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These are some videos that were taken during a indoor bullpen session about 3 weeks ago. This is my Senior season and in the past 3 years, i’ve had little to no help from the pitching coaches we have had at my school. This year, we have a new pitching coach who is very knowledgeable but he isn’t around as much as I would hope. I’d love to hear critiques and don’t hold back, i want any suggestions you guys have.
Your video looks real good to me–nice breaking ball, looks maybe like a good kill pitch.
It’s fine to seek advice from forums like this one, here’s mine:
Regardless of the strengths/weaknesses of past coaching, you’ve now got an opportunity to learn directly from a coach who threw the 10th perfect game in MLB history as a player. To say he is “knowledgeable” is an understatement. I’d stick to that guy like a fly on fly-paper and listen to everything he tells you. If he doesn’t talk to you enough, find ways to get more time in front of him. As a senior, and a leader on the pitching staff, show him that you are willing to do anything for the good of the pitching staff and the team. Show him that you’ll run through a brick wall for him; maybe in return he will teach you things that are worth knowing.
I agree. When you find a pitching coach who really knew his onions as a player and who knows his onions as a coach, hang on to him for dear flie. Don’t let him go. Learn all you can from him, and put it to good use. I had the good fortune to meet and work with a guy who was an active major-league pitcher way back when—Ed Lopat, who was a key member of the Yankees’ Big Three pitching rotation from 1948 to the middle of 1955—and what I learned from him was nothing short of priceless. He saw where I was coming from, he knew that I was really interested, wanted to know and was willing to work at it, and he took me in hand and helped me become a better pitcher than I had been before. For that I will remember him forever—and it is to be hoped that you will have the same success with your coach. 8) :baseballpitcher:
I’m no big expert, just the dad of a pitcher. However, I will say overall, your mechanics look pretty darned good. The only feedback I would have is that it appears that when you are throwing your changeup and curveball in the second video, it looks like your motion is much less explosive than when you are throwing your fastball. In other words, it appears to me that that you are slowing your arm down to throw those pitches.
I would work on generating the same arm speed for your off speed pitches in order to increase deception. I could be wrong, but it looked that way when viewing the second video.
Thanks for the feedback. I have one other question. From these videos, does it seem like i’m not keeping my weight back long enough which in turn means i’m not using my legs as much as i could be? I’ve been watching a lot of video of pro guys and it seems like i’m drifting towards the plate too early. My one pitching coach is trying to work with me on it but the other seems to think it’s not an issue, thoughts?
Personally, I’d tend to listen more to the one named Len Barker…
There seems to be two schools of thought on that. One says to reach a balance point when you reach the top of your leg lift. The other says to stay in motion and that you should drift slightly as soon as you lift your front leg. I think as long as you lead with your hip and not your shoulders you should be OK. But that’s just me.
I’m curious which school Len falls into.
To be honest, he doesn’t really fall in either. Len is a great asset to the program because of his wealth of wisdom and experience in the majors and unfortunately, less on the mechanical side of pitching. Through having him as one of my coaches in the last 2 years, i’ve noticed that mechanics isn’t something he speaks up about but there is no better person when it comes to giving a pre game pep talk. Coach Len tends to leave the mechanical work to our other pitching coaches…
Here are a few updated videos that i’d appreciate your opinion
My coach have told me that i need to work on keeping my weight back. My glove side has been a problem in the past as well. I’ve been working hard on this stuff and especially with my balance to keep all my momentum going forward and towards my target.
A week ago
Today
Do you guys see a visible improvement on keeping my weight back? Am i using my legs as much as I can?
Did your new coach work with you on your glove? It looks improved. In your earlier videos it looked like you were turning the glove over early which led to early shoulder rotation. Now it looks like you maintaining the glove arm in an “equal and opposite” position longer and that’s letting you keep your shoulders closed longer and rotate later. This could get you an mph or two.
I wouldn’t worry about drifting forward. Lots of the top pitchers in the game do - guys like Lincecum, Oswalt, Johnson, etc. Keep the top half back to get into a “lead with the hip” position but don’t keep the total body back. This ties into “equal and opposite” - if you feel like you’re hanging the glove arm out front artifically long, get yourself moving sooner/faster into foot plant.
Thanks for your input, Roger. Because of NCAA rules, I’m forced to work on mechanics mostly by myself and of course with the help of the great people here. Ever since i’ve be instructed to stay back longer, I feel as if i’ve found a comfortable tempo that allows me to have my body in sync and be able to repeat it. This is the problem i’ve had my entire college career. I’ve had my good outings and by bad ones and until last year, i was never able to string them together. The only problem was last year I started out 4-0 with a 2.5 era…and within the span of three outings my season era was in the high 4s. I feel like i’m going in the right direction.
That being said is the next step to quicken up the pace to get a little more force towards the plate?
What I see in your last two videos that you are not getting everything out of your drive leg. I’ve had this problem a few years and over time have learned a lot from doing my own filming and watching pro guys. If you watch your lift leg, it goes up and comes right back down. When this happens it means you front hip is starting to open and you haven’t traveled much on the mound. When your front hip starts to open right away the lift foot will land right away and what you thought was getting everything out of your drive leg just turns in to the leg collapsing and staying back on the rubber. I think your upper body mechanics are solid. What I suggest, and I’m saying this because I’m an outside the box thinker. 1) try putting your drive foot on the edge of the rubber. I’ve found this to give me a little extra boost in my drive towards the plate and help with my direction. 2) try a little drill where you hold lift leg up and start your motion by driving with your back leg. This should help you with keep that front hip closed a little long and store extra power. The longer you can keep the hips closed through the delivery and then they powerfully explode open the more you will get on the throw. I hope some of this helps and even makes sense. Best of luck.
[quote=“pointlesskid”]Thanks for your input, Roger. Because of NCAA rules, I’m forced to work on mechanics mostly by myself and of course with the help of the great people here. Ever since i’ve be instructed to stay back longer, I feel as if i’ve found a comfortable tempo that allows me to have my body in sync and be able to repeat it. This is the problem i’ve had my entire college career. I’ve had my good outings and by bad ones and until last year, i was never able to string them together. The only problem was last year I started out 4-0 with a 2.5 era…and within the span of three outings my season era was in the high 4s. I feel like i’m going in the right direction.
That being said is the next step to quicken up the pace to get a little more force towards the plate?[/quote]
Yes, this would be a good approach and I would suggest doing it by making small, incremental adjustments instead of one big adjustment. Make a small adjustment, accept that it will push you outside of your comfort zone, and put in the reps to pull it back into your comfort zone. Then repeat.
Here is my video from monday.
Seems like there is still something to be desired with my leg drive so i think it’s still something that needs to be worked on. Anything else? I think i tend to be a little open, especially from the full windup…
It might just be me, but it seems that you have a hitch when you lift leg reaches it max height and before it begins to descend. You should look at the hersieher drill(misspelled terribly). I think that drill could help gain more force with you leg.
On an unrelated note, how do you get your video to appear on your posts? I have videos on youtube, but I cannot get them to show up on here like yours.
You could experiment with one adjustment to close yourself off a bit. Right now, you lift your front knee straight up towards your font shoulder. Instead, try lifting your knee towards your back shoulder. This will have the effect of creating a little counter-rotation which will make you take a little longer to get fully opened up. It may also increase your hip and shoulder separation which could give you 1 or 2 mph.