Once I baseball players I'm Dan Blewett.
In today's video let's talk about high curveballs
should you throw high curveballs.
We see this in the big leagues and they're I'm not sure if they're being
thrown them more with more frequency, but we notice them, right?
Everyone's been taught don't throw the curveball up in the zone.
But we also see these ones that kind of land in the strike zone about chest high
and hitters take them and walk back to the dugout for strike three.
So is is this something that we should be throwing the high curveball?
Let's discuss it here in today's video.
All right.
So in today's video, let's talk about is it a smart idea to throw a high curveball?
So my answer is going to be no, that you're not going
to intentionally choose to throw this pitch.
And here's why.
So first, let's get out of the way. Yes, hi.
Curveballs absolutely can be effective.
And the reason is relatively obvious, right?
If you throw that curveball with, you know, 12 to 16 inches a break
and it starts out of the strike zone and it breaks
right into the end of the top right where umpires are calling that
that chastise strikes on that letter, high strike more than they used to.
If you can throw that thing
where it breaks into the zone and the catcher catches it here,
it's going to be not hittable for most of its flight.
Right.
It's going to be up here and then, boom, it drops into the zone at the last minute.
The very top, you know, edge of it.
Hitters can't really get that pitch.
They can't really get on top of it.
If they go up, they're going to pop it up. It's not an attractive pitch.
They're usually is going to take it right of the hand and so you think, okay,
I can steal a strike, maybe even steal a strike out by dropping one in the top.
But here's the problem, A, when you throw
a curveball higher up in the zone, it gets softer and softer.
Your sharpest curveball is always going to be
the one that you get well on top of and pull down into the zone.
So the sharpest version of your curveball is always going to be down in the zone.
So as you get higher up,
you start to leave it farther behind at your release point.
And this is why you don't get on top of it as much, so you don't get as much spin
and it basically just has a softer and softer break.
Again, that's not a big issue because if it drops into the top of the zone,
they're not going to be hitting it anyway. Right. So, okay.
But here's the thing.
If you try to throw that curveball up,
you're essentially trying to throw a soft breaking version.
Even if you throw it with good arm speed.
And if you miss
and pull it down into the strike zone, guess what starts to happen now?
You're in the danger zone.
So yes, if you can somehow perfectly drop them in that pitch works.
It's going to be a take.
If you can get against that strike, it's going to be a good result.
I agree with that.
But the idea that you can reliably throw that pitch
and not accidentally sort of pull them down in the zone
when your job as a pitcher is to be downhill
and be down the zone, everything else you're going to throw is down, right?
Everything is going to be at the knees.
You're going to be bouncing stuff.
Everything's down there.
And then they say, okay, now I can just switch this or flip the switch
and throw my curveball up.
That's a really tough thing to do.
And what ends up happening is you'll try to do that and then you'll
yank it right down here to the the plate and boom.
Then they get a nice, soft breaking hanging curveball
and they're going to put it in the gap.
So the question you have to ask yourself is,
do I want to throw a pitch that's really based on
just me tricking them and like, Oh, I tricked to you,
I threw it out of the zone and broke back in.
Same thing with back door curveballs.
When you have two strikes on a hitter, is your goal to trick them
or should your goal
just be to throw the highest quality version of whatever you have?
If you say, I'm just going to spike this curveball
and throw the sharpest, nastiest curveball I can and try to get it to break on to
the plate or the bottom in the strike zone.
That's going to be a really tough pitch to hit if your curveball is good.
So I think you're better off just rolling the dice,
throwing the pitch in the best and the best way that you can,
rather than saying, I'm going to throw my C version soft breaking,
high curveball to try to sneak it past the hitter in hopes that he takes it.
Whereas the best case scenario is that does happen.
You'll throw it for a ball a lot and then a lot of time
you're going to hang it and he's going to smash it.
So the question and this is really just a lot
it's not old school baseball, but this is one of the first things I learned
when I was younger.
When you start trying to do this, you think, Oh, I can be tricky.
I can throw this like, you know, sneak pitch.
Coaches go like, look, hitting is hard.
The best hitters in the world hit 300.
Don't try too hard.
Don't try too much.
Don't try to be tricky Just throw good quality pitches
in good quality locations and everything else will take care of itself.
So that's still my recommendation here.
Again, can a high curveball be worth it?
Sure.
Can you sneak away and chuckle back to the dugout with a high strikeout?
Absolutely.
But is that a good, reliable strategy to have?
Nonetheless, you have insane command and you know for a fact that you can dot
that top half of the zone, which is again going to be hard because most of the time
you're throwing down the zone. So leave a comment.
Do you believe that I'm right, I'm wrong?
Do you believe in the high curveball
or do you think we should kind of leave it alone?
And if you accidentally throw one and you get a free strike,
hey, you won the lottery on that one.
Look, leave me a comment and I'll see here in the next video.