Youth Pitching and YOUR son

2019,

I think son first threw a 2 seam at 8 or 9 as his first pitch. It had wicked movement. Then he threw the 4 seam for more velo. The 2 seam was his everything pitch. So he didn't need a breaking pitch and I think not throwing curve ball as a youth pitcher was a good thing. He didn't throw a slider until college.  Unfortunetly his change up took a long time to develop, but the 2 seam movement was deadly.  That pitch got him a second round draft pick!

And he never had a formal pitching lesson either!  

Sorry, I have to wonder when I hear that a youth pitcher (not yet in high school) has a 4 seam, a curve ball, a change up,  and a slider..why?  

JMO

Catcher does not have enough fingers. A great resume promo.

Can he control any ONE pitch? 

Bob

In lieu of a couple of previous comments, I just have to add this.  I am going to coach JV Softball this Spring.  So, I talked to one of the young ladies that is supposed to be a pitcher.  I asked how many pitches she threw for strikes.  She said 5 then named them.  They were, rise ball, drop ball, fastball, change and screwball.  She said she also has a curve and curve drop.  I thought WOW, so I asked if I could go watch her in a lesson.  I did so and she threw all those pitches.  The problem is, none were consistently for strikes.  I did appreciate the Private Instructor allowing me to sit in and we had a great discussion.  When she was done, I mentioned that this young lady couldn't throw anything over the plate.  The response was, "That's right.  If she did, they'd get hit so we don't want her to throw over the plate."  I see a huge problem with this.  LOL 

In response to the OP, I'll play along. 2019Son is a fourteen-year-old freshman. So far this school year, 2019Son has been pitching for his high school, and not pitching for his travel team, with one exception (one weekend when his HS team was off, his HS coaches gave him the OK to pitch for his travel team (with a limit of 35 pitches), so he threw three innings for them -- it was actually pretty cool for him because he got to face a PG ranked Top 5 team in the country). Anyway, his high school throws bullpens on Thursdays and he generally pitches 1 to 3 innings on most Saturday (note: they go by pitch count, not innings, and he has not exceed 40 pitches in any outing), all but one time against JV teams from the largest classification in California (once it was against a freshman team). For September and October it was only fastballs (all two-seamers) and an occasional change-up, and since then he has probably thrown about 20 breaking balls. His high school coaches have been working on him learning to command his fastball to both sides of the plate. His fastball moves quite a bit, so his control has been far, far ahead of his command, if that makes sense.

All told, he has thrown 23 and 2/3 innings (including the three for his travel team), and given up 10 hits and 2 runs. I'm not sure about velocity -- in July he touched a high of 77.4, but he hasn't had a radar gun on him since, although since then he's put on 7 or 8 pounds, so it may be that he is touching 78 or 79, but I don't really know.

He doesn't have -- and has never had -- a pitching coach, so regular work with the pitching coaches at his high school is a new thing. He butted heads a little bit with the varsity pitching coach early on, but he really, really likes the JV pitching coach, with whom he primarily works.

When not pitching he has been playing third (and some second) for his HS team. They don't pitch their shortstops. For his travel team he has played mostly second (some third) -- they have a shortstop who is, frankly, better than him. Heck, they might have two shortstops better than him! 

Looking ahead, his travel team has wrapped up until June. So it's all high-school. They'll continue to play "winter ball" games on Saturdays in January and February, and then the season will start in March.