quote:Originally posted by bballman:
ASMI's research has shown that physically, a fastball is harder on the arm than a curveball or a change up. Yet many are still of the firm opinion that curveballs are bad on the arm for anyone until they start to shave on a regular basis or somewhere around there.
Read PG's post closely, he has a lot of experience in this area!
Properly thrown curveballs do not over stress the arm - this is what ASMI found. The problems with young kids are that many "curveballs" are closer to sliders and to the uninformed they look the same - but they are not. If you have a lower arm slot they are almost 100% chance of being sliders.
If you allow your son to throw these pitches you are putting him at risk. It is just like dice, sometimes your number comes up, and sometimes it does not. I have seen too many overbearing parents with limited knowledge ruin their son’s arm. DO YOU WANT TO BE ONE OF THESE PARENTS? When you put this together with "the only path to the next level is a good FB" then there is only one obvious path for young pitchers to take.
1. Learn to command a good FB
2. Learn a good CU.
3. Learn to throw a CB in High School (by a good coach)
4. Don't over use your arm in travel ball.
5. Learn proper arm care- pre and post pitching.
GBman and others can argue if it is, or is not a slider, or a CB, slurve, or whatever, but he and many others are uninformed. Follow the path above (and Trepfan's) and you have a better chance of being successful and having a longer career as a pitcher. The facts are that pitching is an unusual motion for the body and even under the best cases you can have problems - don’t increase the risk by being stupid!