Change up analysis

quote:

What's wrong with hitters hitting a first pitch FB? You don't think there are valuable lessons to learn from that? Or is it that your son's team is too weak on teh field? Who is getting the benefit here, do you coach these kids, sounds like a lot of daddy ball going on.
I don't believe in your strategy, he has to learn to not be afraid to face those that can "crush" the ball. And those in the field need to get in their work, that is what effective coaching is all about, at that age. Yup, what you DO learn at 13 and 14 can stick with you, and being afraid of hitters as a pitcher is not a good thing.

You scout 13 and 14 year old teams? If you do, that does mean the W is all important.

You need to understand the circumstances- That travel team we played was in a tournament and we had to travel from out of state to the tournament. If we won that game we were in the championship game. Half of our team was playing up 1-2 years- a **** great accomplishment!!! We wanted every advantage to win that game. We ended up losing by 3 runs and went home. Was a great learning experience.

"Daddy ball", ****, kids wanted the win more than myself - ask them!

I get so tired of your negative bullcrap.

One other thing TPM,

How often do you see pitchers pitch around the #3-4 batters in the big leagues? Now I don't think they are necessarily afraid of those hitters- they are just more wise. Learning how to pitch literally means you learn how to pitch around the corners especially on the #3 and 4 hitters. How many times does Albert Pujols get walked? Now you don't think pitchers are afraid of him do you? No, they are just smart!

I don't believe in intentionally walking batters at this age but that doesn't mean giving them fat meat down the middle to crush.

Not being negative, why don't you explain these individual circumstances, if that is what you mean?
:noidea

You make absolutely no sense at times, to me anyway.

TPM,

Sorry for gettin ****y with you earlier. I did state earlier in this thread the circumstances of why we pitched CU's to that good travel team. I said-

quote:

We did this approach with the best travel team in our area years ago. We pitched change-ups for the first pitch to batters on that team 75% of the time and every time they would swing out of their shoes and come up with nothing- they flat out could not tell it was coming slower and adjust to it. The coach was getting very ****ed off also- kept telling them not to swing on the first pitch, and so when they didn't swing they still got a strike.

Hopefully we can move on...

I will say this- Pitchers need to master the fastball firt and foremost because everything is built around the fastball and being able to locate it.

Establish the fastball , change speeds on the fastball , change eyel levels , work in and out , up and down. Everything else works off of that.

If you can not establish the fastball and your primary pitch becomes your cu "if your primary or best pitch" is your cu then you are a bp pitcher. They will sit on your primary pitch "cu" and force you to throw your fastball. If that fastball is puss then you are done. And it probably is puss if your best pitch is your cu.

If your going to talk about the best "out" pitch or the best "swing and miss" pitch then I go with the slider against top tier hitters. And I also go with the cu if you have sink and movement on it. The reason the slider is so effective is because it comes out like a fastball dives away from the hitter r on r and l on l.

If your talking about youth baseball and what the best pitch is then anything that changes speeds will give them fits. They are not experienced enough yet. But that same kid that dominates those youth hitters with that spinner or cu gets shelled down the road if he has not developed a quality fastball to set up those pitches.

You can disagree if you want but the pitchers that give "hitters" the most trouble are the ones with a quality fb and a secondary off speed pitch they can locate and throw in fastball counts. A guy with a great cu and a avearge fastball will not last long against quality hitters. A guy with a quality fastball that can locate only has to show a decent off speed pitch to compete.

The mere fact you stated that you started every hitter off with the same pitch and they never adjusted speaks to the level of the hitters you were facing not the strategy.

Dirtbags,
I agree with you in general, however Trevor Hoffman is still pitching so there are certainly exceptions.

quote:

The mere fact you stated that you started every hitter off with the same pitch and they never adjusted speaks to the level of the hitters you were facing not the strategy.

And what? Discount the quality of the pitching? I hardly think so. The level of the hitters was great, but then again so was the quality pitching. In fact it was so good that they could not hit it, even if they suspected it coming.

I always say- hope for the fastball cause adjusting to anything else is difficult!