How can I improve my pitching in baseball?

Question

I need control and movement on my fastball; I'm a sophomore playing high school ball and I don't have an overpowering fastball (75-78 mph), so I need to improve my control and improve the movement on my fastball. Any suggestions? Also, do you know of any way I can tweak my delivery to improve velocity?

Answer 1

Control is practice and consistency of body movement. One fun drill I used to give pitchers is running tape or chalking about a 1inch line from the inside edge of the plate to the third base side of the pitching rubber and the same for the outside edge. It creates a tunnel to the plate and then have the pitchers practice throwing between those lines. It helps seeing the strike zone all the way to the plate.

Ball movement is determined by grip, arm motion and release. I cannot tell how to improve movement without seeing your motion nor can anyone change your mechanics through advice on a website. Some general suggestions for ball movement are, on a fastball a lighter grip will create more tailing action toward a right handed batter (if you are a right handed pitcher) and a tight grip will cause the ball to cut or stay straight. If you want the tailing action (which most kids do) use a two seam fastball grip and throw your normal fastball, with this exception - the ball should feel like it's going to fall out of your hand, your wrist should be completely relaxed and don't try to throw it 75mph just throw about 75% to get the feel. Instead of focusing on your arm throwing the ball focus on your left shoulder turning in and then turning out to create your velocity. You may notice that you initially have trouble getting the ball down in the strike zone, this is usually an indication that your natural motion has been "strong arming" or tensing up every muscle in your arm to throw the ball hard. To bring the ball down you will need to lower and accelerate through a lower release point, you can do this by lowering your elbow slightly (and I mean slightly), making more hip turn (turning your back to the hitter) and pushing off harder with your right leg and taking a longer stride. You need a coach to help with mechanics, I can tell you what I normally see but I can't see you. Video tape yourself as often as possible from all angles and check your mechanics. Getting a visual is the only way to adjust and improve.
Now for speed improvement.....
Throwing, and all movement, starts in your core muscle group.
Your ab, back and pelvis are the center of all motion and your platform for balance. Start strengthening with this core group and extend to exercises that also work your legs - every throw starts from your legs, they need to strong and flexible. Proper throwing motion and range of motion are also extremely important, throwing comes from elastic energy not contraction energy.
Work on the 29 muscles in your core group first. Before I tell you to practice long toss - this is very important to your health, so do not listen to some moron telling you to practice throwing the ball as far as you can. The intent of your long toss is to stretch your throwing muscles not to throw a ball as far as you can. Practice from center field picking up a ground ball in front of you on the run with your momentum going toward home, and make your throws at about 90% velocity. The ball should never go above 8 or 9 feet in the air and should land somewhere around the mound. You are not trying to learn to throw the ball to home plate, you are stretching using a full range of motion. This will cause your core to stretch as you pull the ball further back to throw and choosing a lower target gives you a longer throwing motion or release point. This is not to prove how hard you can throw so resist the temptation to test it. Doing the wrong training will inury your rotator. If you really want to improve and do it healthy, find a physical therapist who specializes in sports medicine or sports injuries. Take him a copy of what I just wrote, ask him to validate it and tell him you want to throw harder and he will design a workout regimine based on your body and strength.

I have included a link to some core exercises.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/core-strength/SM00047&slide=1

Answer 2

A good portion of the velocity of a pitch is generated from your legs. Therefore, you need to make sure you build up your leg strength through running and possibly some light weight thrusts. No need to try to squat a lot of weight, just use a little weight with full range of motion to develop your leg muscles to push off the rubber. Be careful "tweaking" your delivery because that is how injuries happen. One thing you can do is experiment with different grips on the ball. You might be able to generate a little movement through gripping the ball slightly differently. Just be sure to use a motion you are comfortable with. If you feel pain using a motion, you will just end up injuring yourself. As far as control goes, mine was superb, so I really didn't have to worry about it but what always worked for me was to just let my catcher put the glove where he wanted the pitch to end up and I just hit it. Try this during practice when you are doing your throwing on the side. I think you will find that if you just try this, then you will eventually get a feel for the release point you need to hit your spots.

Answer 3

NEVER CHANGE YOUR DELIVERY UNLESS IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIX A MAJOR PROBLEM

To increase movement you should play with a two-seam grip until the ball moves the way you want it to. What you can do to have a stronger arm is every other day (everyone's arm needs rest).

First throw at 60ft with feet planted (act like you are pitching and where your front foot lands is where you stop with your feet planted) lean back and then use momentum to throw forward. Concentrate on keeping your chest over your knee and maintaining balance (don't move your back foot).

Then move back to long toss at a comfortable pace. through the ball at a 45 degree angle (don't try to impress anyone). you can end up throwing the ball unbelievably far.

After you hit a comfortable distance when you are crow-hopping and using arm and leg. Start coming in. Now throw the ball as low as you can to your partner (and impress everyone there) USE THE SAME LEG INVOLVEMENT THAT YOU DID AT YOUR MAXIMUM DISTANCE. As you get closer stop at 60 ft. and rocket the ball.

Every once in a while through an off-speed pitch with the same motion.

Answer 4

If you want to throw harder, you've got to throw -- every day. It's really that simple. There's no magical potion, secret formula, or nutritional supplement that'll help you throw harder -- other than simply throwing.

Professional pitchers at the major and minor league levels throw just about every day, 285-or-so days a year.

In the Chicago Cubs organization, for instance, where I played for three years, pitchers performed a 10 minute throwing program daily:

60 feet ( for 3 minutes)
90 feet (for 3 minutes)
120 feet (for 3 minutes)
60 feet (for 1 minute) to finish.

But 10 quality minutes a day and you're on your way to developing a great arm!

Another way to develop pitching velocity is not to throw curveballs until you're about 14 or 15 years old. The truth is, you really could get away with not throwing a breaking ball until you're 17 or 18 years old, but I realize the fact that kids get "antsy" about throwing breaking pitches early.

If you want to develop fastball arm strength, you have to throw the fastball. If you're wasting pitches throwing other pitches than a fastball, such as the curve, you're wasting time!

Finally, a good way to improve velocity is to track it. Professional runners keep detailed journals of the miles they run every day. You should do the same thing with your pitching.

One thing I observed in pro ball — and consequently did — is that pitchers at the higher levels of the game are students of the game. But in order to be a student of the game, you've got to keep track of what you do.

Write down every time you throw a practice bullpen. Write down how you felt. Write down what was working and what wasn't. This way, you can begin to see what works and what doesn’t, so you can eliminate that which impedes your success on the bump -- and can continue to do that which does work!

~best of luck with your games!~

Answer 5

Try throwing a 2-seam then a 4 seam fastball,see if you get any movement on those pitches.But really movement isn't the key,its putting the ball where the hitter can't get his best swing on it.In other words Location,Location, Location.As to get more velocity on your pitches work on leg strength

Answer 6

A good way to increase your velocity is to strengthen your rotators cuff. Be careful though, It is easy to injure your rotator's cuff the stronger you are and the harder you through. Heres 3 ways to avoid injury:
1:Keep your rotator cuff muscles healthy
2:Always warm up properly before exercise
3:Avoid or minimize activities and movements with a high risk of injury to your rotators cuff.


You should be able to through a nice cutter by just simply putting more pressure with your middle finger on the ball. It's and easy pitch to learn.

Heres a site that has some workouts to strengthen you rotators cuff.

http://www.changingshape.com/exercise/strengthtraining/gym/barbellfrontshoulderraise.asp

PS. Believe me lol. My uncle made it to AA as a pitcher with Baltimore.

Answer 7

Practice

Answer 8

practice it makes good effort

Answer 9

Practice makes perfect you got to keep practicing i need help on please click http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah6NA2NqQmPA7TWeW12oKivsy6IX?qid=20070225111135AA89bVb