Mechanics robbing velocity?

OK I had a few minutes this morning and will take a crack at it. Couple of things:
1. Get him in the weight room with a good leg, core strength development program. He should focus on developing muscle mass early in the program and as the season gets closer switch to explosive development. This will help develop the leg strength to support his body more and allow him to get out over his front side. Get a trainer that can help put together a phased program.
2. Start a good long toss program, but make sure he gets his rest in this fall or whenever you have it scheduled. Fall is a good time to focus on weights and give his body a break from throwing.

Couple of things on his mechanics, he will stride out further when his body strength will allow it, which he needs to do. I would not stress him in trying to do something his body will not support which is why he really needs to hit the weight room hard.

He is “soft” on his landing leg ie he tends to collapse this leg, if you look at all hard throwers they land leg flexed and then it straightens up giving a leverage point for the rest of the upper body to rotate around.

I will give you a visual that will explain the next item. A pitching instructor used this with my son to help him break down his mechanics.

The pitching motion can be envisioned by three elements. First is a train going down the tracks, with a merry-go-round sitting on top of it, with a ferris wheel on top of this.

He needs to stride out a bit more for his train part, he has too much merry-go-round and virtually no ferris wheel. A lot of this is derived from his soft front side, which causes him to rotate instead of moving more vertical in his mechanics, which is where real velocity is developed.

Other than that he looks pretty good, his glove side looks decent, he landing foot could be more pointed to his target which will give him more hip stretch, he has decent arm action, and intent to throw hard.

One other comment. When filming do it from the side with a tripod showing front side. Also film from behind the catcher again fixed with a tripod. Too much giggling and poor angles. BTW stats mean nothing, work on velocity first and foremost but the weight room is where he should be focused this fall IMO.

Good luck!

Great post BOF. Interesting mix of linear and rotational metaphors. I'll introduce this to Patriot son and see how it is received.

Great observations and thanks.

Once he's had a chance to work on some of this stuff, I'll post another video to see what's next.

TZB