Stafford Baseball Performance - Pitching Mechanics: A case for movement development

Pitching Mechanics: A case for movement development

In recent years the baseball world has started to be more closed off to the idea of promoting sound and efficient deliveries. Throughout the college and professional game coaches are slowly starting to move away from encouraging athletes to work on mechanical movements. Instead there is a growing popular perception that “mechanics do not matter.” This idea promotes the notion that pitchers can throw hard and throw strikes despite having poor mechanics. Although there is some truth to this statement it is besides the point. My follow up to that this mindset is “Why wouldn’t a person want to improve upon what they have already built?” If you had a chance at throwing at a higher velocity while improving command and control, why wouldn’t an athlete take that chance? My goal for this article is not to bash modern day baseball coaches, but it is to start bringing back the need for teaching high quality technique.

When analyzing my pitchers I go through a specific protocol where I dissect each phase of their delivery. Different movements can have a significant effect on a pitchers overall command and velocity. When studying deliveries I break up the pitcher’s delivery into five phases and analyze two overall categories. Each phase has a direct correlation with the other syncing the body into one single connected athletic movement. I also tend to use my own personal phrases to give the athlete a simple visual of what we are trying to accomplish.

Phase 1: Setup & Initial Movement

Phase 2: Loading Phase

Phase 3:Syncing & Gliding Phase

Phase 4:Separation & Stabilizing Phase

Phase 5:Extension Phase:

Overall: Mobility

Overall: Arm Action

With all that said, teaching a pitcher to naturally adapt into an effective and efficient movement pattern is no easy task. In our program we use a variety of constrain drills and tools in order to promote efficient movements. A few of these methods may look strange or unusual to many baseball purists, but their results are very effective.

These methods are not your usual type verbal cues which are seen all throughout baseball. We all know the coach who sits on his bucket during a kids bullpen and yells phrases such as; bend your back, tall and fall, opposite and equal, stay closed, stay back etc. This is an extensive list of what I like to call coaching buzzwords. These phrases simply mean nothing and tend to mess with our pitchers heads more than help them.

Bottom line is there is no simple and correct way to throw a baseball. Every pitcher is going to have their own style to throwing a ball, but we do have is knowledge of what is most efficient in applying force to the baseball. A picture of this I like to use is the golf ball analogy. Imagine a golfer setting up to drive a golf ball off the tee box. The end goal is to make contact with the golf ball in the most powerful, consistent, and effective way in order to make the ball blast straight down the fairway. This same principle can be applied to pitching. Our end goal is to create a delivery which is powerful, consistent and effective in order to get the best result.

What I like to do is take the natural athlete bring it out into their delivery. We work around what the pitcher has already developed, instead of changing things like arm angle, stride length, and their leg kick. Pitching mechanics can often be made very difficult, but it is my goal to be able to communicate the complicated into an effective and efficient model for improvement.

Author,

Michael Stafford

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