How to locate Your Fastball - It starts with your feet.

I learned a secret a long time ago when I was in the Major Leagues with the Atlanta Braves. I was fortunate to play with Greg Maddux, one of the best pitchers to ever play the game, and arguably the best control pitcher of all time. 

Greg shared with me a secret to locating your fastball. He asked me what was the easiest pitch to throw in baseball? And I thought it must be some kind of trick question coming from a future Hall of Famer. He said, a fastball down the middle. 

In this video, I talk about the secret he shared with me about foot placement on the rubber to control where your fastball goes and for that matter, any other pitch you throw as a pitcher. Enjoy!

How Should Your Front Foot Land During Your Delivery?

One of the most common issues that pitchers have during their delivery is a landing foot that opens  up too early. When this happens we leak energy that we need to get the most out of our arm. 

When we lift our leg up in our delivery, our landing foot is in a closed position. We want to make sure that our foot stays closed. Another way of understanding this is that our foot stays relaxed and our toe stays pointed at the 3rd base dugout until right before foot strike on the mound. 

When our foot strikes the mound, we should make sure that we are anywhere between 20-30 degrees closed. We do not want to point our toe towards the catcher as this usually means we have opened up our foot to early and lost energy.

How To Use Your Legs In The Pitching Delivery

In this video, Chris talks about how to use your foot that is attached to the rubber during your pitching delivery. Everyone talks about how anything you do athletically starts with your feet. Well, this is also true when it comes to the pitching delivery.

Chris talks about the important role your foot plays as you start your delivery down the mound. We want to make sure that our foot that is attached to the rubber starts to "push the rubber" back towards second base as we start our delivery down the mound. Now, we know that the rubber doesn't move towards second base, but if we can get the feel of "pushing the rubber" as hard as we can, then we will engage our legs, throw harder and take stress off of our arm.

Hip Drive

How To Use Your Hips In Your Delivery

Hip drive is a very important piece of the pitching delivery. When we drive off the rubber with our foot, we want to make sure that our hip doesn't just go along for the ride.

As our foot starts to disengage from the rubber we want to make sure that we are firing our right hip for a right handed pitcher or our left hip for a left handed pitcher toward the catcher.

One thing we want to make sure about firing our hip toward the catcher is that we want our hip driving down the slope of the mound. Make sure that your hip is not moving up as you are going down the mound. Check out the video for a great visual explanation.

The Secret to Velocity

What Should Your Landing Leg Do?

In this video Chris talks about how important the landing leg is in the pitching delivery. There are a lot of issues a pitcher can have in his or her delivery that can kill their velocity. The position of the landing leg is one of the main issues a pitcher can have  in their delivery.

When a pitcher strides out and lands on their landing leg, we need some bend in the knee to absorb the energy that is created in the delivery. When the upper body starts to go forward, the landing leg begins to brace and straighten out to give us something to throw against. You can see how this works by watching the video we have created.

The 7 Step Miracle

What Should Your Stride Length Be?

One of the main issues that every pitcher faces,  especially young pitchers is how to use their legs in the pitching delivery. We always hear coaches say to use your legs or lower half in your pitching delivery. As players we sometimes don't understand what this means and how to implement this in our delivery.

In this video we give the pitcher an easy way to use their legs and not have to think about it. When a pitcher gets on the mound, put your heal against the front of the rubber and heal toe 7 steps down the mound and draw a line. When you stride down the mound and throw the pitch, you should be able to stride to that mark using your lower half to get there. Make sure you are using the leg attached to the rubber to get you to that spot by pushing the rubber back towards second base.

How To Generate Force

The Answer Is In Your Back Knee

In this video we talk about what your back knee does in the pitching delivery.  When we start our delivery moving forward we want to make sure that the back knee stays straight and might even bow outward a little bit towards second base. We want to make sure that our knee is not bent inward as this will allow us to lose some kinetic energy in our delivery and take away some velocity. 

We want to make sure that our knee stays linear (straight) until our landing foot hits the ground. If we can accomplish this, then we will not lose the kinetic energy we have created during our delivery. Check out the video and you will see exactly how this should look.

What Should Your Glove Hand Do In The Pitching Delivery?

The glove hand plays an important role in the pitching delivery.  First, we want to make sure that the length of the glove side arm matches the length of our throwing arm. If we have a long arm action, we want to have a long glove arm. If we have a short arm action, we want to have a short glove arm.

We want to make sure that our glove arm is at least as high as our shoulder. We do not want it to be lower as that would not give us a firm front side to throw against. It is ok to go higher than our shoulder, but never lower.

Make sure that your thumb is pointing to ground as this makes your glove arm very strong during the delivery and allows you to stabilize your front side and have a firm top half to throw against. Check out the video and see how its done.

What Does Your Throwing Arm Do During The Pitching Delivery?

Most instructors and coaches will say that you cannot change a players arm action during their throwing motion. For the most part this is true, but I have had success changing one particular action in the the throwing motion to add velocity to any thrower.

When a pitcher starts their delivery and their throwing hand breaks from their glove, we want to have their and facing the ground. As their arm starts to move up we want them to pull their elbow back towards first base if they are a right handed thrower and third base for a left handed thrower. This allows for their arm to get in  a cocked position and allows their arm to move faster during the throwing motion.

How To Throw More Strikes

What does your head do during the delivery?

As a pitcher, one of if not the most important thing we can do in our delivery to be able to throw strikes and command the baseball is to keep our head still and our eyes level.

During our delivery we want to make sure that our chin stays behind our belly button which allows us to stay on our back leg longer and generate more power during our delivery. 

When we keep our head still and our eyes level, it give us the ability to see our target and to focus on where we want to throw the baseball. The baseball wants to follow our eyes. When move our head around or what I refer to as head slamming, then we lose our release point and it becomes very difficult to throw the baseball where we want to. Make sure and keep your head still and your eyes level.

How To Throw The Ball As Hard As Possible?

This part of the delivery is very important to your ability as a pitcher to generate the maximum amount of velocity you are capable of as a pitcher.

We our front foot lands on the mound, we need as much distance as possible between our left hip and right shoulder as a right handed pitcher and our right hip and left shoulder as a left handed pitcher.

If we can have our hips wide open, meaning our belly button is pointed at the catcher and our chest pointed as close to second base as possible, this will allow us throw the baseball hard.

One thing we need to work on as pitchers is hip mobility. This will allow our body to get in the position referenced above and get the most out of our arm.

Move Fast!!! Down The Mound

As pitchers, we want to move as fast as we can down the mound and stay under control. The faster we move, the faster we throw. 

The analogy we use is a long jumper. Long jumpers work on their speed so that they can jump farther, the faster they run the farther they jump. This is the same with pitchers. If you go back and look at early Nolan Ryan pitching, you will notice that he moves really fast in his delivery and he is arguably the hardest thrower to ever live.

Another great benefit for moving fast down the mound is the ability of younger pitchers (7-10 year olds) to control their head during their delivery. When kids are that young their head is really heavy for their body and sometimes it can move and we want our head to be still during our delivery.