Advice for new to pitcher

If he's getting a start on both sides of the week, I'd say a Wednesday bullpen would be sufficient. Combine that with his regular fielding throwing. Also, needs to incorporate structured long toss throughout the week, stretching/banding, and of course, running. I know this is vague information, but hopefully will give you a little direction as you do some more research, and get more (hopefully) information from others here...if he's never pitched, I'd also look into some sessions with a good pitching coach to refine mechanics...he may have a good arm from SS, but that good arm can be either not be maximized, or completely ruined with bad mechanics. Hope this little bit helps.

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wondering how much throwing he should do during the week. The last couple of weeks I had him pitch off of the mound on tuesday and thursday for about 30-40 pitches per session. So far this year, he has pitched 3 inings each weekend outing. Is the midweek sessions s good program or not so good program. He also takes some grounders from short during the week as well (throwing the ball over to first).

Gap - How many pitches during the games? Does his arm hurt? I'm not sure what your concern is if his arm feels fine. When in doubt, remember moderation.

Anyone else?

[quote]Gap - How many pitches during the games? Does his arm hurt? I'm not sure what your concern is if his arm feels fine. When in doubt, remember moderation.

Usually 75 pitches. The season is early and he I think the coach has kept it to a max of 3 innings. I think he will get more ininngs as we progress in to the season.

Last year as a 14yo, Little Sultan pitched a couple games per week (2-3 innings each), practiced on a mound 2-3 x a week - 2-4 x for each of 10 grips, and played SS. Little gap should be good.

He tried bands, but couldn't keep him interested in it. Skip the long toss - it's a waste of time. Work hard on technique and consistency.

He was throwing regularly during the week with long toss, but I think he needs to get more mound work as he needs to transition from a thrower to a pitcher. As of now, it is 95% fb's with an occasional change up. He 's got a good fb, but he is consistantly high in the zone. I want him to learn to live low and have more confidence to throw the change up in any count, not just the occasional 0-2 or 1-2 "waste one" pitch. That's why I have gotten him on the mound a couple of times in the middle of the week. If he starts going longer in the games, should I cut back to once per week?(Wednesday)

We practiced 10 grips every time from a mound. He must have some off-speed pitch that works during a game.

Sometimes he couldn't throw a splitter, but he could throw a curve for a strike. This would typically go in 2-3 week cycles.

Last spring/summer, he threw mostly split or slider for off-speed. In the fall, his palm ball/circle change worked. So far this spring, his curve ball has been working well.

You said your son was throwing high. Try different fastball grips. Try to throw 4SFB high, and 2SFB low. Rotate the ball for different 2S grips. He needs to be throwing a 2S that moves. Also, try to stride longer. Is he striding his height?

Edit: To clarify, just throw one fastball and one off-speed pitch of some sort during a game.

Sultan

How old is your son?

Long toss is not a waste of time.

Split finger pitches at the age of 15 is not the best thing for an arm that young. Kids that age should be working on two fast balls - 4 seam / 2 seam, a curve and a change. That's it.

If your son is throwing on Saturdays then a Wednesday bullpen like someone said earlier is fine. As his pitches go up then you can play with how many pitches he throws on a wednesday.

Long toss is not a waste of time.

For me long toss is essential to any baseball player

As for number of pitches you have master them one at a time and as a teen it is difficult to do that with a vast array--learn to locate the fastball--develop a good off speed pitch and then begin to get fancy--to me only pitchers with big hands and long fingers can master a splitter

This pitching thing is completely new for him. Still consider him to be more of a middle infielder than a pitcher, but they keep running him out there as the weekend game 1 starter, so I guess he needs to keep up with that. My son loves the attention/emotion that comes with pitching, but he is also seeing less time at ss. The travel ball team is outstanding with regards to teaching kids their role on the team and also not letting kids be the starting ss, pitcher and 3 hole hitter that so many daddy ball programs have. The past two weekends he has played 2b insead of ss and sat 1 game out. He is never allowed to leave game as a pitcher and then play ss for concern over arm overuse. Great idea by program!!! I am just going to sit back and let the chips fall where they may.

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Originally posted by coach2709:
Split finger pitches at the age of 15 is not the best thing for an arm that young.

Do you have a link to a study? I've never personally seen anyone injured by throwing a splitter.

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Originally posted by TRhit:
to me only pitchers with big hands and long fingers can master a splitter

Actually, you just need to be able to comfortably split your fingers. Ex, some people can do the Spock thing with their fingers, and some can't. LittleSultan had normal hands/fingers, but could throw a splitter and a palm ball. But, he couldn't throw a circle change (like almost everyone else) for a strike until this year.

I would say that one bullpen per week is plenty. Long toss is not a waste of time. He should be throwing (not pitching) everyday, wih the possible exception of the day after he pitches.

One suggestion I would give you is to have your son use his change up grip when he is doing his regular throwing. This will help give him a feel for release point and how the ball comes out of his hand for this grip.

Finally (for now), 75 pitches is a lot for 3 innings. He needs to do something to improve on that. One of the most detrimental things for pitchers is throwing a lot of pitches in an inning. Throw more strikes, get outs earlier in the count, whatever. I know it's easier said than done, but 75 pitches in 3 innings averages out to be 25 pitches an inning. That is too many. Should be more in the neighborhood of 15 or less.

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Originally posted by TRhit:
For me long toss is essential to any baseball player

It wasn't essential to LittleSultan, he's never thrown a day of long toss.

Seriously, though, if I had to choose between mound work (where I could work on location and grips) and long-toss, I would choose mound work. I don't understand what you are improving by doing long-toss. Is it velocity, location (probably not), grips (surely not)? Or something else?

Long toss helps to loosen up tendons and muscles in the arm. Most colleges and pro teams have the pitchers throw long toss on days off.
Amount of pitches should be held to 15 to 18 pitches per inning on average. More pitches in an inning can cause the arm to take longer to recover the blood flow for next inning.
Running should be done after pitcher leaves the mound to get the lactic acid normalized.

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Do you have a link to a study? I've never personally seen anyone injured by throwing a splitter.

Not a study but where there is smoke there just might be fire.....

http://www.nydailynews.com/blo...ny-for-elbow-ex.html

Slightly different look at use / wear and tear

http://www.stevenellis.com/ste.../pitching-split.html

Not a whole lot out there but it does put a lot of stress on an arm for young kids. If it works for your son then best of luck to him but what happens if he gets hurt in 3 or 4 years due to it? It's not going to hurt his development to focus on a few pitches and master them and leave the more stressful stuff to the adults.

gap2gap after reading this thread again and your other posts on the velocity vs location thread I would say your son probably needs more time on the mound. He needs to work out mechanical issues in order to help develop better location.

If he's long tossing during his work as a shortstop that should suffice for now. As it is he is behind developmentally as a pitcher and needs to catch up so more mound time - game or pen - is more beneficial than long tossing. Once he gets things worked out then he needs to step up his long toss again to keep his velocity increasing.

As tooldfor this said he should shoot for 15 - 18 pitches per inning right now. Getting that into his head should help him be aggressive and with a good defense his pitch count should start to lower.

Once he gets his mechanics consistent, he's around the plate and has a gameplan on the mound on how to get people out then he's no longer a thrower - he's finally a pitcher.

Good advice from scdigger, especially about going to a good pitching coach to start out with good mechanics

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Originally posted by coach2709:

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Do you have a link to a study? I've never personally seen anyone injured by throwing a splitter.

http://www.stevenellis.com/ste.../pitching-split.html

From Ellis link above

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the splitter is no more or less dangerous a baseball pitch than the curveball or slider.

Also from the Ellis link just past what you quoted

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Thurston said that pitchers who throw the splitter tend to lose velocity on their fastball because the grip itself stresses the wrist, forearm and throwing fingers more than any other pitch in baseball.

He also said that the pitch is more difficult to control and throw for strikes due to the nature of the downward movement, and as a result, split-finger fastball pitchers tend to throw more pitches in an outing than those who throw other off-speed pitches.

Because more pitches are thrown in an outing, Thurston suggested that split-finger fastball pitchers may lose velocity throughout the course of a game and even worse, throughout the course of the season because of the added stresses additional pitches plases on the throwing arm.

More of the cumulative effects of throwing the splitter causes harm. If you're wrong it's your son's baseball future at risk. There might be something to the fact the vast majority of high school kids who don't throw a splitter for whatever reason. But like I said if it works for you and your son then more power to you. If you're right it's not going to start a trend of 15 year olds throwing the splitter. If I'm right (which I hope I'm not) then only thing that shows for it is a ruined arm and baseball player can no longer play.

Sliders are dangerous and curves can be.

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Originally posted by CADad:
Sliders are dangerous and curves can be.

I don't want to be a spreader of myths, so here is the latest study regarding high school curveballs which says

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CONCLUSION: In general, the moments on the shoulder and elbow were less when throwing a curveball than when throwing a fastball.... the rising incidence of shoulder and elbow injuries in pitchers may not be caused by the curveball mechanics.

I am not aware of any studies on sliders. Link it here if you have one.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:

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Originally posted by TRhit:
For me long toss is essential to any baseball player

It wasn't essential to LittleSultan, he's never thrown a day of long toss.

Seriously, though, if I had to choose between mound work (where I could work on location and grips) and long-toss, I would choose mound work. I don't understand what you are improving by doing long-toss. Is it velocity, location (probably not), grips (surely not)? Or something else?

Bad advice you give. Long toss is essential in building arm strength, over a long period of time, the younger you begin, the better off you are, instead of getting to 19-20 and having to play catch up (building arm strength), and yes, that is what most will do if they do not begin at a young age.

Everything is important, long toss, flat ground work and mound work.

At 14 and just learning to pitch, those that state that one needs to work on thier FB before they move to the next pitch are 100% correct. Don't listen to talk about throwing CB's, splitters, cutters, or sliders, just let him develop his FB first and that includes movement. And his locations of inside, outside, up, down. The reason those pitches are dangerous is because most young pitchers find that they are more successful with throwing the other stuff and begin to use it more often than their FB. This should be for every young pitcher, regardless of when he begins.

FWIW, my son used 3 pitches (2 seam, 4 seam, CU) until he was 15 when he began using a few CBs in a game, and no true slider (he threw a slurve late HS and it took awhile to break that down to a true slider) until college, at 19-20. He also is a 3/4 guy so using other pitches don't always work, a lot depends on the slot.

I truely believe that son wouldn't be where he is now if he had tried too many pitches, instead he tool his time at developing teh most important pitch, the FB. this is a process, you learn slowly.

And most important, keep the pitch count down until you think his mechanics are where they should be and I also suggest a pitching coach for evaluation on what needs to be worked on.

SofS,
I have to agree with Coach2709, the results appear over time, not at 14-15, do what you wish with your player, but be careful what you tell others on how to manage their pitchers.

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Originally posted by TPM:
Long toss is essential in building arm strength,

What am I "strengthening" exactly by doing long toss? Biceps? Triceps?

tooldforthis said "Long toss helps to loosen up tendons and muscles in the arm".

And why do these arm muscles need to be strengthened in order to pitch? Are you saying that long toss is useful to gain velocity?

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At 14 and just learning to pitch, those that state that one needs to work on thier FB before they move to the next pitch are 100% correct. Don't listen to talk about throwing CB's, splitters, cutters, or sliders,...

And most important, keep the pitch count down

How do you "keep the pitch count down" without throwing some type of off-speed pitch to complement his fastball?

gap2gap
you said your son is up in the zone. keep an eye on his stride,a short stride will cause pitches to sail high. usually when they get tired, but since he's new to it he may not have a set delivery. you have to ask lots of questions, then read, then ask some more.

sultan

take it for what it's worth, sliders will tear up young elbow's. but not for awhile. splitters may be less dangerous, but so is driving half drunk. not real good for young shoulders.

if your going to pitch, your going to do 2 things alot. run and long toss those two things are a given.

i don't have any links to support these things, but i do have a st. vincents beeper from our visit to birmingham. you don't want your son to go there.

Gap2Gap,

If I may ask which state in the northeast are you located? Depending on where you are I could recommend a couple of pitching coaches. Really helped my son over the winter.

Sultan...seems that you are not going to believe anything unless you see it in print, despite the fact that everyone on here has told you of the importance of long toss, so here's a nice article regarding long toss, it's importance, it's function and purpose, included quotes from professionals as well as statistical data. I don't post this response to you to be a smart a$$...I post it to provide you with some very important information as the father of a pitcher, which, for some reason you feel is not important despite what everyone is telling you. My son is a pitcher and I would regret for the rest of my life if I didn't do something that could have helped prevent injury while at the same time make him better. I can't for the life of me understand why you are taking such a strong stand against long-toss, unless of course, you're just doing it to get a reaction.

Long Toss Article

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
Long toss is essential in building arm strength,

What am I "strengthening" exactly by doing long toss? Biceps? Triceps?

tooldforthis said "Long toss helps to loosen up tendons and muscles in the arm".

And why do these arm muscles need to be strengthened in order to pitch? Are you saying that long toss is useful to gain velocity?

quote:

At 14 and just learning to pitch, those that state that one needs to work on thier FB before they move to the next pitch are 100% correct. Don't listen to talk about throwing CB's, splitters, cutters, or sliders,...

And most important, keep the pitch count down

How do you "keep the pitch count down" without throwing some type of off-speed pitch to complement his fastball?

You do your homework on the benefits of long toss. I wonder if it is not important (as you say), my son at 24 still has to do it everyday when he's not pitching.

The changeup should be the the off speed. A young pitcher should be taught contact, to put the ball in play, that cuts down on your pitch counts. Throwing off timing can come later, work on different grips on the 2 seam and you can make it work to your advantage. What's better, 3 softer hit balls for one out or a 3-2 count for a new young pitcher? Once a young pitcher falls in love with the CB (because they can't hit it) and other "fancy" pitches, that is what he wants to use. FB becomes the secondary pitch. Slider should NOT be used until the pitcher is further developed.
Give advice that is appropriate for a new pitcher at 14, not one who has been pitching for a while.

JMO.

Redsox,

We are from MA. Please send me a PM if you have some suggestions.

The current fad amongst people who are against long toss seems to be using semantics to argue that it doesn't build "arm strength". The reality is that when people say that long toss builds arm strength they don't mean that it literally makes the arm stronger, they mean that it helps one to throw the ball faster. Throwing a baseball is far more complex than just having "arm strength" in the literal sense. Long toss for some simply allows them to learn how to use the rest of their body to get the arm to move faster. Some are readily able to translate that to throwing faster off the mound. Some aren't. Arm speed would be a more appropriate term.

Long tossing out to full distance is a way for someone who doesn't have a radar gun readily available get feedback on how hard/far they are throwing the ball without the added stress of throwing off a mound. I don't know if it adds to one's velocity or simply helps one reach one's inherent velocity. There are other ways to do it and one has to be careful to re-establish the release point after long toss.

gap2gap:

Go here and look around and come to your own conclusions what you should do for your son.

http://asmiforum.proboards.com...n=display&thread=912

You will find many of the same characters here, at the Steve Ellis web site, and at the ASMI web site. Many are as uninformed as SultanofSwat.(as far as pitching goes) TPM may not know everything but her son plays at a higher level than pretty much everyone here. The organization he pitches for has some of the best pitching coaches in the MLB. Dr. Bogonzi is in your area so see if you can get to one of his clinics. Get his book it is excellent. Purchase the “Thrive on throwing” CD and a set of J-Bands from Jaeger sports. Look up the “throwers 10” exercises on the ASMI website and have your son start to do them every other day.

At 14 I would only have him throw FB’s and CU’s. Once he gets to HS then he can learn a CB. Sliders and Splitters are should not be thrown by anyone below college. Throw lots of long toss, and pitch as little as you can, but still learn the trade. Higher quality, lower quantity.

Remember you are the filter and have to protect your son.

I remember one day when Mark Gardner, then a pitcher with the S.F. Giants came and talked to a group of players about pitching. He said he was about the 10th or 12th best pitcher in the area he grew up in. He said that all the other pitchers had great curves, sliders and split finger pitches but his dad and coach only let him throw FB's and change ups. He never learned a curve or threw a curve or anything else until college.He stated NONE of those great pitcher went beyond H.S. or some college. He played 13 years MLB and now is asst. pitching coach and bullpen coach with S.F.
Sounded like he had gotten good advice to me.

I like the idea of focusingon the fb and change up only for now. I think he has to learn to throw the fb for a strike any time he needs to just pound the zone.

My son's pitching coach has placed hundreds of pitchers in college ball. He tells his students to throw long toss on off days.

I asked Coach May (a high school coach and pro scout) for a good weekly schedule for my son. Other than a pen in the middle of his break the rest is all long toss.

A properly thrown curve will not harm an arm. ASMI did the research. The problem is many kids don't throw the curve properly and their coaches can't recognize failing mechanics.

The splitter and slider places a lot of stress on the arm. I don't know of one coach who recommends throwing these pitches until college or late high school depending on physical development.

Lots of truly great advice from the HSBBWebster Oldtimers. Limiting the pitches to FB and CU, long-toss, running, work-outs, and reading .

The only thing I would add is to have him throw the CU that he is comfortable throwing. My son couldn't throw a true "circle-change" until this year. It just never felt right. His current pitching coach (22 years in MLB) taught him the proper grip and mechanics. Before then, he threw a "full-fingered FB" for his CU. Similar effect regarding the change in velocity, but not in movement. (My son truly loves the movement on his new CU )

And, as a soph in HS, my son throws long-toss on every off day, runs, does his workouts, and then a bull-pen session pretty much midway between starts.

Good luck to you and your son!

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A young pitcher should be taught contact, to put the ball in play, that cuts down on your pitch counts. Throwing off timing can come later, work on different grips on the 2 seam and you can make it work to your advantage. What's better, 3 softer hit balls for one out or a 3-2 count for a new young pitcher?

TPM, that advice works for older pitchers as well. For my son's youth-league years, it was all about the Ks. HS pitching coach has him thinking very differently. Now his goal is to have a 3-5 pitch inning, not a 3-5 pitch at-bat.

Can someone please explain to me how long toss would be a better way to increase my velocity than by pitching from a mound?

If you can answer this one, I'm sold.

What more do you want? Anybody that is anybody in baseball will tell you that long toss is the way to go. Go to a MLB, MiLB or college game and watch the guys during warm ups - ALL PLAYERS LONG TOSS. Ask a coach as he walks by about how often they long toss and you will get variety of answers but the one common element is that they all long toss. I'm truly at a loss here as to why you don't understand this. It's not like we are saying grab the barrel of the bat and swing the handle at the ball.

I'm not smart enough to go into great detail as to what muscles get stronger and what not. I like how someone earlier talked about loosening the tendons and such because that is true but I also feel it helps improve muscle strength.

Think of it like this - you are standing on the foul line and your buddy is is about 120 feet away in center field. If that is your max distance at max effort the ball should get to your buddy in the air. Now that you have established that point of reference have your buddy back up about 10 feet. Now at max effort the ball is going to bounce one time to your buddy. Work on this distance using good overall throwing mechanics and just try to reach a little farther on each throw. After a certain period of time (depends on how often you throw and how you develop) you will now start to reach your buddy in the air again. You've established a new max effort, max distance point. Have your buddy back up another 10 feet. Keep doing this and before you know it you will have a cannon.

Here is a drill we do with our catchers. Both our catchers are very young and have weak arms. One is a consistent 2.4 and the other is a 2.5 but as everyone knows that's not very good. So we got to get that time down. They work on long toss during warm ups and we got them at around 140ish feet as their max effort max distance right now. But what we do to translate that to the field is we work on pop times by throwing to the OF grass behind 2B. We set up a throw down bag and work our MIF in to take throws. We focus on their mechanics, accuracy and they have to get it there in the air. We don't care if they almost take down a few planes because we want them to air it out. After about 10 throws each we go back to the normal 2B to make some throws.

Today the 2.4 guy was consistantly 2.3 with a few 2.2 and the 2.5 guy was 2.4 with a few 2.2 in there. They will never accomplish this if we just make them throw the 127ish feet to 2B. You got to create strength and power in order to throw through a player instead of to a player.

Same with pitchers - you got to stretch it out to maintain a higher velocity at the 60'6" distance. If you are just throwing from the mound to home you aren't establishing a new effort distance measurement. You do that by getting into the outfield and stretch it out. If you can increase the max effort, max distance it will translate into a higher velocity when you get onto the mound.

This isn't something new - it's been around baseball since pretty much day one.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
Can someone please explain to me how long toss would be a better way to increase my velocity than by pitching from a mound?

If you can answer this one, I'm sold.

It's not just about increasing velocity. Read all the way though.
His ML son is NOT a pitcher

http://www.baseballnews.com/fe...es/russell_co_hs.htm

TPM - that is a great story. Thanks for posting that link. I think it's time to tweek (make major changes that is) to my long toss program.