A Little More About Learning Movement Pitches

Last week I discussed what pitches are necessary for pitching in college, and the answer was to play to your strengths, develop the pitches that allow YOU to get batters out most effectively, and not worry so much that a particular pitch isn’t working for you. This, like all skills that take work and practice, is easier said than done. I’ve discussed some of the challenges facing young pitchers trying to learn movement pitches and I know it can be a frustrating process. As I said in the aforementioned articles, you may have to learn all the pitches before you can determine which one or two will be your strength. But how do you know when to abandon a pitch or when to keep going?

Things to Consider Before Abandoning a Pitch

Deciding when to abandon a pitch is tricky. There is a very fine line between giving up too soon and wasting time on a lost cause that could be spent improving something more useful. Unfortunately, there is no way to really pin down where that line lies. There are, however, some clues you can use to make your best guess:

Look at hand size combined with age. I talk a lot about hand size in this article, and how it can seriously affect young girls trying to tackle movement pitches for the first time. Hand size issues do NOT only affect beginners. I’ve taught high school pitchers with naturally smaller hands who just couldn’t grip certain pitches comfortably enough to throw them well. You know your hand size is not an issue if you can grip the ball very loosely in your fingertips with space between your palm and the ball.

If you’re not in high school yet and your hand is small, it might still grow a bit. DO NOT abandon pitches so readily in this case. Instead, practice the spins with an 11-inch ball, which will be easier to grip. DO NOT throw the 11-inch ball from full distance, but you can practice isolated spins, throwing into your own glove, or throwing to a catcher with an isolated arm circle from a short distance.

If you are in high school and your hand is still small, it’s probably going to stay small. It might be better only to work on pitches that you can grip comfortably.

Can you throw ANY movement pitch well? If you’ve tried learning more than one movement pitch and you’ve struggled equally with all of them, DO NOT abandon any. You probably have a hand size issue, or just don’t have the feel for manipulating spins with your fingers. You need that no matter what pitch you’re throwing. On the other hand, if you have one movement pitch that you throw really well and another that you’ve struggled with for a very long time, it might indicate that it’s time to try a different second pitch.

For change-ups: is your problem speed or command? There are a number of different ways to grip and release a change-up. If you’ve worked on one for a long time, and your problem is that the ball is going too fast, you may want to try another grip. If your problem is accuracy but the speed differential between your fastball and change-up is good, keep working at it.

Have you given it a full season? BE PATIENT. I know it seems like a lot, but pitches can take a full year or more to learn. If a year has passed and the pitch just isn’t doing anything at all, you might be able to consider abandoning it. If it works sometimes but not others, no matter how frustrating it may be, the answer is probably to work harder at it.

Making the process easier

This is where having a really good pitching coach comes into play. I know great coaches are not easy to come by, but a lousy one could make this process more difficult. Good pitching coaches (or any coaches, really) teach students, not skills. They can tell by looking at a windmill pitcher’s mechanics which pitches will likely come more naturally and which will be very difficult. They can offer advice based on their expertise, and not leave the burden of deciding when to abandon a pitch up to the pitcher.

If your pitching coach goes by a set system—for example, he or she teaches pitches in the same order to every pitcher, and/or moves on to new pitches at a certain time rather than waiting for the individual student to be ready—you might be more likely to have a problem.

If you’re in doubt about your coach, or you’re one of many parents trying to help your daughter learn to pitch yourself, we can always offer our evaluation through video analysis. Be sure to make a special note that you want help with secondary pitches.