Why Amateur Pitchers Shouldn’t Copy Major League Pitcher’s Mechanics

Many amateur pitchers will copy the pitching styles or pitching mechanics of major league pitchers believing that they will improve their pitching velocity or overall pitching skills.

In this video you can see Yankees starting pitcher A.J. Burnett compared side-by-side to a 16 year old high school pitcher…who appears to be copying the pitching mechanics of A.J. Burnett.

The problem is that amateur pitchers will end up copying the bad with the good aspects of a pitcher’s mechanics.  In the case of A.J. Burnett there is nothing I would recommend that a pitcher copy as his delivery is very stressful. He already has had one elbow surgery.

Whenever we do a video motion analysis we compare a students mechanics side-by-side like this to a major league pitcher whom we know to have a quality pitching mechanics. http://www.pitching.com/video_analysis/

In the case of A.J. Burnett you can see he uses a big hip turn where he shows the number of his uniform or his pants back pocket to the hitter.  This provides no benefit but does contribute to a loss of forward momentum which means he is actually losing velocity when he was probably taught that the big hip turn would contribute to velocity.

Notice that the big hip turn will usually cause the lead leg to swing out  and straighten when the lead leg should remain in a bent position.

Plus the leg swinging out and around will many times, like A.J. Burnett, cause the landing foot to land away from the mid-line as demonstrated on the video. This reduces hip and trunk rotation and interfers with velocity, control while adding stress to the arm.

These are the types of mechanical flaws that should be fixed during the offs-season as they contribute to reduced velocity, control and add undue stress to the throwing arm.

This is what I have been focusing on in our Explosively Pitching DVD program since 2004.  We teach parents how to help their sons use their bodies to pitch instead of just their arms. Not only does this improve velocity but reduces the risk of arm injuries. http://www.pitching.com/products/