What's up guys! Dan Blewett here welcome to throw a hammer curveball course I'm
excited that you're here obviously this is something I'm super passionate about
teaching I think most young players don't throw I don't I don't think I know
for a fact most young players aren't taught the curveball the right way they
don't have a good understanding of it it's a it's a multifactorial problem and
I know that with good education with interested students with interested
parents with interested coaches kids can just get the better basics and they can
really start to develop a long term curveball that will stick with them
rather than this sort of literally get me over gonna do okay for a while
version of it that doesn't really play at the next level you know right now we
see two-thirds of pro pitchers throw a slider and one-third throw a curveball
and that's really countered to how kids learn because they learn a curveball
first no one really learns a slider first it's very rare that that happens
and so the question is why and really the reason why is that their curveball
when they get to the next level at college just isn't good enough because
maybe they weren't taught well enough from me they just don't throw it
obviously either pitch slider curveball can be better suited for one player
another and we try to fit them with the right breaking ball but a lot of kids
just like never really learned how to throw it well and how to get the spin
aligned and and and sort of like the higher level concepts with it and so
when they get to college and they can't get hitters out with it anymore now they
have to scrap it and start over and for some they're very successful
finding a slider but a lot of them they probably could have done it with the
curveball had they had better instruction from the get-go so the thing
we're gonna cover in this lecture is just an overview gonna kind of give you
a layout of what we're gonna talk about in this whole course and then we'll kind
of breakout from there so overview we're gonna go over different grips in general
15% slower than the fastball that's what we're looking for here we're looking for
a twelve to six or one to seven we'll talk about the difference obviously if
you're lefty that would be 11 to 5 or 12 to 6 there's a misconception that a 12
to 6 is a better curveball it's not better really it's just which shape fits
your arm angle and which one just comes out sharper to be honest with you we'll
cover a couple key concepts spin axes spin rate those are very
he advanced analytics that were picking up now you know with the rhapsode o
flight scope track man you know statcast is the major leagues sort of branding of
their track man data it's telling us you know that this curve ball is objectively
better than this one because of the spin axis rotation the spin rate all that
sort of stuff we're gonna give you some consistency tons of consistency stuff
you know learning how to throw it how to adjust it how to troubleshoot how to fix
it when you're out there in the mound that's one of the biggest things I
personally had a very sharp curveball but I also wasn't the best guy at
throwing it for strikes and throwing it where I needed to and I know you know
just looking back at my playing days that was one of my my my weaknesses that
I always tried to work on so I can tell you for a fact that just having a really
sharp filthy curve ball doesn't necessarily make you the better pitcher
so consistency is key and then obviously we'll talk it's not about location so
there's five different grips we're gonna go over I'm just going to briefly touch
on them we're gonna go over them in depth in the grip in the grip lecture
but there's a standard one curb knuckle curve finger pointed up you can cross
your finger over you can dig your nail in these are all very different they're
really not that different to be honest with you but they're all very different
as far as what your index finger does but your middle finger is gonna be
constant amongst all those grips and really just the index finger is a
placeholder so we'll talk about that speed differential in general the harder
the better you know we want to throw this you see it guys are throw 95 the
movies with a curve ball they throw about 80
with their bird with their curveball the harder the better because it's gonna
have more deception it's gonna force an earlier swing it's gonna tunnel better
it's gonna look like a fastball longer curveball shape again doesn't have to be
twelve six every pictures different we want to figure out what the best one for
you is and this is where a throwing partner becomes very very critical so we
can't NAT you know there's you could have you know rhapsode o or flight scope
track man could tell you your spin rate and your spin axis and and all that so
your usable spin your spin efficiency but really a
throwing partner who gives you feedback who's very focused and understands what
you do well they can tell you hey that one's sharper that one's not and most of
your twelve sixes are sharper than your eleven sevens or whatever it is so we
want to make sure we work hard to figure out what the best shape is for you
spin axis we're going to cover that obviously if you drilled a hole through
a wall it's just the way the ball rotates and we want to have one axis
rather than sort of like a mixture where it's mostly this way but a little bit of
side spin mixed in we want the cleanest one axis spin that we can possibly get
again whether that's one seven or twelve six or eleven five for lefties it
doesn't matter we just want to see the best possible spin axis we can spin rate
faster the better and just the thing with spin is faster
spins you kind of like the opposite of how an airplane flies so with an
airplane the airfoil the wing it produces higher pressure below lower
pressure up top the higher pressure pushes the airplane up same thing with a
curveball the Magnus effect as the ball spins creates a higher pressure zone on
the top and it forces the ball to go down that's why with having all this
extra side spin mixed in it doesn't help the pitch break it's really just gravity
and a different trajectory so the better spin rate and the better spin axis the
better physics is gonna help us with that curveball about the process one of
the things I want to make sure you understand is this course isn't going to
give you a quick fix I'm gonna teach you how I teach all the pictures that I've
worked with and many of them many of them have very very good curveballs and
they continue you better every year because it's a process but again there's
no just like hey do this here's this one weird drill and you're gonna like have a
nasty curveball isn't really that way it's a long process you have to be
patient and I've had kids that just like don't don't get it for a while and then
they get it and then you're like what changed and like I don't know I just
kept throwing it and I just kept focusing and I just kept trying and it
got better so it's a process just understand I'm helping you start this
and I'm helping you just understand what the stepping stones will be along the
way and then no matter what happens we used to want to remember
that location is key the quality of your curve wha how sharp it is all that
that's one quality of it and obviously to throw this in the big leagues and get
hitters out with it it needs to be really really sharp and the better ones
you know they they make hitters freeze and and deceives their eyes and it'll
get more swings and misses but still location is gonna carry you much much
farther with your breaking ball so if you can't throw for a strike
hitters will eventually just be like oh you can't throw a strike by seeker ball
spin I take and then you don't have a curve ball anymore essentially so
location is still key I'm gonna give you a lot of tips and strategies on how we
can how we can long-term build you a great sharp curve ball you can also
throw for strikes a lot and you know how to adjust it in the game okay alright so
that was a quick overview and we will see you in the next lecture
you