What's up Coach Dan Blewett here. So today we're gonna talk about why
pitching down the zone is still really important in 2020 so even though in the
analytics and you probably heard this a major league baseball that pitching up
in the zone is more important than ever and then it's more effective than we
thought and that lots of pictures should be pitching up in the zone those are all
valid takeaways that you know we've figured out from Trackman data and and
all the the statistics that we can pretty much track everything that's
going on in baseball but does this trickle down to amateur baseball to
youth players is this good advice to say hey don't pitch down in the zone well
I'm here to tell you that the answer's no and let's go over a couple reasons
why so number one and this is the overarching thing here is that pitching
downhill is a skill that's difficult to hone as a pitcher it's something that
took me a long long time to be good at and that basically just means that when
I get on top of the ball I can throw with a downhill trajectory whenever I
need to or whenever I want to and that's important because basically when we
throw any of our off-speed pitches curve ball slider changeup cutter well you
know sinkers not really off asleep off-speed pitch will lump it in there
anytime we throw anything that's not a four seam fastball essentially it has to
be down the zone sinkers are not up in the zone pitches cutters are not up in
the zone pitches sliders and curveballs are certainly not right near there are
change ups so if we get this mentality that I'm always going to pitch up in the
zone and when I train I'm training a pitch up in the zone or pitching up in
the zone is good those can be again that can be a valid
mindset but we as young pitchers and as coaches of young pitchers we still need
to be learning to pitch consistently down the zone with downhill trajectory
that needs to be a target ability that we have so that when we want to go up in
the zone we choose to go up rather than I'm just up because I don't know how to
throw down the zone I can't really get on top of the ball that well because
basically if your default is being up in the zone then your default for your
slider your curveball and your changeup are gonna be much more up in the zone
than you want them to be so let's go over some examples here I've got some
footage I just want you to show I just want to show you basically what this
standard here looks like so right here I've got 480 frames per second of a
pitcher throwing a changeup that's just below the strike zone so right here he
misses they call it a ball it's probably you know 4 inches off the plate our 4
inches below the plate so that is a pitch that this guy has made countless
times in his career and he is gonna miss down because he knows that if he misses
at the bottom of the zone that's where he's not gonna get hurt if he's missing
up he's gonna get hurt so when this guy practices I'm sure in the offseason he's
burying change ups right below the kneecap all the time and again your
default mechanics are gonna dictate what you can do so if your default mechanic
sure I'm always letter high with my belt from I'm always letter high or I'm at
the belt my fastball how can you then just flip the switch and throw a
changeup down it doesn't really work that way having been a pitcher my whole
life you just need to understand like what it is to feel crisply on top of the
ball and the really forced it downhill because that making that pitch with a
changeup is really important let's go over another one here so here's another
changeup and this one is gonna be a lot more up in the zone and this one is fine
when you're behind the count this one's gonna get tattooed a lot of the time
when a hitter says hey I'm gonna swing at this one I'm picking up out of his
hand that's a pitch that's mid thigh it's not the worst pitch in the world
here right I'll place one again again this is not the worst pitch in the world
but this is a chain of you can get away with two oh three one one oh what a
hitter is not really expecting it but that's a pitch that most youth players
are throwing that's the quality of pitch that they're throwing and that's
something to get again just tattooed when you get to higher levels of
baseball so that's not acceptable and if you're throwing fastballs at the mid
thigh the belt the letters a lot because that's the best you can do this pitch is
that's what your chain tip is going to become because again if you can't do it
and practice consistently how are you suddenly gonna throw down the zone when
you need to so basically I'm gonna bring one more example here here's a really
good changeup down the zone and you'll just see that
this is where off-speed pitches need to live and it could have been slider I
don't actually know which one this was but when it's down the zone like that
that's where those pitches get guys to swing and so if you're always up up up
up up and then they see that good breaking ball down especially if it's a
slider or changeup where it doesn't have the big depth to it why would they swing
if you're always up they're just gonna look for off-speed stuff up to so when
you can consistently be down the zone with your fastball now when they see
something come out of your hand and it's you know a changeup they're gonna bite
more often when you've been throwing fastballs down there because they know
they can't necessarily take it because they're gonna strike out on called
strikes so the moral of this story is this pitching up in the zone is a choice
not really a skill set so you as a young pitcher you as a coach of young pitchers
you need to be working really diligently on learning how to pitch down the zone
consistently and that means I own the area from a couple inches above the
kneecap to just below the kneecap and when I miss I'm really good at missing
down and then when you say okay this is the type of picture I am this is the
type of situation it is now I'm gonna go up the ladders intentionally but we have
to be able to default to be down hill and then we can go up and we want not
we're defaulted to being up in a zone and then we need to try to scramble to
be down we want to throw a good slide or good changeup good cutter whatever it is
so hopefully this makes sense it's a really important skill and I think with
a lot of this new stuff that's going out there we're talking about this is what
bigger your ex is doing bigger Y is doing what they're doing is vastly
different than what amateurs are doing and it's not necessarily what we should
be coaching our amateurs to be doing so this is one that definitely needs some
interpretation and if you're a pitcher who has success pitching up in the zone
which I was I had I had really good success pitching up in the zone
something I've figured out later I was a high spin right guy but I also became
very good at pitching down the zone when I wanted to in the later part of my
career and being able to pitch it down when I needed to helped me to just
instantly flip the switch and go up when it was
briea time all right so hopefully this video helped pitching is you know it's
it can be really simple times and it can also be really complex and as a coach
sometimes it's tough to know exactly what you should be teaching as a player
should be tough it's sometimes tough to know what you should be doing to be at
your best and to optimize your individual skill set all right so if
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