How To Develop Better Control For Baseball Pitching

One way to develop better control is to spot pitch every time you warm up. After you feel good and loose, begin the move around your pitches, as if you were pitching to a batter. Learn to use your catcher’s shoulders and knees as targets.

How Pitchers Can Easily Improve Control

I want to address the physical side of a pitcher's ability to improve control and throw strikes more consistently. And it starts with form. As a pitcher, you must strive to be as consistent as possible in throwing each pitch the same way. If you are consistent about this, it makes it much easier to make adjustments when you're wild because you can "zero in" on the target.

A pitching coach once explained it to me this way: It's like a sharpshooter. If he is consistently missing his mark high, he simply lowers his sights. If he's consistently missing right or left, he adjusts to the other side. But if the sharpshooter is not holding his rifle the same way -- in other words, he holds it at his shoulder one time, and at his waist another time -- he will not be able to zero in on the target. So his actions must be consistent to adjust his sights and line of target.

The same is true of a wild baseball pitcher. If your pitching motion is the same on each pitch, it's a lot easier to make small adjustments and find that strike zone again. Consistency of your pitching mechanics is the key to consistency in throwing strikes and improving control.

Pitching Control: What To Do If You're Consistently Missing The Strike Zone Inside Or Outside

Many young baseball pitchers have trouble throwing good, consistent strikes. Some of this is strength (or, more specifically, a lack of overall body strength and balance), but most of the time control problems can be attributed to having inconsistent pitching mechanics. In other words, many young baseball pitchers haven't developed a repeatable pitching delivery, which is necessary to throw quality strikes with good control.

If you're consistently missing the strike zone inside or outside with your pitches, I encourage you to get out the video camera and see where your head is.

Most pitchers who miss consistently in and out do so because they don't control the movements of their head. Your head controls the flight of the ball horizontally. Even if your front side is flying open, or if another mechanical problem prohibits good balance, keeping your head still and on target will almost always help.

Why Command Is A Pitcher's Most Important Asset

My baseball pitching coach in college once told me that the greatest asset a pitcher can have is command: command of himself, and command of his pitches.

Command of yourself means controlling your emotions, your attitude, your work ethic, etc. Pitching command means being able to locate any pitch within a certain section of the strike zone instead of just trying to throw the ball over the plate with no purpose.

In order to pitch at the highest levels of the game, you much command yourself and your pitches.

My Thoughts On Flat-Ground Pitching

For younger pitchers, flat ground work is becoming more and more popular. Flat-ground training offers the opportunity for higher numbers of repetitions at relatively greater safety. Research shows that pitching off a mound can put up to 5 times the body's weight of pressure on the pitcher's joints. Working on spotting the baseball from flat ground is smart and can particularly save some added stress on a youth pitcher with an inefficient delivery.

"Dialing down" the fastball is also important when working on locating the fastball in skill work sessions. I have made many mound visits where I will simply ask a pitcher to start throwing his fastball at 85-90%.

Having said this, though, a balanced amount of mound training is important for youth pitchers. Remember, we all pitch from mounds in games. Pitching from mounds in practice teaches pitchers how to handle the slope and develop a comfort zone for it. Mound work also encourages a more natural stride (because you have gravity working for you), a more natural release point and better overall timing.

The older and more advanced a pitcher is, the less flat-ground work is helpful or recommended.

4 Ways To Get Optimum Pitching Velocity, Movement And Control

There's a nice post here on the High School Baseball Web regarding the development of optimum pitching velocity, pitching movement and pitching control. One member nailed it with his response: the 4 things that will help any pitcher with getting optimum velocity, movement and control with his fastball are as follows.

1. Try to stick with 2-finger grip. The closer together his fingers stay (without losing control) the more force he'll transfer to the ball, and the better the movement.

2. Make sure your thumb and middle finger cut the ball in half. A small difference on the ball can lead to a big difference in hitting locations at the plate.

3. Check your hand in the glove before he starts to throw. Make sure your hand is directly behind the baseball. This set-up can help keep the hand behind the ball throughout delivery; helping with velocity and control.

4. "Aim small." Rather than aiming to hit the "glove" focus in on a spot in the glove about the size of a dime, and throw the ball through the spot (not to the spot).

Of course, other factors that affect pitching velocity are the development of functional strength, and the develop efficient, repeatable mechanics -- this will go a long way to help as well.

How To Develop Pitching Consistency

To be a successful and consistent pitcher, you must believe in movement and the ability to locate at least two pitches.

For some pitchers, velocity will come with sound mechanics and physical maturity -- it is an added bonus as far as we coaches are concerned.

Movement and location are two absolutes on which most successful pitchers base their success -- live it, visualize it, experience it, and believe in it.

The Difference Between Pitching Command And Pitching Control

Command can be defined as being able to throw the baseball to specific locations in the strike zone, while control can be defined as being able to throw strikes.

Pitching Basics: The Importance Of Pitching Control

Hitting wins games. Defense wins championships! Defense starts with pitching, and the most important part of pitching is to throw the ball where you want to throw it. A pitcher can only control when he pitches and where he throws the ball. So don't worry about the rest.

The number one goal of pitching is to hit your target. So pitching is really nothing more than target practice. Velocity is secondary. Movement is secondary. The sharpness of your pitch is secondary.

Pitching is the ability to throw strikes to both sides of the plate. The ability to change speeds with a breaking ball or a change-up is also important, since it creates a timing problem for hitters.

Then comes the importance of creating ball movement, either horizontally or vertically, particularly with a fastball, change-up, or breaking ball.

10 Ways To Become More Successful At Pitching In 2008

This could be a big year for your baseball pitching. This could be the year that you learn that new pitch, smooth out your delivery, improve your control, develop more velocity. Are you willing to work at it?

Here are 10 simple pitching strategies that can help you become a more successful pitcher in 2008. Put them to practice.

• 1) Develop sound pitching mechanics

Not every pitcher has to pitch the exact same way to be successful on the bump. In fact, what I've found in my career as a former pro in the Chicago Cubs organization is that the pitchers who are the most successful are those who are able to consistently repeat their pitching delivery and stay injury free.

Take my former teammate Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins, for instance. Willis' pitching delivery is certainly not "orthodox." Some might say they're not even that good! But they work for him, and he's successful with them.

My point is this: work on your pitching mechanics, but not from a standpoint of fitting into a cookie-cutter mold. You don't have to pitch like the next guy. Instead, work to have a repeatable delivery that enables you to pitch injury free.

• 2)  Throw first pitch strikes

Get ahead, stay ahead. Plain and simple.

First pitch strikes will enable you to be 130 percent more successful against hitters than if you fall behind 1-0 on the first pitch. First pitch strikes will enable you to execute a game plan, reduce your walks up to 316 percent (according to a 2001 study by the Chicago Cubs), and they'll allow you to win. Period.

• 3) Display mental toughness

You have to control your emotions on the pitcher's mound or your opponents will get the best of you. Be stoic out there: Show no emotion. Be like Mariano Rivera. You can never tell what's going on in his mind when he pitches. This enables him to maintain a mental edge over his opponents. He's mentally tough. Are you?

• 4) Make effective pitches while your ahead in the count

I don't like to see pitchers waste pitches. That's not a good pitching mentality. Every pitch should up the next one. Don't waste any pitch. Get the hitter out with as few pitches as possible. And when you get ahead in the count, put the hitter away. Make effective pitches when you're ahead in the count. Go right at the hitter. Challenge him.

• 5) Control your tempo

Work quickly on the pitcher's mound. After you make a pitch, stay on the dirt in the front of the rubber to get the ball back from you catcher, and get right back on the mound. Working fast often allows you to pitch more effectively (you develop a rhythm) and it will keep your fielders in the game.

• 6) Get hitters out before "ball three" pitch counts.
  

Aim to get hitters out on just four pitches. Here's why:

12 pitches an inning x 7 innings = 84 total pitches
12 pitches an inning x 9 innings = 98 total pitches

True, you're not going to be able to get every hitter out on four pitches. But if you aim for four, it will enable you to pitch deep into games and pitch complete games. It also will also give you the ability to save your arm and pitching velocity throughout the course of a pitching performance, so you can have something left in the tank for those late-inning matchups.

• 7) Focus on concentration

You must concentrate every pitch in order to be a successful baseball pitcher. This is especially true at the higher levels of the game, where one swing (for a homerun) can change the dynamic of the game.

A hitter can give a away a few at bats because he'll still get a few more. (Most hitters get four at bats a game.)

Pitchers don't have this luxury. One bad pitching location or one bad pitch because a you're not concentrating, and it could be the difference between winning or losing a game.

• 8) Command your fastball

Successful pitchers command their fastball. That's because they know that a good fastball sets up every other pitch.

Want to make your change-up more effective? Command the fastball. Want to draw garbage swings on your curveball? Command the fastball.

You get the point.

The fastball is the single most important pitch in baseball. Command of the fastball may be a pitchers most dangerous weapon!

• 9) Commit to proper preparation

It takes three weeks to learn a good habit. It takes just five days to learn a bad one.

Make sure that every time you pick up a baseball to throw, it's with a purpose. Long toss on a line; take a crow hop when throwing beyond 90 feet, to get your hips involved with your throws; never throw before doing some light running and dynamic stretching, etc.

How you prepare for a pitching performance will ultimately be reflected in your pitching performance.

• 10) Field your position

The key to winning pitching is becoming a complete pitcher. To become a complete pitcher, you must work on all aspects of pitching – which includes backing up bases, covering the first base side on all baseballs hit to the right side of the infield, etc.

Greg Maddux is "Greg Maddux," one of the greatest pitchers in baseball, because of the other things he does – such as fielding his position. Maddux has won more Gold Glove Awards than any other pitcher in the past 15 years.

Start thinking about these pitching strategies now, during the off-season, when you have the time. They'll help you get better at pitching. And if you'd like to plug into a proven professional pitcher's strength and conditioning program, get my new workout manual on Amazon.com here.