Why do I bring this up well I had a rather lengthy conversation about this with another pitching instructor who threw at the college level. We were discussing various pitches and their relevance in the college game and in today’s softball game.
First off I am going to start by saying I throw a riseball a dropball and a changeup and I teach my pitchers/students to do the same. She threw a fastball, screwball, curveball, riseball, dropball and change up..... That’s a lot of pitches however, in all fairness I never seen her throw. She did tell me that her curveball was temperamental and the dropball she threw was a turnover drop. So my assumption was she had various motions for her pitches, I could be wrong though.
She stressed to me the importance of a proper fastball and a screwball. I strongly disagreed with her on both of those pitches and here is why. I would like to know what the school of thought is with our heybucket community on this!
Here are my thoughts on this I throw a peeldrop which is basically a fastball with 6/12 rotation I snap it off my fingertips and I keep it low and it drops hard. Downside to that pitch if I do not release it low it’s a flat fastball to whichever corner I throw it. The upside I can throw it as hard as I can possibly throw it, so long as I keep it low it breaks downward. Easy to control easy to locate. My point why throw a pitch as hard as you can that stays flat on purpose when you can throw that same pitch and make it break downwards?!?
Now my thoughts on a screwball this one is simple for me. My riseball turns into a screwball when I do not properly stay underneath that pitch and get proper backspin on it. When I mess up my riseball it becomes a screwball. So for that reason learning a screwball makes no sense to me. In my personal opinion a riseball is far more effective and in the event you do mess up the delivery of your riseball it will still turn into a pretty good screwball. Moreover, my motion stays the same for all 3 of my pitches so there is no need to change my motion or delivery in any way that might take me out of rhythm!!!