Are You Tipping Your Pitches With Your Pre-Motion?

There are a number of ways you can tip your pitches—that is, accidentally give away what pitch you’re throwing to the batter or opposing base coach. Probably the most obvious is simply not hiding your grip well; there are a number of pitches with distinctive grips, and if someone on the opposing team can see your hand while you’re finding your grip on the ball, you could be in trouble. BUT, there is another common giveaway that I’ve come across a few times recently in some of my pitching lessons. Ask yourself this: are you 100% sure your pre-motion is the same every time?

How You Can Tip Pitches With Your Pre-Motion

Most pitchers who have been pitching for a while tend to repeat their pre-motion pretty well on their fastball, or whatever they throw as their primary pitch. However, sometimes when a pitcher works on a pitch that she’s less comfortable with, she subconsciously changes her pre-motion a little while she’s concentrating on the release or general mechanics of the tough pitch.

Recently I was working with a very accomplished pitcher who is signed with a D1 school. She was struggling with her rise ball a little, and as a result she was changing her pre-motion on that pitch. Normally, she uses a fairly sizable loose backswing, but on her rise ball she was being so careful with the pitch that her backswing became smaller, slower, and more controlled. While the average viewer may not even notice, she’s facing some of the best hitters in the country on a regular basis. Once they figure out that it’s a rise ball coming after that shorter backswing, they’re just going to lay off of it, and the pitch becomes less effective.

An Extra Warning For Younger Pitchers, Or Anyone Working on Changing Their Pre-Motion

Here’s something else that came up in one of my recent lessons with a 12U pitcher: we had been working on changing her pre-motion to correct her detrimental backswing; her backswing was so huge it was pulling her whole body way off line. With some practice, we got it smaller and properly aligned and saw quite a bit of improvement in the pitch as a result. However, when we moved on to her change up, all of that went out the window.

Her change up was a relatively new pitch for her, so she had to concentrate on it fairly hard. As a result, she forgot to concentrate on the new pre-motion, which had yet to become engrained in her muscle memory. This is a VERY common occurrence in pitchers with multiple pitches—especially young ones—who are trying to alter their pre-motions; they’ll use the new pre-motion on their primary pitch and forget about it on their secondary pitches. Especially if they only have one secondary pitch and it’s a change up, the different pre-motions can be a dangerous tip.

How to Avoid Pre-Motion Tipping

When you’re practicing, have your catcher call you pitches and have someone else watch you throw without knowing what pitch is coming. See if they can tell when you’re about to do something different. If they can, you’ll know you need to work on making your pre-motions all the same.