The Drop Ball

[Flexmike18]

Yeah my daughter is 10 and we are sticking with the basic fastball and change up for now she is been only pitching for 6 months and don't want to fill her plate with to much to learn at once. Just trying to hit location the flip change is a hard for my daughter to grasp control of so we are throwing horseshoe change much easier for her fastball and change for now speed has gradually gotten better 45 now but should hit growth spurt soon. Stick with it .

 

[Hillhouse]

This the 2nd person I've heard of say one (or both) of the Pauly's are absolutely against the flip change, 100%. That's kind of sad to me. While I think the flip change is the HARDEST of them all to throw, it can be modified to be much easier and less dangerous for many pitchers. By dangerous I mean, floating in the zone and hard to control. To tell someone to absolutely get rid of fit without a way to modify it making it better is a bit much. THERE IS NO WRONG CHANGE UP. Unless she's slowing down to telegraph it. If she can throw one with a back flip, consistently for strikes and keep it low... then that's your change up regardless of who your coach is. All these people with their "circle change grips" and stuff... what the heck is that anyway? Ok that tells me how you held the ball, it says nothing of how you released it and didn't give it power making it go slow. And someone was also partially right, the flip change sometimes has no "brush". But, when you throw a change up, the goal is to try making the ball go slower without slowing the body down. This means you have to take away the things that make the ball go fast, whip, BI, follow through, etc. If you can do that without altering the motion 100% then do it.

As for the drop, as I've said over and over... the hardest thing to explain to someone who's never pitched or is just learning the drop is.... the hardest thing is the simplicity of it. People want to make it 10x harder than it is. If you have forward spin on the ball, you have a drop. Now it's about release point. MOST girls who throw a "fastball" (and their catchers) will say their "fastball" often times (most times) has a big drop to it yet they don't know how they did it. All they did is let the ball go sooner. That's it. Mystery solved. They didn't pull up like a lawn mower starting, turn it over after the release, step real short to "Get on top of the ball" or anything different. They simply let the ball go earlier and the trajectory out of the hand, combined with the forward spin makes it go down. When you have forward spin and it's not going down, it means you are over throwing and your release point is off making it go FLAT. And fastball+flat= homerun. I will not understand why anyone thinks the drop and fastball mechanics are mutually exclusive. They're the same. Why anyone would want to have a "Fastball" is a mystery to me... keep it flat or make it move? Hmmmmm. I'll take less HR's and movement pitches for $200 please Alex. You don't need to do anything magical or special to learn a drop, take the forward spinning "fastball" and teach her to let it go earlier. That's it. You may wanna wear some catcher gear while she figures that release point out as there will be 38 ft pitches coming your way. But once she gets it..... look out. Don't let anyone sell you on stepping short, pulling up on the ball (for more spin.. yea right) or anything that deflects from the mechanics she's using to throw her "fastball" now. If she's got the right spin now, you're 80% there.

Riseballs win you games... drop balls win you CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Bill

 

[Langeswelding]

This might be blasphemy ( not talking" IR" on this forum)but my daughter started learning to pitch 3 years ago.(because I coached rec and was sick of watching paint dry. Can't believe where that has taken us.) I just got some Jennie Finch videos off YouTube because she was a pitcher I've heard of and seen before and started there. We went to group pitching lessons in Wisconsin shortly after that and they basically taught the same thing I saw on the videos. Shortly after that I was put in contact with the best pitcher ever to come out of area. She pitched at Michigan got injured and eventually transferred to another D1 school and played first base. Long story short, we never have ever talked about IR or HE. Everything is natural on release. We focus on leg drive and spinning the ball. Whatever arm position and brush and all the other stuff comes naturally from trying to spin the ball. "Arm like whip" is the phrase we use.She does throw a flip change that drops slightly away from right handers. Her fastball naturally moves the same way and drops. We're working on the curve a lot now and I would say she is totally" IR" with that pitch and its probably as fast as her fastball and is starting to break a lot. So I get the point of IR. My point is just throw the ball naturally. Don't get hung up on all the technical jargon at 9 or10 years old.Just throw the ball!

 

[riseball]

Pitching is difficult on its own, no need to make it harder with myths and other nonsense.

 

[Joe]

This the 2nd person I've heard of say one (or both) of the Pauly's are absolutely against the flip change, 100%. That's kind of sad to me. While I think the flip change is the HARDEST of them all to throw, it can be modified to be much easier and less dangerous for many pitchers. By dangerous I mean, floating in the zone and hard to control. To tell someone to absolutely get rid of fit without a way to modify it making it better is a bit much. THERE IS NO WRONG CHANGE UP. Unless she's slowing down to telegraph it. If she can throw one with a back flip, consistently for strikes and keep it low... then that's your change up regardless of who your coach is. All these people with their "circle change grips" and stuff... what the heck is that anyway? Ok that tells me how you held the ball, it says nothing of how you released it and didn't give it power making it go slow. And someone was also partially right, the flip change sometimes has no "brush". But, when you throw a change up, the goal is to try making the ball go slower without slowing the body down. This means you have to take away the things that make the ball go fast, whip, BI, follow through, etc. If you can do that without altering the motion 100% then do it.

As for the drop, as I've said over and over... the hardest thing to explain to someone who's never pitched or is just learning the drop is.... the hardest thing is the simplicity of it. People want to make it 10x harder than it is. If you have forward spin on the ball, you have a drop. Now it's about release point. MOST girls who throw a "fastball" (and their catchers) will say their "fastball" often times (most times) has a big drop to it yet they don't know how they did it. All they did is let the ball go sooner. That's it. Mystery solved. They didn't pull up like a lawn mower starting, turn it over after the release, step real short to "Get on top of the ball" or anything different. They simply let the ball go earlier and the trajectory out of the hand, combined with the forward spin makes it go down. When you have forward spin and it's not going down, it means you are over throwing and your release point is off making it go FLAT. And fastball+flat= homerun. I will not understand why anyone thinks the drop and fastball mechanics are mutually exclusive. They're the same. Why anyone would want to have a "Fastball" is a mystery to me... keep it flat or make it move? Hmmmmm. I'll take less HR's and movement pitches for $200 please Alex. You don't need to do anything magical or special to learn a drop, take the forward spinning "fastball" and teach her to let it go earlier. That's it. You may wanna wear some catcher gear while she figures that release point out as there will be 38 ft pitches coming your way. But once she gets it..... look out. Don't let anyone sell you on stepping short, pulling up on the ball (for more spin.. yea right) or anything that deflects from the mechanics she's using to throw her "fastball" now. If she's got the right spin now, you're 80% there.

Riseballs win you games... drop balls win you CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Bill

This the 2nd person I've heard of say one (or both) of the Pauly's are absolutely against the flip change, 100%. That's kind of sad to me. While I think the flip change is the HARDEST of them all to throw, it can be modified to be much easier and less dangerous for many pitchers. By dangerous I mean, floating in the zone and hard to control. To tell someone to absolutely get rid of fit without a way to modify it making it better is a bit much. THERE IS NO WRONG CHANGE UP. Unless she's slowing down to telegraph it. If she can throw one with a back flip, consistently for strikes and keep it low... then that's your change up regardless of who your coach is. All these people with their "circle change grips" and stuff... what the heck is that anyway? Ok that tells me how you held the ball, it says nothing of how you released it and didn't give it power making it go slow. And someone was also partially right, the flip change sometimes has no "brush". But, when you throw a change up, the goal is to try making the ball go slower without slowing the body down. This means you have to take away the things that make the ball go fast, whip, BI, follow through, etc. If you can do that without altering the motion 100% then do it.

As for the drop, as I've said over and over... the hardest thing to explain to someone who's never pitched or is just learning the drop is.... the hardest thing is the simplicity of it. People want to make it 10x harder than it is. If you have forward spin on the ball, you have a drop. Now it's about release point. MOST girls who throw a "fastball" (and their catchers) will say their "fastball" often times (most times) has a big drop to it yet they don't know how they did it. All they did is let the ball go sooner. That's it. Mystery solved. They didn't pull up like a lawn mower starting, turn it over after the release, step real short to "Get on top of the ball" or anything different. They simply let the ball go earlier and the trajectory out of the hand, combined with the forward spin makes it go down. When you have forward spin and it's not going down, it means you are over throwing and your release point is off making it go FLAT. And fastball+flat= homerun. I will not understand why anyone thinks the drop and fastball mechanics are mutually exclusive. They're the same. Why anyone would want to have a "Fastball" is a mystery to me... keep it flat or make it move? Hmmmmm. I'll take less HR's and movement pitches for $200 please Alex. You don't need to do anything magical or special to learn a drop, take the forward spinning "fastball" and teach her to let it go earlier. That's it. You may wanna wear some catcher gear while she figures that release point out as there will be 38 ft pitches coming your way. But once she gets it..... look out. Don't let anyone sell you on stepping short, pulling up on the ball (for more spin.. yea right) or anything that deflects from the mechanics she's using to throw her "fastball" now. If she's got the right spin now, you're 80% there.

Riseballs win you games... drop balls win you CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Bill

 

[Joe]

WOW - so sad to see high character people thrown under the bus . I see you use the term "brush" - interesting

 

[Hillhouse]

WOW - so sad to see high character people thrown under the bus . I see you use the term "brush" - interesting

Have to respectfully disagree with you here Joe. I didn't throw anyone under the bus. Is quoting what multiple people have said actually throwing them under the bus? I didn't comment at all the first time I heard it, then someone posted it here to which I commented. That's throwing someone under the bus? Interesting.

Bill

 

[sluggers]

As for the drop, as I've said over and over... the hardest thing to explain to someone who's never pitched or is just learning the drop is.... the hardest thing is the simplicity of it. People want to make it 10x harder than it is. If you have forward spin on the ball, you have a drop. Now it's about release point. MOST girls who throw a "fastball" (and their catchers) will say their "fastball" often times (most times) has a big drop to it yet they don't know how they did it. All they did is let the ball go sooner. That's it. Mystery solved.

Bill

There is plenty of evidence that some pitchers throw a drop with much more spin than their fastball. More spin = more drop.

Revfire measured drop ball spin for HS pitchers several years back. The average spin was 17. But, 5% of the pitchers had spins greater than 24. And, the best had spin rates close to 30. My DD's drop ball was hitting 28RPS and that was 10 years after she stopped pitching competitively.

A pitcher throwing a drop with a spin rate of 28RPS is going to have more drop than a kid throwing a drop with a spin rate of 17RPS. The kid with the 28RPS gets more movement.

 

[sluggers]

My point is just throw the ball naturally. Don't get hung up on all the technical jargon at 9 or10 years old.Just throw the ball!

I agree about technical jargon for 9YOA kids. But, there is nothing "natural" about accelerating your hand to 60+ mph.

Any kid learning pitching will struggle with different parts of the pitching motion. Your DD picked up IR easily. Great! But, some other kid might not.

 

[joe720]

Way my DD was taught to throw the drop was really just try to get the front hip down. Rest of it is pretty much just a 2 seam release. While that is simplifying it and there are other things to do to get greater spin, dropping the front hip gets a passable drop pretty quick.