisa Fernandez speed

[sluggers]

do you think this change in mechanics over time could have helped the mph

Lisa Fernandez was an incredible athlete. She probably was the best female softball player ever.

Once a pitcher gets over 60 MPH, pitching is much more about ball movement, changing speeds, location and strategy than simply throwing the ball. (I.e, throwing a fastball 67 mph is better than throwing a 65 MPH fastball. Throwing a good movement pitch is more important than throwing the ball 65 MPH.)

I don't believe changing her style would increase her effectiveness--so, anyone who would mess with her style would be crazy.

The real issue is whether you should try to teach a kid to throw the way Fernandez throws. That would be like teaching Willie Mays' basket catch to a bunch of kids who don't have 1% of his talent.

 

[wannahit]

i would say the mechanics she is teaching and demonstrating on the rightview material is in line with most of the experienced posters on this forum

 

[howellhandmade]

From doing both, closing the hips produces more velocity but is wilder. Japanese pitchers tend to close hips more. Plus what other mechanics do they teach that we don't? Japanese pitchers don't seem to leap as strong, but again I am not over there. They do seem to roll their hands under and over the ball or maybe what is called IR here.

I am thinking each exceptional pitcher probably gets close to her max whichever way she does it, whether 'correct' (an idea of each time period) or by perfecting her 'incorrect' way of doing it. You can't force a exceptional pitcher, such as Dallas, to do it another way. It does not fit her physically or mentally or whatever, so it's correct for her. One exceptional pitcher's style may be the style everyone goes by in the future.

Anybody remember the Japanese team mate of Michele Smith's at the end of Smith's Dynamic Pitching Video? I remember thinking, that's wild, she pitches NOTHING like what Michele says to do. Way closed, leaned way over at release.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Anybody remember the Japanese team mate of Michele Smith's at the end of Smith's Dynamic Pitching Video? I remember thinking, that's wild, she pitches NOTHING like what Michele says to do. Way closed, leaned way over at release.

Michelle Smith is also one of those pitchers that believes in the Easter Bunny (i.e., fantasy riseball profile) ... only problem is that video shows that her riseball did not contain the late upward breaking action she believed in.

 

[Ken Krause]

Michelle Smith is also one of those pitchers that believes in the Easter Bunny (i.e., fantasy riseball profile) ... only problem is that video shows that her riseball did not contain the late upward breaking action she believed in.

And if you look at the hitter in this video you see why the riseball was so effective. Her hands start below the level the ball will get to an initially go down. She tries to go back up a little but by then it's too late.

Taking nothing away from Michele, poor hitting mechanics, especially as they were taught back in the day, helped make riseball pitchers more effective. Much tougher to get that riseball by if the hitter has her hands up near her back shoulder as she rotates.

 

[Ken Krause]

From doing both, closing the hips produces more velocity but is wilder. Japanese pitchers tend to close hips more. Plus what other mechanics do they teach that we don't? Japanese pitchers don't seem to leap as strong, but again I am not over there. They do seem to roll their hands under and over the ball or maybe what is called IR here.

I am thinking each exceptional pitcher probably gets close to her max whichever way she does it, whether 'correct' (an idea of each time period) or by perfecting her 'incorrect' way of doing it. You can't force a exceptional pitcher, such as Dallas, to do it another way. It does not fit her physically or mentally or whatever, so it's correct for her. One exceptional pitcher's style may be the style everyone goes by in the future.

Actually, from what I saw in the World Cup this summer, Ueno is the only Japanese pitcher who closes her hips. The others, as I recall, pretty much stayed open.

Which gets me to wondering. Why don't more Japanese pitchers mimic Ueno's motion? If closing her hips the way she does was really the key to her speed, you'd think her teammates and the people who run their national program would've figured that out and had everyone doing it.

I seriously doubt her hip closure is the reason for her speed. My guess is it has a lot more to do with the construction of her ligiments or muscles than a movement she makes. Softball is a game of imitation; if someone has success doing something, others try to imitate it thinking that is the reason for it. How many pitchers started bowing down like Abbott after they saw her in the WCWS?

It is a fallacy in logic to assume that because B follows A that A caused B. Two events that happen in sequence are not necessarily related. You need more evidence than that to draw a conclusion. It is true that Ueno closes her hips, and that she throws the ball very fast, especially for someone her size. There is no evidence to prove that the first causes the second. Only speculation, and speculation that flies in the face of what the people at the top of the game say.

 

[howellhandmade]

Michelle Smith is also one of those pitchers that believes in the Easter Bunny (i.e., fantasy riseball profile) ... only problem is that video shows that her riseball did not contain the late upward breaking action she believed in.

Cool! Thanks for the video. That delivery is also substantially different from the video instructions, at least in the introductory one. : ) Ken's post also, food for thought. In many endeavors we have to take into account the human psychological quality of persistence. We tend to believe things based on the very little evidence, but once something is believed it takes a great deal of evidence to overturn that belief. It certainly is true that mistaking correlation for causation is a common mistake. But if a PC teaches A and all of the top pitchers do B . . . and I'm looking at Michele's elbow, here . . .