What's going on guys?
I've got a great pitching question today from Tanner.
He's on Instagram @raised_in_baseball if you haven't seen his account, it's a pretty cool
account, young kid, shows all his training on there.
I definitely suggest you go give him a follow.
But his question, a great question is, well I guess it's not really a question but he
says, "would love to see a video about things you look for to pick a batter apart".
Now, I'm a little bit different than most guys or at least I think I'm a little bit
different than most guys.
I don't try to pitch to hitter's weaknesses.
So I like to pitch to my strengths versus trying to find the hitter's weaknesses.
Now with that being said, of course I'm going to look at the hitter and see what he's doing
and if there is anything that I can exploit to pick him apart, then I'm absolutely going
to take advantage of that if it's going to help me.
But, I always wanted to feel like my best stuff could get anyone in the game out and
when you can develop your pitches to be that way and you're so confident in them to throw
it any count, you're going to be more successful.
Having that confidence and conviction behind your pitches is number one in my opinion to
everything else.
So you have to build your pitches so you're confident in throwing them against anybody.
Instead of going "you know what, this guy he can't hit a slider" even though my fastball,
my sinker, was my best pitch, instead of throwing that my second best pitch to try to capitalize
on his weaknesses, I may say "you know what, I don't think anybody can hit my sinker" so
I'm going to go ahead and try to burry that one low and inside.
With that being said, that was 90% of my philosophy.
There was some times when I looked at the hitter and tried to come up with things on
how I can exploit him, his weaknesses, or if he's telling me something I'm going to
use that against him.
Now here's the biggest part.
Here's the biggest thing that I do.
Let's say I've got a righty up to bat and he fouls a ball off.
Foul balls are huge because it tells you what's going on with the hitter.
If he fouls a ball straight back, what does that mean?
That means he's on time.
A lot of coaches think "he fouled it back, oh he's late".
No, if he fouled it straight back he's actually right on your pitches.
So that tells me something.
That might tell me that I need to change my speed.
So if I threw a fastball there maybe I go to a slider there.
If I threw a slider there, maybe I go to a fastball there.
So when he fouls it back, change the speed.
Now if he's a righty and he fouls it off to the first base side, then he's late.
So now I know he's late.
What happens with a lot of guys is, they'll throw a fastball and I was guilty of this
too many times, I would throw a fastball, he would be late and then I'd go "ohhh, well,
he hit it, he fouled it off, so let me throw the slider".
No, we're speeding his bat up there.
What I learned later in my career which I wish I knew earlier was if you throw that
pitch and he's late, you throw that fastball and he's late on it, throw it again, throw
it again, throw it again.
Until he shows that he's making an adjustment and getting closer and closer to that foul
line, you keep throwing it, you keep going hard.
I remember one at bat, I think we were in Lincoln Nebraska or somewhere crazy like that
but there was a batter, I wish I remember his name and I'm pitching against him and
I probably threw 8 fastballs that he fouled off down the line and then he kept getting
closer and closer to the foul line.
One of them, the last one, almost came fair, then I broke out the slider and struck him
out.
That was probably the only time that I reverted to the slider but he was showing me that he
was making an adjustment over the course of the at bat.
So stick with your fastball in that situation.
Now let's say the same righty hits your fastball but he pulls it foul down the third base side.
Now you know that he's early.
That is the perfect time to go to the slider or whatever your off speed is because he was
early on your fastball, he's going to be really early on your off speed stuff.
So I definitely used foul balls of a hitter to tell me what to throw.
One tip too that I can give you is let's say you do throw that fastball that righty fouls
it off down the third baseline.
Then you throw that slider, let's say he's still early but he fouls it off, he gets a
bat on it, the next one you want to throw is lower and slower.
So if you're going back to back off speed, the second one always wants to be lower and
slower.
You don't want to speed up his bat, you don't want to bring it up higher in the zone because
that's easier to hit.
Another philosophy that I lived by that I would use to get batters out is never get
beat by your third best pitch after your second best pitch if they're both off speed.
So let me explain real quick.
For example, I threw a slider and a forkball.
My forkball was a good pitch, but it wasn't as good as....
Sorry my camera died so I had to switch cameras on you real quick.
Let's for example say you throw a slider and a change up but your slider is way better
than your change up.
I would never throw a slider and then a change up because they're going to be slower pitches,
they're both off speed pitches so they're going to be around the same hitting speed.
So if I throw a slider which is my good pitch and then I back that up with a change up which
is around the same speed but it's not as good, I just set that hitter up timing wise to hit
that change up.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Now I could go change up, slider because the slider is a better pitch but I never want
to go slider change up and that's not true for everyone.
It depends on how you value your pitches or rank your pitches.
For some guys it might be the opposite change up, slider, slider, change up, whatever it
is, or you may not even throw a slider, or a change up, but you never want to get beat
with your second best pitch, or excuse me, you never want to get beat with your third
best pitch after your second best pitch if they're both off speed.
I hope that makes sense.
So those are just a few philosophies that I used to pick apart batters.
Really, the only thing that I used against them, pitching to their weakness versus my
strength is reading their timing off of foul balls, and again if a guy had a huge hole
in his swing, like if I got up there and threw a guy a slider and he just absolutely looked
horrible at it, then yeh I might throw him more sliders just because of what he showed
me but for the most part I'm sticking with my best stuff which for me was my sinker.
In fact, my senior year of college at Auburn University I threw 97% sinkers.
I barely threw a slider.
As a matter of fact, I didn't throw a slider all year until the end of the year.
The Padres scout said "how come you don't throw a slider?".
I said "because they can't hit my sinker".
He said "please throw a slider so I can draft you a little bit higher".
So I started throwing a slider the last two or three weeks of the season and it became
a great pitch.
In fact, when I got to the Padres Organization my slider was ranked number 1 out of all the
sliders in the whole organization.
So it ended up being a great pitch for me.
I'm so glad that I learned it.
I'm grateful for that scout for making me throw it.
My sinker was also the number 1 sinker.
It was the number 2 fastball overall in the organization but that was my bread and butter.
That's to me the reason why I got drafted and it's because I had that confidence and
conviction behind throwing that pitch, those pitches.
Because when you believe in your stuff and you just go right at those batters versus
trying to pitch to his weaknesses to get him out, I feel like you're in a better mind state,
you've got more confidence, more conviction, and you're just ready to get the job done.
I actually made a program, it's called Advanced Sinker & Slider Training Course.
So you can check that out.
I've also got Advanced Forkball & Splitter Training.
So if you guys are interested in trying to learn some new pitches, I definitely suggest
checking those out.
I'll leave the links down below but thanks again Raised in Baseball, that was a great
question.
I appreciate it.
Don't forget to go check him out on the Instagram.
I'll talk to you guys later!