Pitcher strike zone training ideas

I was at a minor league game awhile ago and one team actually had 7 balls attached to a piece of wood. they were colored and they sat them on the plate during BP.

I would go with nine zones, with all eight of the perimeter zones bleeding slightly about a ball off the plate.  This gives the specific "down and away", "up and in" thought process.  I think this is about as simple as you can make it while maintaining the focused "aim small, miss small" efforts, even for those who initially have little ability to succeed in hitting those zones with any degree of consistency.  That is what they should be working toward and thinking about.

Lokatorpitchingacademy.com 

check it out. Have a bullpen app that we have used since my son was 9....promise you as good as anything out there! Pictures are the target system and a sample bullpen. Catchers can frame, but an immovable target doesn't lie!

There is a well known college coach who pounds two stakes in the ground even with the front of the plate in the bullpen and ties a clothesline between them at approximately the bottom of the zone. Pitchers work not to throw anything over the rope. I think the idea is that if you can learn to command the bottom of the zone, you should be able to fill the rest of the zone as circumstances warrant.

Swampboy posted:

There is a well known college coach who pounds two stakes in the ground even with the front of the plate in the bullpen and ties a clothesline between them at approximately the bottom of the zone. Pitchers work not to throw anything over the rope. I think the idea is that if you can learn to command the bottom of the zone, you should be able to fill the rest of the zone as circumstances warrant.

I was going to make the same suggestions. Saw this at a bullpen at a CWS game a few years ago. It was TCU, IIRC.