How Valuable Is Baseball Pitching Instruction Since Talk Is Cheap

What is the value of baseball pitching instruction whether you hire an instructor, purchase a cheap ebook, a video or invest in a course? The value of pitching instruction can only be determined or measured by results.

Since pitching is a skill activity like golf then the focus of any pitching instruction must be to first determine the pitcher’s current mechanical skill…whether a father or coach is trying to boost velocity, improve control or reduce the risk of injury. And the only possible way to determine a pitcher’s mechanical skill level is to do a video analysis and then to understand what the faults are that are creating the problems. And be able to do that is not “rocket science” as long as you have the tools that are backed up by proven knowledge of mechanics.

Will golfers get better by just going to the driving range and hitting more balls more often? Not likely since the only way to improve your golf swing is to make less errors with your swing more often. This is also true of baseball pitching. Just throwing more often is not going to create improvement unless the pitcher is working to improve a mechanical fault…by making constant adjustments. So the fact is that most of the throwing that pitchers are doing in an effort to get better is not helping them improve because they are constantly practicing producing errors.

The bottom line is that most parents and coaches do not know how to recognize problems and then of course they cannot help them make the needed adjustments.

The fallacy now exists in baseball that pitching drills are the answer. The first question that always gets asked when a mechanical problem is discovered is: “Do you have a good drill for that?” I believe pitching drills are a large part of the problem and my opinion is backed up by sports scientists.

Here is something I have written in another post regarding drills:

“The instructor’s inability to video analyze simply demonstrates his lack of knowledge of the pitching motion. And this is one of the big reasons why pitching instructors recommend so many drills. Pitching drills take up time and cost parents lots of money and are a very poor way of teaching the pitching delivery. The return on investment is very, very low.

Parents then are wasting tons of money on private instructors who know little or on books, videos, DVD’s that have you doing these magic drills when it has been proven that drills do not transfer to the pitching motion and clearly are a poor teaching method for a movement such as pitching which has no natural breaks.

This means that once a pitcher starts the pitching delivery there is no place in the delivery where he stops until he completely finishes the pitch. When you drill one small piece of the whole delivery you pull out that part and work on it in isolation intending to put it right back in after you drill it. The endless repetitions are supposed to put it into “muscle memory.” That’s how instructors will explain it. But they are all dead wrong. And you are being taken for a big ride with your money. And your son is wasting his time.

The problem is that it doesn’t work to drill in isolation and ends up disrupting the entire delivery because in pitching each part in proper sequence effects the whole. And the endless repetition of the drills has actually been proven to be a poor form of learning. There is no muscle memory.

In the 4th and recent edition of Motor Control and Learning by motor learning experts authors Richard A. Schmidt, Timothy D. Lee they state:

“It seems obvious that if practice is given on the part, it would certainly transfer highly to the whole task, as the part would seem to be identical to one element of the whole. The problem with this idea is that practice on the part in isolation may change the motor programming of the part so that for all practical purposes it is no longer the same as it is in the context of the total skill.”

The only time it makes sense to do drills is if a pitcher is beginning to learn how to pitch. A beginner. Partial practice in the early stages may make sense but only in the beginning. Endless drills should never continue. Even for Little Leaguers who already have been pitching a year or two going back to drills can actually make things worse and again is really just a waste of practice time.” …End of quote

Where is the evidence that drills do work? If they worked then where are all the pitchers who are throwing with above average velocity, with better control and why have these drills not ended sore arms?

We have been in the era of pitching drills since the early nineties. They were developed as an easy way to sell books and videos that seemed to make pitching much easier to learn. But they have not worked to produce results. Why is it that drills were never needed before? How many professional pitchers do you believe made it because of doing drills and how is it then that the large majority of professional pitchers never did drills at all.

Drills aren’t working but pitchers are sure wasting a lot of time doing them.

For his first six years of professional baseball Sandy Koufax was a sub-par pitcher…with potential. He could not command his fastball so he had dismal control. He walked hitters at an alarming rate. And then one day in the bullpen at the suggestion of his bullpen coach he tried making an adjustment in his delivery and the rest is history. At that moment he simply changed his timing and that change turned his delivery into a laser-like throwing machine. They say he could hit a dime at 60’6″.

He was able to make that adjustment because he needed to feel his whole body making the movement. He never would have gotten that by doing a drill because no parts of the pitching motion move in isolation. They are all dependent on how the previous part moves. Try to isolate or drill that one part and you mess up the whole.

What does good timing, rhythm and proper tempo look like? It looks like “smoothness and effortless.” But it is explosive. It is Koufax smoothness, Mariano Rivera smoothness or Curt Schilling smoothness.

If a pitcher looks slow or mechanical you can be sure his timing is way off because he has been doing drills or is trying to think too hard about what he is doing. He does not know how to move his body at the right time.

Drills take away fluidity, create slowness and end up causing pitchers to think far too much about their mechanics when it must be a non-conscious effort when facing down a hitter. If pitchers need to make adjustments in their delivery then they should practice making it under the watchful eye of an instructor who has an understanding of what needs to be done. And that instructor can easily be his father or even his mother.

There are many parents out there now who have a much clearer understanding of pitching mechanics than many high school and college coaches. And that is sad…but true.

Here is a “self-serving” email I got to make a point…that I received from a customer who believes his investment in our program is paying off because now he understands what to look for and how to make the adjustment in his son’s mechanics. Notice that he doesn’t mention drills. He works with his boy instead just like Koufax’s bullpen coach helping him understand how to make adjustments while pitching using his entire delivery while developing “smoothness”.

Yes, knowledge can be power.

Dick Mills website www.pitching.nexcess.net

If you have questions about this blog post or on any phase of pitching—mechanics, strength and conditioning, mental training, strategy send those questions to dickmills@gmail.com and I will answer them here.

If you want an explosive body and explosive mechanics you need to get my Free Report . We won’t waste your time. We show you how to recognize exactly what is holding back most pitchers…find the problem—fix the problem. I show you a comparison between two high school pitchers, a Little League pitcher and a major league pitcher who throws mid to upper nineties. You will see the biggest problem that reduces velocity in the majority of pitchers.

(If you are a high school or college coach, email me at dickmills@gmail.com and ask for our special Free Coach’s Report.)