- Jul 14, 2008
- 1,796
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Enough said IMO............
Fastball frenzy or not?
- Thread starter GOINGDEEP
- Start date
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Enough said IMO............
Greenmonsters, why are you giving props to the evil empire?? JK 
. I'm originally a New England Girl - last night was a happy night for me! An interesting experiment over the winter would be to put our hitters in the cages and crank up the pitching machine speed incrementally until they can't catch up to it anymore. Then let them see 10 or so of those pitches and see if their hitting improves. Now get sneaky and change the machine speed to alternate fast, slow, medium, etc. (hopefully at least one machine is nice enough so you can change speed without having to fuss with the machine too much, so speeds can be changed during the at-bat) This little experiment will isolate speed only - movement is not a factor, nor is placement. It would be interesting to see how it comes out.
. I'm originally a New England Girl - last night was a happy night for me! An interesting experiment over the winter would be to put our hitters in the cages and crank up the pitching machine speed incrementally until they can't catch up to it anymore. Then let them see 10 or so of those pitches and see if their hitting improves. Now get sneaky and change the machine speed to alternate fast, slow, medium, etc. (hopefully at least one machine is nice enough so you can change speed without having to fuss with the machine too much, so speeds can be changed during the at-bat) This little experiment will isolate speed only - movement is not a factor, nor is placement. It would be interesting to see how it comes out.
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Here's another reason I've been turning my brain. I posted on here back in the spring my older brother changed his DS from overhand to submarine style. ( similar to our FP ) Well he went from an average OH pitcher to a very successful submarine. His honors just this spring.......
All district 1 team, all region team, all region tournament team, all Shelby Metro team, All Tennessee baseball coaches association state team, co-MVP regional tournament, pitcher of the year for his school.
He's 6'5 now, tall and lanky..........perfect build for submariners.
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My brother has adopted some of our mechanics/grips to his DS pitching choices. And thats when my wheels started turning as to what FP can learn from the BB side of submarine style.
To watch him work his CU ( FP has ) his breaking ball speeds ( FP has ) and then go to his FB ( what we claim we don't have ) is impressive. Being able to go a decent way down in speed ( CU ) mid speed ( breaking ) and then up in speed ( FB ) and be close to our underhand motion....................must be something there to consider??
Gee whiz GOINGDEEP, no one ever thought of that before. lol
Obviously no one has thought VERY HARD about it. We still only rely on 2 "main" pitching speeds for fastpitch. And nobody after 14u throws a fastball, or so the legend says.
Obviously no one has thought VERY HARD about it. We still only rely on 2 "main" pitching speeds for fastpitch. And nobody after 14u throws a fastball, or so the legend says.
Who is we? Even at the upper levels of college ball very few girls command three pitches let alone varying speeds on all of them. Cat Osterman was so good, in part because not many girls can throw a good drop. She has one of the few good ones in the game. The mixing of pitches will vary speeds because the pitches themselves arrive at different speeds and certain pitches look faster than others when movement is involved. Two pitches at the same speed will look different if one moves and the other doesn't.
Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
Greenmonsters, why are you giving props to the evil empire?? JK
I'm insulted, I'm from New England so why wouldn't my 2nd favorite team be whoever is playing the Yankees. Prior to Wed. it was Detroit. Since then, it's strangers on the golf courses.
Re your cage experiment - if your hitters have good mechanics and see enough pitches, they should be able to max out the machine by figuring out the timing and how much sooner they need to start the swing. I don't know of any pitching machine that can change/alternate speeds quickly, but if it could, a hitter would really struggle because there really isn't anything to help gauge the timing. This is why a pitcher who can throw varying speeds without altering her mechanics/arm swing speed can be extremely effective. When that's the case, a hitter sometimes is best off looking for one speed until they get to 2 strikes.
Go anonymous golfers, beat those Yankees!
I'm insulted, I'm from New England so why wouldn't my 2nd favorite team be whoever is playing the Yankees. Prior to Wed. it was Detroit. Since then, it's strangers on the golf courses.
Ha ha - I meant giving props through Rivera, though I would admit that he is pretty darn good even if he is a Yankee. For a minute there I thought you had been seduced by the dark side and were a Yankee fan
We would be the fastpitch mentality world.
Which is my whole point. Why don't we drop the mph to gain even more movement, and add in a FB? Why lump all those pitches together on the high end and limit anything available higher?
Look, let's take the absolute best hitters in the world, MLB. For the whole league stat the BA is less than .250. Almost every pitcher admits when their fastball is working along with their 1-2 other pitches, it dramatically improves their game. If BB's formula has worked for them all this time, why do we put a lid on our pitching side?
What would be the negatives in your opinion?
FP batters are for the most part trained to hit movement pitches that are usually within 2-4 mph of each other, a change up, and MAYBE an off-speed. If you could incorporate 2 of the above AND have a FB in reserve coming 7-8 mph faster than the breaks, would that be a positive for the pitcher?
If done properly it would change the game. It would open a whole new brand of pitchers. It would open up the need of specialty pitchers, which would bring fresh ideas to the bullpens. Batters would have to adjust their approach. To me it would add a level of excitement to the game that it's missing.
I'm in no way saying everyone should change to this idea, there would still be a need for "conventional" pitchers. But the idea of having a good starter, reliever, and closer would add appeal. Also it's hard on the batters to adjust to a new pitcher. Like GM said, 3rd time through the line up the offense usually has your number. Having a good specialty option in the pen would be awesome.
Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
FP - why do you think that is? Too much time messing with 5 or 6 pitches? Focus just on top speed? Because it hasn't been done historically? Is it a girls FP thing? Is Hal Skinner the exception in male FP or is it common there too?
I agree w/ GD. I don't understand why some people think that the way to get hit hitters out in BB couldn't be effective in SB??? I don't care how fast you throw, 75 in SB or 105 in BB, if that's all you throw, good hitters will adjust their timing and connect so even those pitchers need at least one average-to-good off-speed pitch to be effective. If you're not in those velocity ranges, you need multiple speeds. If those multiple speeds include movement, that's even better.
Edited to add: Case in point, Zito shut down the Cards in a must win game. He never topped 85 mph. Sorry GD!
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