After watching two seasons of travel ball with son I have noticed a trend that I am having some trouble with. My son pitches well- has a good + fastball, a + curveball, and a ++ changeup. The coaches he has realize this and so most of his pitches are offspeed pitches because there are not a lot of good offspeed pitchers at this age (13-14). As a logical consequence, most of the hits my son gives up are off of the offspeed pitches because he "hung" it, "missed his spot", etc.
It has got me to thinking though that I believe he loses his deception with his + stuff because for one thing- it is easier to hit an offspeed pitch if you are sitting on it. If my son continues to pitch this way I feel that his + stuff will not continue to be + stuff. I feel that he should throw the fastball way more than the offspeed and just use the offspeed as a reminder to batters not to sit back and wait on it. A fastball never loses its deception- it is always fast and requires better timing to hit which is more stressful on the batter. Then if you occasionally mix in an offspeed pitch, the batter becomes even more stressed because he hasn't seen it enough to pick up on the deception.
I guess what i am saying is that it seems like coaches play chicken with good batters by giving them too many offspeed pitches rather than challenge them with the hardest pitch to hit in baseball- the fastball, and then wonder why they hit the offspeed pitch.
Whats a better strategy with good hitters- more offspeed or less considering that all of pitchers pitches are equal?
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