Hello from Omaha
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September 4, 2010 at 1:47 am #84736
Michael,
Better late than never.
I suggest you post video to the Video Evaluation section and get some feedback as soon as possible.
Keep in mind it is usually about how the pitcher starts. How he is initially positioned and how he begins his movement away from the rubber.
How far does his front hip and head move away from the rubber before hand break?
Is collapsing his back leg and then starting to rotate or turn his body into landing? Watch his back foot action.
Is he lifting his heel too soon which may indicate he is starting to rotate too early?
Watch his landing foot. Is he landing on the line? Heel or toe or flat footed? How long does it take for his landing knee to stop moving forward after his foot is flat? Check the number of frames you click on the camera. Ideally it should be two frames but three you can work with to improve. We see sometimes 4-6. That’s like pitching in sand so you get lots of lost energy that never gets transferred to the trunk or the arm.
At landing, once he has braced, is his back hip positioned higher than his front hip and is his head centered between his two feet. Ideally you want the nose over the belly button. Throwing arm and lead arm up at shoulder height.
Is his throwing elbow at shoulder height at landing or is it above or below?
Check out his MER – maximum external rotation. In other words how far does his arm lay back once his hips and trunk are facing or squared up to the target. Is it near parallel to the ground which would be about 180 degrees or is it much less?
How much lean does he have with his trunk? 20 degrees is ideal.
Is his throwing arm fully extended at ball release or is it still slightly bent. This indicates a problem with his elbow positioning at landing.
Does he get his head and shoulders positioned over his front knee at ball release? Or is his head behind his landing knee?
How about stride length and finish?
Those are some areas to watch that will show you how he is losing velocity and what can be improved to boost it.
Fire up the camera and go to work.
I tell pitchers all the time. Mechanical faults are a blessing in disguise because once you fix them you will automatically improve your velocity and your performance as long as you do enough good practice with feedback.
Most don’t.
Dick
September 4, 2010 at 6:10 am #84734Dick,
Thanks for the reply. We had a good tape session this morning and we both learned a lot. I’ll be posting that in the video forum soon. He really has a lot of little clean up to do. It was surprising how many things we could find. His sideways motion looks ok. People have told me he over-strides. We lengthened that after the spring season. I posted this in another forum. My thought was that he couldn’t get the front leg braced up, but we worked on that this morning, and now I think he can, so I’m going to post video before I change anything.
But, we did see, he was breaking his hands early and high. He’s long-arming, but he’s getting the arm up in time. His lead elbow is dropping during stride. He’s starting rotation early. He’s landing on the front toe and starting rotation before the rest of the foot gets down. He’s releasing before completing rotation. He’s not bracing well and the back hip is having trouble getting over. He’s not far off on most of these, but they were sure easy to see going frame by frame.
We worked on bracing up the front and made some improvements today. We also got his hand break all the way down and later. After we made that change his lead arm went from being low to being shoulder height. We were both a little surprised by that.
Again, I’ll post video of today’s session soon.
Thanks
MichaelSeptember 4, 2010 at 12:14 pm #68674I’d like to take just a minute to introduce myself. My name is Michael Sich and I’m from Omaha, NE. I’ve coached youth baseball for 15 years and counting. My current team will be 13’s in the spring, and I’m loving every minute of it. I have 2 boys. My oldest pitched through his first year of college before deciding he needed to move on. My youngest is a senior in high school and the reason I’m here.
Matt is a quality high school pitcher. He was all-state as a junior and posted one of the better records in the state, including 2 big wins in the state tournament over the number 1 and number 2 seeds. He mixes pitches well, and has great control over all his pitches. It’s not unusual for him to throw breaking balls on 3-1 or 3-2 counts.
His problem is velocity. Last fall during showcases he topped out at 81. At the time we thought we were on the right track with 2 years of high school still in front of us. In the spring it looked like he had about the same velocity, but he was never on a gun. However, this fall, at showcases, we find he’s still in the 77-80 range.
He’s had some good interest from D1 and D2 schools, but we feel his velocity and size (5’11”, 160 lbs) has kept him from turning interest into offers.
So, a few days ago, I ordered the videos and joined the forum to help us out. We’ve working on sideways movements and video tapped out session. It seems he has some lower body issues, but I was surprised to see some upper body problems, that are holding him back as well. I’ve been comparing what we tapped the other day to the video I captured during the season (which was geared more toward displaying his movement). Tomorrow we will be tapping again and then I’ll probably post it in the forum for some feedback.
Are goal is to add a few mph in the next 2 weeks before our next showcase. And, then a few more before we work out at Kansas, and then Wichita St. Hopefully, we can make the adds we need and impress some coaches.
Anyway, I’m glad to finally be a member of the site. I actually found pitching.com about 10 years ago, but I decided not to get involved then, I wish I would have.
Thanks, and I hope to learn a lot and maybe share a little.
Michael Sich
September 9, 2010 at 6:58 am #84732Dick,
Would you clarify the following statement you made above:
“How much lean does he have with his trunk? 20 degrees is ideal.”
Are you referring to the slight lean to the left a righty thrower has (from back side viewpoint) after he has opened his hips and is in MER?
Regards,
Walter -
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