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Speed over spin?!?!?

What's on your mind?

by curveballerguy124 » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:00 pm

IMO speed is not everything when pitching I've always said I will take proper spin over speed any day of the week. The ability to throw hard in most cases is a gift, and unfortunately some kids just weren't meant to be flamethrowers.  However, that shouldn't stop little Suzy or discourage parents from chasing the pitchers dream. Nor should it make parents switch from instructor to instructor chasing the promise of speed that may never come.

Here's the skinny, speed allows you to make mistakes and get away with it especially at the younger ages but eventually batters WILL catch up to speed so you better have more then a fastball thrown in and out. Spin and movement on the other hand, that is to me the great equalizer in the game of fastpitch. Ive personally witnessed damn good batters get owned, both male and female by pitchers who knew how to spin the ball well. The ability to spin a ball well and control movement is greatly underrated in the female game and yet it dominates in the male game. I have never understood that.and I have never understood why instructors don't put more emphasis on it.

I guess my point to this little rant is find an instructor that teaches proper mechanics and absolutes. Understand what your daughter is and what she is not. Stick to a game plan and understand that pitching is a process that's not going to happen overnight. She will develop into a solid pitcher so long as she has the right direction and guidance. Beware the promise from instructors that can't even demonstrate the pitches they teach, properly. Last but not least ask questions lots and lots of questions about everything related to pitching and why they teach a certain way.....
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by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:17 pm

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Enjoy Softball
Last edited by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo on Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:14 am, edited 7 times in total.
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by eddiez577 » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:46 pm

curveballerguy124 wrote:IMO speed is not everything when pitching I've always said I will take proper spin over speed any day of the week. The ability to throw hard in most cases is a gift, and unfortunately some kids just weren't meant to be flamethrowers.  However, that shouldn't stop little Suzy or discourage parents from chasing the pitchers dream. Nor should it make parents switch from instructor to instructor chasing the promise of speed that may never come.

Here's the skinny, speed allows you to make mistakes and get away with it especially at the younger ages but eventually batters WILL catch up to speed so you better have more then a fastball thrown in and out. Spin and movement on the other hand, that is to me the great equalizer in the game of fastpitch. Ive personally witnessed damn good batters get owned, both male and female by pitchers who knew how to spin the ball well. The ability to spin a ball well and control movement is greatly underrated in the female game and yet it dominates in the male game. I have never understood that.and I have never understood why instructors don't put more emphasis on it.

I guess my point to this little rant is find an instructor that teaches proper mechanics and absolutes. Understand what your daughter is and what she is not. Stick to a game plan and understand that pitching is a process that's not going to happen overnight. She will develop into a solid pitcher so long as she has the right direction and guidance. Beware the promise from instructors that can't even demonstrate the pitches they teach, properly. Last but not least ask questions lots and lots of questions about everything related to pitching and why they teach a certain way.....


Curve, you're on point! Unfortunately there's too many coaches out there that don't appreciate movement, only speed SMH With movement, I tell my pitchers to try to make them hit it instead of trying to make them miss. What ends up happening is weak contact, foul balls, whiffs, pop-ups, easy short-hops, all routine fundamentals that the team works on in practice.
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by Schmick » Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:55 pm

Our pitching coach says and works on the same thing. Then she also says that the first thing a scout or coach wants to know is "so, what's the gun say/velo?"
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by Battle » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:26 am

curveballerguy124 wrote:IMO speed is not everything when pitching I've always said I will take proper spin over speed any day of the week. The ability to throw hard in most cases is a gift, and unfortunately some kids just weren't meant to be flamethrowers.  However, that shouldn't stop little Suzy or discourage parents from chasing the pitchers dream. Nor should it make parents switch from instructor to instructor chasing the promise of speed that may never come.

Here's the skinny, speed allows you to make mistakes and get away with it especially at the younger ages but eventually batters WILL catch up to speed so you better have more then a fastball thrown in and out. Spin and movement on the other hand, that is to me the great equalizer in the game of fastpitch. Ive personally witnessed damn good batters get owned, both male and female by pitchers who knew how to spin the ball well. The ability to spin a ball well and control movement is greatly underrated in the female game and yet it dominates in the male game. I have never understood that.and I have never understood why instructors don't put more emphasis on it.

I guess my point to this little rant is find an instructor that teaches proper mechanics and absolutes. Understand what your daughter is and what she is not. Stick to a game plan and understand that pitching is a process that's not going to happen overnight. She will develop into a solid pitcher so long as she has the right direction and guidance. Beware the promise from instructors that can't even demonstrate the pitches they teach, properly. Last but not least ask questions lots and lots of questions about everything related to pitching and why they teach a certain way.....

Don't you need speed to have a change up or off speed? Otherwise, it's just slow?
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by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:32 am

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Enjoy Softball
Last edited by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo on Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:15 am, edited 3 times in total.
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by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:48 am

Use everything in the
pitchers tool box!
Last edited by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo on Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by curveballerguy124 » Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:11 pm

@ Battle
By speed I mean what is relative to their competition and age group. For instance the man I learned how to pitch from, on his best day with the wind on his back threw a top speed pitch of maybe 60 mph and that is being generous. So considering the average male shooter is throwing 65-73 mph (higher for elite pitchers) he was waaaay slow. Yet he was one of the best pitchers during his time and he made even the best hitters look bad with the dirtiest change-up I have ever seen!!! Spin was his weapon and to this day I have never seen a ball spun that hard or move that much.

So that brings me to my point tight spin gives the illusion the ball is moving faster then it really is. So if little Suzy throws a top speed pitch of 54 mph but spins the ball well she can have an effective change-up in the mid 40's and still ruin a batter. Slow is ok as long as you have spin, now if you have both spin and speed then your gonna dominate in all conferences in college. Just look at Cat Osterman or Megan Kliest both not flamethrowers by no stretch of the imagination but are very dominant because of their ability to spin and break the ball.
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by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo » Thu Feb 21, 2019 8:15 am

.
.
.
.
.
Enjoy Softball
Last edited by Sue Trubovitz, Turbo on Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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by jonriv » Thu Feb 21, 2019 9:28 am

Don't you need both? One without the other = batting practice?!?!?!?!
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