2019Dad posted:I saw this in a scout's notes about a HS pitcher throwing 94, but getting squared up: ". . . he didn't seem to have much deception, but it's easier to learn deception and fastball movement that it is to learn to throw 94 mph."
My question is: is it easy to learn deception and fastball movement? Can anyone point to examples or pitchers who learned "deception"?
It seems to me that you'd likely have to change your mechanics, and who knows what the effects of doing that are.
P.S. -- I get his point about the difficulty of learning to throw 94. But I question the idea that it's relatively easy to learn deception and movement.
Good answers here. Deception is all about how well you hide the ball from the hitter with the same repeatable delivery every time for every pitch that you have. I would say that's about it. The velo thing is to effectively throw off the hitters timing with different speeds with their pitches, and that is why velo is so important these days.
Movement is something else and IMO that could be difficult to learn for some pitchers. Most successful ML pitchers have movement and hide the ball very well.
JMO