Why so much talk about pitching speed?

[ifubuildit]

Amy

I too have a 13YO that is in the mid 50's and throwing about 5 different pitches. Understand this is a naturally STRONG young lady who works on her pitching a lot during the season. IMO that is an exception and not the rule.

My DD at that age was around 50-52 with those same pitches. She too was strong but this young girl is IMO a superior athlete. I cant wait until she gets to 16 just to see how far she can go with her pitching skills.

My thinking is it will be a long way.

Elliott.

 

[fivepotsogold]

Pitching speed

We hear different philosophies on whether or not to work on sped first and the accuracy will come..or accuracy then increase spped.

Either way, Mechanics is what our coaches stress more than anything. We even do videos of our pitchers to check to see if they are pitching to stay healthy....then we work on accuracy or speed.

M older daughter turned 12 last month...very accurate at around 45. NOw we need to work on speed. Working on the change up and that is coming along nicely.

My 9 year old seems to be doing better with us having her really pitch with full arm speed and work on her release point as we go. She tends to be high...if she holds back, they are very low/grounders.


Is there really a right or a wrond approach if form is pretty good and mechanics are such that they aren't going to damage their growing bodies.

 

[3'sDad]

DD is a 10 y/o 1st year pitcher....she is in the low 40's and can get to or slightly above 45 if the juices are flowing in a game....her pitching coach works with her weekly on her arm strength, pitch location and change-up...change-up is warranted as she is playing 12U LL and many of the older girls can rip a fastball....both the pitching coach and I are very pleased with her progress.....she focuses on the following when in the cirlce:

1. staying ahead of hitters
2. pitching one inning at a time
3. making good quality pitches
4. not looking at wins or losses
5. she is having fun pitching


She does not fight us about practicing, which is 2 nights/week in additon to games (100 pitches per session).

She has been on a 3 inning limit per game because we have another pitcher who also needs the work....whether we are ahead 10-0 or losing 6-1 she has come out....we will push it to 4 innings the next start to build up her stamina....

 

[Mark H]

We hear different philosophies on whether or not to work on sped first and the accuracy will come..or accuracy then increase speed.

If you learn how to throw accurately slow, you will have to relearn how to throw accurately when throwing fast.

 

[Mark H]

Also because it is one thing that is easily quantified. You can measure it. Movement, not so much. We don't carry around a machine that tells us exactly how much our pitchers drop ball dropped or curve ball curved, etc. So to compare one pitcher's curve ball to another is a little tougher than comparing one pitcher's speed to another since with speed you can say, "This pitcher throws mid-50's, but that one over there consistently hits over 60."

You can look at two pitchers and say pitcher A is faster than pitcher B....not quite as easy to say, pitcher A has a better drop than pitcher B. Why is it "better?" Because it drops more? Because of when it drops? Because you can't tell when it's coming? There are a lot of factors that would go into determining an opinion on whether or not one pitcher's drop is better than another's and two different observers could have a two totally different assessments of the same situation. With speed, if there is a difference between the two pitchers it's more definite, pitcher A IS faster than pitcher B. No guessing, no analysis needed, just the gun. So I think part of it is just the fact that it's an aspect of pitching that's much easier to define and compare.

This speaks to the motor learning principle that immediate objective feedback is a big deal in learning to use the body. When working on the drop, the way we obtained immediate objective feedback was to use a barrier. Something like a ribbon or twine stretched across the pitch path about release point high maybe fifteen feet or so from the plate. Idea being to pitch over that and drop it to the knees or lower throwing hard. Once that was easy you move the barrier toward home plate a little at a time and still try to throw it over the barrier and break it to the knees or lower. Got it from Howard Hashida and later heard the same thing from Ernie. If you use a barrier that will affect ball flight if you hit it, make sure the catcher is fully suited up. You can lose teeth etc otherwise.

 

[ang4yanks]

We hear different philosophies on whether or not to work on sped first and the accuracy will come..or accuracy then increase spped.

Either way, Mechanics is what our coaches stress more than anything. We even do videos of our pitchers to check to see if they are pitching to stay healthy....then we work on accuracy or speed.

M older daughter turned 12 last month...very accurate at around 45. NOw we need to work on speed. Working on the change up and that is coming along nicely.

My 9 year old seems to be doing better with us having her really pitch with full arm speed and work on her release point as we go. She tends to be high...if she holds back, they are very low/grounders.


Is there really a right or a wrond approach if form is pretty good and mechanics are such that they aren't going to damage their growing bodies.

Five pots...

I don't believe the world will ever come to an agreement on this question. Some people focus on accuracy over speed and vice versa...when I took typing (way back when) I always preferred typing slower with more accuracy because I hated errors and retyping. There were some that preferred typing as fast as they could and didn't mind determining their typing speed according to errors. It was all graded by the same system. Different philosophies

Ang

 

[Mark H]

My point was, IMO, it's not a question of different philosophies. Throwing hard is one skill. Throwing accurately is another skill. Throwing hard accurately is another skill. If you learn to throw accurately slow, you are going have to learn to throw accurately hard assuming you do want to throw hard some day and when you get in trouble, the temptation will always be there to back off on the effort to throw strikes. Learn to use your body maximally and then practice till you can do it accurately.

 

[RMGC]

Do not be seduced by speed

When pitchers are young or early in their pitching maturation, too much emphasis is put on speed by team coaches and parents. Some pitching coaches can also fall into this trap because their pitchers success is their success and early on speed will win. But everyone involved is doing a disservice to the pitcher when they concentrate on speed. After all, as pitching coaches we are charged with preparing our students to play at the upper levels of the game, and speed will not succeed there, regardless of how fast she can throw. Ask any pitcher at the college level what percent of her game is fast balls and you may be surprised to hear that it could be as low as 0% and rarely higher than 10% of their game. If this is the case, then why would we put so much emphasis on it. I have seen many college pitchers who are completely overwhelmed at that level due to a lack of control or movement in their pitching. The very best pitchers in college have a variety of pitches they can throw, mixing them up to keep the batters off balance. Obviously, throwing those pitches faster limits the reaction time of the batter, but without the movement the speed is meaningless. You can be successful in college with moderate speed and great movement, but you are surely going to fail with exceptional speed and mediocre or no movement on the pitches.

 

[ang4yanks]

RMGC...well said.

Ang

 

[herbcoop]

Amy, it may be disputed, but that is where my daughter is and she will be 13 in August. She has a sweet change up, is learning to recognize the batters (what worked or didn't work last time, and where the batter hit it). Additionally, she learned early in the game what that particular umpire favors. She consistently throws 53 with occassional higher speed. We don't own a radar guns because there are enough other dads who do She just ordered Ernie's video on the Rise and Curve...

Ang

Ang, where is this video located, I'm a first year coach and have 2 young 12 year old girls that aren't bad but can use help so if they plan on pitching I'd like to give their parents some information that might help them
Herb