How to simplify pitching mechanics for young pitchers

Sometimes when working with younger baseball pitchers (kids 8 to 13 years old) it's beneficial to scrap the full windup and teach them to pitch only from the stretch. That's because it simplifies things -- kids only have to learn one motion, not two. It also makes it easier, in many instances, for young pitchers to concentrate and throw strikes because less can go wrong mechanically with the throwing motion.

Many young pitchers find that by only pitching from the stretch they can repeat their delivery -- and that, as a result, they're around the plate more consistently.

There will be plenty of time later in a kid's career to develop the skill of pitching from the full windup (or pitching with two deliveries), but during the early stages of a pitcher's development, it's perfectly OK to work on solely out of the stretch.

By the way, in pro ball, I pitched entirely out of the stretch. Granted, I was a closer. But even with no runners on base, I threw out of the stretch. One motion ... simple!

Will Carroll on good vs. bad pitching mechanics

For those of you who are big fans of Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll, you'll enjoy this piece. He's stopped by this blog on a number of occasions and emailed me about the gyroball. Carroll recently did a video piece for MLB.com about inefficient pitching mechanics, highlighting five major league pitchers -- all who've spent time on the disabled list because of poor mechanics.

Click here to watch the video. Most pitching injuries come from how all the torque from throwing a baseball with high velocity is absorbed by the rest of the body. How you stride and follow through has a huge impact on how healthy you will be.

Discuss this video with other pitching enthusiasts here.

How Joel Zumaya gained 5 mph on his fastball doing yoga

My friend and pitching instructor Alan Jaeger, of Jaeger Sports, and Detroit Tigers pitcher Joel Zumaya talk about pitching, yoga, long toss, and throwing more than 100 mph. (A video will pop-up in a separate window.)

Click here for the video.

Why pitchers and coaches should re-evaluate "drop and drive" pitching mechanics

Today's guest post is by Amherst (Mass.) Mickey Mantle Coach Kevin Graber and was originally published  June 14, 2005, here.

The old “drop-and-drive” pitching delivery. I remember youth coaches teaching it when I was a kid. In fact, I had youth teammates who dropped so much they got their knees dirty. It’s definitely an “old-school” way of thinking, and thankfully, modern technology (such as video analysis and the study of biomechanics) has helped coaches gain a clearer understanding of the pitching motion.

There have been pitchers who’ve been successful with it, like Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver, most notably. But two or three pitchers do not make it a sound delivery.

Needless to say, there are many ways to pitch and be successful. In the Amherst Mickey Mantle program, our pitching principles are based on the common traits of today’s power pitchers. One of these traits is that the posting leg stays straight and firm to maintain good balance. “Stand tall and stay back” is sound advice. Rather than dropping and pushing off the rubber, power pitchers drift forward, leading with the front hip when the stride leg starts to lower. Thus, the lower body moves faster to the plate than the upper body without dropping and driving off the rubber. This action creates a long stride, which is good (stride length should be between 80-90% of a pitcher’s height). The stride leg should be flexed upon landing and then "brace up," allowing the body to get up and over the front foot - a technique that is virtually impossible using the drop-and-drive.

But don’t take my word for it.  Listen to what these experts have to say about the drop-and-drive. 

AMHERST COLLEGE HEAD COACH BILL THURSTON

“In the drop-and-drive, what you’ll see is the pitcher gets into his posting position, and then in the next movement, his whole body lowers into the mound. This causes you to come out late toward the plate, and you don’t generate any force. What you want to see out of power pitchers is that once that stride leg starts lowering, the lower body really goes fast, and they land on a flexed leg. As they rotate the trunk, the front leg braces up and then the hips and upper body come over it. Well, the drop-and-driver never comes over a braced front leg.

The old drop-and-drive guys - Tom Seaver and Robin Roberts - both of those guys had huge legs, big butts and were real strong in the lower body, and they didn’t brace up with their stride leg. Instead, they transferred their weight using a hop. Most drop-and-drivers who are young kids (or grown men, for that matter) aren’t strong enough to do the hop step at the end to keep their weight going forward with the pitch.

The drop-and-drive is definitely something you wouldn’t want to teach. Nobody pitches that way anymore, because in the drop-and-drive, you don’t really use your body. It doesn’t allow the core muscles of your body to get up and over a braced front leg. And it creates a very unfavorable effect on the rotator cuff muscles, because the arm is going forward but the body isn’t. True power pitchers bring their back hip through and brace up, then the body comes with the arm. For this reason, the drop-and-drive is extremely stressful on the rotator cuff and back shoulder muscles.”

STEVE ABNEY, PITCHING COACH, THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

“Tom Seaver was a drop-and-drive guy, but he was a power-armed, 5-11, 215-pound guy who could get his arm through. By staying tall and not dropping-and-driving, you allow the arm to get out of the glove and get your fingers on top of the baseball. Basically, staying tall lets a guy pitch to his height and his leverage. The thing I always tell high school and college pitchers is that ‘IF THE HANDS ARE LATE, THE BALL WILL ELEVATE,’ and that’s something you definitely don’t want. In the drop-and-drive, there just isn’t any advantage in leverage. Only those shorter-armed, power-bodied short guys who pinch their scapulas can drop-and-drive.”

MIKE SWEENEY, PITCHING COACH, UMASS AMHERST

“Basically, the drop-and-drive totally takes away the advantage of throwing downhill. It makes you throw the ball on one plane, which is much easier for a hitter to track. On the flip side, when you stand tall and throw downhill, the ball crosses planes, and the hitter not only has to track the pitch coming at him, but he also has to track it coming down and moving in and out.”

BILL MOONEY, BIOFORCE BASEBALL

“We know that the least amount of posture change makes for a more efficient delivery. The more efficient the delivery, the less stress and strain put on the joints. The less stress and strain, the less chance of injury.

Think of Olympic sprinters, 25 yards into a 100-yard sprint. How much posture change do they have? Minimal. They want as much energy being transferred as possible. Posture changes are energy leaks and energy killers. The more posture change and energy going into the ground, the less going forward toward the hitter.

Let gravity and the mound get you going toward the plate. Your leg kick helps gather your energy around your center of gravity and increase your momentum. More momentum equals more opportunity for velocity.

I had the pleasure of meeting Nolan Ryan a couple of years ago. One thing he told me about his delivery was that he wanted to do as much work out front as possible. That means he never wanted to pause - he wanted to get to a balance point and go. Find some footage of his delivery. He stepped into his windup and gathered his leg kick as he was falling toward the target, never pausing or pushing off the rubber.

Pitchers who drop-and-drive need to alter their posture to get that momentum going again. Keep all the energy you've worked hard to recruit, and keep it going to the intended target."

What you have to do to be a great pitcher

Reaching goals is important to every great baseball pitcher, but we often put all the emphasis on the result (winning the big game or striking out the side) while overlooking the fact that it's the process of getting there (the hours spent practicing and training) that really makes us who we are. Most baseball players set goals. The very best pitchers live them.

If you want to be the best high school pitcher on your team, if you want to earn a college scholarship, or if you want to get drafted by a big league club, ask yourself this: Is that something you will wait to become at some far-off date ... or is it something you can be today? Find out what the very best pitchers do -- every day -- and then do those things. What are their priorities? How do they train? Who do they surround themselves with? How do they manage their time? What are their best habits? What do they want to learn? Study them. Then act like them. Carry yourself like them. Become them.

Your baseball coach is an excellent source for these questions and can help guide you. List the sacrifices you will have to make in order to "be" that kind of player. What activities or people will you have to eliminate (or put off) from your daily schedule? How must you structure your day? The big question here is, "Are you willing to pay the price to become the person you want to be?" Do you seek out the best players to learn from them everything you possibly can? Do you use your coach as a mentor?

Do you watch great pitchers at work? Are you evolving, open to adding to your game the new things a great pitcher needs?

Great pitchers are great EVERY DAY, not just on game day. They know that the daily process is as important as the "goal" it leads to. Regardless of the outcome, they've spent each and every day being a champion.

Don't just be a goal-setter; live your goals today. That's how to become a great pitcher and have a successful career in baseball -- and in life.

The 6 cardinal sins of pitching

Statistics prove it every year: If you throw strikes and make hitters swing and put the baseball in play, they'll get themselves out. Good hitters have success three out of 10 at-bats. The other seven trips to the plate are "won" by the pitcher. Go right after hitters. Challenge them. Make them hit your pitch. And try to avoid these "cardinal sins" of pitching....

1. Walking the leadoff hitter.
2. 0-2 base hit or hit hard
3. 0-2 to 3-2 progression on a hitter.
4. 2 out walks.
5. 3 ball counts on any hitter.
6. 2 walks in one inning.
7. 4 walks in one game (stater); 2 walks in one game (reliever).

Pitching strategy: How to use statistics to get hitters out

Today's guest post is from Kenny Kendrena of Inside-Edge.com, a baseball services and solutions company that produces tools and reports for coaches and scouts. This article appeared in a previous edition of Collegiate Baseball.

Any time you look at batting averages by counts, there is one factor to consider that is sometimes overlooked.  The batting average on 2-strike counts will always be lower because with two strikes – a hitter cannot take a strike or swing and miss without making an out.  What pitchers and pitching coaches really want to know is: "If I throw a strike on this pitch, what are the chances it will be a hit?"  We can measure that pretty easily by taking hits divided by strikes.  That gives us a "batting average of strikes" rather than the usual method of hits per at-bats.

Using PalmScout's Hitter by Count Report, we found the hits / strikes averages for the final month of the 2006 major league season (over 28,000 at-bats).  Here they are:

Count     (hits / strikes)    Bavg. of Strikes
0-0           1308 for 19266           .068
0-1           943 for 8821               .107
0-2           409 for 3935               .104
1-0           813 for 8520               .095
1-1           890 for 7937               .112
1-2           701 for 6742               .104
2-0           320 for 3163               .101
2-1           575 for 4627               .124
2-2           765 for 6292               .122
3-0           23 for 923                   .025
3-1           276 for 2087               .132
3-2           653 for 4430               .147

Batting average of Strikes by count.  Calculated by hits divided by strikes. Highest #'s shaded/bolded.

What we can learn from these numbers

• The .068 batting average of strikes on 0-0 means the hitter has a 6.8 percent chance of a hit if a first-pitch strike is thrown.  You could also look at it as a 93.2 percent chance that a first-pitch strike will result in either an out, or an 0-1 count.
• The reason 0-0 and 3-0 counts have the lowest batting averages is because so many pitches are taken for strikes on those counts.  We will explore taken strikes further in the next section.
• This table also demonstrates why 3-ball counts are so dangerous to pitchers.  On 3-1 and 3-2 counts, hitters put 14.2 percent of strikes in play for hits. Let's not forget, also, that the alternative to throwing a strike on a 3-ball count is walking the batter.  So, not only do hitters put more strikes in play for hits on 3-1 and 3-2 counts, but they also reach base when a strike is not thrown.
• The highest batting average of strikes occurs on 2-1, 2-2, 3-1, and 3-2 counts. This is probably because the hitter has seen more pitches en route to those counts, and the 2-1, 3-1, and 3-2 counts, in particular, are hitter’s counts in which the pitcher cannot afford to throw a ball.

Taking what the hitter gives you

One question we might pose to our pitchers is: "If you know the hitter is going to take a first-pitch strike over half the time, why not throw him a pitch in the strike zone?" Notice in the table below that hitters take the first pitch in the strike zone over half the time.  You would think, then, that pitchers would throw more pitches in the strike zone on 0-0 than on any other count, but that is not the case.  Here are the strike zone percentages and taken strikes percentages for each count, based on our sample of over 28,000 at-bats:

Count           Strike Zone %           Taken Strikes %
0-0                    53%                             51%
0-1                    45%                             19%
0-2                    33%                               8%
1-0                    55%                             33%
1-1                    51%                             17%
1-2                    40%                              8%
2-0                    60%                            40%
2-1                    57%                            15%
2-2                    48%                              7%
3-0                    62%                            87%
3-1                    64%                            22%
3-2                    60%                              5%

In-zone percentage and taken strike percentage by count.  Highest #'s for each are shaded/bolded.

What we can learn from these numbers

What our Pitcher by Count Report revealed is that pitchers throw an 0-0 pitch in the strike zone 53 percent of the time, even though hitters are going to take it for a strike half the time.  The 0-0 count is the 7th highest in-zone count.  Notice how pitchers (even in the big leagues) can all of the sudden throw pitches in the strike zone when the count goes to 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1, and 3-2?  Maybe the trick is to pretend that your 0-0 pitch is really your 3-1 pitch!

My Top 10 favorite online baseball newsletters

Here's a list of my Top 10 favorite online baseball newsletters that I subscribe to and read when they're published. (OK, there's actually 13.) They're free, of course, which is a plus. Not all of them are "pitching specific," but the one's that aren't sometimes have good information pitchers can use to better understand the game.

If you would like to share your favorite online baseball newsletter, contact me, and I'll post it here. (Just send the name of the publication, the name of the publisher, and a link to the sign-up page.)

1. Todd Williams Baseball's Best Drills -- "Drills, Tips, & Strategies Newsletter"
2. Brian Cain Baseball -- "The Brian Cain Newsletter"
3. Steve Zawrotny Baseball Fit -- "Line Drives"
4. Coach John Peter -- "Baseball Tips Newsletter"
5. QCBaseball -- "The Dugout"
6. Coach Preston Peavy -- "VSI Baseball Newsletter"
7. Dana Cavalea, N.Y. Yankees strength specialist -- "Major League Strength Newsletter"
8. Little League Baseball & Softball -- "The Little Leaguer"
9. Bioforce Baseball -- "The Bioforce Performance Newsletter"
10. Tom Hanson Focused Baseball -- "The Baseball Confidence Newsletter
11. Steven Ellis The Complete Pitcher -- "The Complete Pitcher's Newsletter"
12. Baseball Excellence -- "Tip of the Week"
13. Eteamz -- "Baseball Newsletter"

How Trevor Hoffman throws his changeup

shermanreed asks -- Anyone know where I can find pics of how Trevor Hoffman grips his change up? Maybe an article, along with the pics of his grip, that explains how he throws it?

Trevor Hoffman throws a variation of the circle change -- where a baseball pitcher makes an "OK" sign around the ball, and pronates the pitch inward (thumb down) as it's released. He says he grips it by pinching the seam between his thumb and index finger, right near the printed logo on the baseball. He also uses pressure with his thumb and lets the ball settle into the palm of his hand, resting on the ball of the hand below his fingers. He says it takes some soft touch in his hand, but the full arm action of a fastball.

Click here for more discussion about Hoff's changeup.

How to quicken your pitching delivery with runners on base

When a runner gets on base, you've got to be quick to the plate. Can you do it in under 1.3 seconds?

As you advance to college and professional baseball, delivering the baseball from the set position to the catcher's mitt in under 1.3 seconds is mandatory. (This rule applies to right and left handers alike, unless a lefty has an above-average move to first base, in which case he can be a little slower to the plate.)

An excellent way to cheat at being quick is to come set with slightly more weight on your back foot than your front. I like to think of it as 60/40 -- 60 percent of your weight on your back foot, 40 percent on the front foot.

By placing more weight on your back foot, it takes less time to lift your lead leg, load up your weight on your posting leg, and deliver the ball to the plate. That's because your body is already favoring your back leg.

From this position it's easy to be quick: cross your lead knee in front of your back knee (I refer to this as a "knee-to-knee" delivery), stay tall, and lead the lower half of your body with your front hip as your lead foot moves laterally toward home plate.