How important is knowing spin speed?

[RADcatcher]

Just my opinion.

All pitches spin some way obviously. But I think axis tilt and laminar flow play a more prominent role in pitch movement than spin, Screwballs (not a step way to one side one) for example move based on seam orientation, laminar effect - no 3-9 spin is involved. If you throw curve spin but with the incorrect seam orientation/axis, it will come back over the plate (DD’s PC showed an example of this some time ago). Spin might help a curve, but it is not the main force moving it. A lot of girls can move a ball left (as a righty) without curve spin.

Cricket has a lot more research in the area of laminar flow.

As for dropballs, all balls drop eventually due to gravity, but top spin speeds up the process by adding a downward force.

Good read, also think axis is important.
WITH spin rotation.

For instance that is why there can be
a drop, a curve, and a curve drop!

 

[El Oso]

There is no such thing as a screwball spin. That's just bullet spin. And spin matters with every pitch, along with axis of spin.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

I guess you didn't even read his post? Or if you did, you definitely didn't interpret it. That's for certain.

 

[RADcatcher]

 

[ArmWhip]

Throwing seam shifted wake pitches is very difficult, it requires a lot of precision. First the spin axis has to be spot on, and the seam orientation also has to be correct, if either of these is off you get no break. With other breaking pitches seam orientation doesn't count for much, and if the spin axis is less than perfect you can still get some movement. I hear from Dads that their daughter naturally throws a pitch that breaks. When I ask them how she does it they don't know and neither do the daughters, it just happens naturally, subconsciously. If you don't have some idea of how you do it then it probably won't last, because as soon as some minor thing changes, the break is gone, and if you don't know how you do it how are you going to get it back?