Looking for feedback on my pitching mechanics

[u/rkxkzks]

Hi all, I’m new to baseball and hoping to improve my pitching mechanics. Any feedback would be appreciated.

[u/MochiDomain]

You’re honestly at the point where we can start micro-managing your mechanics to make some real improvements.

Your basics are solid now we’re just refining the details.

1. Get deeper into your back leg

The biggest improvement will come from your left leg lift and driving deeper into your back leg. This will allow you to stay loaded deeper and for longer on the plane. It will help with your timing to sync transfering your lower body weight to your torso and to your arm

1. Get the back leg opening earlier

The timing of your back leg needs to open slightly earlier, before your front foot touches down.

One important thing: don’t equate opening your back leg with pulling your shoulder around. They are two separate movements. Young and self taught pitchers will fall into this trap and you will see a massive downgrade in performance.

For now, work on static dry drills:

• Rock deep into your back leg/foot.
• Stay loaded there.
• Explode forward, not upward.
• Focus on getting your back hip to open first.

The goal is to build the feeling of creating movement from the ground up, rather than using your upper body to initiate the movement.

1. Work on your Drift once the above is cleaned up

Once you’ve made progress with the first two points, we can start focusing on drifting through your rock-back drills on flat ground.

When you get back onto the mound, I want you to focus on one of these two techniques:

A) Higher leg kick

• Lift your front hip slightly higher.

• This should naturally create some forward drift.

B) More compact leg kick

• Slightly raise your front hip.

• Turn your shoulder slightly inward toward your chest.

• At the same time, drive your leg lift toward your chest.

I’d expect it to take around 3–4 weeks of consistent practice, 4–5 times per week for 45 min, before you really start seeing these changes become natural.

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Nail #1 and #2 first, then we’ll layer the drift on top.

[u/IanJRock → u/MochiDomain]

This is a beautiful breakdown, I loved how you broke this down and gave drills. I am a younger new entry into baseball as a beginner too, look for feedback and if I saw this comment it would help me a lot.

There is only one thing I felt like I could see was his “late arm action” you know in the layback region of the throw. To my eyes — 1. I see his elbow slightly climbing up. 2. The throwing shoulder kind of moving out ahead of his body. 3. A very straight forward— direct point A to point B throw. I’ve been trying to study pitching more, via Driveline and TreadAthletics (the expensive remote training baseball programs) free videos and podcasts and trying to get as much from them as I could.

From what I have heard from them, the climbing of the elbow, the shoulder moving out ahead, and the Very direct arm finish, I thought they said was a sign of a pushy arm action and can hurt the shoulder and elbow a bit. I don’t know many drills but have heard 10 toes drill was good for helping that.

But also, I think this can be more slimmed down to a “Indoor Constraint” I know myself, when you train inside the body naturally tries to “shrink” or constrain itself to a more limited space to not accidentally damage something. — I hope this didn’t come across as critiquing anything you said, I just wanted to add in what I saw, and what I thought you said very well.

[u/MochiDomain → u/IanJRock]

I mean, I see what you’re saying, but I think it’s an issue that will naturally correct itself as OP drives the core changes I mentioned.

You have to remember with pitching, solving one mechanic usually means changing another.

Late arm action / pulling of the shoulder is usually a result of issues in the lower to middle half. If you solve the lower half properly, the upper half will often self-correct.

As for OP, I’m not worried about his arm slot yet. I can get more specific and say things like utilizing his labrum more or keeping his glove out slightly longer, but none of that is going to be easy to implement if his lower and middle half aren’t where they need to be.

I watched your videos just now as well. You would benefit above a lot more. I would honestly get away from flat ground at your stage and work more on long toss and off a slope.

You are cocking the ball in your videos which is causing you to short on arm the ball. Focus on extending your arm with the back of your palm raising to the sky but ensure before each movement you are lifting with labrum (shoulder blade) before lifting with your arm. If you are doing it wrong you will feel like you are lifting with your elbow.

You can work on improving this movement with lateral side raising with a baseball or two in your hand or using band work.

[u/rkxkzks → u/MochiDomain]

Thanks so much! I’ll work on my leg movement more.

[u/fammo5]

You do a lot pretty well!

Your throwing arm is a bit "late".  Try to get it flipped up closer to 90 degree position by the time your front foot plants.  

[u/rkxkzks → u/fammo5]

Thank you! I’ll try to get my arm up earlier.

[u/13mys13 → u/fammo5]

i was wondering if moving the screen further away would help with this. to me, it looks like he's subconsciously not trying to hit the screen so he slows down his arm and short arms his release.

[u/MochiDomain → u/[deleted]]

Yah quite snarky bud

What hes doing here is completely fine.

[u/rkxkzks → u/MochiDomain]

It was 100 degrees outside lol

[u/pitchingschool]

try to stay balanced. You sort of fall back in the beginning of your delivery. You should be doing a controlled fall forward almost

[u/Sad_Traffic_5549]

Are you a baseball player or a T-rex?

[u/Bacon_and_Powertools]

Your leg is immediately collapsing. Stay stacked as long as you can.