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Jackie Be Nimble, Jackie Be Quick, Jackie Be Accurate
by Dave
Friday, April 18, 2008
I was watching a high school game when a runner from first tried to steal second and was thrown out by about two steps. One of the spectators said, "That was a good throw. I saw her throw in warm-ups. I thought her throwing was a lot weaker than that." The conclusion I drew was this guy thought they could steal the pants off this particular catcher because he watched her throw in non-game conditions and believed her throwing speed wasn't anything worth worrying about. That's not the right evaluation for a catcher. There's lots more to it than that.
I recall a game of my youth in which I threw out the only two baserunners who attempted to steal against me. I learned an important lesson in that game. My team's pitcher had a slow release, an important consideration in baseball which doesn't enter the discussion in fastpitch. Our opponent was going to try to push every baserunner with decent speed.
I knew every kid on the other team and knew absolutely which ones would try to run. The first kid on base was a running back for the football team. I had seen him run a 4.6 forty yard dash. He was fast enough to steal. He was also a good baserunner. He would get a decent jump. I knew I had to be quick, not just make a hard, accurate throw. When he went, I didn't waste any time getting rid of the ball. The pitch was a ball below the knees. I couldn't come totally up if I wanted to shoot the runner down. My throw was not as strong as I would have liked it but it was probably the quickest and most accurate one of my life to that point. Our second baseman caught it on the front, first-base-side corner of the bag and the runner tagged himself out.
The next guy on base wasn't nearly as fast as the first nor was he as skilled a baserunner. But he was fast enough to steal in 16U Babe Ruth tournament ball. I knew he would be going but I was far less stressed about it this time. I caught a pitch about waist high, just off the outside corner (a catcher's dream!), cocked and fired as hard as I could. This throw was online but a little high, about at the fielder's shoulder. It was a lot stronger than the first one, probably 3 mph or more faster. Luckily this guy hadn't gotten a good jump and our fielder tagged him out. But the play was a lot closer than it should have been and many thought the ump made a bad call, the runner had been safe.
My first throw was a quick, accurate one but arguably pretty weak. My second one was less quick and accurate but far stronger. Which was the better throw? The quick, accurate one. It always is.
The way by which catchers' throws down to second are usually evaluated is called "pop time," the amount of time between the pop of the catcher's mitt and the pop of the shortstop's glove when she catches the throw. I agree with Dave Weaver of CatchingCamp.com, our favorite catching coach, that evaluating a catcher's throw based on pop time is incomplete. But for today, I'd like to look only at this aspect because it is important and, in isolation, it tells at least a decent part of the story.
I've gone through some recorded pop times at NFCA recruiting camps and the Elite showcase camp. From what I can glean from these, a pop time of very good high school aged softball players is something just under 2 seconds or thereabouts. Some very good times come in around 1.75 seconds. Also, the range of catcher's throwing speeds clusters around 54-59 mph, with the best in the 60s and a few above 65. Those are some pretty scary numbers. But I don't want the focus of this discussion to be on elite players. I am only using their data because it is available. And reviewing this data provided me with precisely the examples I wanted to use.
Without going into all the details, as I perused the data, I found several good pop times so I traced these to recorded throwing speeds to see how they compared. What I found was one catcher whose throwing speed was 7 mph slower than another but whose pop times were consistently as good as or better than the stronger-armed girl. I kept looking and found one example after another of the same thing. Sure, there were girls whose throwing strength and pop times were both better than other girls. But there were too many examples of girls with weaker arms who truly out-threw their competition. I continued looking and found numerous girls with identical throwing speeds whose pop times varied as much as .2 or .3 seconds. That's quite a big difference.
In order to look more closely at pop times, I have to get out my slide rule and a copy of the Pythagorean theorem so I can judge how throwing speed relates to pop times. Basically, if you're not out at the field, the distance to second from homeplate is determined by applying the Pythagorean theorem. In numerical terms: (60 feet x 60 feet) + (60 feet x 60 feet) = distance to home x distance to home. This yields approximately 85 feet between home and second. Sorry but I had to show off my geometry knowledge!
Now to algebra - I have to convert miles per hour to feet per second, something with which I have had trouble in the past! The conversion factor is 1.4667 (please check it) which means 1 mile per hour equates to 1.4667 feet per second. A throw which averages 60 mph (88 ft./sec.) takes .965 second to reach 85 feet. For comparison purposes, a throw at 55 mph (80.67 ft./sec.) takes 1.054 seconds and one 50 mph (73.35 ft./sec.) takes 1.159 seconds. The difference between the highest (60) and lowest (50) speeds I'm considering is .194 seconds and that's not even close to the .3 second pop time differential I saw between girls throwing at identical speeds.
50 is very slow relative to the times I examined. Often that speed was achieved on a first throw after which 55 and up was generally recorded. If we compare the time of a throw at a top speed of say 67 (98.27 ft./sec.) with one at 55, that yields a differential of less than .2 seconds. In order to get to the high end of the range differential, .3 seconds, we have to compare throwing speeds of 50 mph with those at 67!
I have never actually sat there watching players who throw 67 and compared them to those who throw 50 but I can guess that the difference is rather stark. I'm more familiar with catching pitchers who are getting gunned at 40 feet. The difference of even a single mile per hour is detectable, if not precisely measurable, by the naked eye. 10 miles per hour is a dramatic difference. I can only deduce that 17 miles per hour is so stark a difference that the two are virtually incomparable. It would be like comparing an average 10 or 12 year old with a high school varsity player.
And yet, the pop times are what they are. Girls who threw identical speeds had pop times which span .3 seconds. And girls who throw 60 can make the throw down to second in an equal time to girls who throw 67. So evaluating one's opportunities to steal involves more than simply watching the catcher's throwing speed during non-game conditions.
I don't want to provide a complete guide to making the quickest throw possible here. You can go through Dave Weaver's video tapes or get his personal instruction if you want to do that - something I highly recommend. I'm actually looking at this today more from the point of view of a coach deciding whether or not to steal. You don't really need to observe the strength of her arm in order to make the decision. In fact, that might give you bad information.
The things you want to observe before deciding to steal are the way the catcher receives the ball (body posture and hands), how quickly she makes her exchange, her quickness of release, and, very importantly, her accuracy. You might just as well turn off the camera and radar gun, or close your eyes, during the period between pops. There's almost no information provided by her throwing speed.
Get it?Labels: baserunning, catching, defense, Offense, throwing
 
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