Cutters, Knuckle curves, curves

What is the mound distance and what is the speed of the average pitchers fastball? It sounds to me as if the fastball is not fast enough in your league and is an easy pitch to hit.

In our city league the mound distance is 48 feet (11-12 year olds) and the good pitchers fastballs are around 65mph. At that speed, and pitching to the average city kid wannabe baseball player, the fastball is good enough to strike out about every batter. The only kids in our league who throw junk pitches a lot are the ones who have no velocity with the fastball.

The key to hitting offspeed is waiting to initiate the swing. The key to waiting is recognition.

If the offspeed isn't recognized, it is all over for the hitter.

They can learn to look for ways that pitchers telegraph their offspeed. They can try to read the seams coming in, looking for slower rotation or the dot.

Most of the time the batter can tell when it is a curve or something else at this level. Pitchers usually give it away.

I taught my son recognition first. That is the key. You can tell if it is coming most of the time.

Then keep it easy. If its high let it fly, if its low let it go.

Let them take their hacks. They have to get used to hitting them and the only way is to let them swing. It will take a while, repetition is the key.

Why are 10 thru 12 year olds throwing curveballs and knuckle curves?


They should be working on control and location with their fastball. Changing grips on the fastball will give them a variety of pitches without throwing curveballs etc.

It should be all about location and control

We are trying to prepare a team for the fall that will suddenly immersed in competition that throws “junk”. For that reason, I will be interested in what others say about the preparation.

When my son was younger and ball was slower, there was a time where he could follow the ball all the way in and he would say he could see the laces spin all the way in. I inquired around and was told that this was a “fleeting” ability. It “comes and goes” for brief periods with some players and never happens at all for others. It is a while since I read the book on baseball physics but, if I recall correctly, the human eye is not equipped to rotate in its sockets fast enough to track a ball all the way in. It can for a few feet and then it relies on a couple of estimation methods. If this is true, I am guessing that it would be hard to instruct a group of young players to do this.

I am guessing that the instruction has to be focused on the delivery prior to the ball being a few feet from the hand. To be quite honest, we have a pitching coach who can throw some of this stuff and I was planning to have the kids stand behind the catcher with gloves on and look at the differences between fast ball and curves. There are probably some coaches here that have done this before or parents that have older kids who have been taught. What do you do to prepare the kids for this?

I am also guessing that there are not a lot of 11YO LL players who can land that many knuckles in a row for strikes as what you describe. I am surprised but, not that impressed. I believe that kids at this age should be throwing strikes low in the zone to location. 4’s, 2’s, and C/U’s. Experiment with finger-pressure, etc.

Must run… but, very interested in how others prepare.

46' foot mound, and there are 4 or 5 kids who throw low-mid 60's, most are throwing high to mid 50's.

THe pitcher last night does not have a very good fastball but even the stronger kids are throwing more offspeed then fastballs.

We are going to start working on trying to recogonize the pitch and keep his weight back.

You can't tell a kid just to read the ball the first few feet after it leaves the pitcher's hand. The batter has to try & read/track the ball all the way in. The key is they have to "try". How long they can do it is really immaterial. They just track it as long as they can.

I agree that some seem to be able to read a pitch, others never seem to be able to do so.

Having a coach throw curves will help them recognize them. If you have a coach who can throw a decent curve.

Tex:

I agree with your comments as well - you cant tell kids to just watch it a few feet from the hand - they'l just freeze. As you say, the key is in the trying.

I will try videotaping the deliveries, as well.

My guy is twelve and he plays on the US side. He is somewhere between 62 and 65 at the moment. He is in a really good place right now, as his pitching coach comes from the Miami area. He spent the fall building a lot of speed but truly the important stuff has been spending the last three years developing good mechanics in training centres. Last year, he was throwing from 44'. This year he throws from 50' in a 12U league and 60'6" in a 13U league. Indoors, his pitching coach really pushed him hard to be able to locate the ball down in the zone. He had a strike to ball ratio of 1.8 last year over 80 innings which was great but, this year although the ratio is about the same he is much more effective. He had an 8 mph increase in the time from September through March. I dont believe it's his fastball that has made the difference, it is how the increased speed has affected his change-up. He was taught to keep arm action the same and let the grip do the work. He has pitched four scoreless innings so far over three games (later season here) with one walk and an infield error on a grounder that allowed guy to get to first. I think he has as many squibly ground-outs off his change-up as he has K's.

The other thing that I believe the change-up is doing for him is getting him out of innings early. I dont think he has yet gone over 20 pitches in an inning and a couple of them were 13's. You would think this would be a better strategy in LL with its pitch count limitations. Wafting knuckles in has to be a lower % pitch (and IMHO developing a borderline useless skill in the longer haul).

In any event, I know that it's not going to stop kids from throwing them, so we will start to prepare to hit that stuff.

Cheers!

If a kid is to progress over the years, he must be able to hit the fastball. He will then learn over time to recognize other pitches, though some will never hit the breaking stuff. Worrying about hitting bad and ineffective curves at 11-12 makes no sense. Sooner or later a kid will get a pitch to hit and his opportunities for hits will take care of themselves.
If the travel schedule is providing for more quality pitching, then I would focus on having him prepared for that type of pitching. If he can hit the better competition, the future will also take care of itself.

I must disagree to an extent.

Have you seen what happens in top tier (HS age) select after it becomes evident that a certain kid can't hit offspeed?

I have. The kid may be crush a fb to the moon, but his BA will hover down in the nether regions. He will get a steady diet of c/u's & curves. I've seen Texan Son strike out a "feared" cleanup hitter on three c/u's. The kid didn't come any closer to hitting the first one than he did the last one.

Kids need to hit both the fb & offspeed if they want to play past HS. That means spending some time working on both. And waiting until HS to work on recognizing offspeed is too late.

See your point Tex. But you may have answered that one yourself. TexSon struck out who,... A feared cleanup hitter. Why is he feared, because he can rake, but may have a weakness. At 11, 12 yr old learn to hit the velocity is my point. Lots of younger ones can hit slow stuff, but never catch up to the heat. As a hitter progresses, they will see breaking stuff, and work on hitting it and may have some success. All great hitters were generally FB hitters. Thats my point.

It doesn't have to be one or the other, is my point. I am not saying spend all of the time working on offspeed. Some time can be set aside for learning to recognize offspeed without hurting the ability to hit the fb.

Let a kid be a pure fb hitter, and he will have trouble playing at competitive ball in HS. IMHO, it takes some time for kids to learn to recognize offspeed. Beginning work on this at 11/12 gives them a better chance of being successful later.