In this video we're gonna talk about the three pitches that you need to be
successful but first we gotta fly to New Jersey let's go
so we made it to New Jersey and I'm here with Justin and Robert and in this video
we're going to talk about the three pitches that you need to get to the next
level for your head coach Tony Hawk
first of all I want to say thank you to everybody that came out and supported in
New Jersey man I felt so much love out there you know for the team that was
playing that said what's up in between innings I hope you guys came back in one
so all the kids out there that came out for the you triple sail American games
and showcase what you got put it out there all on the table left it out on
the line I appreciate all you guys who came for me the you go pro family it was
great to see all you guys and take pictures and I had a lot of fun meeting
all you and hearing all your stories so thank you very much but let's talk about
these three pictures actually it's gonna be a lot more than three pitches three
types of pitches that I want to talk about today one being the fastball to
being a changeup and three being a breaking ball we're going to talk about
different variations of those three types of pitches as we go along so first
of all we're gonna talk about the fastball because the fastball is
obviously the most important that's your typical pitch right and I'm gonna talk
about the four-seam the two-seam and the sinker right in this part I'm not gonna
touch too much on the four seam and the two seam because most of you guys have a
good understanding of how to throw that you've probably thrown it before but
well touch on it just a little bit maybe you'll learn something new I don't know
so for the four seam obviously you want to grip the ball right here across the
laces some guys like to have the horseshoe on this side or some guys like
to have the horseshoe on the other side just play with it you might get a little
extra cut or a little bit of arm side movement depending on the side of the
ball that you grip the ball just pay attention on all of these pictures that
we're gonna talk about pay attention to a couple of things the the grip pressure
that you have like how deep you are in your grip your thumb placement and
obviously your finger placement your grip on the ball but really pay
attention to that because you can make the same grip on the ball differently
depending on you know how deep you are how loose you are depending on where
you're gripping the ball and thumb placement is huge when you're throwing
pitches right so mess around with your thumb placement on
different pictures to see what happens to the ball when you grip it like that
so obviously that's your four seam to seam right here across the laces some
guys like to be you know on top of the lace some guys like to be together
whatever it is whatever feels comfortable to you again thumb placement
is pretty important when throwing any type of pitch so play around with that
and the depth or the grip pressure I would say on how you're holding that
ball for the two seam all you're really trying to do is turn your hand in at
release a little bit pronate a little bit earlier and turn it in at release so
then the ball is gonna move arm side okay now the sinker the sinker is my
favorite I know if you've been watching my channel for any time you know that
I'm a sinker ball guy and I believe that sinker is what changed my career is what
got me into pro baseball when I learned the sinker I became a new pitcher and I
think the sinker is a great pitch I've made many videos on the sinker but I
think anybody should try it everybody should try it because it's safe on your
arm no matter how old you are or if you got a young pitcher if you're
watching the video you're gonna share it with him no matter how old you are it's
a safe pitch in my opinion it's safer than the typical fastball because you're
pronating more basically for the sinker all you're do and by the way pronating
just helps promote proper deceleration so you're actually taking more stress in
your arm guys who get around the ball release point those are the guys who
usually have elbow issues sometimes shoulder issues so if you're good at
pronating or pronation threw the ball you're gonna have less you have less of
a chance of having those injuries so it's a fastball it's a version of a
fastball you're not trying to throw it slower I threw it at max effort I was
able to throw a sinker at 96 miles an hour at my fastest I used to go totally
together with my fingers right here and I'm on this lace you know I've got fat
fingers so it looks like I'm I'm on both laces but I'm trying to hook on my
pointer finger right here boom middle finger right next to it thumb underneath
my pointer finger so I'm not on this side of the ball I'm underneath here as
far as grip pressure goes I'm pretty deep right there's not you know
see a whole lot of space in between there you know here's some code to say
hold it like an egg hold it real loose that never worked for me I wanted to get
a good grip I wasn't choking it I wasn't like but but I did have a very firm grip
on there okay and then all you want to do is very similar to the two-seam so if
you throw a two seam already you might want to play around with a singer
because it's a very great pitch the only difference in this to semen the sinker
is the sinker you want to try to get more downward movement the two-seam
you're typically getting more arm side movement it's really the same pitch
you know you grip it the same way again some guys will grip it here I gripped it
together just like the two seem right the only difference is you're trying to
get more on top of the ball so you get that downward movement versus that
side-to-side movement okay so when I came over I was a little bit lower arm
saw when I came over I would try to rip right over top of the laces as I
released the ball right here kind of ripped over top of it and then on a good
one what I would see sometimes is like it almost looked like one lace spinning
like when the ball was spinning you would see like one diagonal lace
spinning and when I got that spin on the ball that's when it just caught it went
real late now that's another thing you want to work on when you're trying to
throw the singers downward movement but also late downward movement right the
later you can get that movement the better because you want the hitter to
make it seem like a fastball is like a four flat four seams coming and then
change the plane right you're trying to change the plane that's why depth is in
my opinion better than side to side movement because if a batter is swinging
on one plane and then the ball changes planes it's a lot harder for him to
adjust mid swing and try to hit that ball that's why a lot of sinker ball
guys get ground balls because it moves planes and they the batter hits on top
of the ball or they swing and miss when I first started throwing this pitch I
was surprised at how much guys would swing and miss I would see them swing
and there would be nowhere near the ball and I was just like what like it was
like a trick I almost felt like I was cheating I was like wow this is crazy so
once I saw that a couple times after throwing it obviously became my pitch
and I threw that pitch I learned in my junior year of college at Auburn
University and I struggled with accuracy with it that year I'm also had an issue
with my eye I don't really talk about too much on the channel but I couldn't
see I had it I scratched my cornea when I was sleeping
I couldn't see out of it so my vision was messed up I think that's probably
what played a big part in in why I was bad with my accuracy my first year but
my second year my senior year when I got feeling better with my eye and
everything else and I found the control found the command found the consistency
with the sinker I dominated I led the nation in ER AI led the nation in holes
I think I still have the record for hold or excuse me um appearances in college
baseball I pretty much pitched every single game
in the regular season and the playoffs I think we I don't know is something crazy
I think this record still stands had all kinds of set all kinds of records that
year and I only threw a sinker I started throwing a slider the last two weeks of
the season because one of the scouts came up to me and said hey we want to
draft you but you only throw one pitch how come you don't throw you know
another pitch I said well they can't hit my sinker he was like that's a great
point but how about you throw a slider or something so that you know I can when
we're talking about drafting you we can get you you know I can say hey he's got
a good slider to or whatever so I started throwing a slider the last two
weeks of the season and it ended up being a great pitch for me actually it
was I had the number one ranked slider in the whole San Diego Padres
organization that next year or two years after that so it ended up being a great
pitch for me which we're going to talk about the slider next but the sinker is
just a great great pitch again I recommend anyone to try it out because
it could be such a useful tool and helping you get batters out whether it
would be with ground balls or has a swing and miss pitch but it is a great
great pitch to add to your pitching arsenal with that being said let's talk
about change ups now we'll get into the slider in the breaking ball calorie
category but the change-up is a very important pitch because as a pitcher our
whole job is to disrupt batters timing and balance how do we disrupt their
timing we throw fast pitches and we throw slow pitches right so if we have a
fastball and a slow ball or changeup then we're able to do our job right
because if we get throw a fastball and then change their speed mess up their
timing change the speed of the pitch mess up their timing they're gonna be
off timing hitting has a lot to do with timing if you have good timing
you're gonna be a decent hitter right if you don't have good timing it's very
hard to hit the ball you could have the prettiest swing in the world but if you
don't have good timing you can't time the pitches up good luck right as a
pitcher we're trying to disrupt that timing
right and if we have a changeup off of our fastball especially if it looks
deceptive if it looks like a fastball is coming and then it is slower then we're
gonna you know that's half of the job of pitching that's disrupting the timing
right balance to disrupt balance we've got to throw in we got to throw out we
got to throw up we got to throw down that's how we disrupt balance right so
now think about this you could throw a fastball up and in and then a changeup
low and away right so now you've messed up the timing
because you threw a fastball and then the change-up but you also mess up their
balance because you threw a fastball up and in do you think that guy's really
gonna dig in that next pitch and be ready to get that low an outside pitch
heck no he you just almost hit him right he's like oh man I hope he doesn't hit
me again he's not gonna be digging him ready balanced under control to hit that
low an outside pitch so that is why that's so important disrupting the
balance right timing imbalance when you could do that as a pitcher man you are
gonna be successful so we need to change up to that so one of the change-up set
you can throw is a circle change up right so I like to grip the ball right
here on this lace with my middle finger ring finger right here on this lace
pinky comfortable pointer finger tucked down a little bit comfortable thumb
right underneath the middle finger you can see I've got a little more space in
here on this one so for me on the change-up I was a little bit looser it
was more fingertips like I could take my thumb off and you can see it's sitting
in my fingers not in my palm right so all I would want to do on this is make
it very similar to my fastball so my fastball was a sinker for the most part
I did throw a four-seam I used to throw a four-seam up and in to lefties early
to get him off the plate just like we talked about to mess up their their
balance because I struggled with Lefty so but for the most part I say I only
threw the forcing maybe two percent of the time three percent maybe of the time
but the other percent of the time I was throwing sinkers sliders later in my
career I added a fork ball so when I threw the change-up the circle change up
and I didn't throw it often in impro ball at all I threw it a little bit in
college but when I threw it I wanted to make it look like my sinker so I wanted
to come here and rip overtop of it just the same the only difference was the
grip and then I try to get over top a little bit more off of the fingers that
would take the speed off it would look like my sinker and then be you know I'd
try to get it to ten mile an hour 30 mile an hour difference but still look
deceptive still look like the sinker was coming so that's the circle change up I
did play around with the Vulcan changeup and pro ball so the Vulcan is like a
split finger except you're splitting it with your middle and your ring finger
right here and then I would just try to come through that ball sometimes I would
pull it to the middle finger side sometimes I'll pull it to the ring
finger side if I pulled it to the middle finger side it would have a little
wobble and an arm side down depth movement down and down in the way
movement if I pulled to the ring ring finger a little bit I would have a
little wobble and like a cut action downward movement so you play with this
I would turn it in over-exaggerated the pronation sometimes and get a little bit
of spin to it so this this was a good changeup to me I use this for a year in
professional baseball was it super successful with it but definitely better
than the circle change up for me the circle changeup was just a hard pitch to
grip and that's another thing to take into account when you're when you're
messing around with different pictures you're not going to throw every single
pitch that I'm telling you right now right some guys are gonna get some
pitches some guys are not gonna be able to find the other pitches it's all about
feel play around with them mess around with them see what feels good and then
stick with one if you find one that's working and it feels like it's good keep
practicing it so then it became you know then it can stick into your arsenal I
went through many different pitches in my career but I finished my professional
career as a four-seam very rarely through the 4cm except up and in the
lefties sinker through it a lot slider through it a lot and that fork
ball through it every once at all so I added in my career with those four
pitches so just play around with it you know every guy is different right every
pitcher has different pitches so so that's the Vulcan the fork ball that I
was throwing I would just split right here and you could kind of classify this
as a as a changeup because it's changing speed now I don't recommend everybody
throw this but but you know for me late in my
career as a professional baseball player it was something that I needed to add in
to help me get the lefties out because I could dominate the righties when my
sinker and slider I had troubles with the lefties that's why I got that four
seam up and in and then this helped me later in the in the count to strike them
out as a swing and miss pitch so I would just come straight through with this and
try to get like a knuckle effect sometimes you could pull down with the
pointer finger pull down with the middle finger and get different movement on it
so play with that thumb thumb pressure was very light sometimes I would even
take the thumb off it's a slip pitch so you're throwing it and it's slipping out
a lot of times it'll knuckle all right now let's get to the breaking ball
category so now you've got a fast pitch and a slow pitch right now your slow
pitch typically is gonna move you typically want it to move down an arm
side right for me that's what I wanted to do them I might change that pitch so
when I was throwing my fork ball most of the time I was trying to or the Vulcan I
was trying to get it to go down an arm side so I've got the fastball down alarm
side I've got the fastball straight and then I've got the change-up the Vulcan
or the fork ball down and harm side as well looking like the fastball that I
throw most often which was my singer because we want it to be deceptive right
wanted to be deceptive and have depth remember those two DS deceptiveness and
depth so when you have that now if you can add in another pitch that comes out
of the same slot out of that same tunnel right coming out of that same tunnel but
now moves the opposite way so now you've got the fastball fastball changeup and
slider four for me will slide or we'll talk about a couple different pitches
but you can't got them coming out of the same tunnel and then go in opposite ways
now you're becoming a lot tougher to hit right because if you're coming out of
that same tunnel and it's looking like the same pitch is coming and now you
have three different bare or four different variables from there you
become unpredictable to the hitter and you can mess up their timing and balance
and then you become a very successful hitter they're a pitcher scooping
pictures the good hitters too if you didn't know pitchers are the best
athletes on the field if you agree with that give me a thumbs up if you disagree
with that your problem a position player go ahead and hit the
thumbs down let's see how many guys we got watching this video right here
thumbs up if you believe pitchers are the best athletes on the field thumbs
down if I am lying let me know alright so for the breaking balls
I threw a slider okay for my slider I was right here middle finger up in the
horseshoe okay pointer finger right next to it thumb
kind of slanted in line with that lace and the middle finger okay pretty deep
on the grip and I will come through and I went through I actually threw
technically it was more of a slurve you can call them whatever you want it's
your pitch right but I threw technically more of a slurve and I will kind of rip
through on the angle that I wanted it to break so again I'm trying to get more
downward angle for me it was an exact mirror pitch of my my sinker or my fork
ball or changeup there excuse me my Vulcan right so I just wanted it to go
the opposite way so I would rip right on that on that angle in which I wanted it
to break okay now you could throw the same pitch coming through fastball
fastball fastball or turn it like a doorknob at the end some guys have
success with that I never did I threw more of a slurve ball now another
variation of the breaking ball is a traditional curveball you could be a
12-6 guy you could be just a traditional curve you can be a slurve guy like me
again you could be that that that late slider guy or that doorknob slider guy
I wouldn't put cutter in the in the breaking ball category I put cutter in
the fastball category because you're throwing it like a fastball and it's
cutting across right but still similar and you can kind of go around the clock
as far as that is concerned you know twelve six then you got the traditional
then you got the slur then you got the slider and you got the doorknob slider
and the cutter right so that's the kind of way I progress the breaking balls
even though the cutter is not technically a breaking ball but those
are different breaking balls for me I was always right here some guys hold the
curveball on the other side of the horseshoe right some guys do like a
spike they'll spike this finger and throw the horseshoe even if it's on the
on the other side of the horseshoe will spike this finger you know some guys are
just one one finger curveball guys you know is the grip
really doesn't matter a whole lot it's a matter of how you're throwing that ball
your wrist angle at release point and how you're getting through that ball to
spin that you're putting on through the ball the grip can help you with that but
more importantly it's the the wrist angle and the spin that you're getting
on the ball because you spin that you're getting on the ball is what's gonna make
it move the certain way right so that's the most important thing so I hope that
helps if you got any questions about any different pitches let me know just
remember your whole job is the pitchers to disrupt the batter's timing and
balance and if you have a couple different pitches that you can control
you're gonna be able to do that typically we need a fast one a slow one
and then if you get to the point you need one that's gonna move the opposite
way so those are those are some grips that you can mess around with again mess
around with them see what works for you because not every pitch is gonna work
for you some guys you know typically guys who have a good arm side movement
pitch or struggle with like a cutter guys who have a great cutter typically
struggle with like a singer so depending on will you know what works for you
naturally stick with that practice them get better with them and add them to
your pitching arsenal guys I hope you guys liked this video
please you know subscribe if you have not subscribed because it got bunch more
stuff coming and let me know in the comments below what do you want to see
next and I'll make a video about it so I'll talk to you guys in the next video
thank you so much and I'll see you soon