One of the hardest parts of coaching pitchers

[Gtrips07]

It always amazes me when a girl, or more likely, the dad, says they have six pitches. In fact, one of my daughter's teammates told her she has "every pitch." Most MLB starters have 3-4 pitches, while relievers have 2-3, unless you're Mariano, in which case you throw the cutter 85% of the time, and they still couldn't hit it. These are grown men who've been working at this for 25 years and get paid millions of dollars a year, yet they only have three pitches. Where did they go wrong? LOL

Walk, Single, Double, Triple, and Home Run. Every pitch...

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[Tazman]

I began thinking of this when posting on the Dropball drills thread. I think one of the most challenging parts of coaching pitchers isn't what we think of first when choosing what the ACTUAL hardest part of teaching pitching is. It's more subtle in some ways. In 2 words: Peer pressure.

In 23 years of doing lessons, every crop of new students all have one common denominator: the kid's friend who's also a pitcher and sees another pitching coach has her throwing 8 pitches, while my student does not. Since kids are brutal to each other, the pitcher without 8 pitches is ridiculed and feels inferior because she doesn't know there really is no such thing as 8 pitches. But kids believe one another. If Sally tells Jane that she is being taught her 7th pitch at the 12u level, Jane is going to believe it. Jane goes home and tells mom/dad that Sally's coach is teaching her 7 pitches already. Sally's dad in many cases is also the team's coach so, pitching time isn't equally divided. But Jane and parents are led to believe that Sally is superior because of the 7 pitches and that she gets the most time in the circle. It's an absolutely vicious cycle. And a couple things really exacerbate this problem:

1. at the young levels, a pitcher who can simply throw strikes is going to get 16 K's per game simply because so many young girls are afraid to swing the bat. So, strikes turn into strike outs fast.

2. Every pitch they watch on ESPN, with those wonderful announcers, tell her that every pitch thrown is on purpose. I pitcher on TV can literally slip when throwing, the ball sails over the catcher's head, and the audience is told about a great riseball there that "just got away" from the pitcher. Or anything inside is a screwball. Everything outside is a curve. Then we start getting into the "new pitches" or the inventions of a "Scrise". Or a "crop", when it was just a dropball thrown outside.

Personally, I don't have any solutions for this problem. I tell my students up front that they won't be learning 8 pitches as I think I had a pretty ok career with 3. I encourage families to watch ESPN games with the sound OFF. I also encourage them to study and figure out the difference between good pitching and bad hitting, they are not the same thing. Although the tricky part is they can be the same. Sometimes a great pitcher can make a good hitting team look silly. But, that's always the case and knowing the difference is a path to pitching wisdom. Anyway, sorry everyone. Just needed to vent.

I love the approach of my DDs coach. She'll figure out what pitch she thinks you can naturally throw best and work it until it works. If you can master it you get more pitches. If not you practice until you do or try another pitch you can master. Some students have 1, some have 5, but you don't move on until you have it. The goal is good pitches not many pitches. Each practice you don't move to change until you have FB (drop). You don't get curve until you have change and you don't get rise until you have curve. Frustrating at times but dead on. Not only do you have to have it but you have to be able to locate it and mix it.

 

[warbird]

Same experience coaching travel ball and high school ball with the pitchers claiming multiple pitches. My response was "throw your fastball where I call it and control your change up and then we can start talking about calling a third pitch."

 

[angispeds]

DD was a catcher. Her Freshman year in HS she was catching a pitcher and she said she has a 2 seamer, 4 seamer, fast and change. DD was like huh? After she caught her for a bit, she told her: all 4 of your pitches all look the same. I'll just call inside or outside and hope for the best.

My question is always are any of them a strike?


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[daywalkerdad]

Real conversation I had (more then once)
Hey are you Nat’s dad. Yep, my dd is new girl. She also pitches. How fast does Nat pitch? I don’t know we never measure it, really because my kid throws 55. How many pitches does Nat have, because my dd has 5, a curve, a screw, rise, drop and change up. Nat has 2 a fast one and a slow one. How do you measure Nat’s performance if you don’t check her speed? By how many batters she gets out.

Other Dad walks away positive his dd will soon be #1 pitcher. He was wrong.

This made me laugh. I assume actual velocity was at least 5 mph slower than claimed velocity.

 

[Orange Socks]

My question is always are any of them a strike?


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Yes. 49 mph with arc. Perfect launch angle!!!

 

[BucketDud]

I think lot of generalization in this thread. Every kid is different and yes some kids do develop several movement pitches at an early age. Does that mean they execute the perfectly? No they don't always do that even at P5 levels. But I struggle to see the downside of letting them develop those pitches in game-pressure situations if they aren't walking the world....

And will give you a real world example. Two sisters who both pitched at P5 schools. Both are very strong and had high velo, but the older sister told me once she always struggled to learn a new pitch. Her younger sister from time she was in 12u could be shown a pitch once and few pitches later she was spinning it correctly. Said it always made her mad she would work for months on something that would literally take her sister minutes to figure out.

I also know a P5 pitcher who became an All-American. She went to college with only a drop she could throw at 3 different speeds. Lots of ways to be effective pitching, but assuming a young pitcher can't learn correct spin of multiple pitches can be just as ignorant of the facts as the parent who says their DD has 6-7 pitches.

 

[warbird]

This made me laugh. I assume actual velocity was at least 5 mph slower than claimed velocity.

I learned that early as a 10u coach. Take whatever speed the pitcher parent says their DD throws and subtract 5 MPH. Minimum.

 

[uncdrew]

Gotta say I loved that my DD got more positive attention, results and opportunities with just 2 pitches (fast and change) than all the girls (and dads) claiming she had 6 pitches. Whooping their butts with 2 pitches was awesome.

We went about as slow as we could. So slow that once she was taught a curve and rise she was throwing them in a matter of minutes. We spent so much time on body awareness, minor tweaks to mechanics, and location that once the new pitch was explained, DD picked them up by the end of the lesson. It was pretty cool.

I do think my DD succeeds mostly on location. We spent so much time working on location and it's still paying off big time.

 

[UKCATSFAN76]

I learned that early as a 10u coach. Take whatever speed the pitcher parent says their DD throws and subtract 5 MPH. Minimum.

This is why we integrate PocketRadar with GameChanger to see the real game speed of every pitcher.


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