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Sidearm pitcher

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bballmanbballman10,000+ posts
My understanding has always been that a sidearmer is really no different than any other arm slot. The difference is all in the tilt of the trunk and shoulders. For instance, an "over the top" guy will have his trunk and shoulders tilted with the glove arm side down and pitching shoulder up. 3/4 guy will have his shoulders close to parrallel to the the ground, submarine guy will have his shoulders and trunk tilted with his glove side arm up and throwing shoulder down.

If you look at all of them, the line from shoulder to shoulder to ball hand at release will be a straight line all the way across. Just tilt the shoulders and trunk to the arm slot you want to throw. I hope that makes sense.

With that in mind, just teach the same thing you would teach to any other pitcher. The difference will be the action on the ball due to the spin coming from a different angle. Just like with anyone else, a pitcher will have to experiment with different grips and pressures to get the ball to move. The other thing to keep in mind is that you don't really "stay on top of the ball". What you are really doing is staying "behind the ball". This goes for anyone.

A submarine/sidearm guy can throw a 2 seam FB, a 4 seam FB, a circle change, a slider, whatever. The only thing he is not going to be able to do is throw a 12/6 curveball.

I would just coach him like any other pitcher. Just make sure that the line between shoulders stays straight and that he "stays behind the ball". Don't let the elbow drop below the shoulder line and don't get under the ball. That will cause problems.

Hope this helps.
KaizenKaizen100+ posts
If he's like the vast majority of sidearmers, his 2-seamer probably has good arm-side movement. A good complementary pitch is a slider so that you get break in the opposite direction. Grip the ball similar to the 2-seam grip except offset the index and middle fingers to the outside seam. At release, the fingers pull around the ouside of the ball to get the ball spinning sideways.
L laflippin100+ posts
Along the exact lines of Kaizen's remarks, here is a clip of a sidearmer (Jeff Nelson) who used the slider/2-seamer combination very effectively:

http://www.youtube.com/user/la...search/0/PaX9SOtDGNQ

Here's an old clip of my sidearmer son working on his slider:

http://www.youtube.com/user/la...search/5/RHMS071GYw0

He is 17 yo now, still a sidearm pitcher, and he uses a 2-seam FB, the slider, and for a change-of-pace he uses a split-finger FB. He was never comfortable with the circle-change or the other CU variations, but the splitter seemed to click very well for him.
Last edited by laflippin
Heavy DHeavy D10+ posts
My son had never really pitched before his junior year in high school; he'd always been a middle infielder. One day during infield practice the boy was flipping the ball sidearm to second base turning double plays when his coach asked him if he thought he could throw a strike like that off the mound. He looked decent, and the team was very skinny on pitching, so the coach let him throw a little. He worked on it all summer and came back his Senior year as their ace. He ended up throwing 87 innings his Senior year, had a 1.52 ERA, was a Louisville Slugger HS All American and is now a Freshman pitching at a D1 university.

He throws a 2-seam, slider, change-up and claims that this fall he mastered command of a forkball that breaks 12-6. Here's some video from last season:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JacobDorris/videos

If you want some specifics on his grip, etc., send me a PM with your email address and I'll pass it along to him. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
coach2709coach270910,000+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by bballman:
My understanding has always been that a sidearmer is really no different than any other arm slot. The difference is all in the tilt of the trunk and shoulders. For instance, an "over the top" guy will have his trunk and shoulders tilted with the glove arm side down and pitching shoulder up. 3/4 guy will have his shoulders close to parrallel to the the ground, submarine guy will have his shoulders and trunk tilted with his glove side arm up and throwing shoulder down.

If you look at all of them, the line from shoulder to shoulder to ball hand at release will be a straight line all the way across. Just tilt the shoulders and trunk to the arm slot you want to throw. I hope that makes sense.

With that in mind, just teach the same thing you would teach to any other pitcher. The difference will be the action on the ball due to the spin coming from a different angle. Just like with anyone else, a pitcher will have to experiment with different grips and pressures to get the ball to move. The other thing to keep in mind is that you don't really "stay on top of the ball". What you are really doing is staying "behind the ball". This goes for anyone.

A submarine/sidearm guy can throw a 2 seam FB, a 4 seam FB, a circle change, a slider, whatever. The only thing he is not going to be able to do is throw a 12/6 curveball.

I would just coach him like any other pitcher. Just make sure that the line between shoulders stays straight and that he "stays behind the ball". Don't let the elbow drop below the shoulder line and don't get under the ball. That will cause problems.

Hope this helps.


Very good post and tons of valuable information.
J HJ H5,000+ posts
To add onto what's already been said above, extension is still extremely important with sidearmers. The tendency to be overly rotational is especially prevalent with these throwing mechanics, and getting your front side out and leading with the hips towards home plate will eliminate any arm side drag and keep the body closed for as long as possible. Just like with overhand throwing, over-rotation is counterproductive for velocity, movement, control and injury.
EyeontheballEyeontheball100+ posts
laflippin wrote -
quote:
Here's an old clip of my sidearmer son working on his slider:

http://www.youtube.com/user/la...search/5/RHMS071GYw0

He is 17 yo now, still a sidearm pitcher, and he uses a 2-seam FB, the slider, and for a change-of-pace he uses a split-finger FB. He was never comfortable with the circle-change or the other CU variations, but the splitter seemed to click very well for him.


laflippin - can you provide details about the camera used to shoot this? Very impressive. My guess is that it must be a pretty high end camera to get such a sharp video at such a slow speed, but I know very little about video.
L laflippin100+ posts
Eyeontheball,

That slider clip was filmed with a black&white Fastec "SportsCam"...but shortly after working with the Fastec camera I went over almost exclusively to using a consumer camera--Casio EX-F1--which cost about $900 when I bought it in 2008.

Nowadays all my slo-mo videos are still recorded with the Casio EX-F1 operating at 300 fps. The resolution at 300 fps is 512 x 384 pixels, which is about 25% lower resolution than "standard" video (they make this slight resolution trade-off because high frame rates and high resolution both tend to eat up storage and memory). Playback is at 30 fps, so the slo-mo you get from video recorded at 300 fps is 10x slower than "real time". Here's a clip of Brad Ziegler I recorded at Oakland Coliseum using the EX-F1:

http://www.youtube.com/user/la...search/0/Lo3aKYtwR7o

Unfortunately, Casio no longer makes the EX-F1, although Casio does offer some newer, cheaper models that will record at 240 fps at somewhat lower resotion than the EX-F1.

JVC also has a new hybrid on the market that will record 300 fps video with slightly better resolution than the Casio EX-F1. The cost of the JVC camera is around $700 - $800... can't remember the entire name of the model right now but it's:
JVC-"something"-PC10

If you're really interested I could chase down some more information for you. Just let me know.

Besides Casio and JVC I think there are now several other companies offering camcorders that will provide a basic level of slo-mo video capability in addition to the usual camcorder specs--in the price range of a couple hundred dollars.
Last edited by laflippin

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