Getting through the low to mid 80s

Not sure if I totally understand what you're asking CADad?

Are you asking how to be effective throwing low to mid 80's or are you asking how to increase velocity from low to mid 80's to upper 80's/around 90?

How to be effective working low to mid 80s without sacrificing getting to the upper 80s. The velocity has been going up pretty steadily so that isn't a worry until it plateaus. The kid throwing all the sliders is effective right now but his fastball velocity is actually down a bit from a year ago.

Then I would probably have the player change speeds a lot more often. Location will be a high priority, but keeping the hitter off balance will be even more advantageous. If the player can throw an 83mph fastball on the paint, then locate a nice hook or slider every now and again, I would think he could do a pretty good job on the hill.

Stretch the strike zone as much as possible, and keep changing speeds. You have to keep the hitter guessing somehow.

I agree with Rob V. Work a 2 seemer on the corners, and in particular work on a sinking FB. They will pound it into the ground all day long. Change speeds, hit your spots and you can be successful.

I frankly don't like sliders until kids get older. My son's pitching coach will not let his kids throw them until they are Sr's partially for the wear on the arm but also for the reason you mentioned, kids will throw them and not work on FB's.

CADad,

I found this article interesting. I don't know if it pertains to your question.
You don't need a slider if the FB has the tail to spin away, something to work on, sliders are not healthy for young pitchers. Work on the sink too.

http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2...804150374/-1/BLOGS01

TPM,
Thanks, that's a good article. Last year he threw from 78-81 and had good movement. This year he's 83-85 and it has straightened out quite a deal with the added velocity. That's why I'm trying to get him to go to the 2-seamer for more movement. It is a new pitch and by the time he learns to trust it the season will most likely be over.

All,
Mine doesn't throw a slider. The kid who is throwing all the sliders thinks he's throwing a curve and I think the coach is calling for curves. However, I gunned the kid for 6 innings over two days and all of his breaking balls were at 73-74 and only one fastball hit 80 so I don't think there's a snowball's chance in a furnace that he's throwing a curve.

CADad,
He MUST work on his 2 seam.

Added velocity can result in lack of control, that's normal. Been there.

CADad,
Seems to me this is not a phase but the challenge for all pitchers through out the rest of their careers. I told my son( RHP ) you have to battle with the tools you have now ( not talking about off-season gains ) so learn to use them. Here's some lessons he's learning. He's found out a 2-seam fastball low and inside on RH hitters can be very effective. On LH hitters a change-up is priceless but a hanging change-up goes a long way. Get ahead in the count and force the batter to swing at your pitch. Walks will haunt you. Hope that helps you

quote:

Originally posted by TDad:
CADad,
Seems to me this is not a phase but the challenge for all pitchers through out the rest of their careers. I told my son( RHP ) you have to battle with the tools you have now ( not talking about off-season gains ) so learn to use them. Here's some lessons he's learning. He's found out a 2-seam fastball low and inside on RH hitters can be very effective. On LH hitters a change-up is priceless but a hanging change-up goes a long way. Get ahead in the count and force the batter to swing at your pitch. Walks will haunt you. Hope that helps you

How would you increase your velocity from the lower 80's to the mid-upper 80's?

Which level are you at, CADad? College or HS? Low 80s is plenty adequate in most HS conferences. I've seen some excellent HS pitchers (all-conference honors) who top out in the lower 70s.

quote:

The low to mid 90s pitcher in the league has been hit hard several times

Yep, I know a Mid-90s HS pitcher-a sure high round draft pick-- who has a very ordinary 3.80 ERA going so far this HS season. I understand he was really pounded in a recent outing.

Bum, Jr. as a LHP uses the 2-seamer on most of his pitches. It was definitely a hard one for him to learn to control, but he can now and it's devastating to hitters. I'd give up 2-3 MPH for movement any day.

My son lives on his 2 seamer. He will mix in the 4 seam to change the look.

CADad, don't let that straight fb be the end of it. Tell him to experiment with grips in the pen. There is no one fb grip. There is a common one, but finger pressures, slight movements of the index or middle finger, can possibly add some tail or movement to his fb. Same holds true with other pitches. Some rh pitchers can move their middle finger across the seam a little more and get the pitch to tail into the rh hitter. Experimenting with grips should be taught once a pitcher is learning a few different pitches. Since hand size, arm slot and general physical attributes vary between individuals, experimenting with changing grips can really make a difference for some pitchers.

MicD,
HS. He's only had a few outings. One against the middle of the order of the team that won the national classic, another against the top of the order of the team that won the Bishop Gorman tournament. That team is tied for 5th in our conference. Another in the championship game of another spring break tournament. He faced two relatively weaker teams and breezed in those outings. He also had a poor outing against the middle of the order of an average team.

Low 80s doesn't cut it for long in our conference unless there's something special to go along with that velocity. BTW, the slider kid I mentioned in the first post has faced strong teams in his last 3 outings and has been hit pretty hard each time. He had faced mostly weaker teams in most of his previous outings and had put up some pretty good stats.

CA Dad, I don't think the slider is very effective unless you have upper-80's+ velocity on your fastball. While harder to control, the curveball is superior in most cases. Problem is, most pitchers have a harder time controlling the curve and a lot of them don't throw a sharp curve (rather a "loopy curve").

I think low-80's in high school--even in your league--is perfectly fine if you have movement and stuff. We have a 90+ D1 pitcher in our league whose fb is pretty flat who has been hit a bit. High-80's w/movement, low-90's w/no movement, pick your poison!

Bum,
I agree. There's a kid throwing 84-85 in our league with good command and good off speed stuff who has been quite successful this season. The second time around the better hitting teams are starting to get to him though. His stats are still pretty good but he's giving up hits and runs. His ERA has gone from .375 to about 1.4 recently and he's given up a lot of unearned runs in addition to the earned runs. There are 3 or 4 teams in the league where 3 or 4 hitters in the lineup are D1 or pro bound with the likelihood that more of them will be by season's end.

To give you an idea of how things stand the team that won the national classic is ranked #10 in Div. 3 in the latest coach's poll. Our league has two teams ranked in the top 10 in Div 1, the strongest division, with the higher ranked one just below Orange Lutheran who I believe is fairly highly ranked nationally in most polls.

Whether a HS pitcher is throwing 82 or 86 doesn't really matter. What matters is having command, changing speeds, changing movement, changing angles, changing location. Good pitch strategy. Warren Spahn "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."

Deception is effective working off essentially any fb speed.

Texan,
That isn't correct. There are HS hitters who can't get around on 86+ and jump on 82, especially early in the season.

Not in my experience. I haven't seen a varsity player yet who couldn't get around on high 80's. Much less mid-80's.

Again, an 82 mph pitcher can be very successful. What matters is having command, changing speeds, changing movement, changing angles, changing location. Good pitch strategy.

Movement also helps.

Trevor Hoffman's c/u was voted the most feared pitch in baseball some years back. Even though his fb (by MLB standards) was slow.

TEXAn


I am in agreement with you---the good HS hitters like the upper 80's speed---the low speeds, 82 and under drive their timing nuts

I’m confused, are we saying that good high school hitters can’t hit an 80 mph fastball but will hit upper 80s?

Maybe I can understand that at the professional or even DI college level, but low 80s is very common in high school and I would expect good high school hitters to feast on that or they wouldn’t be very successful high school hitters.

Taking it a step farther, would 95 mph be easier to hit than 85 mph for some high school hitters?

Of course if a pitcher can hit his spots and has good off speed pitches he can mix in, he will be more successful, but who says it’s not the higher velocity guy who can spot his pitches and has the better secondary pitches?

All other things being equal the higher the velocity the harder it is to hit!

I have heard some claim that the harder they throw it the more they like to hit it. I'm guessing those people have never seen a high 90s fastball or they wouldn’t be saying that. You simply can not get enough practice hitting against high velocity pitches in order to actually hit it better than what you see all the time.

PG

What I am saying, in a nutshell, that a real good HS hitter prefers velocity to junk---the junk pitcher screws up their timimg

PG, CADad stated "The low to mid 80s tends to be meat unless the pitcher really is a pitcher and against the best teams that sometimes isn't enough." I can't agree with that statement.

My response is that a good pitcher (showing the qualities listed in my prior post) can be successful in HS (college even) even if he throws low to mid 80's.

Sure a good pitcher showing those qualities and throwing in the high 90's will be great. But how many HS pitchers of that type throwing that velocity exist? *That is those who have extreme velocity and are also truly pitchers, not throwers.* One or two in the entire country? Not enough to be worth talking about on this board.

What TR is saying, I think, is that a relatively fast (e.g., faster than HS average - not those high 90's HS pitchers you see, PG) pitcher who doesn't have good movement, and is more a thrower than a pitcher, can get lit up on a regular basis. And I agree with him on that. Seen enough evidence of such.

I do know many HS players who would rather hit against a high 80's thrower than against a high 70's pitcher.

Well I do think that most hitters would rather hit a straight fastball than the junk. So I agree with all that.

But a 90 mph straight fastball is better than an 85 mph straight fastball which is harder to hit than an 80 mph straight fastball, which is harder to hit than a straight 75 mph fastball. After that your pretty much at BP speed. That is the speed (BP speed) that most everyone hits the best.

I will agree that at the highest levels hitters are likely to struggle with lower velocities because the fastball they see the very most of is around 90+.

In high school just like all other levels, the pitch they should hit the best is the fastball they see the most often. My guess is that would be somewhere around 80 mph or a bit higher. Others might say it's even lower than that.

I do agree that the better hitters at every level are the ones who can hit the higher velocities at that level.

We've got over half a dozen pitchers in our league in the upper 80s and they've all got pretty good ERAs. I've seen a lot of varsity hitters not be able to get around on them. I've seen a lot who can but certainly aren't feasting on them. I also hear that the low to mid 90s pitcher in the league is easy to hit, but he's got a decent ERA and has given up less than a hit per inning. I watched 2 good high 80s, touching 90 pitchers go up against each other a few years back and there were about 2 hitters on each strong team who weren't overmatched by the velocity. Some of those who were overmatched at the time are hitting quite well in college now.

I haven't seen many varsity hitters who couldn't get around on 82 and I've seen a lot who feast on 82. There are a lot of HS pitchers throwing 78-79 so that doesn't tend to throw hitters off. When you get down in the low 70s with a lot of junk added in it will throw some teams. Other teams will jump all over it.

This reminds me of talking to the kids about Robert Stock. They said it doesn't matter how hard he throws because he just throws it down the middle. Then I went and checked the stats and those fastballs down the middle were going for strikeouts and he wasn't giving up very many hits.

When you throw somebody who throws way slower than hitters are used to they'll often struggle for a while but once they dial in it can get ugly quick.

Texan,
I was talking about going up against the best hitting teams in our area and some very good HS pitchers throwing in the 80-85 range have been hammered by them. So have some fairly hard throwers. Remember these aren't typical HS teams, these are among the best hitting teams in the nation.

And I have seen on many occasions a low 80's pitcher (as opposed to thrower) shut down some of the best HS aged SELECT teams in the nation - which means these teams were far better than the HS teams in the nation. We have some pretty darn good HS teams in Texas as well...

We're just not gonna agree on this one. And that is okay.

Velocity is merely ONE factor. And IMHO, not the most important.

Change Speeds.....

And everything is relative....as it relates to the level of play....

Velocity isn't the over riding factor....not if you want to play the game for a living....

I'm not sure there is a lot of disagreement in this discussion.

Changing speeds, good breaking ball, movement on the fast ball, location are all very important, as is velocity!

I will disagree with this... If you want to play the game for a living velocity isn't the over riding factor. Reason being... You better have enough velocity or no one is going to offer you a contract.

Once you have signed that contract, everything is fair and results take over for velocity. One only needs to look at the first few rounds every year to understand the importance of velocity regarding playing the game for a living.

Unless someone can show me a low 80s pitcher who has been offered a professional contract I will continue to believe velocity is a critical ingredient in playing the game for a living.

Please no Greg Maddux or others who threw in the 90s when they signed as young players.

Anyone who thinks they are going to get a chance to get drafted in a decent position without at least decent velocity is kidding themself. The high velocity guys go in the early rounds.

Might as well get right to the truth. No matter what might be the hardest for a high school player to hit. A live 91 might be better than a straighter 93. Good movement in the low 80s might work, but it won't get you into a position to make a living on the mound.

I will gladly stand corrected if someone can give examples without using a knuckleball pitcher.

But what percent of the HS pitchers ever set foot on the MLB field? So how pertinent is it to focus on that tiny fraction on a HS board?

Of course you are right that there is a min. speed to get the opportunity to show what you can do. But that doesn't mean that someone at a velocity less than that couldn't be successful in the MLB at lower velocities if someone would just give them the opportunity.

There are MLB pitchers who don't throw in the 90's, and they do just fine. I've been to and watched MLB games where neither starter ever broke 90. So granted at one time they may have hit 90 on the gun (but not necessarily). So what? The fact that they can now be successful in the 80's just proves that there is too much focus on velocity.

If velocity really was so critical as to justify the 90 mph limit on scouting, then there wouldn't be any MLB'er's throwing in the 80's. The 80's pitchers would have been knocked around and forced out of the game by a high ERA. Yet there are 80's pitchers with good ERAs. And I am not talking about KB'ers.

I should have rephrased.....

Velocity will certainly put money in your pocket.....but at some point you will still have to pitch....

Just hate to hear HS and younger (pitchers and parents) get so worked up about velocity.....and not focus on all of the other aspects......

Velocity will open some eyes and like I said put some money in your pocket (via bonus money or some scholarship money)....just pay as much attention to the other things as well that is all....

I don't feel like that is info that is earth shattering or new to baseball people.....

to the avg hs player/parent it is important info....

quote:

I haven't seen a varsity player yet who couldn't get around on high 80's. Much less mid-80's.

I see varsity HS hitters routinely get buried as soon as the velo gets over 85. Maybe half of the lineup.

So the inference here is that Greg Maddux wouldn't be successful in your league?
He's always mid-80's..with a rare visit higher. What is his answer? Locate, change speeds and attack. At CaSons level, guys are gonna hit, late movement, sinkers, great pitch selection will bring success. Who is calling the pitches? If it's the coach, he can only execute and work for late movement to keep it off the barrel. Remember Maddux will always back off when not acheiving success (He's said this on many occasions).
Velo is a gate keeper...pitchers are always welcome.

Just to be clear, I understand there are successful pitchers who throw with below average velocity.

I keep hearing that location, movement, etc. is more important than velocity. I even agree about the importance of all those things.

However, if we are talking about professional baseball and the draft. I honestly can not think of one single pitcher drafted in the first few rounds over the past 5-10 years who did not have MLB average velocity.

At the same time I’ve seen pitchers drafted in the first few rounds who didn’t have anything much except MLB plus velocity.

So while I agree about the value of all these other things in pitching, so far velocity has been proven to be #1. That’s why the scouts carry them radar guns around.

So when we hear scouts or college coaches saying velocity is not number one in their estimation, why do we continually see the top velocity pitchers getting drafted earlier than the others. Why do we see the high velocity guys getting the most recruiting attention.

Obviously once you have velocity, the other things become the things that separate pitchers.

This does not mean a pitcher can’t be successful with below average velocity… It just means that velocity should never be discounted. That could be misleading some young pitchers into thinking it’s not important to improve velocity.

For the millionth time… Greg Maddux as a skinny teenager in high school threw over 90 mph. Without that velocity, he wouldn’t have been drafted in the second round as a 6’0” RHP out of HS.

And for every Maddux, there are a large number of guys in the Big Leagues who throw hard. They might not always use their max velocity, but they have that ability. So did Maddux when he came up.

quote:

For the millionth time… Greg Maddux as a skinny teenager in high school threw over 90 mph. Without that velocity, he wouldn’t have been drafted in the second round as a 6’0” RHP out of HS.

And for every Maddux, there are a large number of guys in the Big Leagues who throw hard. They might not always use their max velocity, but they have that ability. So did Maddux when he came up.

The point to CaDads op is that we are looking for success against great hitting with lo to mid 80's velo..Maddux does that..how? not witb 90 mph (I saw him hit 91 last year ), he does it by pitching with his strength to their weakness, he does it with location and late movement, he does it changing speeds and he does it with an understanding of who he's pitching to (His own study and scouting).
I don't dispute that if CaDad was asking how to get into college or MLB that the velocity would have to be there. I would never tell a kid that he wouldn't have to get the velocity right...
And by the way...Greg had an older brother drafted in front of him...and radar guns weren't ubiquitous in the early 80's so he wasn't drafted for 90 mph, he was drafted because, yes, he could throw hard, but the other vaiables held huge weight...success in HS, command of all of his pitches, brother in pro's AND he could throw hard.
He has said he has never considered himself a strike-out pitcher (With over 3000 k's hahaha!) but as I watched him as a rookie he was double digit k's nearly every game he pitched....And he wasn't fast...he was smart...he was a pitcher.

Don't have to convince me PGStaff.

Velocit is King

Once you have it, you can be a "pitcher" in the bigs.

Without it...you play for a while, then get a ticket back to reality.

quote:

I don't dispute that if CaDad was asking how to get into college or MLB that the velocity would have to be there. I would never tell a kid that he wouldn't have to get the velocity right...

Rob we agree...now how about the original point?

The point to CaDads op is that we are looking for success against great hitting with lo to mid 80's velo..Maddux does that

quote:

Originally posted by jdfromfla:

quote:

I don't dispute that if CaDad was asking how to get into college or MLB that the velocity would have to be there. I would never tell a kid that he wouldn't have to get the velocity right...

Rob we agree...now how about the original point?

The point to CaDads op is that we are looking for success against great hitting with lo to mid 80's velo..Maddux does that

Oh...OK.



I already gave my opinion on that at the very beginning of the thread.

There's a world of difference between a HS low 80s type with good location and good movement and good pitch selection and Greg Maddux. Good location and movement for HS and good location and movement for the next level are two completely different things. I sat next to a college scout during a spring break tournament. There were several kids throwing in the upper 70s to low 80s with good breaking stuff. They were fairly effective. The gun never came out. A kid came in throwing low to mid 80s. He wasn't particulary effective and didn't seem to have much in the way of breaking stuff. The gun came out right away.

I watched Erik Hiljus throw a pen once. I had never, in person, seen anyone with better control. I believe he was a low 90s type. His control wasn't good enough for him to stick in the bigs.

The question in the beginning of the thread was how does a pitcher in a strong league survive the transition through the low to mid 80s. As noted by TPM as pitchers increase their velocity their control often suffers. There were some very good suggestions about using the 2 seamer more. There was also the point about not sacrificing the future for today as a HS pitcher who has the potential to throw faster than the low to mid 80s should not lock themselves into throwing that slow and working backwards at this point in their lives. We constantly work on the concept of throwing downhill and moving the ball around. It takes time to get there.

If a kid has clearly plateaud in the low 80s then they need to focus on movement, command, deception and being the best pitcher they can be with the stuff they have. No problem.

As far as the point about the top select teams we've had kids from the league play in some of the very top tournaments(AFLAC, etc.)and do better there than they do in league.

BTW, the pitcher who throws in the low 80s in our league and who has been very effective was hit hard again by a team who has been shut down several times by hard throwers. My assessment of that team is that it matches what deemax reports pretty well with a couple of their best hitters unable to get around on the hard stuff, although they've been able to gear up a bit as the season has gone along.