New pitching rules/Queen of the Hill

[coachbubbles]

Decided to start a thread on its own for this. NOT A SALES pitch. I understand the theory with the queen teaching proper leg drive mechanics and in fact bought one myself. With both feet in contact with the rubber I would suggest maybe the feel of proper leg drive is hard to master without proper instruction and/or a gadget like this.

With the new rules I could probably argue the other side and suggest that more girls would “find/stumble across” better drive mechanics more naturally. Ive tried it myself and I find this to be the case.

Sooooo...in my mind some questions are: “did that just take the value of the queen down?”
“Do we change the way we teach drive and focus more on the drive with the back foot?”
“Does too much backfoot drive now cause timing issues with the drive foot? Especially if that back foot is too far back”

I have a feeling this is going to be a race to find “optimal” and will absolutely be a game changer shifting the advantage back to the pitchers.

Thoughts?!?

 

[DrRiello]

Decided to start a thread on its own for this. NOT A SALES pitch. I understand the theory with the queen teaching proper leg drive mechanics and in fact bought one myself. With both feet in contact with the rubber I would suggest maybe the feel of proper leg drive is hard to master without proper instruction and/or a gadget like this.

With the new rules I could probably argue the other side and suggest that more girls would “find/stumble across” better drive mechanics more naturally. Ive tried it myself and I find this to be the case.

Sooooo...in my mind some questions are: “did that just take the value of the queen down?”
“Do we change the way we teach drive and focus more on the drive with the back foot?”
“Does too much backfoot drive now cause timing issues with the drive foot? Especially if that back foot is too far back”

I have a feeling this is going to be a race to find “optimal” and will absolutely be a game changer shifting the advantage back to the pitchers.

Thoughts?!?

What’s up Bubbles. Long time. Hope all is well.
I haven’t given this a ton of thought but off the top I would say weight transfer will have to change a bit if dd moves her drive leg back away from the rubber. I will let dd decide what feels most comfortable and go from there.
I do believe that drive leg will still be pretty important either way but I suppose time will tell.


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[coachbubbles]

Hey Doc! I can foresee some extensive video/radar work to find that optimal foot placement. For school ball (NFHS) we were allowed to do it but I can count on 1 hand the number that did it. And I would argue that they were worse pitchers than they were in the “travel” setup. Could be the idea that they didn’t practice it a whole lot. I don’t understand biomechanics/kinesiology enough to have a real good feel but I have to think at a minimum that extra torque on the hips turning more open to the batter would cause mechanical timing issues, at least for a while.

 

[Ken B]

 

[DrRiello]

Have chell doing this. Forgot mike filmed it. Thanks


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[coachbubbles]

I too had seen the video but forgot it. So, if I am reading the rules right we would only want to use this in the context of a drill - the drive foot has to remain in contact with the pitching plate - right?

 

[DrRiello]

I too had seen the video but forgot it. So, if I am reading the rules right we would only want to use this in the context of a drill - the drive foot has to remain in contact with the pitching plate - right?

Based on Rules yeah. Drive foot has to remain in contact with rubber. Meaning you can’t step back to it. You have to start on it.


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[coachbubbles]

I guess the “slide” would still be legal but man that will look strange with the foot going backwards. Guessing DD will start with the stride foot back to start with. After a month off we been back hard at work over the last 10 days and have conquered the monkey butt and are back to getting a nice brush. Speed and accuracy are back! Guess maybe we will start to incorporate the new rules now. That fat man in the red suit has a Queen for her so that will be her new obsession in about a week. Lol

 

[DrRiello]

I guess the “slide” would still be legal but man that will look strange with the foot going backwards. Guessing DD will start with the stride foot back to start with. After a month off we been back hard at work over the last 10 days and have conquered the monkey butt and are back to getting a nice brush. Speed and accuracy are back! Guess maybe we will start to incorporate the new rules now. That fat man in the red suit has a Queen for her so that will be her new obsession in about a week. Lol

Bubbles remember the step back is only good in high school and ASA/USA. USSSA AND NCAA there is no stride back allowed. You can start behind rubber but can’t move back from there.



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[coachbubbles]

On the contrary:

USSSA FASTPITCH NATIONAL UPDATE
USSSA ANNOUNCES 2020 ONLINE REVISIONS TO FASTPITCH RULE BOOK

At its 52nd annual convention, USSSA introduced several fastpitch rule changes for the 2020 season. They are effective January 1, 2020 and will be revised in the online rule book.

Our rule book is now on a two year print cycle and this is the off year. These changes are made to the online version of the rule book. They are generally made to clarify previous revisions, or to enhance safety.

SUMMARY OF RULE CHANGES:

PITCHER’S FOOT PLACEMENT – this change eliminates the requirement that a pitcher must have part of her pivot foot on top of the pitcher’s plate. The rule will now only require the pivot foot to be in contact with the plate.

It also allows the pitcher to start with the non-pivot (“stride”) foot in contact with or behind the plate and allows the pitcher to step back with the non-pivot foot, provided the step-back begins prior to starting the pitch by separating the hands.

This change aligns pitcher’s feet placement with the major rule books in youth softball having a unified pitching rule.

This is a ‘win-win’ for all the stakeholders. Nobody who has been pitching legally under existing rules will have to change their pitching style unless they want to, but pitchers who want to pitch using styles legal in college and high school will also be compliant.

Additionally, those who administer our events, such as directors and umpires should have less confusion to deal with due to this rule alignment.



My understanding is that PGF and NCAA allow the stride foot to be placed anywhere but not allow a stepback, where as NFHS/USA/USSSA all allow the stepback now.