Our HS program has never had what anyone would call a pitching coach who did much more than watch bullpens, make sure there were no blatantly obvious mechanical mistakes, and try to keep the boys mental attitude from going haywire. In short, we’ve been pretty typical of most HS programs out there. But this year there’s been a rather substantial change.
A retired DI coach who’s worked with many local pitchers, and studied pitching mechanics a great deal, has been asked to take over the position of pitching consultant, and has been handed the reins this fall season. Personally, I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen, but I’m not sure this will be the season to use as the base for measuring what’s taken place.
That’s not meant to say that if the pitchers do “better” he shouldn’t be given some credit, but we have a curious paradigm taking place with our pitchers this season. Of the 7 pitchers who’ve gotten innings this fall, only 1 has no varsity experience on the mound. The 6 who have pitched for the Varsity threw a total of 177 innings out of the 221 thrown last season. IOW, we have a pitching staff that’s very experienced and been very successful, much more physically mature than last season, and that’s a very exceptional situation for any school to be in.
One of the things I’ll be looking at will be the control the pitchers display. One of this coaches main beliefs is maximizing upper torso torque in order to maximize velocity. That’s fine, but in the past its had the side effect of less control, one of our HC’s staunchest philosophies is the less control a pitcher displays, the less mound time he’s gonna get. The reason is simple. If you’re walking or hitting batters, and throwing wild pitches, you’re doing more harm than good.
Of course I hope all the kids pick up 5mph and gain pinpoint accuracy as well, but my experience is when making major changes in a pitcher this age, it takes more than 1 fall ball season to work out the kinks. And in this case its not just 1 pitcher, it’s the entire staff, which it would seem makes the job that much bigger. But we’ll see what we see.
