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| by: Garrett Berger |
What bothers me the most is the concentration of velocity when it comes to pitching. A pitcher's job is get batters out. Plane and simple. A pitcher's job is not to throw the ball as hard as possible. Some pitcher's may have the ability to throw 95 mph but effectively throw strikes at 88-90. Whats wrong with that? The focus at a young age needs to change. Let's teach how we get batter's out and let's simplify the approach to maximize success.
So how do we achieve this? It's simple. Stop teaching velocity. We want all of our pitcher's to be able to maintain their velocity throughout the game without a major drop in velocity from start to finish. Pitching is a lot like driving a manual transmission car. We need to cruise in 3rd or 4th gear the entire game. When we want to pass someone we kick it up into gear, pass them, then get right back into 3rd or 4th. If we continually pitch in 5th or OD, whats going to happen? Transmission or engine problems are inevitable.
Conventional wisdom would think that we need to throw as hard as we can to get the batter out. However what conventional wisdom doesn't consider is the mental state of the pitcher. If I can throw comfortably in my "comfort zone" why would I consistently try to leave that area just to throw hard? We build confidence in a pitcher by pitching in our comfort zone and then you build velocity from there. There are a lot of instructors and dads that want their kids to throw hard right out of the shoot and what does that accomplish? Sore arms and bruised egos.
The teach we break down to is results. If I am pitching and I throw a strike, congratulations you just accomplished the first step in pitching. Obtaining the first pitch strike. The hardest thing for kids to do is repeat that same delivery and execute strike 2. Let's say that with the 0-1 count you miss your location and now its 1-1. What's your adjustment? Well most instructors would have the player programmed at this point to say well I missed my spot because of my front side or my posture or my head. WRONG. What you did wrong was you threw a ball. What's your adjustment? Throw a strike. What separates a good pitcher from a bad pitcher, is that a good pitcher only takes 1 pitch to make an adjustment. A bad pitcher takes 4 or 5.
You could have the best mechanics in the world but if you can't get a batter out then you can't pitch. Turn in your glove for a bat and hopefully you can swing it! Worked for Rick Ankiel. I'm sure at the amateur level there are much more. We have to teach ourselves to become our own coach. There are very few good pitching coaches out there. We know whats best for our body and it's time we start listening. If you are doing something and it doesn't feel right, do not be afraid to change it. Again it comes down to results. Would you rather conform and do things that don't feel comfortable or would you rather make the change and get more opportunities to pitch and play? Only one person can answer that. Getting batters out is the focus and always should be. Not mechanics. If your mechanics are bad the chances of you pitching long term are few and far between.The best story TJ every told me was he was going to do an appearance at a baseball facility. They asked him to come in early because they had some fancy machine that had his delivery in it from old video footage. The guys were looking it over and said man TJ your mechanics were horrible how did you pitch for so long? He handed them their money and walked away.
This is where we are headed if we don't change our approach. How does a man that pitched for 26 years, won 288 games, have bad mechanics? Longevity is the key. Longevity in the game is what guys want. You can't pitch for 26 years and not be successful at what you do.
Let's change our approach. Now that I have talked just a little about mechanics or adjustments are simple. If you are ahead of your body and your arm is behind you, tell yourself to stay behind the ball. Again we only have 2 adjustments, stay behind the ball and stay through the ball. If we fly open, we need to tell ourselves to stay through it. Our mind listens to the last thing it hears. If we throw a bad pitch and tell ourselves, "man I just flew open," what's the last thing it hears? So what are you going to do again? Fly open. So we enforce the adjustment not the mistake.
Change our focus and ultimately we succeed. Change our approach and we stay injury free. If we pitch to pitch and not throw to see how hard it is, we will stay healthier longer. Save your bullets. You only get so many.
Happy Pitcher
