The CWS shows bulletspin--rewriting the book on movement pitches

[CoachJD]

You may not remember, but @riseball and I had a long discussion about this several years ago. He was adamant that a player could get movement by changing the finger pressure on the ball. At first I disagreed with him, but he convinced me that something was going on.

With the caveat that there are some obvious, major differences between softball and baseball pitching, finger pressure absolutely is a HUGE part of how Major League pitchers are developing new pitches. Couldn't begin to guess at how the differences would change the impact of finger pressure, but all that stuff matters. Which finger touches the ball last matters.

If it's possible to do some of the same stuff with a softball as you can a baseball, the next 10 years of pitching are going to be wild.

 

[bmi11er]

One thing I was wondering while watching the pitches on slow mo in the games....

All of the balls being used have the college world series logo stamped on the ball. The balls that they use in the regular season do not. I wonder if that is an advantage in allowing the batter to pick up spin on the pitch... or if it doesn't even matter at all.

 

[Tatonka]

The super-slow videos are decimating everything we thought we knew about breaking pitches. This is screaming for a dissertation, isn't it? Couldn't they do a simulator for this?

They've done some science with cricket balls (a cricket ball has a single seam) but I haven't seen anything on baseball or softball.

My observation is that the break is less on a bullet-spin rise than on a backspin rise.

You may not remember, but @riseball and I had a long discussion about this several years ago. He was adamant that a player could get movement by changing the finger pressure on the ball. At first I disagreed with him, but he convinced me that something was going on.

Agreed and the tracking technology is now at the point where it seems feasible to get statistical results which would prove or disprove many of our "assumptions".

The finger pressure discussion came up again last night with my pitcher DD while watching NiJ C. I believe it is one of those fine tuning aspects that a pitcher can (and should) make. We've also tabled it at times in the past to work on achieving more consistent, repeatable mechanics in the rest of the motion.

 

[Hillhouse]

Almost all of the rises are bullet spin because of the velocity the women can throw it at. OU's second pitcher had a slight amount of back spin on her rise but it got hit over the wall for a Standford home run. She was in the 62-4 range with all her pitches, except for a change up. Sometimes you see the bullet spin tipped a little in the curve ball direction. I think that what goes unnoticed in these bullet rise balls is that most of the pitchers have their wrists cupped a little and when you combine this with IR you get some additional velocity. If you think about internally rotating the arm with the elbow flexed as normal but add in a cupped wrist the off center rotational velocity is increased.

I don't understand your first sentence. What does velocity have to do with why a pitcher has bullet spin? I don't understand that concept. Regardless of someone's velocity, they are either spinning pitches correctly or they're not.

So yesterday I saw Stanford-OU from the 6th inning onward. It was the first and only softball I've watched on TV all year. Score was 2-2 at that point, I saw OU's starter pitch to a couple hitters then Bahl came in. When they showed a slo-mo of her (Bahl's) riseball, it struck me as odd because it showed bullet spin. As I said on another thread, it's been a minute or 2 since I've played catch with her but her rise was much more backspin than what I saw on TV. I began to wonder if this is some kind of TV thing, like how a car's wheels go backwards when you see them on a screen. I absolutely cannot speak to Stanford's pitcher, how her ball spins, what is regular for her, etc. But, for Bahl, what I saw on TV was not what I have caught first hand.

 

[Hillhouse]

One thing I was wondering while watching the pitches on slow mo in the games....

All of the balls being used have the college world series logo stamped on the ball. The balls that they use in the regular season do not. I wonder if that is an advantage in allowing the batter to pick up spin on the pitch... or if it doesn't even matter at all.

Pitches SHOULD be spinning fast enough that logos can't be scene. That doesn't mean they are spinning correctly, but spinning that quickly none-the-less. In a perfect world, a riseball is spinning backward, a drop is spinning forward... out of my hand I don't want the hitter to identify the pitch by the spin. This is another reason why I cannot wrap my head around 2 seam pitches, which are a much looser spin. Now, we don't live in a perfect world so most riseballs will not be 6/12 rotation. That should be the goal but it's not likely to happen.

 

[ArmWhip]

What does velocity have to do with why a pitcher has bullet spin? I don't understand that concept. Regardless of someone's velocity, they are either spinning pitches correctly or they're not.

I think that for women, putting significant back spin on the ball, cuts velocity, so they settle for bullet spin to keep the speed up. I haven't seen a pitcher is this year's WCWS with good back spin, but I've seen a lot of bullet spin pitches.

 

[Gtrips07]

I think that for women, putting significant back spin on the ball, cuts velocity, so they settle for bullet spin to keep the speed up. I haven't seen a pitcher is this year's WCWS with good back spin, but I've seen a lot of bullet spin pitches.

You should want it to be a few miles slower than your fastball. When your riseball is the same pitch as your bullet spin fastball and you miss your spot it gets crushed. See Motnana Fouts.

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[LEsoftballdad]

You should want it to be a few miles slower than your fastball. When your riseball is the same pitch as your bullet spin fastball and you miss your spot it gets crushed. See Montana Fouts.

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My daughter's rise is her fastest pitch because of how it comes off her fingers. Maybe she's different than other girls, but the curve and rise tend to be 2-3 MPH faster than her fastballs.

 

[jdint]

My daughter's rise is her fastest pitch because of how it comes off her fingers. Maybe she's different than other girls, but the curve and rise tend to be 2-3 MPH faster than her fastballs.

Same here. I had DD experimenting with a bullet rise last night. She throws a "screwball," which, as far as I can tell, is a cut fastball type pitch. It's fast and runs in a bit. I had her throw the same pitch, but without the intent to throw a screwball. The results were promising. Very fast, (relative to her) and was hitting her spots pretty good.

 

[Shawn]

Hillhouse

Don’t you you know the Riseball is an optical illusion? lol