Topspin Vs Bulletspin, Which is Faster?

[greg99]

Thank you RubberBiscut. My DD went from a Top Spin fast ball ball/drop ball to a bullet fastball pitcher. It happened in the past few months whenshe started getting the corect spin on her rise ball more and more. Is this a common occurence?
She can still get Topspin if she slows down to about 80%. She starts to crank up the speed and here comes the bullet spin.
I'm not sure what direction to go with her fastball/dropball....


Thanks Again

 

[RubberBiscuit]

My DD went from a Top Spin fast ball ball/drop ball to a bullet fastball pitcher. It happened in the past few months whenshe started getting the corect spin on her rise ball more and more. Is this a common occurence?

What you are describing is different from my DD's case. My DD never had a fb with topspin so she didn't have the opportunity to lose it learning the rb.

I will tell ya one more relative thing about my DD - the hardest pitch BY FAR - for her to learn was the roll-over drop. I just think that spin is just so foreign to her and all her years not doing anything like it. Last year she had the roll-over breaking extremely well but it was her most inaccurate pitch.

This year, post DD's big recovery from her back injuries, we are probably NOT going to come back with the roll-over BUT rather DD will have two speeds of the peel. She has got this motion/release down from her current cu (a palmed peel) and all we will do is move the ball out on the fingers a bit. (looking for that 5-7mph difference)

 

[riseball]

Sorry to burst some folks bubble but bullet spin is evidence of a mechanical problem. It is something that needs to be addressed by a competent PC.

To quote BH "...she is doomed."

My daughter is a riseball pitcher and was having a bad day against the Gators. She threw what should have been a riseball to Lauern Haeger that was a 68mph bullet spin. I would love to know if that ball ever landed.

 

[Greenmonsters]

What you are describing is different from my DD's case. My DD never had a fb with topspin so she didn't have the opportunity to lose it learning the rb.

I will tell ya one more relative thing about my DD - the hardest pitch BY FAR - for her to learn was the roll-over drop. I just think that spin is just so foreign to her and all her years not doing anything like it. Last year she had the roll-over breaking extremely well but it was her most inaccurate pitch.

This year, post DD's big recovery from her back injuries, we are probably NOT going to come back with the roll-over BUT rather DD will have two speeds of the peel. She has got this motion/release down from her current cu (a palmed peel) and all we will do is move the ball out on the fingers a bit. (looking for that 5-7mph difference)

Long thread, can't remember if you state previously, but what are her relative pitch speeds

Rise
FB
Drop
Change

 

[RubberBiscuit]

Long thread, can't remember if you state previously, but what are her relative pitch speeds

Rise
FB
Drop
Change

So I am one of those that has had bad overall luck with speed guns (Bushnell then PocketRadar)... Not that they "read low" ;-) ,... Bushnell, our first one, just pegged-out at 51mph. The PR is just soooo random high & low....

Then I started to not care with all the looks DD got thru to her signing. I really don't care now

So all I can do is make relative speed statements relative to the last (pre-injury) Juggs reading at a camp we had on her:

Rise 63
FB 63
Drop 60
Change 47

 

[RubberBiscuit]

As promised here are the high-level keys to how my bullet-spinner-DD got to be a riseballer:

The general "vision" given to her by PC that worked for her -
"you are turning the doorknob on a door that is in front of you blocking 3rd base (rhp of course)"
"at the end of the doorknob-turn make sure you have (visually) scooped a handful of dirt into the cup of your palm via the non-thumb-side of your hand"
"It's a weight-back (not balanced l/r foot) release"
"trust the break and fight hard the want to pitch upwards (very difficult mental mind-set)"

Grip - every fingertip minus the ring finger is pushing a seam under the 4-seam orientation of the ball

Most effective drills -
while kneeling, take your stride foot and un-kneel it and straighten your leg towards the plate. (this allows upper body focus on the leaned-back pitch orientation)
After those first basic drills to get the spin right stand up and throw some pitches with your stride leg up on a bucket (still forces the reverse-lean release)

Any more detail I probably will have to get DD into this community and have her talk direct

 

[Rick Pauly]

Alan
In the paper just before the conclusion, Caitlin references figure 7. I did not see a figure 7 in the paper....did I miss it? She suggested it had to do with spin rate and ball movement. I would be very interested in knowing the conclusions on this. Thanks

Also, I hope you do more analysis type papers on softball. We really need some physics data applied to our sport.
Rick

I am not sure where would be the best place to post this, but I'll try here. I have added a section onto my physics of baseball web site devoted to fastpitch softball: Fastpitch Softball. For now, I have just two links posted there, both related to analysis of pitches from the 2011 WCWS. One is to the slides I already mentioned earlier. The other is to a paper written by Caitlin Krebs. Caitlin is an undergraduate physics major at Drury University and a pitcher on the Drury team. She worked with me last summer as a research student as part of our Research Experience as an Undergraduate (REU) program at U. of Illinois. She wrote up a very nice paper on her analysis of the PITCHf/x data that we had, including identification (based on speed and movement) of each pitch. She wrote a very nice paper and I highly recommend it to you.

 

[cuzmail]

So I am one of those that has had bad overall luck with speed guns (Bushnell then PocketRadar)

Me too RB.

 

[ArmWhip]

Greg99, consider this; when a hitter over estimates the speed of a pitch they swing over the ball, when they under estimate the speed they swing under the ball. In other words they swing over a change up and under an extra hard fastball. So to take advantage of this you want the drop to be a little slower than the 'fastball'.

 

[pobguy]

In the paper just before the conclusion, Caitlin references figure 7. I did not see a figure 7 in the paper....did I miss it? She suggested it had to do with spin rate and ball movement. I would be very interested in knowing the conclusions on this. Thanks

Hm...I think I may have accidentally posted an earlier version of the paper. I had asked Caitlin to remove the figure, since it is somehwat misleading. The reason is that the spin is not actually measured. The spin rate is inferred from the movement and speed. So, to show that there is a correlation between spin rate and movement is sort of circular reasoning. Of course there is a correlation because the movement was used to determine the spin rate (in the context of a model that relates the two).

Also, I hope you do more analysis type papers on softball. We really need some physics data applied to our sport.

If I had more data, I would do more analysis. I tried to get hold of the 2013 WCWS data last summer for Caitlin to analyze, but had no success. I'll try again this year.