In 1964 ten of the top ten pitchers brought their hands over the head.
In 2014 one out of ten did. Why the change? Was it for the better?
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There are perhaps multiple reasons.
Style. The same reason you didn't see stirrups for a couple of decades and now they're back.
Mechanics. The recent trend has been to simplify mechanics and eliminate unnecessary movement.
Son has never put his hands over his head......until one month ago. College has him doing it now. Son says it feels comfortable. Says before he really didn't know what to do with his hands.
Seems like similar to hitting also... hittings a lot of times now have much shorter and smaller strides. Coaches seem to want to quite the body down more. Whether or not it's good, im not sure
Just brings to mind one guy...Nuke LaLoosh.....don''t see too many guys breathing through their eye lids anymore either!
Try lifting your hands over your head 100+ times in ~2hours. Very tiring. Compare velo with and without the arm lift. How many more pitches can you gain by eliminating it? Then decide for yourself. If your Ace can pitch an extra inning it's worth it, no?
Originally Posted by bandera:
Try lifting your hands over your head 100+ times in ~2hours. Very tiring. Compare velo with and without the arm lift. How many more pitches can you gain by eliminating it? Then decide for yourself. If your Ace can pitch an extra inning it's worth it, no?
Did you give the same advice to Sandy Kofax? Maybe we should eliminate the leg kick by the same logic!
Wow coachJackE, I must have missed where bandera claimed he gave advise to Kofax. Eliminating leg kick is done, its called a slide step. Most pitchers loose velo when when it is done, so no its not even close to the same logic.
You asked the question but it sounds like you were just looking for validation of your opinion.
Originally Posted by deuces wild:
Wow coachJackE, I must have missed where bandera claimed he gave advise to Kofax. Eliminating leg kick is done, its called a slide step. Most pitchers loose velo when when it is done, so no its not even close to the same logic.
You asked the question but it sounds like you were just looking for validation of your opinion.
I forgot, exactly where was my opinion stated?
Makes sense what Root aid but I think that it depends on the pitchers arm slot, high, 3/4 low.
I think that years ago that is what you did, throw from a very high slot, but with the knowledge gained today, the pitcher can find his natural slot more comfortable than being forced to throw from one.
Maybe Kyle can give us the righ answer.
I don't really know the answer. I think it's correlated with higher use of relievers. Many pitch out of the stretch and some starters don't even use a windup anymore.
Either way it's not that big of a deal. The wasted energy thing is... whatever.
Just got back from a game where I was hanging out with some coach/player friends on the Astros, and a young man with an electric fastball (only one to hit 100 MPH in the PG database, I believe) has the strong overhand pump - Lance McCullers Jr. Of course, his father was quite the MLB pitcher himself, of course, so I'm sure that had something to do with the mechanical style LMJ adopted.
I don't discourage it my athletes but I don't encourage it either. I let them be who they are.
Originally Posted by Kyle Boddy:
I don't really know the answer. I think it's correlated with higher use of relievers. Many pitch out of the stretch and some starters don't even use a windup anymore.
Either way it's not that big of a deal. The wasted energy thing is... whatever.
Just got back from a game where I was hanging out with some coach/player friends on the Astros, and a young man with an electric fastball (only one to hit 100 MPH in the PG database, I believe) has the strong overhand pump - Lance McCullers Jr. Of course, his father was quite the MLB pitcher himself, of course, so I'm sure that had something to do with the mechanical style LMJ adopted.
I don't discourage it my athletes but I don't encourage it either. I let them be who they are.
Seems like only Kershaw uses the overhead windup.Hernandz, Sale, Kluber, Price, Cueto, Lester, Grenke, Darvish do NOT
Reason I asked is that my 2016 LHP switched to the overhead this year. Just about all of his stats pretty much stayed the same. Velo went from 82 to 85 but I just think that was going to happen anyway.
Originally Posted by deuces wild:
Wow coachJackE, I must have missed where bandera claimed he gave advise to Kofax. Eliminating leg kick is done, its called a slide step. Most pitchers loose velo when when it is done, so no its not even close to the same logic.
You asked the question but it sounds like you were just looking for validation of your opinion.
The purpose of the slide step is to be quick to home with a runner on, not to eliminate unnecessary motion.
Originally Posted by CoachJackE:
Originally Posted by deuces wild:
Wow coachJackE, I must have missed where bandera claimed he gave advise to Kofax. Eliminating leg kick is done, its called a slide step. Most pitchers loose velo when when it is done, so no its not even close to the same logic.
You asked the question but it sounds like you were just looking for validation of your opinion.
The purpose of the slide step is to be quick to home with a runner on, not to eliminate unnecessary motion.
Congratulations you seem to have got my point. I know why the slide step is used and I figured you did too.
BTW You forgot Scherzer, he uses the over the head windup.
My 2016 did it for year or so on the recommendation of his pitching coach at the time to see if would help him with arm drag. Didn't really make that big of a difference and he eventually thought it was just a wasted movement. It didn't make a difference in his velocity and he was ultimately more comfortable not doing it.