EP95 – Proper Arm Slot For Pitchers, Yelling Instructions to Players & Can Youth Players Throw a Knuckleball?

What’s the right arm slot for a pitcher, and what should be considered in adjusting arm slot? Plus, is it good to yell instructions? Well, no. It’s not. And, should young pitchers be allowed to throw knuckleballs?

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 BASEBALL GODS 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

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EP95 Transcript – Proper Arm Slot For Pitchers, Yelling Instructions to Players & Can Youth Players Throw a Knuckleball?

You’re listening to the dear baseball gods podcast. I’m Dan Blewett. And on this show, you’ll learn advanced concepts in baseball. Explain simply I’m here to guide you on your baseball journey and help you paddle through. What’s now an ocean of misinformation, guru ism, an overly technical diamond babble.

Hey, welcome back to the dear baseball gods podcast. I’m Dan Blewett. And in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about arm angle and a couple of considerations to think about. Number two, we’ll talk about, uh, yelling to your kid on the field. Is this a good or bad thing to do? And number three, a question I got recently was, um, why do you dislike the knuckle ball as far as being like another pitch that a youth pitcher can throw.

Okay. So number one, arm angle, this is something that even pitcher, even parents who didn’t play, they can kind of pick up when something looks off with their kid’s arm angle. So I used to get parents, bring their kids in for lessons and they’d say, Hey, he kind of like slings the ball. He throws from kind of a weird sidearm angle compared to his teammates.

Can you take a look? And so here are the couple things that remember about arm angle. Number one, I do think everyone has an innate arm angle that is best for them just anatomically. So if you look at the major leagues, I think it represents a bell curve and you know, most things in life do. So if you look at the major leagues most guys, or so here that, let me back up here.

The arm angles, essentially there’s submarine, which is essentially just anything below sidearm. There’s sidearm. Then a little bit higher than that is low three quarters. So that’s not quite sidearm it’s so if you wouldn’t sidearm, Peter righty. And you said sidearm was nine o’clock. His arm is at nine on the clock.

Low three quarters is at about 10 o’clock and then three quarters, uh, is 11. And then over the top is like 1130. Maybe it’s just a little bit higher. The difference between three quarters and over the top are. I dunno, they’re vague at best today. Like I should, you know, being a baseball life or I should know the difference, but I don’t, I think they’re kind of used interchangeably.

I’m not sure there’s a big difference between three quarters and over the top, but I guess people would just say over the top is a little bit higher. Then three quarters. So if we go back to my sentiment about the bell curve, most pitchers throw at three quarters, which is about 11 o’clock or 10 30 arm slots, somewhere in there.

Again, it’s not like an exact science and like anyone takes out a ruler and says you’re three quarters, three quarters is quote unquote normal. Um, Over the top. It’s just a little bit higher than that. So you’re going to get more flattened out. Backspin you’re not going to be a, through a sinker as well.

Um, and then low three quarters is somewhere between sidearm and quote unquote normal. So it’s a little bit lower than normal. And I realized that all those were. Very vague, somewhat annoying descriptions, but it’s a system that doesn’t really have any objective measurements, but again, submarine side it three quarters, three quarters, and over the top.

So most pitchers are gonna be three quarters. Yeah. You get some guys that are over the top, like  good example. He threw it almost 12 o’clock arm slot. And he was very strange, but here’s the thing do to know about arm angle or arm slot, cause they’re also essentially entertaining angel, your shoulder tilt dictates your arm slot.

So even when Chris sail is throwing essentially sidearm. He has shoulders are creating the arm ankle, and they’re essentially following his arm the exact same way as a pitcher who throws three quarters. So what I mean by this is basically when you go down the mound, you’re about to throw your pitch, your front shoulders up when you land, you know, somewhat up and then your glove arm, your front shoulder is going to crunch down as your chest starts to move towards the plate.

And this sort of compressing of like the glove arm. Towards the rib cage and into your side. And of course your body is really more going towards your glove side. Then your glove side is coming back. Your glove side. It’s not really coming back, but anyway, when you land your left side, if you’re writing your glove side, it’s sort of compresses to tilt your shoulders.

And so if you’re three quarters, you’ll have a three quarter tilted shoulders. If you throw sidearm your shoulders, your shoulders will just be flat straight across. So this is important to know because you’re never going to have like flat. It’s not like one pitcher like Chris sail who throws from a low arm slot.

It’s going to have flat shoulders and then his lift his arm up higher. It doesn’t work like that. The shoulders have to go with it. So there’s always like this smooth line between the angle may between the shoulders and the arm. And so really just a body tilt is what changes the arm slot. So it’s not really the arm moving again.

If you just took Chris sail and tilted his photo, he would have it till it was at a three quarter arm slot. You’re he would look the same as anyone else. It’s just the shoulder tilt that determines the arm angle. That being said, I believe some pitchers is innately, have a comfort point at a lower or higher arm slot.

So if your son seems to have good mechanics, quote unquote, and throws him a lower and lower arm angle, then that’s probably what’s best for him. He’s probably figured out over time that. He just throws better. His body feels better. He produces power a little bit better from that lower arm slot. But again, for most people, they’re going to produce their most amount of power from the three quarter slot, because you do get a little more of like a sort of like over the, your like catapulting over your front side a little more when you’re higher over the top.

So it seems anecdotally you can get a little more power throwing higher over the top. Then you can throwing sidearm. And of course we do know that to be true or no one throws 95 miles per hour submarines. So there is something to that. It does seem to be harder to throw at a high velocity. The lower your arms slot gets below like low three quarter.

So again, uh, this is, and that works itself out on its own. So if your son throws sidearm, it’s not to say that you have to pull the panic switch and her the, I guess you wouldn’t pull, you’d push a panic switch, but you might pull the soundly alarm. I don’t know, idioms aside, basically what we need to do is figure out does it, he throw from a lower arm slot because his mechanics are off, which is definitely the case sometimes.

Or does he throw from a lower arm slot because that’s, where is his body’s comfortable? And as a pitcher coach, you can figure this out by making some of these mechanical tweaks. So like, if, if your front shoulder is low, as you get on the Mount or your F your weight shift is poor. Then what tends to happen is you’ll throw them a lower arm slot because your body can’t use the front side to sort of catapult up and over top of the ball.

So then it will compensate by spinning. And that’s the only way you can really produce power to, to, to finish the task and make the throw, make the pitch. So, so a lot of young pitchers who have bad mechanics, where they fall forward, they have a low front shoulder. They tend to throw more sidearm than they normally would if they had better mechanics.

So once I correct their mechanics, then I feel like I get a glimpse for the first time of what their real quote unquote arm slot would be. Sometimes you can make those corrections in kids still want to throw from a lower arm slot. And that’s just sort of an indicator for you as a coach or a parent saying, okay, this is probably just like where his body works best and that’s fine.

What you don’t want to do is coach a kid into a higher, over. A higher over the top arm slot, because you feel like that’s just like where pitchers should be. His body might not be comfortable that way. And usually when you try to force a person to move in a way their body doesn’t want to naturally move, they end up with pain or dysfunction or injuries or just frustration because it just doesn’t work free.

Well, athletes are, we’re good at figuring out how their body moves for them. That’s why every pitching motion is a little bit different. Every swing is a little bit different. Every golf swing, a little bit different. So you don’t want to put them in a box where they’re forced to move, like someone that’s not them.

And then, um, Basically, you just need to figure out over time, how to get a good idea of, is this arm slot caused by poor mechanics or is this arm slot them? Is it their natural body’s choice? And again, I think once they get some pitching instruction and they’ve worked things out, then you’ll start to get a glimpse of what their natural arm slot is.

Okay, let’s talk about yelling to your kid while they’re out at the field. This is pretty simple. Don’t yell instructions to your son on the mound, in the batter’s box in the field. It helps literally nothing, and there should be a separation between their coaching staff and the parents. So you’re their parent.

When they’re with you, when they’re at the ball field, they’re not really your property anymore. They’re the property of your coaching staff. So his coach can yell at him. His, uh, his teammates can yell to him. The umpire can yell to him, but parents can’t yell to him. You have no business yelling instructions.

You have no business being helpful, say, Oh, like, you know, don’t forget to. Whatever you do, like, Oh, throw him a slider. Like you should pitch in, like he’s looking away. Those things are helpful. I think they always come from a place of wanting to see them succeed, especially when maybe you played some baseball yourself or whatever.

Um, however, the opposite is also true. There’s a lot of parents who don’t know much about baseball at all, who yell lots of advice. That’s often not even good advice. Um, A lot of times players can’t hear what you’re yelling. A lot of times they can either way it’s going to distract them. And now they’re wondering, well, mom and dad is yelled this.

Whereas coach said to do that, whereas I think I should do X you’re just going to create cognitive dissonance or you’re going to second guess the coaching staff, or you’re just going to throw him off his game plan. Um, even if your advice is sound, it’s better just to treat baseball like a recital and just let your kid play.

Just cheer for them. Root the team on, be supportive, clap, do all that stuff. But yelling instructions is just unnecessary. Plus it’s youth sports, like who cares if your son doesn’t get the message to pitch inside on a guy, um, who cares? Like it’s not, it’s not a big deal, you know? Um, Most of these things can wait till the ending’s over.

And most of these things, if the kid doesn’t do it or does do it, it doesn’t change the outcome of the game very much. You know, you might say, Oh, I’ll pitch him away. Well, he might miss his spot regardless. Even if he tries to take your advice in and pitch away, it’s not going to make that much difference most of the time, because there’s so much.

Randomness in baseball. So obviously I don’t have to sum this up too much. Just don’t yell instructions to your player on the field. 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.

Mmm. All right. Lastly, um, I used to get this question from players. I coached quite a bit. They’d say, Hey, Dan, I, I throw a fast ball, change up and a knuckle ball. I’m like, no, you don’t. You throw a fast one on a change up. They’re like, wait, And what about my knuckle ball? I’m like, well, your knuckle ball is not, is not, is trespassing.

It’s not allowed in these parts anymore. And kids asked me why. And I said, well, the answer is this, are you going to be a knuckle ball pitcher in college? And they’re like, I don’t know. Well, the answer is, there are no knuckleball pitchers in college, essentially. Here’s your knuckleball. Pitchers are.

They’re guys that got drafted, who made it somewhere in minor league baseball, didn’t make it said, Hey, I’ve got a good knuckle ball. Can I give it a shot? And they’re like, okay. We know you, we know you’re a good athlete. We know you’ve very good baseball instincts. We drafted you. We put some money into you.

I’m sure. We’ll give you a year to sort this out and see if there’s something there or yeah, we’ve seen you throw a knuckle balls and just screwing around and pregame or like whatever. And we know you have a good one. That’s actually, what was the story? My friend, Zach Clark. He was well known to throw a terrifying knuckle ball, just playing catch with guys and the Baltimore Orioles system.

And then when, um, his time in the major leagues, uh, came to an end, they said, we want to convert you into a knuckleballer otherwise we’re going to let you go. Would you want to do this? We know that you have a great uncle ball and he said, sure, I’ll give it a shot. That’s that’s how this plays out. So. I don’t know that any college has scholarship money for a knuckleballer.

Um, I’m sure there’s like a junior college somewhere or a small school that has a dedicated knuckleballer because a lot of times they need to fill roster for spots on teams that are pretty low level and don’t have an overwhelmingly good pitching staff. Uh, but in general, there is no career path for it.

Twelve-year-old to become a big league knuckleballer except going the traditional route. And then sort of converting at some point that’s unfortunately the way this works. So when kids want to throw their knuckle ball in a 12 year game or a 13 year game, I explained them that they’re just wasting their time and my time because they’re focusing and spending.

Effort and energy and repetitions on a pitch that is going nowhere for them. It’s like learning to ride an oxen. It’s like, are you going to take an action? So the school are you gonna ride your ox to work? It’s like, no, don’t legislate leave your ox in the field. It’s a very dumb analogy, but you’re just, it’s archaic technology.

That’s not going to go anywhere. So when you’re wasting reps and pitching in a game with a knuckle ball, you could have been pitching with your change up, or you could have been focusing on learning a curve ball or locating your fastball better. Instead you threw knuckle balls just to get by and get some outs in 13.

You baseball when it provides no real longterm benefit. I mean, what the longterm benefit is, throw all the stuff that you’re going to throw. We’ll learn to be a good pitcher, learn to command both sides of the plate. Throw your fast ball. And those are all skills that the more you practice them, the more they will pay off for you in the long term.

Whereas there is no legitimate payoff for throwing a knuckle ball in 12 or 13. You baseball except for winning a 12 or 13 you baseball game and who cares? No one cares. Right? So hopefully that makes sense. I’m sure I’m reaching someone out there whose son throws a knuckle ball, some percentage of the time, just a screw around now.

If you’re playing rec baseball. And you don’t have big aspirations or you just want to screw around and have fun and do it. So be it, just understand that it, it will have a negative effect on your career because you’re taking time away from doing something productive, which is working on your command and other pitches that will be with you and that you will be judged on when you’re trying to make your varsity team or your college team.

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 through the links in the show notes and save 20% with code baseball gods, just for being a listener.

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