illegal pitches?

[radness]

I understand what you are saying but you are thinking purely about really good hitters. For really good hitters, after they have seen 70 MPH for a bit they will be able to hit it. For not so good really hitters, their mechanics/lack of athleticism just won't allow them to hit above a certain speed...

I understand what you are saying however pitch speeds are still a variable even at the youngest ages.
A pitcher throwing 45 miles an hour and the next pitcher throwing 50 is still the same adjustment.
Could happen during the same game.
Or next game.


Batters will have to deal with pitchers of varying speeds regardless of the pitchers feet.

 

[_MIA_]

I understand what you are saying however pitch speeds are still a variable even at the youngest ages.
A pitcher throwing 45 miles an hour and the next pitcher throwing 50 is still the same adjustment.
Could happen during the same game.
Or next game.


Batters will have to deal with pitchers of varying speeds regardless of the pitchers feet.

Right but, as we see all the time, a whole team may have no issue hitting a kid throwing 45 (eg our pitcher not leaping) while they cannot touch 50 (our pitcher leaping).

We are saying the same thing basically I think, if you can hit it won't matter too much..if you cannot hit then yeah it may cause problems...

 

[radness]

Perhaps being a catcher has helped me identify a lot of different nuances that pitchers have. There are some pitchers that when their arm circles up and behind them, the angle of their body during forward step can't even see their arm/the ball until all of a sudden there hand spits the ball out past their leg.
There are other pitchers that when they are throwing can see their entire arm radius through their Circle and can track the ball a lot easier.
There are a lot of nuances that affect the batter timing.

Could simply be said that the best advantage that batter's can gain about these pitching mechanics discussions is for batters to face as many different live pitchers as they can
to learn to identify timing!

 

[clarity]

I understand what you are saying however pitch speeds are still a variable even at the youngest ages.
A pitcher throwing 45 miles an hour and the next pitcher throwing 50 is still the same adjustment.
Could happen during the same game.
Or next game.


Batters will have to deal with pitchers of varying speeds regardless of the pitchers feet.

A 50mph pitcher at 10u in untouchable. A 45mph pitcher at 10u is human.

 

[PJR202]

Can you explain how the Hop helps? Simply asking that because there are other mechanics that are involved in Pitch speed. How does the Hop help that?

It is an assumption that hopping would help. Because there are other factors that go with pitching.

Do think that pitchers can gain distance. But that can be gained while swiping the back toe also.
And does not necessarily mean they will pitch better either

You're exactly right. People keep talking about speed here (maybe I did too initially), but it's more than that. Maybe removing the leap has an effect on balance, mechanics, release. It's a change in a memorized process. It could mess with her head. It could ruin their pitch altogether. I won't share it here because it's not my kid in the video I took, but this girl had both feet 6+ inches off the ground nearly every single time she threw. It wasn't a slight thing. It was just a JV game so it wasn't a huge deal. We brought it up for her benefit. No varsity opponent in their right mind wouldn't have pointed it out though.

Maybe I have an old school approach to things, but baseball/softball is a game of strategy more than skill and athleticism. I'm not talking about 8u and 10u stuff. Those kids are in the early stages for the most part and I'm not that petty. But at the MS+ level, kids need to learn how to win games. I don't understand it when some people here say learning is more important than winning at the MS level. Tell that to a 14u travel team. Winning is a skill. Confidence is a skill. Believing in yourself because of past success is a LEARNED behavior. Resiliency is developed. It's all got to be fostered and trained. How many times have you seen a team win a game they weren't expected to win, and it light a fire of confidence in a bunch of kids. They need to learn it. There are teams with plenty of skill to win at their own level who struggle with believing in themselves. I would be doing a disservice to the HS coach by sending him kids that haven't learned these skills. And trust me...this is a new program in a small down...we need a winning attitude badly.

I don't know about the rest of this place, but we fight for our girls. If a call is blatantly bad, the umps will hear about it. I have tremendous respect for anyone who is crazy enough to be an umpire and I tell them that often, but I expect them to do their job correctly or we'll help them do so. Not everyone sees everything, and not everyone knows every rule and how to navigate if it's being broken or not. A lot of this stuff is subjective. But we fight for our kids because we tell them to fight for themselves on the field. If that kid was leaping once per at-bat or the foot was barely leaving the ground, it wouldn't have been brought up. As she continues to pitch, she'll if nothing else, have the advantage of being closer to the plate. Closer = faster when considering reaction time.

In a varsity scenario, if our kids aren't hitting well that night and I can use a very clear, very basic, very well-known rule to disrupt the pitcher's speed/accuracy, I'll do it. She should have been taught to do it correctly in the first place. We did the JV kid a favor by bringing it up. I'm not interested in seeing ANY kids on any team NOT be successful. We all know it's about more than softball. Umpires sometimes need eyes in the back of their head, and it's not against the rules to help them know where/when to look. The same people who would say I shouldn't care about a leaping pitcher are the same people who have a bad play call go in their favor and wouldn't dare tell them umpire that. Would they not tell their kids to hit it to a specific area when there's a weak fielder there? I could go on and on.

If we're in a varsity game at MS/HS level and the opposing pitcher is leaping 10ft off the ground and we're beating her up, I'm not saying a word. Who would?? If runners are leaving a half step early, that is very significant in a throw-down scenario. There are plenty of perfectly legal ways to try and even the odds, and breaking rules is breaking rules. The umpire ultimately decides what will and won't be called, but we would be doing our kids a disservice to not fight for them to get a fairly-called game. I would expect NO LESS from an opposing coach if we're breaking a rule that he/she could benefit from having called against us. We don't call the umps out any more often than anyone else, but if it's significant or critical, they're gonna hear it.

 

[radness]

You're exactly right. People keep talking about speed here (maybe I did too initially), but it's more than that. Maybe removing the leap has an effect on balance, mechanics, release. It's a change in a memorized process. It could mess with her head. It could ruin their pitch altogether. I won't share it here because it's not my kid in the video I took, but this girl had both feet 6+ inches off the ground nearly every single time she threw. It wasn't a slight thing. It was just a JV game so it wasn't a huge deal. We brought it up for her benefit. No varsity opponent in their right mind wouldn't have pointed it out though.

Maybe I have an old school approach to things, but baseball/softball is a game of strategy more than skill and athleticism. I'm not talking about 8u and 10u stuff. Those kids are in the early stages for the most part and I'm not that petty. But at the MS+ level, kids need to learn how to win games. I don't understand it when some people here say learning is more important than winning at the MS level. Tell that to a 14u travel team. Winning is a skill. Confidence is a skill. Believing in yourself because of past success is a LEARNED behavior. Resiliency is developed. It's all got to be fostered and trained. How many times have you seen a team win a game they weren't expected to win, and it light a fire of confidence in a bunch of kids. They need to learn it. There are teams with plenty of skill to win at their own level who struggle with believing in themselves. I would be doing a disservice to the HS coach by sending him kids that haven't learned these skills. And trust me...this is a new program in a small down...we need a winning attitude badly.

I don't know about the rest of this place, but we fight for our girls. If a call is blatantly bad, the umps will hear about it. I have tremendous respect for anyone who is crazy enough to be an umpire and I tell them that often, but I expect them to do their job correctly or we'll help them do so. Not everyone sees everything, and not everyone knows every rule and how to navigate if it's being broken or not. A lot of this stuff is subjective. But we fight for our kids because we tell them to fight for themselves on the field. If that kid was leaping once per at-bat or the foot was barely leaving the ground, it wouldn't have been brought up. As she continues to pitch, she'll if nothing else, have the advantage of being closer to the plate. Closer = faster when considering reaction time.

In a varsity scenario, if our kids aren't hitting well that night and I can use a very clear, very basic, very well-known rule to disrupt the pitcher's speed/accuracy, I'll do it. She should have been taught to do it correctly in the first place. We did the JV kid a favor by bringing it up. I'm not interested in seeing ANY kids on any team NOT be successful. We all know it's about more than softball. Umpires sometimes need eyes in the back of their head, and it's not against the rules to help them know where/when to look. The same people who would say I shouldn't care about a leaping pitcher are the same people who have a bad play call go in their favor and wouldn't dare tell them umpire that. Would they not tell their kids to hit it to a specific area when there's a weak fielder there? I could go on and on.

If we're in a varsity game at MS/HS level and the opposing pitcher is leaping 10ft off the ground and we're beating her up, I'm not saying a word. Who would?? If runners are leaving a half step early, that is very significant in a throw-down scenario. There are plenty of perfectly legal ways to try and even the odds, and breaking rules is breaking rules. The umpire ultimately decides what will and won't be called, but we would be doing our kids a disservice to not fight for them to get a fairly-called game. I would expect NO LESS from an opposing coach if we're breaking a rule that he/she could benefit from having called against us. We don't call the umps out any more often than anyone else, but if it's significant or critical, they're gonna hear it.

Good read

Along with those comments
getting in a players head can be the result of change in performance.
It sometimes can work for the benefit of the player and sometimes it defeats the player.
Can even defeat a team.

Have found that it is better to focus on what we can do right,
then focus on what is wrong.

Let me add this. There could be a purpose to putting in a pitcher who is going to disruptively effect the mentality of the opposing coach/ team (and their fans ) because pitcher does something everybody is going to go into an uproar about.

That can be done purposely because it disrupts some people so much.

" let's put Jodi in because she does that funky leaping thing and that'll really irritate them,
rattle the cage a little"

 

[_MIA_]

Maybe I have an old school approach to things, but baseball/softball is a game of strategy more than skill and athleticism.

It is hard to be confident if you suck..I get your point though.

 

[radness]

A 50mph pitcher at 10u in untouchable. A 45mph pitcher at 10u is human.

Mechanics make pitch speed. Not age.

Wonder at that young age if pitchers are scrutinized so much that they're called illegal pitch one after another how many would quit?

Also I'll say again
I don't think softball is an age bracket,
think softball is Talent levels.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Release point can impact velocity, especially since the ball loses speed due to gravity and drag the moment it is released from the pitcher's hand. I'll go back to Jordy The Leaper because she gets so far out for her size. A ball released at 65 from 34' away is going to get on a batter quicker than one released from 36' away, right? So release can impact velocity. Of course, this doesn't take into account deception in the release or if the batter is picking up the ball.

My only argument for why leaping helps is that it allows the pitcher to release closer to the plate. As for the rest of the mechanics, I leave that to my daughter's highly qualified instructor who said a true leap does more to mess up the average pitcher's mechanics than help them.

 

[PJR202]

It is hard to be confident if you suck..I get your point though.

What kills us as coaches is that our kids don't actually suck. They've played some great games. They played their first game as a team this year (with four 6th graders starting) in tournament pool play against a pitcher and team from a catholic school that could slay just about any HS team I've seen in the area. An 8th grader clocked at the tournament at 61 with laser accuracy. Best pitcher I've seen in person at any age. She had 8 strikeouts and an easy put-out at 1B. They were animals. But we took almost everything they gave us. They beat us 15-0 in three innings, but never had to step off the base to get us out of the inning. That was huge for us. They played well that whole tournament, but ultimately lose three of four. But it's like 3/4 of the time they forget how well they can do. It's all mental with them. They're just so young that they haven't been able to just fight through mistakes. It's so hard to watch and we've tried everything we can think of to accelerate the process. They've won some games and those wins were a big help, but overall they just haven't lived up to the team we see in practice. They want to win, but still haven't figured out how to do it consistently against teams they should be able to compete with.

But hey...maybe the problem is coaching..lol