EP94 – Best Pitching Repertoire – Dos and Donts; 80%Rule; Is it Okay to Show Emotion on the Field?

Whats the best pitching repertoire for a high-spin fastball pitcher? Should he add a sinker, slider or curveball? What’s best? Dan also discusses the 80% rule of pitch development, and whether or not it’s okay to show emotion on the baseball field, such as watching or pimping a home run.

To submit a question for the Q&A segment, email a voice recording to Dan at hello@danblewett.com. Want to support the show? Buy a copy of Dear Baseball Gods on Kindle or Paperback, or listen on audiobook. Or, pick up Pitching Isn’t Complicated, his advanced-but-understandable pitching manual. Enroll in one of Coach Dan’s online pitching courses or his mental skills course. Use code BASEBALLGODS to save 20% on any course, just for being a listener. Sign up for Dan’s Email list and get a free pitching checklist, and follow up with him on the interwebs: YouTube Channel | Twitter | Danblewett.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Transcript EP94 – Best Pitching Repertoire: Dos and Donts; 80%Rule; Is it Okay to Show Emotion on the Field?

welcome back. This is dear baseball gods episode 94. I’m Dan Blewett. And today we are going to cover whats the best pitching repertoire. So we won’t get into every little thing, but we’re going to get into a couple of different options. I put out a Twitter poll and I thought it was kind of interesting in our 90-second mindset.

We’ll talk about it. 80% rule, which is a rule I made up up for pitch development and then our Q and a portion we’ll talk about, well, is it. The right thing to do to show emotion, or is it okay to show emotion on the field? And that includes stare downs flips, all that sort of stuff. All right. So for pitching repertoire.

So what I asked Twitter, and I did cover this more thoroughly in a YouTube video, cause I’m not going to get into all this stuff. I asked, say you had a high three quarter hard throwing high spin rate, four seamer type of pitcher. So a guy that can really spin a four seam fastball, um, If you had that guy and he needed two other pitches and you could just grab him out of a vending machine.

Would you rather give him a, a in the combination we’re either cutter or sinker plus curve, ball, or slider, all possible combinations of those two pitches. Um, and this is an interesting thing to discuss because when looking for a repertoire, it takes a good amount of time. This is something I didn’t figure out until I was in my mid to late twenties, what you do well and what you don’t do well and how you should shape your repertoire to suit.

And can you shape your repertoire to suit? Like, can you even learn a new pitch? Well, um, everyone should be able to, but maybe you’re just not good at throwing a different type of pitch. Um, and then how do you pitch with that repertoire? So for an example, I was a high spin rate for seamer guy. I learned my whole life.

Guys told me that my fastball seemed to speed up, that it seemed to rise. And then in pro ball, that seemed to even get better. And to the point where I could just throw at the belt all day and just get fly balls and popups and swings and misses, I got, never got hurt up in the zone and I would get hurt down the zone where it seemed like my ball was going to be low and it would almost rise up into guys bats.

So I started to put this together and I learned all right. I can be successful up in the zone. Um, and how do I shape my other stuff to suit? And I threw a curve ball, which fit that perfectly. Cause curve balls start high and break low. If your fastball is always high, they tend to tunnel together and mask each other.

Um, and then I threw a change up, which fit kind of like I was okay at throwing it. Um, it had a lot of movement, but it was tough to throw for strikes for me. And then I had a cutter, which is also like a high spin kind of pitch, which was something that hitters would put into the ground. If I needed a ground ball and could get them off my four seam and I could pitch it down the zone a little bit more with that pitch.

So that repertoire, I think makes a good amount of sense, given what I could do and what I couldn’t do, what I couldn’t do. Was apply a low spin rate to a fast ball. I was not good at making a fastball sink for the exact reasons that I could make it kind of rise. And of course it doesn’t actually rise, but that was kind of like the effect.

The reason I could be successful zone was kind of the reason that I wasn’t good at doing the opposite. Like you’re good at you’re good at spinning the ball fast with your hands and your wrist. I don’t know how I do that. It’s just like sort of innate quality. And then you’re good at being through the very, through the center of the ball so that the spin axis is very clean.

It’s a very good backspin. It’s not, doesn’t have a mixture of side spin in there or gyro spin. So when you’re good at those things, it’s hard to sort of. Then suddenly from one pitch to the next, not do that, you throw a really good four seamer that seems like it’s rising and then suddenly throw a sinker that does all the opposite things. This is why for a four-seam type pitcher, their best pitching repertoire is probably not both a high spin four seamer and sinker.

It’s not easy to do, do that. When you’re throwing a fast ball, then going to a slider, then going to a curve ball. You’re throwing the pitch completely different. So it’s not like you’re asking yourself to do something backwards. Right. But when you’re throwing a fast ball one way and then trying to throw the fast ball the other way, it’s really tough.

Whereas with a cutter it’s very much like a four seamer. It’s just slightly tilted and there’s just some dexterity that you need, but the two pitches are very similar. So if you throw a four seamer, well, you’re a good candidate to throw a cutter pretty well, but the same is probably not true about the sinker.

So. As players and as coaches and as parents, your goal is to figure out over time. This is what a pitching coach helps you with is to figure out what kind of fastball do I throw? What is my arm slot and how does my arm slot interact with all this? So if you’re a lower arm slot kid, so a three quarters or below then four seamers, not as much going to be for you, um, because it’s not going to have that sort of like.

Rising effect that a good four seamer does where it seems like it will. It definitely does drop less on its way, the play because of the backspin. So. If you’re not going to get that effect because your arm slot is lower because then the tilt of the ball will be more sideways angled then, you know? Yeah.

You’re probably better off with a two seamer, which is going to have a chance to actually move in the direction of your lower arm angle. So if you say, okay, I’m a lower arm slot guy. So a two seamer is probably my best fit. Then let’s tinker with the grip and see if we can make the ball sink. That is going to make the most sense for you because you don’t really see that many sidearm guys climbing the ladder on the hitters.

Cause it doesn’t fit very well. They’re better running the ball in on guys’ hands, throwing sliders that break to the other side of the plate and trying to sink the ball if they can. So that’s one thing is your arm slot and what type of fast ball you throw then if you figure that out, all right, I’m a lower arm side guy and I throw a sinker.

What pairs well with that while curve ball does not because you have to get over top of the curve ball and the curve ball has got to start high and then break low. Whereas your sinker is going to start low and then sink lower. So those don’t make a lot of sense going together, but obviously a slider does where a slider is going to break one way out of your low arm slot, and the sinker is going to break the other way.

That’s going to make sense. And then if you had to change up to that repertoire, sinker and change up, go the same direction. Slider goes the other direction. Everything’s down the zone and that’s the kind of pitcher that you are. You’re a pitcher that succeeds and thrives down the zone with a three pitch mix, the brakes kind of opposite each other, all off the same initial starting tunnel or trajectory.

Uh, if you’re a higher over the top guy, you potentially have more options. So you could throw a high fastball, um, and then also throw a slider and guys will still swing and miss it. Like you don’t have to, you can pitch up in the zone and throw a slider. Like we see it all the time in the big leagues.

That’s what most hard throwers are. They’re fast fastball and slider, more so than fastball curveball. So obviously you don’t have to be. A curve ball guy to, to compete in the top of the zone because a good fast ball on the top of the zone speaks for itself. Even if it’s not tunneling constantly with your slider, which is always going to start lower and, and, and even lower.

So again, these are things that you’d hone over time. That you need to just be aware and sort of have people in your corner who can say, Hey, what kind of pitcher do you think I am? What do you think I do well? And this is something coaches and parents should be asking your kids on the car, ride home. What kind of pitcher are you?

What do you, how do you, how do you get outs? I ask you this all the time and I get a blank stare. And then I have to say, well, I’ll wait. Like when you’re, when you’re doing well, what are, what is it that you do to get pit, to get hitters out? And then they’ll start to, when they know they’re going to be on the hook and they’re gonna have to answer me.

And they’re like, well, when I get ahead, I’m like, all right, that’s good. Good answer. Valid answer. Well, when I hit the, when I can hit the corners. Okay. Do you blow the ball by hitters up in the zone? Uh, no, not really. Do you get ground balls? Yeah. Okay. Well, where do you hit ground balls? Outer outer part of the plate, middle of the plate.

Inner part of the plate. Like how do you get those ground balls? What do you do? How do you earn them? Do you have a pitch that gets guys to swing and miss? No, not really. Okay. Well then, so you’re always getting weak contact. Yeah. Okay. Well, can we add a pitch? So we’ll help you get swings and misses? Yeah, that would probably be good.

Okay. Cause everyone needs an outpitch. If you, if you can develop one, um, and an outfit is just something you can throw when you really need a guy to swing and miss and strike out. So again, these are all big questions and trying to understand yourself as a pitcher and the more you have these conversations young, the more you can start to hone the repertoire and the pitching strategy.

That’s good for you.

All right. And the 92nd mindset today let’s cover the 80% rule, which is something I made up. But basically when I would do lessons with kids, um, my goal was always to teach them some sort of new pitch that, or improve a pitch that they already had in their repertoire. Cause most kids, when they’re doing pitching lessons, they don’t have a full.

Filled out quality repertoire. Maybe they have a fast ball and a curve ball, but they don’t have a change up. And I got to teach them that, or, you know, they just have a fast ball and they’re pretty young and they need to learn all of it, whatever. And so when I teach an off speed pitch, the goal is to first explain what it is that they’re trying to accomplish.

So I try to explain the spin of the pitch, the release of the pitch, the speed differential of the pitch, what it’s used for, but really we’ll cover like the use of it a lot later. But those, those are the big things. What you’re trying to accomplish, how we want to spin the ball, what the physics of it are like, just so they have an understanding of like what they’re trying to accomplish when I tell them, Hey, that ball had this kind of spin.

That was no good. They understand why that wasn’t good. So after that, it’s about finding drills that they can do that. Eliminate variables. So eliminating variables means a lot of young pitchers have problems throwing off speed stuff because their mechanics stink when your mechanics are bad, your off-speed speed stuff suffers very, very much.

And basically what I mean by that is your hand position has to be very consistent to get to the front of a breaking ball, to get to the front of a slider. To get your hand in the right position to throw a good change up. And if your mechanics are constantly dragging you off that spot, because you fly open too soon or your weight leaks forward, or you rush, or you fall down the mound or whatever, then your hand is the last thing that if your mechanics are bad before that, your hand is never going to be in the same position twice.

And it’s gonna be tough to get your hand into the right spot to spin the ball properly. So. We have to use slower drills from shorter distances that sort of isolate and take away some of the body. So I’ll have them keep their hips square to me where their hips can’t move, but they can only rotate through upper body and, you know, break their hands normally or whatever.

And that eliminates some of the extra movement that makes it easier to get their hand in a consistent position so that the nanny can really learn. The spin of the pitch. They can only focus on, again, it eliminates mechanical variables so that their hand is more of the variable at play. It’s easier for them to get their hand in the right spot when less of their body’s moving.

So when we do that, I look for the 80% rule at this point. So if we’re doing a drill on the kids, 40 feet away, and he’s throwing me curve balls or change ups, just working on the spin of it, just working on the hand, action, all that stuff. When he can spin eight out of 10 of them. That are pretty good. And of course not perfect, but like pretty good.

Like they’re doing it right. Then we can start to move them back and add velocity. But at that point, if we were to say, all right, now, jump on the mountain and pitch speed with that new pitch, they will zero of them properly probably. Or maybe it just be a crap shoot and just be randomly like one’s good or two or five or good out of, out of a hundred, whatever.

So basically. Every time you start to add velocity when learning a new pitch, your co, um, your, your compliance is going to go down. So how well you can actually throw it properly is going to go down. So say you’re throwing it 50 miles per hour from 50 feet. And you’re throwing eight out of 10 of them are pretty good or four out of every five, same thing.

Also, okay. Let’s go back and throw a little harder. So now you’re throwing 55 miles per hour at 55 feet. And now you can only throw five out of 10 that are good. The other five are spinning kind of bad. That’s pretty normal. So then what we’ll do because you mastered 50 miles per hour at 50 feet, as we’ll say, we’ll stay here at 55 miles per hour until you get back up through my, you know, I’m going to coach you.

I’m going to give you feedback. And now as you get back up to saying, okay, Four out of every five are pretty good. Now at 55 miles per hour, now you’re ready to graduate to the next step, which is okay, let’s go 60 feet. I’d say 60 miles per hour. And then of course at that distance, you’re at full distance.

So we’ll say, okay, now we’ll go 65, then 70, then 75, then 80, whatever your full velocity is until you’re pitching at full speed with the new pitch. But every time you back up or, and it’s not really backing up, cause obviously there’s a finite distance. Every time you add velocity, your compliance with that.

Hand position and the mechanics of it are, is going to go down your ability to do it properly is going to decrease. And then you’ve got to stay there until you get feedback and get coaching and you feel, and throw them correctly to where right now I’m doing 80%. Sometimes 70%, 70 or 80% of them are about correct.

Now I can go back. Otherwise you’re just spinning your wheels. If, if one out of every two is good or if one out of every three is good, you’re never going to learn it that way. So that in a nutshell is my 80% rule when developing a new pitch. Yeah. Alright. Now it’s time for our listener Q and a portion of the show.

If you have a question you’d like answered on the show, please email a voice recording to hello@danblewett.com.

All right. Lastly, in the Q and a portion. Um, here’s a common question. Is it a bad thing to show emotion on the field? Obviously, a majorly baseball players are being more fiery than ever. They’re showing more their personalities. They’re watching home runs more, their bat flipping more. Um, and then you also get pitchers who are reacting to this.

Like Madison Bumgarner recently was getting shelled, throwing 85 mile per hour beach balls over the plate and staring down hitters who were kind of watching their home runs a little bit. And, uh, a lot of people on Twitter were saying, man, this is tired. Like Madison Bumgarner needs a stop, staring everyone down.

It hits a home, run off of him and he needs to just pitch better. And I tend to agree with that. Um, but here’s the thing. Is it a bad thing to show emotion? Excessive emotion is the big now staring at a home run nowadays doesn’t mean that much anymore back five years ago, 10 years ago. And beyond certainly if a hitter stared at home, Ryan, it was like, Hey pitcher, I’m letting you know that I got you.

And I’m trying to show you up. That was the intent of if you did that 20 years ago, for sure. Because no one did that. Everyone hit the wall, hit the ball and they put their head down and they ran. And that was how it was today. When you watch a guy, hit a home run and watch it for a second and then start to run.

He’s not saying, Hey, screw you pitcher. I’m here to show you up and ball. That’s not, that’s not what he’s doing. It’s it’s not that way anymore. Maybe once in a while, if there’s something blood, like there was a pitcher guy or a guy got hit by a pitch. And then I got spiked a guy. And then that guy came out, you know, got whatever later.

And there was just like a back and forth in the game. And then a guy hits a bomb in a pivotal split situation. Sure. There might be some, like, I got you, but typically that’s not what it is anymore. It’s just a display of like flair of emotion. If you want to call it that of just like. I got one. I just got that one and I’m going to watch it for a second, then I’m going to run.

And so to interpret that as like, you’re constantly showing you up, like Bumgardner is, is just misguided. Like he’s choosing to be offended by it essentially at this point. And so my bigger point here is that. In the game. It’s changing a little bit. Yeah. It’s okay to show a little bit of emotion, but it’s also unnecessary to, to watch every home run that you hit.

There is still something to be said about being a professional about acting like you’ve done it before. And of course it useless. You don’t hit many home runs. You hit maybe two a year, maybe hit one a year, maybe any until you’re like kind of big in high school. I didn’t many home runs as a youth kid.

And so at that point, if you hit, if you hit a bomb and you’re sure it’s going out like dead shore, I mean, like, you can watch it for a minute if you want, but you can’t watch it. And then, and not go out or you can’t watch it and it hits the fence. You can’t watch. And then it gets caught. You’re not really going to hit home runs that you’re going to know her home runs until you’re probably a lot older.

And, you know, guys in the big leagues, like they know what a home run is and what a home run is. Not even when it barely goes out. Like they just, you just sort of know. Um, and so that’s part of it, but basically. Like this whole thing is stare downs. And should you let the kids play? And should you show emotion?

I think you should be yourself, but when emotions are to get in the way, like you’re trying to be extra dramatic when you hit a home run, like you’re trying to, to, to bring attention to yourself, that’s when you need to bring it back again. Like I think if I was in the game today and I was a pitcher. And a guy hits a bomb off me and stares at it.

It’s like, look, it’s not a statement towards me. It’s a statement that he’s making to himself. And he hit a home run, like big deal. If I want to go pimp my strikeouts and like do something every time I strike a guy out, I could. And I’m going to choose not to do that personally. Um, but I could, and it wouldn’t really be about the hitter.

It’d just be about me. Right. And that’s fine too. So I think it’s just good to find a balance cause too much emotion starts to make you look bad. Like you’re too concerned about your image and you’re insecure. Um, and that’s a big part of your game. And coach is not gonna like that. Coaches alike guys with professionalism and they like guys that play the game, quote unquote the right way.

But that being said, like the generation of, of young players today is different than my generation than any other generation before that. And they’re just a little more emotional group and they want to have fun and they probably have a lot more stressors in their life to be perfectly honest, where they’re getting crap on social media.

They’re flooded. They’re constantly on camera. Like even when they’re not pros, like everything they do is watched everything they tweet is watched. It’s a tough time to be a young person. And if. They’re Elisa’s baseball and they just want to show a little bit of their happiness and their excitement when they do something well, you know, on the problem with it.

But at the same time, it’s just still, always going to be about finding that balance.

Well, that’s it for today’s episode of dear baseball gods, if you enjoy the show and would like to support me while improving your baseball IQ by one of my books were enrolled today in an online pitching course. Sign up for any of my courses to the links in the show notes and save 20% with code baseball gods, just for being a listener.

My online courses walk you through pitching mechanics, strategy, learning new pitches and mental skills training. There. Start to finish an amazing solution for pitchers, parents and coaches who want step by step instruction pitching isn’t complicated. My first book is a thorough pitching manual with strategy pitch, script, mechanics, mindset, routines, and other high level pitching concepts.

Not sure what your son is in for if he falls in love with the game, dear baseball gods, the book is my memoir, a story of growing up in the game, persevering through injuries and setbacks and struggling with identity. When I finally had to clean out my locker by a copy today via the links in the show notes available in paperback, Kindle, and audio book, if you just can’t get enough of my voice, be sure to subscribe to my weekly email list where you’ll get updates on all my new videos and episodes.

Nearly 4,000 people get my emails and you should to sign up through the link in the show notes. Lastly, who do you know, who can use some good advice? Please share this podcast with a friend, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to my YouTube channel where you’ll find this podcast and hundreds of baseball, instructional videos.

As always hustle and stay pious I’m Dan Blewett and I’ll see you next time. .