There is nothing abnormal about Pickens. I like it.
76 mph
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There is nothing abnormal about Pickens. I like it.
Do you think she was taught to monkey butt, limit her brush to the tricep, land with her front foot at 90 degrees and bounce over her landing foot?
I also appreciate her unique solution. As an instructor I am always faced with decisions about what to change and what to allow. Pickens makes those decisions harder.
Anytime you're looking at someone who deviates from the "norm" there are two fallacies in logic you have to be careful of.
The first is hasty generalization, which is basically drawing a conclusion from a small sample size. If the premise is Pickens throws 76 because of the way she's pitching, it would be important to find other pitchers who throw the way she does at various levels and see if they are also out-performing the average or the mean. If so, there's a much better chance that there's a "secret sauce" here. If other pitchers using her mechanics are average, slightly above average, or below average, it would mean there is something else going on with Pickens.
The second is "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" or because one event follows another the first one cause the second one. In this case, the second event is Pickens throwing 76 mph. The first event is her pitching mechanics. It may be true, but it may also be a coincidence. What we don't know is if she followed more conventional mechanics whether she'd still throw 76, throw slower, or throw even faster. The specific mechanics may be the reason, or they could just be a coincidence. Perhaps she is just an outlier in terms of strength, muscle elasticity, or some other factor(s) we don't know.
The point is it's risky to draw conclusions from a sample of one, no matter how good that one might be. It's certainly worth looking into, but I wouldn't exactly jump into teaching all girls to throw like that without more data across a much larger sampling of pitchers. Preferably with a tool like 4D Motion that makes it more empirical/less subject to interpretation.
The first is hasty generalization, which is basically drawing a conclusion from a small sample size. If the premise is Pickens throws 76 because of the way she's pitching, it would be important to find other pitchers who throw the way she does at various levels and see if they are also out-performing the average or the mean. If so, there's a much better chance that there's a "secret sauce" here. If other pitchers using her mechanics are average, slightly above average, or below average, it would mean there is something else going on with Pickens.
The second is "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" or because one event follows another the first one cause the second one. In this case, the second event is Pickens throwing 76 mph. The first event is her pitching mechanics. It may be true, but it may also be a coincidence. What we don't know is if she followed more conventional mechanics whether she'd still throw 76, throw slower, or throw even faster. The specific mechanics may be the reason, or they could just be a coincidence. Perhaps she is just an outlier in terms of strength, muscle elasticity, or some other factor(s) we don't know.
The point is it's risky to draw conclusions from a sample of one, no matter how good that one might be. It's certainly worth looking into, but I wouldn't exactly jump into teaching all girls to throw like that without more data across a much larger sampling of pitchers. Preferably with a tool like 4D Motion that makes it more empirical/less subject to interpretation.
Real abnormal
Shawn, I'm trying to see what your point is. Just because someone is successful doing it differently doesn't mean it will work for everyone else. Dontrelle Willis had five successful years in MLB with a very unorthodox delivery, but I didn't see people rushing out to replicate what he was doing. And that was probably a good thing considering he got to a point where he could not replicate his delivery consistently enough to get outs.
Somehow, she's making it work, which is great for her, but I don't think we should throw what works for everyone else. Oh, and it's an ESPN gun, so the speed is probably 5-6 MPH fast. So, she's still throwing hard, but it's probably not actually 76.
Somehow, she's making it work, which is great for her, but I don't think we should throw what works for everyone else. Oh, and it's an ESPN gun, so the speed is probably 5-6 MPH fast. So, she's still throwing hard, but it's probably not actually 76.
Here's the link to the WCWS game Tenn vs Ok. In the first inning Jordy Bahl hit 70 once, Pickens hit 76 five times. The first inning is interesting, there's a good slo-mo of Jordy Bahl throwing a drop curve for a called 3rd strike and Pickens getting robbed on a 3rd strike change up. Pickens struggled and got pulled in the 2nd inning. 76 mph is extreme and even if you take away her size and athleticism it's still a legitimate question to ask, does her method deserve some investigation? It's going to be difficult to find another pitcher to compare her to because most instructors are going to discourage the monkey butt, I know I do.
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I don’t get what your saying or your point.
What exactly is wrong with her motion?
I said it's unorthodox compared to other pitchers. I didn't say it was wrong. But you've spent four pages of comments saying how you like it and maybe it's a good way to gain more speed.
What I don't like about it is the way her front foot lands at a 90° angle to the direction of her body. That has to put a lot of stress on her knee and ankle. She may be able to compensate for it, but I think it would get a lot of girls hurt, especially for the larger ones.
I didn’t say anything like it’s a good way to gain speed. It’s absolutely nothing new. It’s old info, been around like most stuff. Most stuff is combined with different styles and then mixed together where the pieces don’t always fit.
