Phil
I’m glad to see you and hear you talk about “fastballs”. I have inherited quite a few pitching students over the years who say they don’t throw a “fastball”. To me, and it seems to you as well, every pitch other than a fastball is predicated on a basic fastball? It has me wondering….. if a pitcher gets a ball hit back to them in the pitchers circle, what do they throw first base? Screwball? Curveball?
I am a believer in that if you learn to throw a “forward spinning” velocity pitch, it will have the same effect as a drop ball. So essentially your fastball and drop ball are the same pitch. I have had several students go to college camps and be chastised during live bunting drills for having a “fastball” that drops….. I reassure them that whomever is saying that to them……..Probably doesn’t understand pitching all that well….
Anyhow, good job on another wonderful video covering a very specific and important topic.
Keep up the good work
Coach Fred in Az
Philon July 24, 2017 at 8:17 PM
Hi Fred
Always good to hear from you. In our experience, many advanced pitchers give up on throwing fastballs, not necessarily due to exposure to uninformed coaches, but more so as a result of never being taught the difference between pitching and throwing. Unlike movement pitches, which can remain effective whether they break 4 inches or 8 inches, an effective fastball needs to be located precisely. The entire universe of major league pitchers, according to a sabermetric analysis, rely on fastballs over 60% of the time. Whenever you hear of a major league pitcher struggling, it is most often attributed to loss of fastball command which ends up diminishing the effectiveness of their other pitches as well. Imagine if these pitchers were never taught fastball command in the first place.
Depending upon a given athlete’s individual propensity for generating velocity, a good 4 seam fastball will have little or no perceptible loss in altitude from delivery to ultimate location. A good drop ball, on the other hand, may lose 6-8 inches of altitude within approximately 6 feet of the plate, if executed properly. The throw zone for a drop ball is somewhat shorter and has a slight downward tilt as compared to a fastball. And the hand path for the drop requires a rapid deceleration at the end of the throw zone as opposed to a fast ball which should be executed with continuous acceleration to the end of the “zone”. A college pitcher, who is being called upon to pitch bunting practice, may very well be taken to task for not being capable of tracking a fastball properly.
I will do a post on this shortly as the verbal explanation may fall short of a good understanding of the mechanics i am referring to.
Stay tuned, and thank you for your excellent comments.
Phil
I’m glad to see you and hear you talk about “fastballs”. I have inherited quite a few pitching students over the years who say they don’t throw a “fastball”. To me, and it seems to you as well, every pitch other than a fastball is predicated on a basic fastball? It has me wondering….. if a pitcher gets a ball hit back to them in the pitchers circle, what do they throw first base? Screwball? Curveball?
I am a believer in that if you learn to throw a “forward spinning” velocity pitch, it will have the same effect as a drop ball. So essentially your fastball and drop ball are the same pitch. I have had several students go to college camps and be chastised during live bunting drills for having a “fastball” that drops….. I reassure them that whomever is saying that to them……..Probably doesn’t understand pitching all that well….
Anyhow, good job on another wonderful video covering a very specific and important topic.
Keep up the good work
Coach Fred in Az
Hi Fred
Always good to hear from you. In our experience, many advanced pitchers give up on throwing fastballs, not necessarily due to exposure to uninformed coaches, but more so as a result of never being taught the difference between pitching and throwing. Unlike movement pitches, which can remain effective whether they break 4 inches or 8 inches, an effective fastball needs to be located precisely. The entire universe of major league pitchers, according to a sabermetric analysis, rely on fastballs over 60% of the time. Whenever you hear of a major league pitcher struggling, it is most often attributed to loss of fastball command which ends up diminishing the effectiveness of their other pitches as well. Imagine if these pitchers were never taught fastball command in the first place.
Depending upon a given athlete’s individual propensity for generating velocity, a good 4 seam fastball will have little or no perceptible loss in altitude from delivery to ultimate location. A good drop ball, on the other hand, may lose 6-8 inches of altitude within approximately 6 feet of the plate, if executed properly. The throw zone for a drop ball is somewhat shorter and has a slight downward tilt as compared to a fastball. And the hand path for the drop requires a rapid deceleration at the end of the throw zone as opposed to a fast ball which should be executed with continuous acceleration to the end of the “zone”. A college pitcher, who is being called upon to pitch bunting practice, may very well be taken to task for not being capable of tracking a fastball properly.
I will do a post on this shortly as the verbal explanation may fall short of a good understanding of the mechanics i am referring to.
Stay tuned, and thank you for your excellent comments.