https://twitter.com/JasonAtThe.../1061752737908457472
https://twitter.com/drivelineb.../1061809395967787008
https://twitter.com/PA_Analyti.../1062067929980854273
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Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
Someone smarter than me, recently pointed out to me this: Pitchers with more breaking stuff and work low in the zone get more contact but keep the pitch count down. Pitchers who like to throw the fastball up in the zone get lots of foul tips and typically run the pitch counts up. There is a place for both, depends on their role and the situation. Got to figure out what works for them and where they feel confident.
wareagle posted:Someone smarter than me, recently pointed out to me this: Pitchers with more breaking stuff and work low in the zone get more contact but keep the pitch count down. Pitchers who like to throw the fastball up in the zone get lots of foul tips and typically run the pitch counts up. There is a place for both, depends on their role and the situation. Got to figure out what works for them and where they feel confident.
Why not do both?
Yeah, but when he's got the hitter setup for the high fastball, he just can't get it there. Bugs the sht out of me. But as you say, it works for him, so we haven't changed it. I'll let his college coach figure it out.
Go44dad posted:wareagle posted:Someone smarter than me, recently pointed out to me this: Pitchers with more breaking stuff and work low in the zone get more contact but keep the pitch count down. Pitchers who like to throw the fastball up in the zone get lots of foul tips and typically run the pitch counts up. There is a place for both, depends on their role and the situation. Got to figure out what works for them and where they feel confident.
Why not do both?
Doesn't spin rate dictate a lot of the effectiveness on where a pitcher should work?
From those tweets I noticed this:
https://twitter.com/PA_Analyti.../1009891202215350274
Pretty good stuff about launch angle should be determined by your exit velocity.
CTbballDad posted:Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
A long stride is good, but if he doesn't straighten his stride leg (and come up & over it) as he delivers the pitch he will stall behind the front knee and will never achieve maximum velocity. Doesn't mean that he cant be effective but he will never throw as hard as he can. The point being made in the twitter quotes about extension being very important is dead on - and a good cue for that is to think about accelerating the arm toward the target. Perceived (reaction) velo is more important than actual velo. But to say that DH plane is bullsh*t is nonsense. Extension (and perceived velo) & DH plane aren't mutually exclusive. You want both. Most pitchers lose their downhill plane by collapsing their post leg as they initiate their move to the plate - which kills momentum and results in a pitcher that is 6'-2" tall turning his effective height into 5' something. Then you get a flatter pitch that's thrown at less than maximum velocity - and its much easier to hit. Why would you want that?!
adbono posted:CTbballDad posted:Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
A long stride is good, but if he doesn't straighten his stride leg (and come up & over it) as he delivers the pitch he will stall behind the front knee and will never achieve maximum velocity. Doesn't mean that he cant be effective but he will never throw as hard as he can. The point being made in the twitter quotes about extension being very important is dead on - and a good cue for that is to think about accelerating the arm toward the target. Perceived (reaction) velo is more important than actual velo. But to say that DH plane is bullsh*t is nonsense. Extension (and perceived velo) & DH plane aren't mutually exclusive. You want both. Most pitchers lose their downhill plane by collapsing their post leg as they initiate their move to the plate - which kills momentum and results in a pitcher that is 6'-2" tall turning his effective height into 5' something. Then you get a flatter pitch that's thrown at less than maximum velocity - and its much easier to hit. Why would you want that?!
Would you consider this collapsing?
adbono posted:CTbballDad posted:Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
A long stride is good, but if he doesn't straighten his stride leg (and come up & over it) as he delivers the pitch he will stall behind the front knee and will never achieve maximum velocity. Doesn't mean that he cant be effective but he will never throw as hard as he can. The point being made in the twitter quotes about extension being very important is dead on - and a good cue for that is to think about accelerating the arm toward the target. Perceived (reaction) velo is more important than actual velo. But to say that DH plane is bullsh*t is nonsense. Extension (and perceived velo) & DH plane aren't mutually exclusive. You want both. Most pitchers lose their downhill plane by collapsing their post leg as they initiate their move to the plate - which kills momentum and results in a pitcher that is 6'-2" tall turning his effective height into 5' something. Then you get a flatter pitch that's thrown at less than maximum velocity - and its much easier to hit. Why would you want that?!
Adbono is right on concerning stride length. Through the years, son's pitching coach has been adamant on keeping the stride only as long as his body/core strength will allow with him still being able to get on top of the ball. At 14/15 yo it was about 85% of his height. 16/17 started getting closer to 100%. Stride to far without the core strength ball get's flat, spin drops, outfielders get a workout.
I'm a dad, not a coach. That's enough mechanics for me. Adbono can take it farther, or explain better.
d-mac posted:adbono posted:CTbballDad posted:Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
A long stride is good, but if he doesn't straighten his stride leg (and come up & over it) as he delivers the pitch he will stall behind the front knee and will never achieve maximum velocity. Doesn't mean that he cant be effective but he will never throw as hard as he can. The point being made in the twitter quotes about extension being very important is dead on - and a good cue for that is to think about accelerating the arm toward the target. Perceived (reaction) velo is more important than actual velo. But to say that DH plane is bullsh*t is nonsense. Extension (and perceived velo) & DH plane aren't mutually exclusive. You want both. Most pitchers lose their downhill plane by collapsing their post leg as they initiate their move to the plate - which kills momentum and results in a pitcher that is 6'-2" tall turning his effective height into 5' something. Then you get a flatter pitch that's thrown at less than maximum velocity - and its much easier to hit. Why would you want that?!
Would you consider this collapsing?
send me a PM if you want to get into this
Hmm...I've never been the type to post a video (if I can figure it out), but maybe I will. Appreciate the feedback as I'm aware of the different approaches and have been giving it some thought.
adbono posted:d-mac posted:adbono posted:CTbballDad posted:Wow, good timing. My son has a very long stride and does not lock his front leg. Helps him live at the bottom of the zone, but with all the DH plane talk, I've thought about changing his mechanics. Guess I'll pass...
A long stride is good, but if he doesn't straighten his stride leg (and come up & over it) as he delivers the pitch he will stall behind the front knee and will never achieve maximum velocity. Doesn't mean that he cant be effective but he will never throw as hard as he can. The point being made in the twitter quotes about extension being very important is dead on - and a good cue for that is to think about accelerating the arm toward the target. Perceived (reaction) velo is more important than actual velo. But to say that DH plane is bullsh*t is nonsense. Extension (and perceived velo) & DH plane aren't mutually exclusive. You want both. Most pitchers lose their downhill plane by collapsing their post leg as they initiate their move to the plate - which kills momentum and results in a pitcher that is 6'-2" tall turning his effective height into 5' something. Then you get a flatter pitch that's thrown at less than maximum velocity - and its much easier to hit. Why would you want that?!
Would you consider this collapsing?
send me a PM if you want to get into this
Just asking you a question from your post. I consider collapsing when the knee moves inward via the old coaching cue of take your knee to your target. What Kenley is doing is what 99% of MLB pitchers do and it is not collapsing, in my opinion.
More than one way... movement is key though. I'm certainly not buying that downhill plane is totally BS. But, there are still more variables involved.
Kyle and gang are certainly more qualified than I am and I'm not backing this up with any science or analytics but, IMO... There are tall P's with a downhill approach but their spin and release result in a slight tail that negates some of the downhill efforts, making them quite hittable. There are shorter P's who have a natural over-the-top motion and their release and spin result in added downward movement. These guys can be very tough to hit. Any type of significant movement from the initial perceived track will tend to make for an effective FB. I do know that, as a hitter, it was always tough to step in the box and feel confident about putting a good swing on a hard pitch that had good downward plane and movement - just didn't stay in the path of the bat long.
Stride as far as you can on the back leg. Land on front leg with shin near vertical.
Thank me later.
Wait a few months and some other twitter account will post something you like!!
old_school posted:Wait a few months and some other twitter account will post something you like!!
Exactly. Guys that post this stuff on Twitter generally have an agenda that involves making money.
I get that people believe that downhill plane is useful, or that it makes intuitive sense to them that it should be useful . . . but all of this stuff -- for downhill plane and lots of other baseball beliefs -- is going to end up in the data, one way or the other. If downhill plane is useful, it'll be proven to be useful. And if it's not, it'll be proven not to be useful. And our beliefs or intuition won't have anything to do with it.
I believe in the data as well. for a high school / college pitcher who needs to get outs I believe in
pitching ahead in the count
down in the zone
quickly in between pitches
throwing your best pitches after a fielding error when the team needs you the most...
if and when you get to some point in time the "data" is relevant then use it. my guess based on the name 2019Dad his son, and also the vast majority of players most of us reference here, are not in a position of where they have enough data to be overly reliable or that they are advanced enough players, or that the competition they are playing is advanced enough said data to help or hurt him!
MLB data doesn't apply apples to apples to HS level ball, or even most of college ball.
Just my opinion.
old_school posted:quickly in between pitches
^^This
I was just watching one of my fav vids i have of son at NC State in 2017. He came in the game early in relief and we were down. He got behind and a cather's interference call and hit and guys were on with no outs. I think it was the 7th inning. He was facing the heart of the order and they have been smashing the whole game. He struck out the side, busted all three of them inside and in the middle of the 3 batters old Elliott Avent called time and slowly walked to his guy who was 2nd up and talked with him for what seemed like an hour, working to slow Ryley down. What a shrewd coach. I chuckle thinking about it and appreciate what he was doing. We lost but that effort was one of the best from RC all season.
Sorry for the threadjack. 
