For the parents
Given the recent episode where Zumaya blew his arm out and one of the kid that I coached in little league is currently having arm trouble from pitching(bad mechanics), I thought that it's a good time for me to address the parents or parents to be of their child in baseball(or in other sports in general) on teaching your child to do the proper techniques or mechanics early on so they can stand a better chance of staying healthy. This is true for pitcher because there are a lot of young people going into Tommy John surgery which is mind boggling because it shouldn't have come down to this type of procedure.
I am not a parent, I'm still fresh out of graduating from college. I cannot stress enough that teach your child(or children) the proper mechanics of throwing a baseball. It's very important for long term health and it would greatly enchance their game as well. I would much rather have my child suffer for a while while doing proper mechanics rather than dominating with terrible mechanics. Over the long run, your child will thank you.
If your child is a pitcher or is about to be a pitcher or you're a little league coach, I would not recommend on letting your child throw curveball until they can start shaving or 16 year old. It put too much stress on the developing bones of the elbow and it would lead to arm problems down the road. I would have them on concentrating on throwing fastball and change up.
IMO, overusing is not the reason why there are so many arm problems. It's pitchers using bad mechanics is the cause for arm problems. Overusing magnified the bad mechanics. If you have great mechanics like Roy Oswalt, Tim Lincecum, you shouldn't have any arm problems and still throw hard into the 30s.
Finally, long toss is a great arm excerise/drill for any baseball players to do in practice especially in warming up(except for those who are pitching on that day). It builds arm strength and stretches out arm muscles without having to throw hard. Your arm bounce back quicker than usual(of course it helps that I lifted weights, but I wouldn't recommend your child doing it until they reach high school).
I think you left your van running...
I agree completely. I was taught growing up the "greg maddux" sort of pitching style. Locate, and use speed changing effectively and you'll be way better in the long haul. I never threw a curve ball (stopped playing at 17 due to having to work, go to college, etc.) and I was pretty effective as a pitcher. I did cheat and throw a slider near the end of my pitching career.
My brother on the other hand was throwing a curve ball from the age of 11. He can no longer throw a baseball for more than 10 minutes because his arm will be in excruciating pain for the next few days...he's only 30.
Good points. I coached my 2 sons from t-ball all the way thru varsity. They both played college ball. I coached my daughter in softball, I used to pitch fastpitch in men's leagues, from little league thru high school. She currently plays JUCO ball. I would never allow my younger pitchers to throw curveballs much to many father's dismay. Yes, a 12- year-old whom can throw a curve ball can be dominant, but he may also not have an arm left by the time he reaches the varsity level. Something else to add to this, it is not a good idea to allow kids to throw sidearm. They may like to emulate what they see on t.v. but this will surely injure there elbow. Finally, you do not want to teach a pitcher to throw directly over the top. This is not natural and will cuase shoulder problems. We always taught them to throw "in the slot." In other words imagine a clock-the pitcher wants their arm to come thru at about 2:00 NOT 12:00.
Is "in the slot" basically 3/4? I pretty much threw too over the top and I do have shoulder/rotator cuff pains from time to time and i'm 25. I've been doing stretches which have been effective, but my arm certainly isn't what it was.
I throw 3 quarter slot and I never had any arm problems from this type of throwing motion. Side arm and over the top delivery is not a good template for young kids to follow.
The problem with today's society is you're rewarding people for winning or being successful even if it will hurt their bodies over the long run. I wish that the little league or rec league don't keep score or count win-loss and concentrate on the development of youth baseball players. Not only, you benefit from it as a player but you will have less arm trouble over the long run. The statistics, win-loss and everything else will come when you get into high school baseball level.
maybe they should play in skirts, too.
or maybe they should use only tennis balls so they don't get hurt...
/kidding
//doesn't like overprotective parents.
Thanks, but no...
Obviously score should be kept. I think it's important to teach your kids that while winning in Little league is fun, it isn't the end-all be-all. Especially when you tell the kids, working on technique, playing baseball the right way, will increase their chances of playing baseball at the next level.
While I am not onboard with not keeping score, I am with coaching proper technique. The problem I see is typically the coaches at the youngest levels are dads who coaching from the seat of thier pants based on what they were taught when they played. Then there is a tendancy at a young age to go with what works.
So between those two things players arrive at "kid pitch" levels with a lot of bad habits, and it is really hard to to fix them. Our best pitcher on my son's team last year threw side arm. I worked with him all season to move to overhand, but he never comfortably made the transition in practice. (He threw sidearm in games -- I was an assistant, not the man making the calls.)
This translates to other sports as well. Keeping low, but keeping your head face up in football is really hard, but has to be reinforced from the start. (Which is a point of emphasis in Pop-Warner.)
I guess where I was going with that is the importance of training even those early coaching dads.
It's another falacy of the sports world. Throwing curveballs improperly kills arms. There is plenty of real science that shows the load placed on an arm for a properly thrown curveball is less than a fastball and very similar to that of a change. Learning to throw it properly is the key and most LL coaches cannot teach it because they don't know it. That isn't meant as a knock on your coaching abilities btw.
I have always stressed mechanics in pitching and hitting with my players. When they are bitching that it "doesn't feel comfortable" I explain that's because they've always done it wrong and if they want to keep playing as they get older they will have to do it the right way. Nobody cares how dominant a kid was in TBall or Minor Leagues, even Major division LL soon fades away. It's all about the big field and -3 bats.
You're absolutely right. I just got done coaching Little League (12-14 year olds.) And 3 of our pitchers all had arm issues at some point in the season. One kid went down with a torn ligament in the elbow (they were concerned it was a broken growth plate.) One kid pitched for two teams (and relied entirely TOO much on his curveball.) It's really important to make sure you know the kid's pitching schedule, and that you involve the parents so the kid doesn't lie to you, thinking they're doing the coach a favor.
One of our players had an absolute rocket, but threw submarine style. When I asked him why, he told me it was because the year prior he didn't play on 90 foot bases, and he was significantly taller than any of his targets, so he adjusted his throwing motion.
Supposedly one of the kids in the league had Tommy Johns and he was 14. I was baffled!
Parents and coaches alike need to be fully aware of what their players/kids mechanics are like, what types of pitches they throw, and how many pitches they throw. Even in practice, I had to yell at even the best players on our team, because they threw incorrectly (partially bad mechanics, partially playing around too much.) I told them messing with throwing motion will throw off their muscle memory, and could lead to long term problems. Hopefully they listen in the future.
Sixteen may be a bit too far when saying wait on curveballs. I would suggest trying to master the fastball and change up at least through 10 year olds. When it's the off season, I'm a big proponent of just fastball change up no matter what age of youth ball, even into early stages of high school. There are some of the better coaches in the Houston area that "suggest"* their freshmen and sophomore Mickey Mantle teams throw just that, and maybe a splitter/knuckle if they have it. They specifically ask their kids not to throw curves and sliders, rather just work on control of the rest of their pitches and build up arm strength.
Long toss is also a great suggestion. I'm a big fan of coaches that break down warming up into 4 phases. The first phase has the players about 10-15 feet apart, and all they do is wrist flicks. You want a four seam grip and rotation, working just on flipping the wrist to produce a straight ball. The next step is about 20-30 feet back, feet spread about the shoulders and stationary. They turn the upper body, check to make sure the throwing elbow is at 90 degrees and the throwing hand holds the ball facing away from them, then they throw.
For example:
In that picture, you can see the ball faces away from his body at full extension. As the upper body turns, the ball will come back to the front.
Step three is normal throwing to about 120 feet. Several coaches prefer their players do this with footwork of glove side, behind with throwing hand side, back to glove side as their step into the throw. So a right hander would step left, right foot behind the left foot, right foot while throwing. I'm not sure why that's a common footwork, but I've seen several teams use it.
Last step would be long toss. If you watched UCLA and Trevor Bauer, the guy was doing extreme long toss. He would throw from foul poll to foul poll. That's probably a bit extreme for most other players, but he has extreme longevity on his fastball. He continues to hit 90/91 on the radar gun all the way through 8+ innings. He's also a great example of keeping stretched out. While he may have come off a bit quirky, because he is, he made sure to use the stretching bands and javelin throughout the game to keep his shoulder loose.
And that brings up another good point, if your child isn't stretching before games, get them used to it early. Hell, even you as a parent need to stretch. It'll make you healthier. It takes care of your muscles even if you're not working out. For baseball players, make sure you stretch the rotator cuff out. Stick the elbow out to shoulder height and bend it at a 90 degree angle to the sky. Have someone hold your elbow in place while lightly pulling back on the wrist. Then flip and have the elbow bend so the forearm goes straight down. Do the same thing with someone pulling the wrist back while holding the elbow. It feels great.
The one thing I do offer though, is make sure you balance mechanics with raw energy. I see a lot of kids these days pitching purely how the pitching coach says and not letting a couple pitches go. I remember back when I played, we had kids unloaded fast fastballs. Today, a lot of kids throw soft. I somewhat feel like that's a disservice to the game. Let the kids get emotional and unload a fastball sometimes.
*suggest meaning that the kids are all but required to play on the teams, it's just not their coach that is managing them. They have parents that they ask to enforce the fastball/change up rule.
Footwork is absolutely vital. Running, strengthening the legs is also very important. Kids don't fully understand how important their legs are in baseball (both at the plate, and fielding/throwing.)
I just never understood the front, backstep, front. I'm also and advocate of proper running in the warm ups. High knees, butt-kicks, bounding, varying levels of sprints or jogs. Just that particular throwing footwork, I've never figured out the key why. It kind of feels right, I just never knew why.
I'm not sure I follow, what do you mean by front, backstep, front technique?
For a second, I thought you were referring to pitching from the full wind up, which I recently discovered doesn't really add to your velocity. I attended a coach's clinic conducted by this guy named Al Herback. His program is called "Teaching for Tomorrow" with the goal of getting youth in Canada back to baseball. (He also teaches in the States.) Interesting man, very knowledgeable guy.
This is just in warm ups. I see this at a lot of schools. Instead of just stepping and throwing, it's a three step process where it's step with front foot, step behind with the back foot, then step and throw.
Example: Guillen kind of does it here (:23 second in), but twice.
If that makes sense at least.
I see what you're saying. I kind of disagree with throwing stationary actually. You'll almost never make that throw that way, so why do it? Baseball to me is about repetition. Why do something that could put too much stress on your arm?
The coach I was talking about in the thread above actually recommends always taking a step with your back leg toward your front leg to give you that 'spring' so as to ensure you use your entire body on each throw. I don't disagree with it. But the double step is silly and could lead to bad habits.
it's hard for me to keep track of what you should be doing the right way but I'm glad that some of the posters brought up good points in the proper way to throw or pitch baseball.
Kids tends to think that you have all of your power from your arm which is completely false. Most of your power comes from your lower body as well as the rotational torque power from the upper body. If you do it correctly, your arm will go along for a ride and the arm speed will be faster. I would like to have pitcher to keep his shoulders closed(meaning facing the plate) as long as possible before open up to throw. You maximize velocity as well as the efficiency of pitching. Your arm will not do a lot of work, but your body merely does the bulk of the work.
I learned how to maximize the use of my legs with regards to my pitching mechanics, I gained about 7mph on my fastball.
But that was a few years ago and now the clicking in my shoulder is just a perfect, comforting reminder of the good ol' days.
on stretching and throwing hard at all time. I believe that throwing hard at all time will build arm strength and as long as you throw it with the right mechanics, you will throw even faster once you mature.
I used to do long toss from left/right center(the farthest from the foul line) to foul line and it really helps my arm strength/endurance. I was able to throw complete game without any problems. I once threw 10 innings in one game(before the pitch counts or inning counts were installed in little league) and never had any problem with my arm after the game.
Regarding stretching, I always use elastic bands to stretch out my arms and warm up my arm before I begin warming up throwing baseball. It's one of the most important part of the process of warming IMO.
I pitched and was allowed to throw 10-12 curveballs a game. I was a big kid and the stress on my arm was minimal. I believe I could have thrown twice as many breaking pitches as allowed but never questioned this quota. A coach needs to evaluate each pitcher to determine what they are capable of.
how about if you play hockey and you have pins in your shoulder holding it together cause some kid paul bunyan'd my shoulder with his stick. Think thats anygood for throwing a baseball. Im gonna hate having kids i can hardly throw a baseball without feeling a lot of pain. On second thought yes, i wish parents knew the dangers of this two of my good friends had to call it quits in college because they didnt throw properally.
actually really bad, i suck at spelling and grammar but, good news is i dont need to write in order to fly planes
when the future is so bright.
Best Regards,
wishitwasSeptember.
Speaking of being a parent, I became a Dad this past Monday. Not related at all to this thread, but I needed to brag a little. His name is Charles.
if your son ever wants to become a baseball player especially a pitcher, I would use this thread as a guide to keep your son healthy but also maximize his potential as a player. :D
I didn't think you'd go through with the name... What's his middle name?
With a name like that, he can't lose. e-cigars all around.
Everyone should listen to this. I am 16 years old and I always threw from a 3/4 arm slot since I can remember. It always worked though. I was consistently one of the better pitchers in the league in little league and one of the best pitchers in the Shelby County. I can no longer throw at all though. My second position was third base, and I am now only a first baseman because I cannot bare to throw anymore. It hurts my arm too bad. I dont care how good your little pitcher is pitching you need to teach him to throw the right way, even if he does not get as good results. I can no longer play my favorite position (third) because I cant throw anymore.
is fine, it's most likely the result of you putting stress on your elbows by other means of pitching windup like you open up too early or your leading elbow are above the shoulder, etc.
kids would realize that you can be a good pitcher just by changing up between a 4 seam and 2 seam. When I pitched, I didn't throw amazingly hard, but I had a ton of movement on my 2 seam. A 2 seam, 4 seam, and a change up will carry you pretty far. I also started throwing a slider in travel ball which was pretty effective.
Another thing that can help is using weights. Even if its low weight dumbbells or tying a 5 or 10 lb plate to a pvc pipe for wrist/forearm work. I see way too many kids not live up to their full potential because they don't believe weightlifting is required for baseball.
I threw almost exclusively 2 and 4 seamers plus a circle change up growing up until I was in high school. I started throwing curveball when I was a freshman(when I just turned 15 and I was physically more mature than most people at that age).
I love 2 seamers because it moves so much for me and I learned how to manipulate movements with the pressure from my fingertips. The umpire had a hard time calling my pitches because my fastball as well as curveball moves so much. I had either a lot of success or failures depending on the umpire. If they can call low ball as well as inside pitches strike, I tend to dominate because that's where I typically throw (low and away, high and inside). If I don't get that call, I struggle.
2 seamers is a great pitch for a kid to have because it gives you movement on your fastball without having to use a lot of curveballs.
I have heard it said, but I have no idea where, or if it's true, that a submarine pitcher, though rare, is much less likely to suffer a catastrophic arm injury.
Does anyone know if this is true, and if one should encourage this tendency in their children if they see hints of it?
knuckle ball pitchers tends to have longetivity because they don't put too much stress on their arm. Throwing overhand is considered to be an unnatural human movement whereas throwing underhand is more natural and less harder on the body.
I pitched throughout little league, and dropped baseball at about 14. I wasn't allowed to throw a curveball, and the general rule of thumb that I have heard with a curveball is the "starting puberty" thing. As in if you're not developed enough to actually lift weights, you shouldnt be throwing curves. Obviously this age varies for a lot of different people, but it's roughly 12-16.
I think that there are quite a few different pitches you can teach kids to not have them messing up their arms with curveballs. Someone above mentioned a 4 seam, 2 seam, and change. Those are ALL pitches you are supposed to throw the exact same way. Another one I'd recommend would be the splitfinger - if only in practice. It'll keep the pitcher happy to learn another pitch, and you throw it just like a fastball. I had "Puppy" hands and feet (they were full size, I was not... I wore a size 12 as a 5' 3" 6th grader) and I could throw a pretty good splitfinger fastball - looks just like a fastball, but dives. Just grip the ball slightly different, and throw it the same
The other pitch I learned that I actually threw in a game once (My dad always tried to get me to throw it, i finally did 0-2, 2 outs, nobody on. Right down the pipe, danced like crazy, and everyone was confused. the ump called it a ball. I'm still pissed 10 years later) was the Knuckleball. This was a lot of fun to throw around either just playing catch or in practice, you throw it slightly differently - you dont snap your wrist as much, but if you're looking to kill an hour at practice/not have your pitcher destroy his arm, teach the kids a K-ball.
(I throw it like this, but i grip with the thumbnail not the thumb)
Right there I've listed 5 pitches you can teach your pitcher - 4 that you throw the exact same, just with different grips. And none of those pitches will mess with underdeveloped arms if thrown correctly
Many great posts as well...
I think I will just have my son play first base.
A lot of little leagues rotate positions so everyone plays everywhere at least a little bit.
Good lord this thread makes me hate my dad. JK. But really, I threw so many curveballs as a kid, was never taught proper mechanics until high school and by then I couldn't pick them up. I did not feel at all comfortable unless I threw my way which was basically "RAGE THROW." I've always had a pretty good arm but i dont think I reached my potential due to lack of proper teaching. I always wondered why I couldnt throw in the 80's because I had by far the best arm on the team, yet not even the fastest fastball (mid 70's). I also had a lot of shoulder issues where when I pitched sometimes I would feel it slip out and back into place. Still happens when I play sports now and then. Very painful.
I never tried to master a changeup but I will definitly teach that to my children in the future. And no freakin curveballs till highschool. ( they are the most fun, but not worth it).
I will venture a guess that the number of guys struck out by change-ups is something SUBSTANTIALLY more than the number struck out by fastballs.
Throw it just like your fastball, just grip it like this
It's a great pitch that looks just like a fastball coming off the pitcher's hand
I teach kids that one and the Vulcan change. Whichever they are more comfortable with. Young kids can't get this much split, but it's still effective.
-Picture from stevenellis.com
I made it through Freshman, JV, and Varsity in highschool without being able to legitimatley hit an offspeed pitch.
You probably didn't find yourself hitting with 2 strikes very often, then. Either that or you had a keen eye!
I walked a ton and struck out my fair share, lol. Not to say I went 4 years without connecting on a curve or change. I just wasn't good at it. Never really was a great hitter. Luckily I was on a bad team ;).
Same... my defense was my stronger suit. I didn't strike out much, but I definitely wasn't a home run hitter either.
"Now, for all the kids listening at home....."