More on Change Up Trouble

My daughter still leans forward while throwing the flip. She also uses her arm too much, instead of her wrist, I believe. Any advice on how to stop this? Thanks!

This question comes from Liz, and I think a lot of people are affected by these issues.

On leaning…

Whether a particular pitcher has a problem leaning forward on her fastball or not, leaning seems to be significantly more pronounced during the change up… ANY change up. I think there is a subconscious push and pull at work: the pitcher is hesitant to throw truly full speed for fear of the pitch becoming too fast, yet at the last second her physical instincts detect that she does not have enough juice to get the ball to the plate so she compensates by overreaching. The footwork slowing down can have an impact on posture too; if the drive leg gets left farther behind than usual, the posture will drift forward into a lean.

How to fix it:

• First and foremost, the pace and body mechanics of the pitch must be nearly identical to the fastball. If throwing the change at this pace causes the pitch to fail completely, the pitcher has progressed too fast; she is not ready to be throwing the change at full distance. Back off a bit and revisit simpler drills until they are practically second nature.
• Understand front side resistance. This is a critical concept for every pitch, but I find that emphasizing it a little extra on the change is helpful.
• Use a rope to encourage good hand path. This video discusses the drop rather than the change up, but you can see the training mechanism we’ve created for these types of pitch location drills: a string stretched between two poles set in traffic cones. For the change, you would elevate the string to about letter height on a batter’s jersey, move the device about 15 feet forward of the plate, and have the pitcher throw her change under the rope. If she leans, her arm will tend to fly upward. She’ll have to keep her posture back with good front side resistance to throw under the rope. Bouncing the pitch at first is ok. To move on from there, have the pitcher speed up rather than lift her arm higher.

On favoring the whole arm over the wrist…

This is a very common flip change problem, but it’s also the #1 problem with movement pitches too. When movement pitches don’t truly break, this is almost always the reason.

How to fix it:

This is a classic symptom of ignoring your edge. Read about finding your edge here.

Once you’ve found the drill that can be done almost perfectly—and maybe it’s just simple wrist flips close to the catcher—spend a lot of time there reinforcing the good mechanics. Then take baby steps back to full distance. DO NOT progress to a more advanced drill until you have mastered the current one. It may be tedious, but there is no magic solution. If you can’t get a proper flip going with an isolated arm circle, you’re not ready to add footwork; keep hammering away at the arm circle until you get it.