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Speed, Location, and Movement
by Dave
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The ages-old pitching conundrum is, of the three primary elements, speed, location and movement, which is the most important and which the least. The answer to the question is, there is no answer. That's why it is a conundrum. But the very question raises more questions in my mind. I'll give you those here and leave the answers to you.
I am overwhelmed by the number of people who have come up to me and pretty much right out of the blue informed me that the key to pitching is not speed but rather movement and location. Invariably, these holders of the supreme answer are parents of girls who do not pitch very fast - usually in the mid-50s around the age of 15. Their daughters generally are of below average or just barely average height and weight. They eventually max out their speed at below average levels because their bodies are not built to hurl an object at high velocity. But, early on, they are successful because they develop their pitches and control. Usually as these girls approach high school varsity level and begin to face better hitting, their lack of speed provides the extra edge for hitters to figure them out. So the question is, why is it always the parents of slower pitchers who tell me (not so much suggest to me) that speed doesn't matter?
One piece of advice I often read on softball message boards in general pitching discussions is that girls need to be at least 5 foot 8 inches tall in order to be recruited by Division I schools. Yet the same folks who offer this advice also claim speed is inferior to location and movement. The question I raise is, why is height important if movement and location are the key to successful pitching? There is nothing particular about height which lends itself to movement or location. Height is generally discussed as leading to a longer arc of the arm as it whips through the windmill motion. The reason that is important is exclusively speed. It does nothing to increase ball rotation which causes movement. It has very little to do with control. The height of the pitcher is exclusively a consideration when the limitations of one girl's potential speed are discussed. If speed were not important, we would see a lot of very short pitchers who have learned how to make the ball move and throw it where they want to.
Pundits favoring location and movement over speed often like to say fastpitch softball is not like baseball where you see a lot more fastballs thrown. They use this as indicative of their position. Yet is fastpitch we see more change-ups than we do in baseball. This emphasizes the value of speed more than anything else. Location is extremely important with a change but its principal value is its reduced speed. The batter was poised to hit something faster and she doesn't have time to adjust to the slow pitch. It catches her off balance. And while in baseball, curves and other breaking pitches are thrown more slowly than the fastball, in fastpitch, the relationship is much closer. You do not see many very slow movement pitches in softball. A good drop is only a couple miles per hour slower than a fastball. The same is true with the screwball though the difference is lower. A rise is usually thrown at the same speed as a fastball - that's much of its deception. So speed cannot be so unimportant if all the pitches aside from the change are relatively fast.
Another question raised by the pitching conundrum is the fact that most world class pitchers in both baseball and softball are rather fast. In the major leagues of baseball, there are a few guys who are very successful despite not hitting 90. Greg Maddux is a good example. They say he can't break glass with his fastball. Yet while many of his movement pitches clock in around 70+, he is often in the eighties with fastballs. It isn't as if he throws in the sixties. And Maddux is very much the exception. If you took a look at the average major league pitcher earning 8 million dollars plus, the average speed would exceed 90 mph. Most human beings cannot possibly throw that fast. It is exceptional speed. It doesn't hurt and if it weren't important, we won't see so much of it.
Within the fastpitch world, the top pitchers are very fast too. Cat Osterman is considered a finesse pitcher whose best speed is around 62. But Japanese legend Ueno throws over 70 at times. And 62 is not too shabby. Advocates for movement and location cite Cat's performance in her final Women's College World Series game in which she was over-adrenalized and pitching "through the break" while hitting closer to 65 than 62. She lost because her pitches didn't move like they should. I wholeheartedly agree. But that's because Cat's best pitch at the time was a dropball. You don't get good movement on a drop with a 65 mph speed. It has to be slower to get maximum break. This isn't an argument against speed. It is an argument for movement, which is, of course, important.
Some also use Osterman as a refutation of my notion above that height pertains exclusively to speed. They mention the often cited statement that Cat is successful because she has such "long levers" - levers that result from her 6 foot plus height. They argue that it is Cat's long levers which lead to her exemplary movement. Yet softball pitchers are limited in their use of "levers." There are limitations with respect to how far away from the body the wrist can be relative to the elbow. That is specifically a lever limitation. It is finger length and wrist strength which gives Cat her edge on the drop and other movement pitches. The levers don't hurt her but they are not the key to her movement.
One of my most important questions regarding the value of speed in pitching is why the softball governing bodies decided to move the pitching plate back to 43 feet in order to introduce more offense and cut down the number of strike outs in the game. Moving the pitching plate back doesn't change the value of control. Pitchers have to adjust to the new distance in order to put the pitches where they want but the greater distance does nothing to diminish the value of location. If anything, 43 feet provides an opportunity for more movement. More distance allows the ball to continue on its journey in whatever direction it is pitched, including movement of curves, drops, screwballs, etc. It stands to reason that moving of the rubber back, away from the hitter, should reduce offense and cause more strikeouts if movement were the key and speed didn't matter.
Along the same lines, I wonder about why some coaches, particularly in youth fastpitch, teach their pitchers to "crow hop?" For the uninitiated, "crow hopping" involves pushing off the rubber with the pivot foot while hopping - both feet off the ground - and landing to a "new point of impetus" from which the pitcher again pushes off. In essence, crow hopping shortens the distance to the plate, giving the effect of increasing the pitching speed. Speed isn't actually increased but the ball does get their faster. Fastpitch rules and regulations prohibit this practice though, at least in youth games, it is seldom enforced. The lack of enforcement is generally due to the presence of a single umpire in many youth games as well as the lack of training in the subject for umpires. At the highest levels, crow hopping, is usually picked up by the field ump - the plate ump pays attention to hands rather than feet - and is usually addressed only with the pitcher. When, early in a game, you see the field ump approach the pitcher and talk briefly with her, that normally is a crow hopping discussion. Crow hopping, because it involves shortening the distance from release point to plate, usually acts to restrict the amount of ball movement. It also can play havoc with control since it involves a kind of unnatural movement which harms the overall mechanics of pitching. So, if crow hopping limits control and movement while increasing only speed, why worry about it, if speed doesn't matter?
There is another question I have regarding the pitching conundrum and that is why are coaches who scout pitchers always carrying stopwatches and radar guns. In fact, if speed is inferior to location and movement, why do we need radar guns at all? Any self-respecting coach should be able to judge the value of a pitching prospect without reference to speed. Along the same lines, why does every college softball prospect questionnaire have a place specifically for pitchers which asks for maximum pitch speed? Speed shouldn't even be considered if it is not particularly important.
I am not an advocate for getting pitchers to pitch faster and faster, to the exclusion of all other considerations. As a hitter, there was nothing I liked more than a flat fastball down the middle (or slightly low in the zone). The faster it came in, the faster it went out. There's no better feeling on Earth than tying into a good, old fashioned, flat fastball! While this is the best feeling, there is a feeling which is equal and opposite in measure and that's the feeling of missing a good hard fastball. By missing, I don't mean completely. That's bad enough but what is worse is when you don't hit a hard fastball on the screws. When it moves slightly - perhaps a couple inches - and you end up hitting it badly, that just plain hurts. My only point here is that speed matters as much as anything else.
Similarly, while a huge sweeping curve can make a batter look extremely foolish, it is also a good pitch to hit if you catch it at the right point of the break. Broadcasters don't speak of a fastball which was flat as often as they do a curveball which hung and was struck out of the park. The slower a movement pitch is, the longer a batter has to determine what it is and where it is going. A big, slow, sweeping curve is as easy to hit as anything. Sharp-breaking, fast movement pitches are better than slow ones.
There is one aspect which matters far beyond any other consideration when determining how good a pitcher is. That is the pitcher's ability to get batters out via all her available tools. Yet when judging pitchers, there is no way to account for the difference in quality of batters. Pitchers who grow up facing southern California batters have more difficulty getting outs that those in cold weather states because the batters are generally better. So when we judge pitchers, we have to find a way to do it without reference to the batter. We do so by looking at their speed, location and movement. One without the other two is nothing. Two without the final one is good. All three found in one pitcher is the real deal. But there is no way to say one is dominant over the others without speaking what is exclusively one's own opinion. There is no answer to the pitching conundrum.
To put the wraps on this discussion, I want to speak just a bit about pitcher development. When a pitcher is just starting out, the key element is mechanics. Pitching mechanics are the path to success both now and in the future. One way to judge mechanics is pitch speed. That is, if a pitcher isn't throwing hard at all, there must be something wrong with her mechanics. Once basics have begun to be locked down, perhaps the most important issue is control. If a girl is doing things right and doing so every time, a lack of control points to a breakdown in mechanics. Sometimes, when we begin to focus on control, girls change their mechanics in order to "just throw strikes." This is why you'll almost always hear me emphasize speed over control. I have personal experience with watching one kid, my youngest daughter, struggle because she adjusts her mechanics to obtain control, thereby losing speed. You need control but don;t give up speed to get it. That's a path to trouble. After some level of speed is attained and a degree of control has been mastered, I think we look to see the young pitcher develop her pitches - get movement. In the end, we want to see all three of these fundamental elements together. So don't waste time like I have wondering what is the most important element of pitching. Instead, be a glutton and go for all three.Labels: pitching
Permanent Link: Speed, Location, and Movement
 
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