Change up: To roll or not to roll?

Throwing a change up is a great thing to do. For now I'd avoid trying to get a screwball motion to it by rolling your wrist. The important thing to learn on your change is maintaining the arm speed and motion you'd normally throw your fastball with and letting the grip provide the speed difference.

You might even find that you can be more effective against hitters your age by taking a little bit off the pitch to make it even slower but that would be a mistake. Later on the hitters will pick up the difference in arm speed and hammer the pitch. It is best to learn to throw the change with a fastball motion and arm speed from the start.

Good Post CADad. I wanted to reply along the same lines but got pulled away. Let me add that most of the time your CU grip will make it natural to turn the ball over just a bit causing it to move down and in. You won't have to try and do much, if anything. As CADad said, throw your fastball with a CU grip and let it take care of itself.

Doc, What type of grip are you using for your CU? - circle change, straight change, etc. In any case, I will try to throw my two cents in on this and trust me, I am no pitching guru. The best way to take speed off the ball while maintaining arm speed is to get your index and middle fingers off the back of the ball. If you throw with your same arm speed and get your pinky and ring finger on the back of the ball, you will see a natural loss of around 10% speed (this is just a rough estimate but from my experience should be pretty close). If you use a circle change grip and throw through the ball using these two weaker fingers you will notice that you will end up having a natural screw ball action on the ball without even trying. The ball will break beautifully into a same side batter and even a more devastating break away from an opposite side. You can play around with your grips and if you practice enough you can get your change up to obtain a 15%-20% without any noticable loss of arm action or speed. Good luck and hopefully some more knowledgeable folks than I will chime in to help you out

Doc, one more thing, I seen you mention the word "snap" when talking about a curve ball. I would strongly advise against you as a 12 year old from this type of throwing motion. You can throw a nice 12/6 or 1/7 curve without the need for snapping your wrists. Save your arm for greater things ahead like HS ball and College and hopefully a nice career in the Bigs.

My coach has also been telling me to throw a 12-6 curve because it is easier on your arm. Is the grip the same for the 12-6?

Doc, versus me trying to tell you, because words aren't as descriptive as pictures, do a Google search on "pitching grips" and stuff of that sort. You will find tons of information on this topic. Let me know if you have any problems with that and I will try to find some sites for you.

Actually KC_Dad I believe the two fingers you want off the ball are your two strongest fingers... the thumb and the index/pointer finger. Other than that I agree with your post.

There was a good discussion about this pitch earlier this year over at www.pitching-mechanics.org with a few D-1 College coaches weighing in on it. I posted some still images showing how Twins pitcher Johan Santana grips his circle change.

If you're interested here is a link to that thread: Throwing the Circle Change

Jason

P.S. You might have to register to view the discussion thread.

How funny is that, FlippJ ... I am stanclan I completely forgot about that post over there. That is the post that got everything started for my son this year and is a very good read. My son, however, has three pressure points on his change at release. His thumb and ring and pinky fingers. His thumb gets underneath the ball just like on a fastball but the ball will release off his pinky and ring fingers. Seems to work for him. I used to emphasize what you are talking about when I was trying to teach the straight change, but ended up going with cirlcle in the end. Bottom line is there is a million grips to perform this purpose, it is up to the pitcher to play with them and figure out which one will be effective for him.

My son also throws a circle change. Good point on the "million grips". We experimented with several before he found one that kills velocity, has some movement, and some sinking action. It took a good year to find the right grip and get comfortable throwing it. Several pitches in the dirt and several that got away high to the back stop.

For him the "O" is on the side and his thumb is more to the side the ball. Pretty similar to Santana's grip except he grips it like a 2-seamer. He doesn't really put any pressure on the ball with any fingers. He just throws it as he would a normal fastball.

It's amazing how successful you can be with just a fastball and a changeup. And the harder you throw the better your changeup becomes. It's such a weird pitch too. The ball is coming but it doesn't come as fast as your brain tells you it's coming.

Good luck!

Jason

8U FB + CU, 4 innings 2 per game 40hrs between games. 4 K, 8 Ground ball outs. No runs allowed. Yea I would agree it can be very effective.