Rise and drop question

[Man10]

At what distance from the plate does an effective rise ball break?
At what distance from the plate does an effective drop ball break?
I'm looking at using a rope or something to help her see the break and I was wondering what a good distance would be to put it.
Thanks in advance.

 

[abbygale]

This might sound odd but a rope midway between home and the rubber set about waist high or a little above works very well on both of those pitches including a change up. Everything above the rope is a blown pitch. The younger the pitcher or slower the pitch, the higher the rope is set. It is about learning to manipulate trajectories initially.

 

[Man10]

So both pitches should be under the rope? I would have thought the drop would be over and the rise under when it passes by the rope

 

[abbygale]

All pitches have a trajectory. It is about minimizing the hump in the pitch in order to fool batters based on pitch speed. If she is throwing a drop with good spin, gravity will do the work. You just don't want it thrown high and then dropping in waist high. Same with a rise. If you can't throw a rise for a consistent mid-level strike, then as the batters improve it will just be a "ball" while they lay off it. Acquiring the ability to work under the rope pays big dividends down the road. And a change coming in same hump height will look similar to the other pitches. Especially if it if thrown in on the same line as the previous pitch.


Start the rope high and work at lowering it over time. But always have her working under the rope. Now if it was slow pitch...

 

[sluggers]

At what distance from the plate does an effective rise ball break?
At what distance from the plate does an effective drop ball break?

The flight path is continuous. That is, the ball doesn't suddenly move left, right, up or down. It does not travel in a straight line for 35 feet and then move.

The real questions are:

1) Does the flight path of the pitch actually deviate from that of the pitcher's fastball? The question is often asked as, "Does the pitch really break?" A surprising number of pitches don't.
2) When can a skilled batter detect that the pitch is not a fastball?

If your DD has a "real" breaking pitch, what she should try to do is make her breaking pitch look like her fastball as much as possible. This includes (a) not giving away the pitch and (b) using the same motion for all pitches.

The purpose of the "rope" is not to show the "break" on the ball. The purpose is to force the pitcher to throw the ball either above or below a pre-determined height.

E.g., if a pitcher throws a real drop ball, then the pitcher will tend to throw the ball low. Good batters will, over the course of a game or a season, learn to "lay off" low pitches. When the batters learn this, the drop ball is worthless. They will stop swinging at all low pitches. (This doesn't happen at 12U. Batters start to learn this at 16U.)

By putting a barrier between the pitcher and the plate, the pitcher is forced to throw the drop ball above a certain height. This makes the drop ball appear to be a fastball.

For a rise, the pitcher has to throw the ball under the rope.

It is about minimizing the hump in the pitch in order to fool batters based on pitch speed.

I don't have a clue what this means.

 

[Man10]

"By putting a barrier between the pitcher and the plate, the pitcher is forced to throw the drop ball above a certain height. This makes the drop ball appear to be a fastball. For a rise, the pitcher has to throw the ball under the rope."

This was my thought.

 

[Ken B]

While I know a RB has a pretty uniform arc and is dropping, my eyes see it jump about 10 feet in front of me. After that, I see the jump in the corners of the pitcher's smile...

 

[abbygale]

I type like some kids draw pictures with crayons. It might not be glorious artwork, but I understood my picture. Lol. I'm talking about working hard to create similar perceptions/ expectations of different pitches in order to maximize uncertainty in a batters mind.