Well, I’ve actually pitched from pretty much every single arm angle.
When I was younger, I was always taught to, you know, get your arm up, throw over top.
So when I was younger, I threw there.
In high school, I’ve got to more of a comfortable position and got to like a high three-quarter
spot, and I was there because I was trying to keep my arm up, but that didn’t feel
super comfortable.
I got really sore then.
But later in my high school career, I dropped down and was more like a low three-quarter
guy, and that felt really good.
And now when I went to junior college, I dropped even more, and this is when I started throwing
sidearm.
This is the first time I experienced sidearm and I really liked that.
I had a lot of movement on my pitches.
Was still throwing pretty fast at the time, maybe 90, 91, 92 my sophomore year from here.
And then, my junior year, I went to Auburn University and I had a terrible fall, so coach
dropped me down to a submarine guy.
So I was all the way down low here.
And I learned a lot.
I learned a lot that year.
I learned the two-seam or sinker, whatever you want to call it, and I really learned
how to make the ball move and pitch from a lower arm angle.
Now, I didn’t do so well.
I walked the house.
I was walking a lot of guys when I was pitching from there, but I learned a lot.
And then my senior year, I came back, and because I wasn’t so successful down there,
I came up to a more natural arm slot, and I was back...
I kind of fell back into that straight sidearm position.
Maybe a little bit lower than I was in junior college, but pretty much straight sidearm.
And from there, that’s the way I pitched for my next 6 years in pro baseball, and it
was really beneficial to me.
I think the biggest advantages from throwing sidearm or submarine is going to be your deception
and your movement.
You know, if you can learn how to sink that ball and obviously being at that arm angle,
it’s going to be very deceptive.
It’s almost like...
I always joke, it’s almost like you’re cheating as a pitcher.
It feels so easy when you’re throwing against hitters, especially righty on righty.
I used to love when a righty would come up because I felt like I almost got them out
eveyr single time.
That’s what I felt.
My confidence was very high.
So I definitely think those are the biggest advantages from pitching sidearm or submarine.
I would say to someone who’s thinking about throwing sidearm or submarine to really do
it for the right reasons.
Don’t do it as a gimmick.
Do it because it feels good to you and it is working for you.
You know, you don’t want to change just your arm angle.
You want to make sure that your body angle, which will change your shoulder angle, which
will change your arm angle.
So just make sure it’s good for you.
It feels good to you and you’re doing it for the right reasons.
As far as side arm pitching mechanics or a submarine pitching mechanics, they’re pretty
much the same as normal pitching mechanics.
You still want to get good leg drive off of the mound.
You still want to create some separation from your hips and your throwing arm.
You know, you still want to be able to throw that ball hard.
The only difference mechanically is that your body angle is going to be tilted.
So if I’m a regular pitcher and I’m throwing from here, and now I’m a sidearm guy or
a submarine guy, when I start, I want to lower my body angle to start.
Everything stays the same.
So if I’m throwing from here, and I just lean my body angle up, now I’m a regular
pitcher.
So the mechanic stays the same, and you’re still trying to get that good leg drive and
that good hip-to-shoulder separation.
The only difference, the main difference that I’d like to think about is being consistent
with your body angle and your shoulder angle and your arm angle, and then also staying
on top of the ball.
Staying on top of the ball as a sidearm or submarine pitcher is huge because that’s
how you’re going to get that depth and that sink on the ball.
When I was pitching sidearm, I threw three pitches.
I threw a sinker, a slider, and a fork ball, and on my sinker, I just tried to throw it
hard and get some depth on it.
Let the ball do the movement for me, do the work for me by moving.
On my slider, slider is a very tough pitch for a sidearm guy.
A slider or curveball is a very tough pitch for sidearm or submarine guy because it’s
very hard to stay on top of that ball and make it break with depth.
A lot of guys have like a frisbee slider from the sidearm slot, but you really got to make
sure if you’re throwing that pitch that you’re not leaving it hanging and that you’re
staying on top of the ball, OK.
So it’s very hard to do, but it is possible.
There’s some sidearm guys with some really nice sliders out there.
Pitching to righties was great.
I loved pitching the righties.
I mean I felt so comfortable.
I would throw the ball in there hard, let the ball do the work for me, and move in towards
them.
I mean I remember throwing a ball one time down middle of the plate to a righty, and
he took a big hack on it, and I got a lot of movement and depth on it, and ended up
hitting him in the back foot.
And he took a swing down the middle of the plate.
So again, it’s...
It was fun for me.
I almost felt like I was cheating because I was getting so many big swinging misses
that it was just...
It felt unfair, and I loved it, but I used it.
So for righties, I just will attack them fastball.
Sinker, sinker, sinker, sinker.
And then if I started seeing them get on my pitch, I might throw that occasional slider
or fork ball, but really, I challenge a lot of righties, no matter what type of hitter
they were with the sinker because it was such a deceptive and hard pitch to hit.
For lefties on the other hand, I had some trouble with early in my career because I
was always taught even in pro ball was to, OK, you got a lefty, you should be able to
get lefties out all day long go out there and sink it, sink it, sink it on the outside
part of the plate.
But what I found with good hitters, with good lefties is once they see that once or twice
or they know and they see it, and they got it in the game reports, they’re going to
just start staying in there and taking that ball the other way.
So next thing you know, I’m starting to see doubles getting hit when, you know, I
barely gave up any extra base hits.
Now I’m seeing doubles getting hit to the left center field.
So what I did from there was I decided that I needed to bust the lefties in early, so
early in the count.
Whether it be first pitch or second pitch, I would throw a fastball.
And I would try to flatten it out a little bit because I never want it to run back over
the plate.
So I would just bust them in.
And even if I missed, I would want to miss in just to get them off the plate and get
them uncomfortable, and then I can go back out there and sink that ball out there, OK.
That’s when it became an effective pitch, but if you’re just going out there to sink
it, sink it, sink it, those guys are going to dive in and just drive it the other way.
So bust the lefties in early.
That was the biggest change in my career that I made pitching the lefties.
And then for the lefties, because I wasn’t as effective to the righties, that’s when
I would break out a little bit more the slider, and especially the fork ball was a great pitch
to the lefties because, you know, it would just come in, break down.
I really had no control of where it was going to move.
Sometimes it came across.
Sometimes it died out this way.
But I knew it was going to do something where they were going to hit hard.
So I would use those techniques and strategies against the lefties to get them out.
To be honest, I don’t think I would have made it to where I made it to if I didn’t
learn the things that I learned when I dropped down to submarine.
Now, I was able... always able to throw hard and I always had good movement on my pitches,
but when I dropped down there, I really learned how to get that extra sink and that extra
depth on the ball, and I really learned a lot, and I don’t think that I would have
been where I was or made it to how far I made it if I didn’t drop down that low.
Even from the straight sidearm spot, you know, I was more effective than I think I would
have been at a three-quarter or an over hand arm slot, and I felt good to me.
I mean my favorite part about pitching sidearm or submarine is just the success that you
get to have.
When you get to...
When you’re able to throw that ball over the middle of the plate and let the ball do
the work for you and just have that depth and have that movement, and guys are taking
swings at balls that are a foot away from them, I mean it’s fun.
I mean that was my favorite part about pitching, especially to righties.
It was just like I was cheating and it was so much, so much fun and so easy.
So I definitely say that will be my favorite part of pitching sidearm or pitching submarine.
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