video critic plz

[statetruepur]

She does have a pitching coach, Doug Gillis. Gillis has made a few small changes with her but this is the basic way she has always pitched considering this is her second year of serious pitching. Her curve ball is a drop curve, I just call it a curve not really thinking as the first movement is curving. The riseball she is working on works well but don't use it a lot being she is still learning it. When she misses it turns into a good screwball but i was told those put too much stress on the elbow and shoulder and was advised not to learn it.
If batters are behind on the fastball, wouldn't throwing off speed allow the batter to hit the ball? What pitches should she concentrate on if she wants to play at the next level. She read these posts earlier before practiced and worked on the things mentioned and she picked up her speed again along with her accuracy. That small adjustment in the weight and lower shoulder made a surprisingly big difference and she looks more like a solid pitcher. You could really see her thinking as she was breaking down and trying to correct them. One question she had was how is she suppose to call her own pitches.

 

[splinterpicker]

I am new here , 2nd post. This site has great advice, I have learned alot. So here goes. Just from the video I would focus on here arm speed and snap. Looks like she cups the ball and is not getting a full snap also, is she utilizing the seams as much as possible. More spin more movement. The previous post was great, the only question i have is how is the catcher know what the pitcher is throwing if she throws her own game ? Not trying to be a smart ......

 

[sluggers]

Your DD is pretty good. She has to decide if she wants to go to the next level.

this is the basic way she has always pitched considering this is her second year of serious pitching.

Your DD looks a lot like Marie Barda (U of Mich). Marie threw around 65 MPH. Marie was like your DD also. Marie pitched like that from the first time she picked up the ball. Only God understands why, and I'm going to have a long talk with Him about it one of these days.

One question she had was how is she suppose to call her own pitches.

You teach her and the catcher how to call a game. Just like baseball, during the game, the catcher suggests which pitch to throw, and the pitcher agrees or disagrees.

You teach the basic concepts of pitching. Before the game, you to the pitcher and catcher and help them decide on a plan. Then, you watch the game, you see what pitches she throws, make some notes, and you sit down with them after the game and talk about it. Maybe talk to them during the game once in a while, if the coach is OK with it. Sit down and watch a few innings of a baseball game with them and talk about the pitch selection. When you watch a baseball game, check out the speed of the pitches and see how the pros vary the speed up and down during an at-bat.

You can talk to them during the game and point things out. Get her to think about batters, umpires and pitching. Sure, she is going to mistakes. Enjoy it and have fun.

The riseball she is working on works well but don't use it a lot being she is still learning it.

???

With her form, she is a riseball pitcher. She should start using that pitch in a game as much as she possible can. I understand she isn't great with it. Anytime she wants a pitch up in the strike zone, she should try to throw the rise instead.

If she were my DD, she would learn to throw a rise and a peel drop. Don't waste her time working on a curve--she has got to get a working vertical movement pitch ASAP. She doesn't have time to mess around with a curve or a screw. An over-the-top drop is going to mess up her form, so I would stay away from that pitch.

If she wants to play at the next level, she has to have one vertical movement pitch (a rise or drop) that is outstanding. The ball has to move up or down by 12 to 18 inches. If her rise is moving that much now, but she just can't consistently get the movement on it, then that is the pitch she should work on.

Again, she has to get her rear in gear. Time is running out on her.

If batters are behind on the fastball, wouldn't throwing off speed allow the batter to hit the ball?

(A) If you put the ball over the plate they will. You put the ball slightly outside (or inside) of where the batter can hit it--that is why she needs great control. A batter who hasn't been able to catch up to her pitch is going to try to jump all over an off-speed pitch. if the ball is out of the "hit zone" (i.e., out of the area that the hitter can hit the ball), the batter only gets air.

(B) You said the batters catch up with her in the second game of a DH. Because she hasn't thrown the off-speed stuff early in the game, she doesn't have confidence to throw it when the game is on the line. So, she ends up relying just on her fastball. You throw the off-speed stuff out of the strike zone until you need to throw if for a strike.

She has to "establish" her pitches early in the game. During the time that the batters can't catch up to her fastball, she is throwing her other pitches (rise/drop/offspeed) so that she can throw them when the batters can catch up to her fastball. Again, this gets back to control--she has to be able to throw a fastball for a strike anytime she wants, so she doesn't care if she throws a couple of rises over the catcher's head.

the next level

She can play D3 now. So, she needs to sit down and really think about what she wants to do about her life after college, pick some schools that can further her goal, and then look at their softball programs.

 

[statetruepur]

I thought I mentioned this before but looking back I didn't, I am her high school and travel ball coach. Maybe calling her pitches makes more since now, maybe not. I'm working with the catcher to have her understand pitching so seeing the balls rotation will let her know where the ball will go, what it should do, ect. She isn't quick enough yet to get the set up of a pitch or setting up the batter. She is very new to this, and looks at what I say as concrete so getting her to learn that everything is situational is a work in progress.
Do u have or know where there is a online video of Marie Barda? i would like to see her throw but wasn't able to find any online. Looks like we will be working on that rise a lot than and going to see her PC for some fine tuning on it. We will change her drop over to a peel which I found easier to throw but when I suggested awhile back to her, she thought it was harder.
I was watching college softball last night and I noticed the curve balls that those pitchers were throwing. They were a the 'hanging curveball' you were talking about which I can see batters hitting out of the park. But my DD's curvball looks nothing like that. Hers starts in the middle, inner edge of the plate then cuts completely across to six inches or so off the outside of the plate with a drop. Depending on the situation or batter I'll have her throw it even more off if I want the batter chasing. Maybe I'm seeing some some pitchers with not a very good curve. Anyways, she will be focusing on her rise now. Thanks for the advice and any more you can give.

 

[sluggers]

Sometimes let her call the pitches herself and make her think about what is she doing.

I don't know if there are any videos of her around. Barda and my DD went to the same pitching coach, so I watched her throw quite a bit. She was taller and lankier than your DD. So, Barda's top end is higher than your DD's. (But, you gotta work with what you got.) She threw the ball effortlessly. I asked the pitching coach how he taught Barda how to pitch, and he just laughed at me. He said, "I didn't. She threw like that when she came out of the womb."

Here is my logic about the rise:

A good D1 pitcher has to be able to throw a big drop or a big rise. To throw a big drop, the weight has to be over the front foot at release.

To throw a big rise, the the weight has to be back. Your DD already has her weight back, perhaps she'll have to lean back a little more to throw a rise, but not much. So, she doesn't have to mess with her body position. All she has to is learn how to spin the ball at release (which is not easy), and she'll have a great rise. Honestly, if she got with a good coach, she could be throwing one in no time.

My DD was always on her front foot when she pitched. When my DD was about 16, her pitching coach said, "Forget trying to throw a rise. Concentrate on the drop, because her body position is already there." So, we did, and he was right. She ended up having this incredible drop ball. For your DD to throw a drop like my DD, she would have to completely mess up her nice pitching motion. Why worry about it?

Put a good peel drop with a good rise--and your DD can throw a good rise--and your DD will be almost untouchable.

As to your DD's curve-drop, she isn't getting a real tight spin on the ball, so she isn't getting the huge drop she needs. A curve drop in HS is great, but it isn't going to work in college. They are very, very hard to throw for a strike. To get the big drop with an over-the-top drop, she would have to really get on her front foot and bring her right shoulder way around. IMHO, it will just mess up her form.

 

[batsics1]

The biggest improvement my DD has made in the last two years in her maturity as a pitcher has occurred during the current HS season and it is because she has been working with a converted freshman catcher.

DD has been a starting varsity pitcher since she was a freshman – she is a junior this year. For her first two years she had a very smart catcher who was the team leader (a very positive influence for DD) what she said was the law – DD could not shake off pitches and threw what was called where it was called. She has always worked with solid catchers and has had someone calling the game for her. But, her HS catcher didn’t care for drop balls and so called it very rarely. Problem is my DD is a drop ball pitcher and without it none of her other pitches were as effective because the drop sets up everything else.

This year DD is the law, calls her own games for the first time. She has gone through the same issues with dropped third strikes, catcher not framing pitches, frustration with umpires, etc. For the first part of the season I thought DD would get neck cramps from all the pitches she shook off. It took the early part of the season to work things out but both continued to improve as they became comfortable with their roles. Although the catcher still drops too many balls, the two of them are almost always on the same page these days and are working very well together. DD has been much more successful this year because she throws a lot more drops even though the catcher spends a lot of time hunting for them after the batter swings and misses. There are a couple of other reasons why she is enjoying more success this year.

One of the big differences is that when DD hangs a pitch and it gets roped she smiles, points at herself and says that ones on me. She started doing this early in the season to help the catcher keep her confidence up. Lately, she does it less for the catcher and more as an act of responsibility. What that translates to is learning the difference between a mistake and a good pitch that the batter just beat her on. The mistakes stick in her memory longer because there’s no one else to blame and they happen less and less.

The second big difference is that because the catcher doesn’t set up well or frame pitches well DD has learned to throw pitches where she wants them to go. The reason this is significant is that if she goes outside on consecutive pitches and the catcher frames the outside black both times and DD hits the same target both times as she was told to do, in the past, the second pitch would likely end up in the gap. After the game I would hear her say the catcher said I hit the target the batter just hit it and she didn’t know why. This year, instead of hitting the target she has learned how to hit the spot she wants which means the second pitch won’t be in the same place at the same speed as the first.

Another significant improvement has come on the change-up. If she decides to throw a change to a hitter who is having trouble catching up that hitter is probably going to need a four foot 9 iron to make contact. OTOH, if a hitter just fouled a rise straight back she may see the change start just like the rise ball and finish at the knees. She is learning how to make adjustments to her speed, spin and locations to beat the batter rather than pitch the pitch.

The last difference is that she has learned to ignore the umpires. She has long suffered from the, “He’s calling hers but not mine” blues. This year, once she has a feel for the ump’s strike zone they become irrelevant – she pitches to the batter. If the ump’s not giving her the outside pitch and the batter won’t swing at it she is learning how to work inside to change the batter’s eye.

Trust me, none of this has happened overnight or without some pain, suffering and disappointment. It isn’t there every pitch or even every batter, but it IS there most of the time. The amount of growing up my DD has done in the last couple of months is noticeable. It probably wouldn’t have happened, at least not as fast, if she wasn’t essentially put in the position of on the job trainer for the catcher.

At 17 it is only reasonable to expect incremental improvements in mechanics. There is only so much tweaking one can do at this point. That doesn’t mean it won’t continue and that there aren’t a few more lightbulb moments left to be discovered. But, there is always more work to be done on the mental side of the game. The biggest difference is that DD didn’t let the situation play her she played the situation. These days when I look out at the young lady on the rubber I see someone who has taken control of her environment and that difference is profound.

To be honest, I wrote this to crow some, but I want to make this point to Statetruepur and anyone else in a similar position: Give your DD the ball and stop lending it to her - it ain’t yours. Accept that the ride will be bumpy and you can’t protect her anymore. When she learns how to own it, it will all be worthwhile.