Your DD is very young and has plenty of time to develop a drop ball. My advice would be not to rush it. Focus on building her fastball mechanics, velocity, and command. You can go a long way with a good fastball and change up. My DD is about to turn 14 and we've been at this about 4.5 years. We are still honing her fastball and change up and started working on the drop ball a couple months ago. You have to walk before you can run. Girls adding pitches too quickly, in my view, is a common problem. And, in reality, no girl is likely to ever actually command more than 3 pitches.
As far as the change up, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. However, I think what Sarah Pauly was suggesting is that at higher levels of play that so-called flip change may be less effective, particularly if her arm action is perceptibly different and the ball comes in high and sort of floats. Even at 14U, and definitely at 10U and 12U, I see very few girls that can command their change up, particularly of the flip variety. Not saying your DD can't or isn't, just that I haven't seen it work very well.
Good luck. As you've already figured out, this site is a great resource.
Well said. I agree with all of this.
That flip change. We worked on it for months and got pretty good. But we're so much more effective with the "other" kind. I'm hesitant to name it -- basically she grips it differently and pushes it more. Same delivery, same motion, same presentation. The combination of her arm and body looking like a fastball is coming and the 8 mph slower pitch fool batters regularly. She's had some stuck dead in their tracks, made others fall down, and most simply swing way too early. A good CU is a beautiful thing.
The flip change just had such a small margin of error. And I do think the delivery is different enough that it could one day be spotted by better hitters.
Our pitching instructor is ready to teach the drop ball when we are ready. We play with it a tad, but at 10 we still focus about 99% of our time in lessons and practice on fastball and change. Working on mechanics and location. Though my DD wants to learn all the pitches ASAP, I'm doing my best to hold them back a tad. We'll get there... although she's being taught a turnover drop, and I sometimes wonder if Bill's way is better (though I don't quite understand it fully).
The other thing about a 10U drop ball is that when pitching from 35 feet, you have a lot less distance for the spin to kick in and make the ball drop. This makes sense in my mind, though perhaps the science doesn't back it up.
And with her fastball topping out at 43 mph, it drops plenty. Thanks Isaac Newton.
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