Pitching strategy: What to throw, where to throw it

In baseball pitching, knowing what to throw and when to throw it is key to having success on the pitcher's mound. That's why I encourage pitchers to get in a habit of watching hitters take their warm-up swings -- watching how they swing the bat.

A baseball hitter's natural warm-up swing path most of the time can tell you where he'd like the pitch. See if you can pick it out with the hitters you face.

What seems to be the pitch location that they hit the best? You'll want to aggressively pitch around that spot.

In the game, watch how the hitters stand at the plate: closed stance, open stance, bat held high, held low, hitch in the swing? All tell you something about the hitter. All will help you pitch to the batters' weaknesses.

• Pitch inside to a batter who holds his bat on end, pointed straight in the air who crowds the plate or swings a slow bat
• Pitch high inside to a batter who's nervous, uppercuts the ball strides too far or does not rotate the hips
• Pitch outside to a batter who swings with an open stance pulls his head out, taking the eyes off the ball in swing
• Pitch outside low if the batter swings down (chops at the ball), uses an open stance without a stride, just swings with the arm strides and steps in the bucket

(Submitted by Bill Chapones)

How to be 75 percent more effective on the pitcher's mound

Baseball pitching should be simple. Easier said than done, I know. But when working with young pitchers keeping it simple makes it fun.

When I work with Little League age kids, I teach two basic principles: a pitcher must be able to throw strikes and a pitcher must be healthy. If he can't throw strikes or if he's injured, he can't play because he's ineffective.

The best pitch in baseball is "Strike 1" because when the first pitch to a batter is a strike, the pitcher will get him out 82 percent of the time. In my experience, if one pitcher begins the game by throwing a strike and his counterpart's first pitch is a ball, the one who opens the game with a strike will win more than 75 percent of the time.

Strike 1 isn't about fooling the batter, either. It's about placing a quality pitch on the glove. Get that first pitch over for a strike.

How to keep pitching fresh, so you don't burn out too early

Think your son might be burning out on baseball pitching? It happens. In youth baseball, it happens a lot. When I get phone calls from parents who've got a son that's headed down this road, I encourage them to get involved right away.

Diversify the activities your kids are involved in. Allow them to participate in other sports, band, church groups, swimming, boy scouts, archery, reading, computers, whatever. Give your kids an opportunity to try a little bit of everything so they can figure out what they love to do on their own. Give them an opportunity to be kids, too. Professional baseball will still be there, but childhood passes quickly.

On the baseball field, don't "specialize" too early. Young ball players should be playing every position. They should pitch, play outfield, play shortstop and first base. Youth ball players shouldn’t focus on just one position because most players at the age of 8 or 9 don’t know if the position they're focusing on will be the one they'll end up playing at 17 or 18 years old.

And the experience gained by playing a lot of different positions at 10, 11, 12, or 13 years old can really be invaluable later in a baseball career.

Keep it fun for your kids. Diversify their activities. Play lots of positions. That's how to avoid burning out. And that's how some of the great pitchers in the big leagues, such as Padres pitcher Jake Peavy, above, got to where they are today.

How to block everything out, so you can pitch your game

Have you ever pitched with rabbit ears? It's a figure of speech used in baseball to describe a guy who's minding everyone else's business but his own. Usually, it describes a pitcher who's not fully concentrating on the task at hand, but rather tuned into what his parents, his coaches, the opposing team, etc., are saying.

As a pitcher, the mound is no place for rabbit ears. When your on the mound, you've got to block everything out but the next pitch. You've gotta talk to yourself in a positive way and focus on hitting the strike zone. You've have to trust that your next pitch will be a strike. You have to ignore the taunts from the other dugout -- "Hey pitcher, look out for the hole in front of the rubber" or "Hey rubber arm, your stride's too long." And you've got to ignore what coaches or parents or friends in the stands might be saying. What they're saying is not going to help you. It won't allow you to succeed.

How do you take off the rabbit ears? Concentrate on YOUR game. Slow things down. Tune it out. Keep it positive. Concentrate on the next pitch.

So take off those rabbit ears if you've been wearing them.

(Submitted by Bill Chapones)

Want to play college ball? It's all about pitching ability -- and timing

This is the time of year when you might be beginning to think about the fall and the start of school. (I know, I know: It's not a great thought.)

For some of you, it's your senior year in high school and you've got the the opportunity to play "big stud" on the varsity team.

But for those of you entering your sophomore and junior years in high school, it right now, this upcoming season that you will need to carve out the path you want your career to take. This year is the year that sophomores and juniors make themselves known -- and earn college baseball scholarships.

That's because the NCAA early signing period for baseball is in the late Fall of a player's senior year in high school. This, of course, precedes the spring season. Coaches therefore don't have the opportunity to see a pitcher pitch his senior year in high school before he's got to make a decision on whether to sign him early or not. So what do coaches do? They rely on potential -- and on what a player did during his sophomore and junior year. That's all they have to go on.

Most of the "scholarship money" college teams have to spend on players is spent in the fall. What's left over is used to sign "late bloomers" after or sometime during the spring season.

So it's important for seniors to have a good showing next spring -- but it most important for sophomores and juniors to kick it into high gear and show some people what you're capable of doing on the pitcher's mound this year. Your scholarship is out there on the mound. Go get it.

Pitching mechanics videos

It was a nice surprise to see parts of a Coach Bill Thurston baseball pitching video pop up on "Google Video" a couple of weeks ago. Thurston was my personal baseball pitching instructor for seven years. I had the good fortune of growing up playing baseball in upstate New York, which was a short drive to Amherst (Mass.) College where he's head baseball coach.

For those of you who don't live near western Mass. or are not familiar with Bill Thurston, these pitching videos -- which break down quality baseball pitching mechanics into their components -- will give you an idea about what he teaches pitchers. Here are the links. Enjoy.

1 - The Windup:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5337413828536108761&q

2 - The Cocked/T Position
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-462414173609124603&q

3 - Bracing the Front Leg and Trunk Rotation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-927609689575581004&q

4 - Proper Arm Slot
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929301428150864&q

5 - Proper Arm De-Acceleration
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7563740039445791657&q

How to find your "natural" arm slot for pitching

How do you pitch? Sidearm? Low three-quarters? Mid three-quarters? High three-quarters? Overhand?

All five, of course, describe common arm slots for baseball pitchers. I pitched high three-quarters. But which one's correct? They all are! It just depends on which comes most natural for you.

Want to know what that is? Here's how to find out with a simple baseball pitching drill. Two people are needed: the pitcher and a coach or another player.

The pitcher stands in the outfield. The coach can stand behind the pitcher's mound with a bucket of baseballs and a fungo. The coach hits baseballs into the outfield (on a hop) slightly to the right or left of the pitcher. The pitcher should field the baseball as an outfielder would, take a crow hop, and make the throw. However the the pitcher throws the baseball is his natural arm slot.

Which one are you?

How to get good and being more accurate

On Friday, I got a call from Lionel Chattelle, a baseball coach in Germany who coaches the Bonn Capitals. They're one of a dozen professional baseball teams in the country. Later this year, I'll be putting on a 5-day pitching and coaching clinic over there with some of his professional pitchers, some of whom play on the German National Baseball Team. While the details haven't been finalized, I'm looking forward to it.

Coach Chattelle, who himself is a former college pitcher from the US, said he was recently working with a former Twins pitcher, Tim Henkenjohann, at right, who was released from the big league club.

The pitcher is a talented prospect: In the neighborhood of 6-foot-5, 220 pounds. Throws 92 mph. Yet the Twins pitcher was experiencing control problems, and sent back to Germany to work on it.

Coach Chattelle's fix? He told him to think about seeing the target and hitting the target -- and nothing else. Not mechanics, not girlfriends, not what's for dinner, not the latest Superman Returns movie.

The pitcher's problem, which is quite common amongst pitchers, is that he was thinking about everything else but the task at hand: the next pitch. He was trying to fix his mechanics in between pitches. He was talking to himself, but it wasn't positive or progressive.

Are Coach Chattrelle's comments a simple set of commands? You bet. But it worked. Coach said his pitcher is throwing more strikes. And they're making some mechanical changes in practice that's helping the cause, too.

My point is this: when you're in practice, work on mechanics. That's the perfect time and place to do that. When you're in the game, work on the next pitch. (Thanks for the tip, Coach!)

What kinds of throwing is most beneficial to pitchers?

A baseball pitcher's long toss throwing program should include both 120 feet long tossing and maximum-distance long tossing.

Here's what I mean:

If, for instance, you throw throw six days a week on the throwing program you're currently on, use four of those days to long toss at around 120 feet, and then back it up to maximum distance for the other two days. (You maximum distance is determined by the point at which you can't reach your throwing partner in the air.)

Multiple distance long-tossing varies the stresses placed on the arm and builds the greatest amount of strength. (Much like performing different reps and types of core exercises strengthens your abdomin a little differently from one another).

The reason I limit the "all-out" long tossing to just two days a week is because my college pitchers are throwing bullpens, performing on-field throwing in drills, and pitching in games on the other days.

What are "picture perfect" pitching mechanics?

Not every pitcher has to pitch the exact same way to be successful on the pitcher's mound.

What I've found in my career as a Division I full-scholarship pitcher at Bradley University -- and from my three years in the Chicago Cubs organization -- is that the baseball pitchers who are the most successful are the ones who are able to consistently repeat their pitching delivery.

That's the key to quality, picture perfect pitching mechanics: being able to repeat your delivery while staying injury free.

Take my former teammate Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins, for instance. Willis's pitching delivery is certainly not "orthodox," but it works for him, he can repeat it -- and he's successful with it.

My point is this: Work on your pitching mechanics, but not from a standpoint of fitting into a cookie-cutter mold. Instead, work to have a repeatable delivery that enables you to pitch injury free.