Struggling with the drop

[coachdan]

My 13 yr old is working on a drop ball with very little sucess. We have experiments with the peel and the rollover but she is struggling to get any downward movement. Currently in game my daughter throws fastball, change up, and screw. Her change up is nasty, she throws the palm/pop change and it drops like crazy. Should she forget about learning a hard/fast drop and just use the change for an offspeed drop ball or should she work both?

Any suggestions for drills for learning drop ball ?

 

[sluggers]

She has to develop a pitch that moves vertically. Screws and curves work great at the younger ages. But, against good batters, if that is all she has, she won't make.

Look at your DD's body position when she throws. Some kids are way back they pitch, and others are forward. If you look at Jenny Finch throw, you'll see how far back her weight it. If you look at my DD throw, you'll see that her weight is much more over her front foot. Finch has a tremendous rise. My DD (and I'm not saying she was nearly as good as Finch) had a great drop.

If your DD's weight is back when she throws, she will have a heck of a time developing a really good drop ball. So, concentrate on the rise. If her weight is forward when she throws, she will have a heck of a time developing a good rise, so concentrate on the drop.

 

[coachdan]

We have been working on the rise also....while not perfect she is much better with the rise spin. She does not throw hard enough yet to get any real movement. She throws mid 50's and she can get a little movement but not much. She struggles with location on the rise...either very high or meat pitch in the zone.

 

[starsnuffer]

Peel drop is thrown as a fastball but with proper drop spin. Spin can be practiced simply by "flipping" the ball with the fingertips straight off the hand into the air, practice catching it on the seams to repeat. Do this at home over and over and over. If your daughter is watching TV, she should have a ball in her hand. Keep a ball in her backpack so she can practice to and from school. Once she has the spin down, put it together with the fast ball. Practice spotting the bottom inside and outside corners.

-W

 

[Jojo]

coachdan, my own DD struggled tremendously with the drop. We eventually gave up on it as she lived off her rise.
When she went to college her coach insisted she throw a drop, because she threw with her weight waaay back throwing the rise so much, it made her drop difficult.

She turned to the peel over, and was successful being able to throw this pitch with her weight still back, making the pitch even more effective.

 

[coachdan]

coachdan, my own DD struggled tremendously with the drop. We eventually gave up on it as she lived off her rise.
When she went to college her coach insisted she throw a drop, because she threw with her weight waaay back throwing the rise so much, it made her drop difficult.

She turned to the peel over, and was successful being able to throw this pitch with her weight still back, making the pitch even more effective.

Jojo.....I know what a peel drop and a roll over drop are but what is a peel over????

 

[bigboyk]

My DD throws a very good peel drop, but she also throws fastball with 12-6 spin so the transition to peel drop was easy for her. PC stresses for here to cock wrist early and to push down with the thumb at the same time you pull up with fingers, she really generates a lot of spin using this technique.
I'm no expert but I think being taught to throw 12-6 spin made her peel drop much better.

 

[Jojo]

Jojo.....I know what a peel drop and a roll over drop are but what is a peel over????

Have her do her fastball peel drop then quickly turn the back of her hand to the catcher.
I use this pitch on my pitchers that struggle with the peel and throw it high. If you focus on pulling up the seam, and flipping the hand over low, the pitch will stay down, especially with pitchers that keep their weight back.

 

[Ken Krause]

Try having her stand sideways on her front foot, with just the toe of her back foot touching the ground. It will feel like weight forward but looks vertical. Then have her work on her release from that position with a full arm circle. When my pitching students struggle with the drop we go back to this drill and it seems to help pretty quickly.

Part of it can be the release, too. There are different ways to throw the peel drop. I like to have the pitchers turn palm-down toward the bottom of the circle and pull over the top. Fingers are pointed straight back, and the release starts before the ball passes the hip. It finishes as the ball passes the hip. I tell them to focus on throwing a knee-high strike and let the ball do the work. If it starts too low, which most do, I have them bend the elbow a little so the ball comes up a little higher to start -- somewhere around hip-high.

That solves that problem for them. The bigger problem is getting the catcher to call it, especially with runners on base!

 

[Jeff_H]

Drop

Many years back Paul Nyman, Setpro, did a computer simulation that showed that at a certain point the spin cannot overcome the angle of the pitch. In other words their was a certain degree of up that spin could not over take.

I lost it with a hard drive crash sometime back.