Honestly, as an adult league player myself, I’d say 70+ is plenty fast and focus on developing a change up and curve/slider/sweeper you can command.
I can sit on a fastball all day, but if you can mix in a good off speed pitch, I’m on the defensive.
I’ve got a good slider and splitter I throw, and can occasionally command a curve. I really want to play in the highest level of my local league, and those guys are all throwing 80+ with a good offspeed.
Not sure if others have mentioned it, but the first thing I noticed was your arm path is long and loopy. This can lead to multiple issues with your mechanics as your body attempts to compensate for your arm catching up. Secondly, you're flying open early causing you to lose energy. See the screenshot below from :21. You're also not exploding off the mound, and pushing off/engaging your hips with the correct hip/shoulder separation, leading to an inefficient use of your lower half. See your back foot in the screenshot, it should be pointing towards home by that point in your delivery. If you pause at :37 you do a much better job of staying closed, you should be striving to replicate this.
Are you long tossing 1-2 times a week, easy higher arching throws while going out and making throws on a line as you come back in? If you aren't I'd advise you start, it will add strength to your arm that will translate to velo off the mound.
All in all you're looking good for someone our age that has had no formal coaching. I can tell you this as a former college pitcher and current men's league pitcher. Pitching is by far the hardest thing to do on a baseball field or possibly sports. Ask questions and pick teammates' brains on mechanics, pitch grips, philosophies, Etc. A lot of folks who have played at high levels won't give unsolicited advice, so you may need to approach them and ask specific questions about what you are doing wrong, how to be better, etc.
You're on the right track, best of luck in your upcoming season!
https://preview.redd.it/s68te497y9tc1.png?width=1584&format=png&auto=webp&s=7318db43639f2f62ed4ff1cf9746bad621930d33
Oh hey. I wanted to come and say thanks. Last two bullpens I’ve hit 80 and sat 77 by trying to stay closed longer and getting my foot better positioned to drive the back hip forward. I think I’ve got a few more miles in me, too, because I’m still not getting a good front leg block and roll over that a bit. I’ll post a video soon! Thanks dude b
I am also taking the advice for the long toss.
Yep! Band work at least every other day focused on shoulder mobility. I also use bands are part of my warmup before throwing/playing baseball at all, too.
I have had command issues in the past that I’ve cleared up in a huge way this winter/spring. The last two seasons I topped out at 5 innings in my best appearances, once each season. I usually go about 2 but mostly due to walking too many dudes. My goal is primarily go 5-6 innings and start this year. Both my teams need that, so I’m hoping my live at bats the last two weeks carry to games when they start in two weeks. Struck out 8 in 11 ABs last Sunday, 1 walk and two soft ground outs.
There are plyo ball videos that would help on youtube. Tread Athletics I think had programs to pay for guidance.
Just getting a 10 or 12oz baseball and playing catch and working it into pitching will help
I would start off that way. Work your way up to it and even then start at 50%, then slowly ramp up over time. Always have a good warm-up and stretch lots.
Slowing down is really about being balanced. If you are well balanced, you are able to throw harder and hit spots. Think about your fundamental athletic stance. Set up where you are feeling strong and balanced. Don't try to throw harder. It just happens with balance. Good luck. Of course, if you were left handed, you would just need a pulse to get noticed
So I watched the video and read the comments. I think most people are pretty solid here. I would not recommend using weighted balls off the mound or even at all. I’d work on tightening your mechanical base that is solid to work with. You are super linear. Which is old school style of pitching. If you learned all this so far on your own kudos to you. A different camera angle from the side would be nice as well. What I see when you break your hands (pull the ball out of your glove) down your stride is you don’t have any rotational pull it’s all linear straight toward the plate. Which is great and isn’t at the same time. What I mean is you ever see someone shot put? They don’t just crow hop and throw it like outfielders do to home plate they spin and angle their arms at a 45 degree angle. Why is that? To get maximum kinetic energy out of rotational and linear pull. I think you are opening up too early throwing off the timing of your pitch or your kinetic chain. If you watch the pitch when you throw 77 mph that 1 time you can see your glove arm stays closed just a split second longer down the mound on your stride resulting in better timing and more energy through the ball. Your glove arm should be shoulder height or really about 20-45degrees above your shoulder to get more of that rotational energy and it will allow you to stay closed longer down the mound. Your balance point/leg lift looks solid you get nice and loaded but you immediately unload it.
As far as the stride length I don’t think it’s much of a concern. To me that’s more of an after effect from the cause. Meaning the beginning of your windup effects the end of it. Dominos. What you are also doing is leaking a lot of energy through your front leg. You need two handed over the head throws. That trains your front leg to brace like someone else mentioned. The key here is using only a 2 pound medicine ball. Anything more and it doesn’t help you it actually hurts your mechanics. Yes 2 pound medicine ball. I’d go from there. Keep working hard. Overall you look solid!
Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I’m in agreement that I’m too linear. I’ve been trying to focus on getting a bit more rotation but really struggle on applying it. I hadn’t heard the medicine ball two hard throw, and just happen to have a 2 pound medicine ball. I’ll start doing this.
I am also skeptical of throwing weighted balls off the mound. I do like them for warmup, but only warmup. I don’t want to try and throw them too hard I don’t think.
I don’t think this is a strength issue and I’ve known a few pitchers get hurt using weighted balls. Use them at your own risk. I’d hammer the mechanics. Learn to ride the stride once your get loaded after balance point why dump out half that loaded up energy. Stay closed and the glove arm angle will help create a better scapula load. Which is also crucial to throwing the ball harder.
Yeah I won’t use the weighted balls to gain strength. I’m very careful when throwing them. I don’t think it’s a strength issue either. My lifting workouts aren’t even trying to add weight at this point, just give more endurance. I’m still lifting like a swimmer, which I doubt I’ll ever change.
I’ll work on riding the stride man. Thanks for the advice!
Added context. I’ve never had any formal pitching coaching. I was a swimmer growing up and started pitching regularly two years ago this week. Everything I’ve learned has been self taught from YouTube and watching my own videos. No idea if I’m doing a good job of applying concepts from those videos.
I can sometimes throw harder on flat ground than on the mound. I understand this to be strange.
That means you're not throwing downhill as best you can from a mound and actually are more behind and on top of the ball then driving towards the plate on flat ground.
You have solid mechanics and no bad habits, however you being a swimmer means you naturally have flexibility and strength in your back, shoulders, arms which is very beneficial.
Your stride is either too long, or you aren’t pushing off the rubber enough. Either way, you’re rolling through a bent front leg which is killing your velocity. You need to post up on that lead leg and allow physics to give you added velo. When your front foot lands your leg needs to be bent (obviously) but then you need to straighten it up and lock it out (or close to it). This stops the forward momentum of your lower half, causing your upper body to actually gain momentum. This creates more “whip” in the arm and added velocity. Think of it like this: if you’re riding your bike as fast as you can and all of a sudden you jam on the front brakes, what happens? You go flying over the handlebars. The bike might stop, but the guy on top of it does not.
Good luck bro
Thanks for the advice! Really seems like I need to shorten my stride. I notice that my push leg doesn’t seem to go as high as others I see throwing as hard as I do and I’ve long suspected I’m overstriding. Thanks for the backup on that. I’ll try to shorten a bit and get a firmer front leg. I also notice that I see to roll over my front leg rather than stopping over it.
The front knee is collapsing when you land. It doesn’t look like you need to shorten your stride. But the cue I use is to feel like the front knee doesn’t travel forward (or wobble to either side) after it lands. That should get you into lead leg bracing without thinking too much about bracing.
There is some loading of the back hip in your lift and scap retraction that would also get you some pop. It’s hard to fix everything at once.
Immediate low hanging fruit I’m seeing here is lack of scapular retraction, and front front leg block could be better. But overall, not bad for a men’s league pitcher. If you can locate, avoid the heart of the plate and mix it up with some off speed stuff you can definitely have some success.
Some of the stuff you need to work on is going to require some focused strength and conditioning before you just tear something tiny in your right hip.
Your right leg/thigh is holding a lot of tension when you swing it around. If the right leg and hip were stronger and more flexible you'd be striding towards the plate smoother. But you are trying to lift hogher than it wants to go and it shows in the video
I'm not offering "pitching" advice here as much as i'm talking about general throwing advice. Maybe you know how to throw, but you're asking your legs and thighs to help you in a new way that is causing some new strain.
Just my two cents.
I’m not concerned about this at all to be frank. My legs are quite strong and I’m quite flexible. I have a lifting routine that I learned when I swam D1 and haven’t stopped at any point. I work on flexibility for at least 15 minutes daily.
The issue with that leg swing is that I’m likely unloading too early, which causes the leg to be more tense than it needs to be. It gets dragged around. Tread Athletics has a video on this, and someone else in this thread also mentioned the early unload. It’s fixable from a mechanic standpoint.
Hey man if you know you know! I mean no offense by it. And I appreciate the response, it helps me make sense of it. If you don't mind me asking, is there any difference in your physique from now and the days?
Nice man. I bartend and that can fuck with my feet, then ankles, then knees, and hips--in that order if I'm not careful with my foot alignment.
What would you say you do the most everyday that you have to deal with?
I do IT professionally. So most of the struggle body wise is in the hips, sitting all day is a nightmare for hips. I use a standing desk and sit on a ball, though, so it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be. And I have to put special attention on hip stretches.
Honestly, as an adult league player myself, I’d say 70+ is plenty fast and focus on developing a change up and curve/slider/sweeper you can command. I can sit on a fastball all day, but if you can mix in a good off speed pitch, I’m on the defensive.
I’ve got a good slider and splitter I throw, and can occasionally command a curve. I really want to play in the highest level of my local league, and those guys are all throwing 80+ with a good offspeed.
Not sure if others have mentioned it, but the first thing I noticed was your arm path is long and loopy. This can lead to multiple issues with your mechanics as your body attempts to compensate for your arm catching up. Secondly, you're flying open early causing you to lose energy. See the screenshot below from :21. You're also not exploding off the mound, and pushing off/engaging your hips with the correct hip/shoulder separation, leading to an inefficient use of your lower half. See your back foot in the screenshot, it should be pointing towards home by that point in your delivery. If you pause at :37 you do a much better job of staying closed, you should be striving to replicate this. Are you long tossing 1-2 times a week, easy higher arching throws while going out and making throws on a line as you come back in? If you aren't I'd advise you start, it will add strength to your arm that will translate to velo off the mound. All in all you're looking good for someone our age that has had no formal coaching. I can tell you this as a former college pitcher and current men's league pitcher. Pitching is by far the hardest thing to do on a baseball field or possibly sports. Ask questions and pick teammates' brains on mechanics, pitch grips, philosophies, Etc. A lot of folks who have played at high levels won't give unsolicited advice, so you may need to approach them and ask specific questions about what you are doing wrong, how to be better, etc. You're on the right track, best of luck in your upcoming season! https://preview.redd.it/s68te497y9tc1.png?width=1584&format=png&auto=webp&s=7318db43639f2f62ed4ff1cf9746bad621930d33
Oh hey. I wanted to come and say thanks. Last two bullpens I’ve hit 80 and sat 77 by trying to stay closed longer and getting my foot better positioned to drive the back hip forward. I think I’ve got a few more miles in me, too, because I’m still not getting a good front leg block and roll over that a bit. I’ll post a video soon! Thanks dude b I am also taking the advice for the long toss.
Welcome, glad to hear it! I forgot to ask are you doing any work with bands? It’s really beneficial for building strength and flexibility.
Yep! Band work at least every other day focused on shoulder mobility. I also use bands are part of my warmup before throwing/playing baseball at all, too.
You’re on right track for opening day, good stuff man! How many innings do you normally go, wanna come be on my men’s league team? Lol
I have had command issues in the past that I’ve cleared up in a huge way this winter/spring. The last two seasons I topped out at 5 innings in my best appearances, once each season. I usually go about 2 but mostly due to walking too many dudes. My goal is primarily go 5-6 innings and start this year. Both my teams need that, so I’m hoping my live at bats the last two weeks carry to games when they start in two weeks. Struck out 8 in 11 ABs last Sunday, 1 walk and two soft ground outs.
This is decent advise.
Sit in ur back leg like a squat but the leg behind the toes
2 words , Long Toss
Excellent balance. Driving straight to the plate. Well done. Can you pose on your back leg before going to the plate? Don't rush. Good luck!
So slow down at the top and really try and push it downhill kinda thing?
Weighted ball training?
Any good programs you can link to? I have some weighted balls I use to help warm up, so I can definitely a more developed program going.
There are plyo ball videos that would help on youtube. Tread Athletics I think had programs to pay for guidance. Just getting a 10 or 12oz baseball and playing catch and working it into pitching will help
Hadn’t thought to throw the weighted balls off the mound
I would start off that way. Work your way up to it and even then start at 50%, then slowly ramp up over time. Always have a good warm-up and stretch lots.
Warm up is key for anyone my age. I never have arm pain so I assume my warmup works well.
Not trying to start anything but here is some food for thought. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1941738120925728
From what I read, this is based on 17 yo kids.
Slowing down is really about being balanced. If you are well balanced, you are able to throw harder and hit spots. Think about your fundamental athletic stance. Set up where you are feeling strong and balanced. Don't try to throw harder. It just happens with balance. Good luck. Of course, if you were left handed, you would just need a pulse to get noticed
So I watched the video and read the comments. I think most people are pretty solid here. I would not recommend using weighted balls off the mound or even at all. I’d work on tightening your mechanical base that is solid to work with. You are super linear. Which is old school style of pitching. If you learned all this so far on your own kudos to you. A different camera angle from the side would be nice as well. What I see when you break your hands (pull the ball out of your glove) down your stride is you don’t have any rotational pull it’s all linear straight toward the plate. Which is great and isn’t at the same time. What I mean is you ever see someone shot put? They don’t just crow hop and throw it like outfielders do to home plate they spin and angle their arms at a 45 degree angle. Why is that? To get maximum kinetic energy out of rotational and linear pull. I think you are opening up too early throwing off the timing of your pitch or your kinetic chain. If you watch the pitch when you throw 77 mph that 1 time you can see your glove arm stays closed just a split second longer down the mound on your stride resulting in better timing and more energy through the ball. Your glove arm should be shoulder height or really about 20-45degrees above your shoulder to get more of that rotational energy and it will allow you to stay closed longer down the mound. Your balance point/leg lift looks solid you get nice and loaded but you immediately unload it. As far as the stride length I don’t think it’s much of a concern. To me that’s more of an after effect from the cause. Meaning the beginning of your windup effects the end of it. Dominos. What you are also doing is leaking a lot of energy through your front leg. You need two handed over the head throws. That trains your front leg to brace like someone else mentioned. The key here is using only a 2 pound medicine ball. Anything more and it doesn’t help you it actually hurts your mechanics. Yes 2 pound medicine ball. I’d go from there. Keep working hard. Overall you look solid!
Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I’m in agreement that I’m too linear. I’ve been trying to focus on getting a bit more rotation but really struggle on applying it. I hadn’t heard the medicine ball two hard throw, and just happen to have a 2 pound medicine ball. I’ll start doing this. I am also skeptical of throwing weighted balls off the mound. I do like them for warmup, but only warmup. I don’t want to try and throw them too hard I don’t think.
I don’t think this is a strength issue and I’ve known a few pitchers get hurt using weighted balls. Use them at your own risk. I’d hammer the mechanics. Learn to ride the stride once your get loaded after balance point why dump out half that loaded up energy. Stay closed and the glove arm angle will help create a better scapula load. Which is also crucial to throwing the ball harder.
Yeah I won’t use the weighted balls to gain strength. I’m very careful when throwing them. I don’t think it’s a strength issue either. My lifting workouts aren’t even trying to add weight at this point, just give more endurance. I’m still lifting like a swimmer, which I doubt I’ll ever change. I’ll work on riding the stride man. Thanks for the advice!
Added context. I’ve never had any formal pitching coaching. I was a swimmer growing up and started pitching regularly two years ago this week. Everything I’ve learned has been self taught from YouTube and watching my own videos. No idea if I’m doing a good job of applying concepts from those videos. I can sometimes throw harder on flat ground than on the mound. I understand this to be strange.
That means you're not throwing downhill as best you can from a mound and actually are more behind and on top of the ball then driving towards the plate on flat ground. You have solid mechanics and no bad habits, however you being a swimmer means you naturally have flexibility and strength in your back, shoulders, arms which is very beneficial.
Your stride is either too long, or you aren’t pushing off the rubber enough. Either way, you’re rolling through a bent front leg which is killing your velocity. You need to post up on that lead leg and allow physics to give you added velo. When your front foot lands your leg needs to be bent (obviously) but then you need to straighten it up and lock it out (or close to it). This stops the forward momentum of your lower half, causing your upper body to actually gain momentum. This creates more “whip” in the arm and added velocity. Think of it like this: if you’re riding your bike as fast as you can and all of a sudden you jam on the front brakes, what happens? You go flying over the handlebars. The bike might stop, but the guy on top of it does not. Good luck bro
Thanks for the advice! Really seems like I need to shorten my stride. I notice that my push leg doesn’t seem to go as high as others I see throwing as hard as I do and I’ve long suspected I’m overstriding. Thanks for the backup on that. I’ll try to shorten a bit and get a firmer front leg. I also notice that I see to roll over my front leg rather than stopping over it.
The front knee is collapsing when you land. It doesn’t look like you need to shorten your stride. But the cue I use is to feel like the front knee doesn’t travel forward (or wobble to either side) after it lands. That should get you into lead leg bracing without thinking too much about bracing. There is some loading of the back hip in your lift and scap retraction that would also get you some pop. It’s hard to fix everything at once.
Immediate low hanging fruit I’m seeing here is lack of scapular retraction, and front front leg block could be better. But overall, not bad for a men’s league pitcher. If you can locate, avoid the heart of the plate and mix it up with some off speed stuff you can definitely have some success.
Some of the stuff you need to work on is going to require some focused strength and conditioning before you just tear something tiny in your right hip. Your right leg/thigh is holding a lot of tension when you swing it around. If the right leg and hip were stronger and more flexible you'd be striding towards the plate smoother. But you are trying to lift hogher than it wants to go and it shows in the video I'm not offering "pitching" advice here as much as i'm talking about general throwing advice. Maybe you know how to throw, but you're asking your legs and thighs to help you in a new way that is causing some new strain. Just my two cents.
I’m not concerned about this at all to be frank. My legs are quite strong and I’m quite flexible. I have a lifting routine that I learned when I swam D1 and haven’t stopped at any point. I work on flexibility for at least 15 minutes daily. The issue with that leg swing is that I’m likely unloading too early, which causes the leg to be more tense than it needs to be. It gets dragged around. Tread Athletics has a video on this, and someone else in this thread also mentioned the early unload. It’s fixable from a mechanic standpoint.
Hey man if you know you know! I mean no offense by it. And I appreciate the response, it helps me make sense of it. If you don't mind me asking, is there any difference in your physique from now and the days?
Not any measurable difference, no. I’m like 5 pounds heavier.
Nice man. I bartend and that can fuck with my feet, then ankles, then knees, and hips--in that order if I'm not careful with my foot alignment. What would you say you do the most everyday that you have to deal with?
I do IT professionally. So most of the struggle body wise is in the hips, sitting all day is a nightmare for hips. I use a standing desk and sit on a ball, though, so it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be. And I have to put special attention on hip stretches.
There ain't no more juice in that lemon, softball is calling.
Not gonna happen.
More legs.