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Random Observations
by Dave
Thursday, April 03, 2008
I haven't been able to write much recently for a number of reasons. I've experienced some complex web server problems which took more than a full week to clear up. I've been to a lot of practices and lessons. I've spent a lot of time catching practice pitching sessions. And, to be quite honest, when there are good games to watch, I prefer that to sitting in my home office typing away. I've watched a pretty good number of games in the past week or two. I watched a couple college games on TV - you really have to invest in the available college sports packages if you want to watch great softball as often as possible. I've watched a few more via the internet - a subject for another day? I've been to a few Div II college games, at least 4 high school games, and even a 14U Pony national qualifier. I have lots of observations but I doubt I'll have time to tickle the keyword about all of them. Two sets of issues, however, call to me as I lay in bed awake at night.
The first set of issues which is on my mind involves pitching. I've seen some very good pitching and some not so good. Interestingly, both the good and not so good have been evident at all levels, 14s, high school and college. The biggest problem I have noticed was pitchers whose arms were not straight or fell out of the "perfect circle." I don't think I can overemphasize that the top pitchers have one thing in common and that is a straight arm from the top of the circle to the bottom point of release.
The physics are self-evident. When we talk about spinning a stick (your arm) around an axis (your shoulder), the further the end point of the stick (your hand and the ball) is from the axis, the greater the speed, and therefore, force on that end point.
To explain this most important point, think of two circles, one inside the other. The outside circle has a larger circumference - the distance around the outside circle is greater. If your elbow is traveling around the inside circle, it travels the circumference of that circle. If your hand, holding the ball, travels around the outside circle, it travels the circumference of that circle. I think it stands to reason that the elbow and hand travel their respective circles simultaneously. In other words, the hand travels around a bigger circle (over a greater distance) during the same period of time the elbow travels a smaller circle (over a shorter distance). So the hand is actually moving at a faster speed than the elbow. That speed is transferred to force applied to the ball at release point. The bigger the arm circle, the faster the ball at release. If you, the pitcher, do anything which decreases the size of the circle, you reduce the speed of your hand and, therefore, the amount of force you apply to the ball.
Understand, I'm not talking about having a bent elbow on the follow through. I understand that the arm is not perfectly straight after any pitch. Whether you're throwing a rise, a curve, or almost any pitch, your arm is going to be bent on the follow through. I'm talking about the time between the top of the circle and the bottom when your arm should be as straight as possible.
I believe the reason windmillers sometimes throw with bent elbows has to do with control. I think that throwing with a completely extended arm makes the pitcher feel as if she is out of control. The only way to get over this is to throw a lot of pitches with the arm fully extended and then to experience a degree of control over the ball, after lots of trial and error. It seems a heck of a lot easier to find the controlled release point by bending one's elbow. I don't know why that is but it does. So, many pitchers develop a tendency to bend and then they can't break the habit. This is why I emphasize throwing with the greatest possible speed, the straightest arm, when you are just starting out and worrying about control later.
You may have read the article I wrote a long time ago entitled "just get it over". The essence of that article involved a youth pitcher whose parent, coach or friends' parents "encouraged" her to "just get it over, just let them hit it, just, please God, throw a G....D....... strike."
If we travel back to some 10U recreational game to observe this phenomenon, we may see the young pitcher do something in an effort to just get all those people to shut up and stop yelling at me. What she'll invariably do is shorten her stride to the plate, slow her motion down, and ... bend her elbow. Fast forward this young girl to high school or whatever age level, if she's still pitching at all, chances are pretty good she'll continue to bend her arm when she needs to throw a strike. And that's a pity!
If you are such a pitcher or working with one, the best way I know to get out of this habit is, as I said, to throw lots of pitches with a straight arm until you begin to break the habit. It's a motor memory sort of thing and the only way out of it is to throw thousands of pitches with a straight arm. I have seen a at least one pitching coach who routinely has his students perform what he calls "double arm circle." This is a good practice. Every lesson, during warm-ups, these girls are instructed to do the double arm circle in order to speed up their pitching. As you can guess, a double arm circle involves nothing more than doing a regular windmill but not releasing the ball when your arm hits the bottom of the circle. Instead, you just go around again. This encourages the girls to rotate their arms quickly and usually they end up throwing with straight arms. The rythym can be a little difficult at first but after some trial and error, most girls get it pretty well.
You don't have to stop at two rotations. I have seen coaches trying to straighten out kids' arms by having them go around as many as five times before release. I suppose the possibilities seem endless. Sara, go around 500 times before release! But the reality is, at some point, the effect is wasted and the girl again bends her elbow because she is bored or her shoulder is beginning to hurt!! If you want to try this, I suggest keeping it to just two rotations at first and then, maybe later, trying more but not exceeding 5 full rotations.
Whether you do double, triple or whatever number of arm circles, it is most important ot remember that what we are after is not control. The pitcher must feel free to throw the darn ball wherever it goes. That's the most important part of doing this drill. Drills without a point are just a waste of time. Don't waste your or your pitcher's time by doing double arm circles unless you are willing to stop worrying about control.
Another drill you can use to get the speed up and hopefully straighten the arm is to walk into the pitch. The pitcher stands to full strides behind the rubber or place from which she would be pitching. She steps first with her normal stride foot, then with her usual pivot foot, then takes an actual pitching stride towards the plate. This may start out as casual, slow steps but it should progress to fast stepos in which lots of forward momentum is developed. It should result in a fast arm circle which is almost out of control - it becomes difficult to maintain a bent arm because she is moving so fast. Just as with multiple arm circles, the object of this drill is not control. It is arm speed and straightness.
If you'd prefer to not do multiple arm circles or walk into the pitch, and want to just pitch instead, the same general rule applies. Control has to be allowed to go out the window. You can work on arm straightness without doing these drills - just over-emphasize and exaggerate arm straightness. The pitcher should work on speed first and control will come with experience. Otherwise what you end up with is a girl who throws the ball 5+ miles per hour slower than she should be.
Another mechanical pitching flaw I noticed recently while watching games is related to the bent arm. In this case, what I observed was pitchers who did not keep their arms locked into a straight circle. What I mean is, if we draw a circle around the axis of the pitcher's shoulder and make that perpendicular to the pitching rubber, what we have is a circle which runs from 6 o'clock to 12 o'clock and then back down to 6. I've seen a few pitchers whose arm circles are from 6 to 11 and then down to 5. They sort of throw sideways rather than straight at home.
It's difficult to draw this picture with words but think of yourself standing at homeplate and observing the pitcher's arm motion. The arm swings straight up and over her head and then travels down to about the same place it started from. The circle you see should be straight rather than exposed to you. if we lived in a world with two dimensional lines, you wouldn't be able to see the back of the circle because it is blocked by the front. Understand? In other words, the circle is a circle rather than an irregularly warped disk.
The best analogy is a golf swing in which the driver attempts to make a operfect circle with his club. If he or she comes off that perfect circle, the ball is either missed or mis-hit. If by chance it is hit squarely and well, it is because the driver has adjusted the swing and, as a result, has not hit the ball with the greatest possible force. The same mechanics apply to windmill pitching with a few additional coinsiderations.
Obviously there is more to a windmill motion than there is to swinging a golf club. That's because there is a stride to the windmill and because, whereas a golfer stands sideways to the path of the ball, the windmiller stands straight to it, moves to a sideways position as she strides and then moves back towards being straight (depending on whether she is a closed or open hip pitcher). Also, different pitches require slight modifications to an otherwise perfect circle. Still the degree to which a pitcher varies off her perfect circle should not be as extreme as what I have observed.
I believe pitcher vary from the perfect circle because, just as with the bent elbow, they are trying to control their doby too much. It is natural for a human being performing a complex motion to try to shorten it. Both the bent elbow and variance off the perfect circle provide the illusion of greater control. But the variance from a straight circle with a straight arm should be discouraged.
I'm less certain about drills one can use to straighten out the circle. I think the object of a product known as "the perfect cricle" is to do just this. But I haven't had time nor money to buy one and test it. What I do with my pitchers is simply observe them and let them know when they vary from a good straight circle.
The other set of issues which calls to me late at night involves the mental part of the defensive side of the game. I have observed some really bad defense recently. I had to turn off a college game because I couldn't allow my eyes to watch any more horrendous defense. I almost walked out on another college game because of bad defense. But the worst defensive plays I observed involved a single high school game in which there were bad decisions at critical points in a game.
The three errors which caught my attention at high school games involved what I felt were wrong decisions, one relatively minor one by a coach which is probably more a matter of opinion and the other two by players.
The "mistake" by the coach was not a very bad one but it could have had a bad outcome. With a five run lead and runners on first and third with nobody out in late innings, the coach of the defense called a play for his team to execute in the event that the runner from first tried to steal second. That play is the one where the catcher pretends to throw through but actually throws to a middle infielder (the cutter) who cuts short between the pitcher and second base in order to catch the runner from third off the bag. The runner did go but the play was not executed well. Nobody seemed as if this had been practiced enough. That could have been a mistake but I'm not sure as perhaps they just flubbed something they'd been over hundreds of times. The shortstop was the cutter but she did not pick the ball cleanly as the catcher (a very skilled one) made a somewhat bad throw, in the dirt. That throw never looked as if it was meant to go through and the runner at third immediately recognized this and returned to base. That could also be called a mistake but let's ignore it for now. The third element of the play which was flubbed was the third baseman never got back to the bag in time to make a play had the runner been caught off. But we're also going to ignore that too because I don't think they should have run the play at all.
To go back over the situation, it was late in the game with the team in the field leading 5-0, first and third with nobody out. In that circumstance, I would rather throw the runner from first out and concede the run. That would have left me with a still four run lead, one out and nobody on. It wasn't as if the team up to bat had done anything else all game. They hadn't. One should reasonably expect the pitcher to continue her domination and retire the side. The result of the flubbed play was runners on second and third with nobody out.
My preference is to avoid second and third, if I can. With runners on second and third, especially with one or no outs, I want both my runners to try to advance on any infield grounder. This puts pressure on the defense and can cause infielders to make poor judgments like trying to get the runner out at home. That's a low percentage bet unless the infield is playing in, the fielder has a good, accurate arm, and the catcher is also skilled at making the tag. Offensively, I want to get a run in with runners on first and third again so I can try to steal second and get back to this advantageous situation. Such are large rallies made.
Anyway, what happened next was the hitter hit a tough groundball to an infielder who stopped it but was unable to make a play on any runner. So it was first and third again, with still nobody out, and a run across. Again the offensive team tried to steal second but this time, the coach had wisely decided to throw her out. &mnbsp; The throw went through easily nailing the runner from first and the girl at third froze too because the throw from the catcher was nearly perfect and very hard - not so much, I believe, because they had run that cutter play previously.
So the situation was runner on third, one out, still a 4 run lead and the inning ended well, without anyone else scoring. But this could have been an important juncture of the game because in the final inning, the other team tightened it up further. The game ended with several runners on base and just a one run lead. Had the defensive team tried the cutter play a second time and flubbed it or given up a second run, this game would have turned out differently.
My point here is you have to adjust strategies to the game situation. It's great to run the first and third cutter play successfully. It takes the steam out of the team batting. But when you have a chance to close out a game without such an aggressive defensive play, I think you should take the opportunity. Sometimes just nailing the runner from first on a first and third is enough.
I say this "mistake" in judgment was something which stuck out to me but it wasn't really that big of a deal. It's a matter of opinion. The bigger deal happened in the same game during the last inning when the team up to bat in that first and third, got something going and made it a close finish.
To set the stage, the defensive team had a 4 run lead, 5-1. The team up to bat got a couple runners on first and third. The batter hit one softly back to the pitcher who wheeled around and attempted to get the runner from first at second. But the middle infielders had nonchalantly covered second and were a bit surprised by the pitcher making the throw. The middle infielders made something of a mental error by not being ready but the bigger error was the pitcher trying to get the out at second.
In fastpitch softball, I don't need to remind anyone that the bases are just 60 feet apart. Runners get to leave base when the pitcher releases the ball. If the runners are fast, it takes them no more than two to two and a half seconds to reach the next base. If they are running on a play, they are 20-25% of the way to the next base by the time the batter strikes the ball, further by the time a fielder fields it. By the time her throw gets to a fielder covering the bag, even if she makes a perfectly clean play and perfect throw, the runner should be just about ready to slide. It is going to be a close play no matter what. With a 5-1 lead, the pitcher should be less concerned about the batting team's potential run number 3. Instead she can easily gun down run number 4 with a casual throw to first in plenty of time. Also, throwing to second makes it much harder to nail the runner potentially coming from third. The throw from second is a harder one than that from first, if she had just thrown out the batter.
That's besides the fact that getting the easy out at first rather than the hard one at second leaves approximately the same situation. She could have had one out, runners on first and third, tying run in the on-deck circle, had she been successful getting the out at second. Taking the easier out at first would have left the defense only slightly disadvantaged with runners at second and third, one out and the tying run still in the on-deck circle. The throw to second was not a very good one and it was mishandled. This allowed the batting team to score a run and bring the tying run to the plate with runners on first and third.
I forget exactly what happened next but ther next play worth mentioning had the situatuion at runners on second and third, score 5-2, and I think just one out. The next batter lined a single to right which was not hit directly at the rightfielder but she did get over and field the ball pretty cleanly. The rightfielder hesitated for a moment as she thought through what to do next and then fired the ball over the cutoff's head toward home. The throw was offline but the catcher came out and handled it. Even a perfect throw would not have nailed the girl from second who scored easily, well ahead of the errant throw. But during the play, the batter easily moved to second on the throw home. This put the defense in a very bad position, tying run at second, winning run coming to the plate, just one out.
I can't leave you hanging so I'll tell you that the pitcher starting breathing heavy. There were actual flames coming from her nostrils as she struck out the next batter, two gone, tying run still at second. The next hitter grouded out to an infielder who made a good play but not great throw. The throw pulled the first baseman slightly off the bag. Initially, the ump called the batter out at first but after some discussion, they ruled her safe and the situation was 2 out, top of the last, 5-4, runners on first and third. The next batter grounded out and the home team won.
To sum up, I've been busy but there's still a lot I would write if I had more time. Even when I haven't been legitimately busy, I've chosen to go watch games instead of writing. Those games have demonstrated a few things I just had to write about. The first couple involve pitchers. The others were about bad or questionable decisions on defense. Pitchers need to keep straight arms inside their perfect circle. Defenses need to know the situation in terms of both the inning and game circumstances which dictate certain responses. Defensive decisions can snowball and cost you a game. Before a ball is pitched, every fielder, including the pitcher, needs to reason things out a bit and decide what she's going to do if X happens. Coaches need to tailor their most aggressive tactics to the situation though I can understand when they sometimes play it a bit more aggressively. It doesn't matter how great of an athlete you are if you allow bad motor memory to invade your technique or you allow the stress of the situation to cause you to make bad play decisions.
Follow-up PostingBrad writes in to say:
"A drill I like that helps correct bending of the elbow and warped circles, is to have the pitcher stand feet slightly wider than shoulder width, toes on her power line. Place a short, light weight bat such as a Tee ball bat, in her pitching hand and have her do arm circles. 5 - 10 reps as many times as desired. Make sure the bat head stays on the power line. The weight of the bat doesn't allow for deviation of a straight, a long arm and a consistent circle. It also helps add strength to the throwing arm and adds speed to the arm circle."Labels: defense, high school, pitching
Permanent Link: Random Observations
 
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