I'm sure some will disagree, but I thought this article was pretty well written for a non-baseball publication. Not sure how I missed it last September. FYI, I think NYTimes gives readers 5 articles/month before requiring a subscription.
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Nice article, I agree with 90% of it. velo is king at least early in your career. you have to learn to spot the fast ball , then the secondary pitches. I have heard John Smoltz , Sean Casey and Dan Plesac say that while the sport seems to want velo, the number of injuries is up, and the number of fast balls thrown is down. They also mentioned that pitching staffs will get larger due to pitchers not being able to hold velo without being fatigued or wild. 5 innings is becoming the normal for most starters making the bullpen swell. I guess that's good if your a pitcher....
The old saying still rings true, fastball gets you there, off-speed gets you paid... the better the fastball the more effective the off-speed is .... 2018 has spent the majority of his off season working on the change-up I think that is going to be the pitch over the slider... as velo goes up the hitters have to get ready earlier .
+1 really makes you think if your a young pitcher and you are not working hard to implement this type of training into your routine your going to fall behind. We have dabbled as we have had coaches who firmly believe in it, but we spend most of the time fall and spring with the high school coach and they are in the cave man ages, at least he does film with a camera on occasion.
Kyle Boddy is mentioned in the article and posts on this site on occasion.
