I have been giving this thread a lot of thought. While I do not have my DD perform wrist flips during her warm ups, I do see a ton of pitchers who still do. I no longer see a benefit in this drill. I also do not see the harm. When I look at the wrist flip in more detail, it seems like it teaches the pitcher how to throw with their fingers along with snapping the wrist. You can pitch using the "bowling" technique or the "IR" method. In both cases, your fingers snapping through the release are what throws the ball. If a young pitcher can get the feel of the release through a wrist flip, where is the harm? I would certainly make sure the next drill she uses to warm up involves the elbow and whipping action.
Wrist Snap
- Thread starter cyfairslam
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Well...it is good to listen to her and even better to watch what she does. At the 1:58 mark listen to her explain what young people do when they let go of a pitch and then she goes on to demonstrate how to finish with the classic happy elbow and fingers high and back of hand facing the catcher...now watch how she finishes her pitches in the clips.
If this is not a conscious forceful wrist snap then I am blind. I have a video of this but youtube won't convert it for some reason, so these are the screen shots. This is a very powerful wrist snap, agree with it or don't it doesn't really matter because she is one of the best and in this video she is snapping the heck out of it.
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Great images. Try and post the video too. It would be good for all of us to look at. As you can see by this and the many videos of Cat on You Tube she does many different things with her wrist and follow through depending on what she is throwing. What do you think she is throwing here based on your video? Is it a rise, drop, curve or fastball?
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someone will have to help me with the video it is on my mac a .mov file, normally I don't have any problem posting those file types. But for some reason it will not convert it. I can email it to somebody and they can try. just message me and I will. It is a small file just of one pitch. To me it looks like a fastball, but what do I know.
bwalk, first off that pitch is probably her curve ball in which the wrist has to curl in. Secondly, the wrist is moving but it is at the end of the kinetic chain. It is much like the end of a whip at that point. Very little muscle initiated movement if that is indeed her drop ball which I don't believe it is. Those drills try to initiate a movement that doesn't occur in the actual pitching motion. Secondly, I don't care who does those drills it does not make them good or helpful.
Coach, I agree the wrist snap drills are worthless, we don't do them at all. But I will say my DD has seen quite a bit improvement not only in her movement but also in a tighter faster spin, since she has been focusing more on snapping the ball. Now whether it is wrist snap, finger snap or or better whip I can't say, but what she "focuses" on is wrist snap. Her peel is dropping off the table, her curve has a sharper and later break, and her fastball(yes fastball, she pitches a fastball with placement, which for her is exactly like her peel, she is just not over her front leg)is moving better and faster. These are just our observations
- Jul 26, 2010
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Cat throws a peel drop, as shown in these clips. It's pretty much the same peel drop Hillhouse advocates.
-W
sounds about right, but so you are saying there is no wrist snap? or you are agreeing and saying there is?
- Apr 25, 2010
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I think the wrist snaps as part of a sequence. It just happens. The arm/elbow whips, the wrist then "snaps", and the fingers "rip" the seams. I don't believe it is a conscious movement. My 11yo often has great break on her drop and she never does wrist snap drills. She does NO static, isolated drills at all. Her drop doesn't always break perfectly and I attribute that to the fact that she "checked out" over her winter break. Now that she's getting back into things, it's looking much better. Plus, she's still a 1st year pitcher. Started pitching last March.
