what's up baseball players i'm coach Dan Blewett. I'm a former pro pitcher in today's video
i'm going to teach you from start to finish how to throw a change up
and i'm going to educate you on on change up grips on the physics and spin of the pitch
the speed differential what your hand action should be what your arm action should be all
that sort of stuff and how arm slot influences the quality and the break
of your change up so in today's video you're gonna learn all about how to throw a change up
all right so if you want to jump around to the different parts of this video to the change up
grip section the spin section the alternate grip section all that sort of stuff you can
see that in the description below where there's time stamps you can also find ways to follow up
i have other videos about different pitch grips i also have my books my online courses and you can
support me on patreon all found in the description below so first let's start with change up grips
and then we're going to get to i'll show you some footage of me throwing this pitch in a bullpen so
you can see how it actually moves and sinks and and breaks to the arm side so the changeup grip
that i teach and i've been a baseball academy owner i own my own academy for nine years that
i sold a couple years ago and i taught this grip to kids as young as 10 all the way up and
everyone no matter your hand size can pick this change up up really well and it can have really
good action to it so i call this just the hookham horns changeup and it's similar to
a circle change up with some key differences all right so let's break down this change up grip so
here i've got a baseball this is called the sweet spot where you can see the stamp where
it says pony baseball on the other side there's no stamp i'm going to take my hands and i'm going to
spread them and i'm going to make the hookham horn sign just like this go texas longhorns whatever
and then i'm going to fan my hands back out and these two fingers are going to stick together
then i'm going to take this baseball and i'm going to put the stamp in the sweet spot right here at
this i'd call this the bridge of my fingers i don't that's what it's actually called but that's
what i'm going to call it i'm going to stick that right here like this and then i'm going to take my
thumb and this is one of the most critical pieces of this grip is the thumb placement
i'm going to put my thumb on the bottom of the ball exactly like that this is the core of the
grip and let me talk about pressure real fast before i finish it we want to have pressure
gently pushing from the thumb to the bridge of the fingers where they connect to your hand
just like that we do not want pressure on our fingertips like this the reason is that
you will hook this into the ground much more when you're pushing hard from your fingers
versus when it's rolling out of your hands like you're paint brushing so the pressure of this
pitch is thumb gently pushing to the bottom of the fingers now the reason the thumb is so important
is because if it's on the bottom it allows us to hold this really gently in my hand without it
falling out or feeling insecure if i put my thumb on the side now it feels like the ball is going
to fall out which it is and that's what i don't like about the circle change or the okay change
you put these two together and now the thumb is on the side and now the ball is very insecure
so yes there are definitely some successful major league pitchers that throw an okay change the
circle change and that's fine everyone can pick a different grip some things work great for some
people not for others the grip that i'm teaching you today is very democratic it'll work for
almost everyone that tries it so i really give you i really encourage you to try it i cannot
say the same thing for the circle change it is not that easy to learn compared to
the one we're talking about today all right so finishing the grip up so we're here we got the
thumb on the bottom these two fingers on top and these two i'm just fanning them out so you
can see right now and then all i'm gonna do is just gently lay all of them on the ball like this
so the final grip looks like that so these two are just gently on the sides they don't do anything
these two fingers are just gently on the top and my pressure is still from this bottom digit
of my finger all the way down i'm not putting pressure on my fingertips so let's review that
one more time so the complete changeup grip that i'm teaching here is make the hookum horn sign fan
your fingers out find the sweet spot the stamp of the baseball this is going to go in between
these two fingers like that thumb pressure is from the bridge of the fingers to the thumb
and then these four all just gently lay on the side of the ball or the top of the ball
now you want to keep these two fingers close together so that they act as a mega finger
then they're going to push on the inside of the ball when we do the arm action which is
what i'm going to talk about now but before i talk about the arm action let me show you some bullpen
footage of me throwing this change up so you can see the result of this pitch if you work at it
so
all right so hopefully from that video you could see a ton of sink and arm side run the more i
threw it over the mill the plate the more it would sink straight down the more i threw it to my arm
side the more it would run laterally that way into a righty for me as a right-handed pitcher so that
can be the result and i've seen even 12 13 year old kids get pretty significant solid movement
from this pitch all right so let's talk about the arm action now so basically this is really
really simple you're gonna what's called pronate on the inside of the ball our goal is to put spin
on the inside of the ball as a sort of paint brushes off of our fingers that's the goal when
we do this it will produce this sort of angled spin where the ball kind of spins diagonally
or has a little bit of like disco ball spin like this so our goal is that as the pitch flies
towards you it's got this sort of angled spin or this disco ball spin as it goes towards home plate
that's what's going to make it sink and run to the arm side so to do that we have to turn our hand
gently on the inside the ball just a hair before release and this is actually really easy to do
so the way we accomplish that is a by having these two fingers close together and this grip really
helps so as you start to learn your goal is to essentially think about pouring the change up out
like as if you had a can of dr pepper and you want to dump it out because it's got too much sugar and
it's going to lead to type 2 diabetes down the road dr pepper turn it out dr pepper dump it out
so we've got our change up as i release it my goal is to be slightly on the inside of the ball like
this so mentally i'm thinking of catching this middle finger at the bottom digit because again
i'm not throwing it with my fingertips on the inside of the ball just like that so immensely
every time i throw it i'm thinking i'm trying to get here as i release this pitch so let's talk
about the spin and the speed so again the spin is going to be that disco ball or angled angled spin
and the reason this changeup is going to go slower than a fastball because it's not magic is that
we're putting spin over top and on the inside of the ball we're channeling the energy we would be
putting right through the center of it and we're channeling it over the top on the inside just
like if you're going to punch me if you punched me square in the chest i would fall back because all
of your force went through the center of me if you punch me in the shoulder i would partly go back
and i would partly turn because you're losing some force into spinning my body because you hit me off
center that's the way to think of the change up the fastball all the force goes through the center
of it that's why the fastball is always going to be the hardest pitch you can throw because
you're going right through the center of the ball applying all the force in the middle with the
change up and with the curveball and with the slider and with a cutter you're putting force
onto the side of the ball and converting that arm speed into spin and that's why the pitch comes out
slower in addition to creating break and making it move okay so that's the why and the how and
sort of the physics of how the changeup is gonna fly because yes learning how to throw a change up
is partly the grip but it's also partly the execution and it's also partly understanding
what it is you're trying to accomplish when you're throwing that change up so if you say okay i've
got this grip which helps me then spin the ball this way which applying that spin helps it sink
and run which is arm side movement and it reduces the spin that's the whole package of why a
changeup does what it does all right all right so let's talk about the speed differential when
you're learning your changeup it's an old myth that you're supposed to take 10 miles per hour
or 12 miles per hour off the pitch really what you should be thinking about is a percentage and it's
going to be somewhere between like 8 and 12 slower than your fastball so if you throw 70 miles per
hour 10 would be 7 miles per hour off which means if you threw a 70 mile per hour fastball your
changeup is about 63 plus or minus so that's a good way to think about it just think about the 10
plus or minus a couple percentages that's going to be about right if
you meet some of the preconditions for throwing a good change of which are the grip which is going
to take about five percent of the velocity off and then the hand action which pouring of you
know pouring your hand over the wall like dumping out a dr pepper is going to channel velocity over
the top of the ball instead of going through the center of the ball and that's what's going to take
another five percent off so of that ten percent you get five percent just from your your uh ring
finger and your middle finger in the grip kind of choking the ball that's just going to make it go
not quite as fast as the fast ball where you're pushing it with your index and your middle finger
and then the other five percent comes from pouring over the ball converting velocity into spin which
again is unlike a fastball which you go right through the center of it putting all of your
arm speed into the center of the ball so the two five percents the grip and the hand action those
contribute to that 10 plus or minus which is the the right speed reduction no matter how hard you
throw so again the harder you throw the bigger that gap will be in miles per hour but it'll
still be the same 8 to 12 on average like 10 speed difference the next thing to understand about arm
slot as it pertains to your chain up is it's going to affect the movement that you get so again when
you have a higher arm slot you're going to get more like straight movement and if you get some
some sink at all it'll just kind of go straight down you won't get as much arm side movement
if you're a lower arm slot pitcher like low three quarter it's going to be a lot easier to get
lateral movement and you'll also get good sinking movement as well so just understand that depending
on your arm slot the shape of your change up and the shape of its movement will vary the next thing
i want to talk about with the changeup is how to throw it mentally so basically the number
one mistake that most pitchers make when throwing their chain up is they baby it they don't throw it
full speed because they want it to go slower so they're mentally thinking like eh i don't want
this thing to be as fast as my fastball and i know that if it tracks straight down the middle
and it's too hard the hitters are going to just tee off on it the biggest thing you have to do
with the change up is remember that arm speed is deception so if your arm on a fast ball looks
like this and your changeup looks like this it's going to be not deceptive at all the number one
thing you want to do when throwing a change up is to throw it with exactly the same intensity
as the fastball if not more so a lot of great pictures and i did this myself is i would think
about throwing my change up harder than my fastball which seems really counter-intuitive
but the reason that you do this is because when you think about throwing it mentally
harder than your fastball you do not slow your arm down and then you get a really good finish
you get really good arm speed through the changeup which helps it spin the way you want to spin
and it also looks to a hitter as if you're trying to throw a fastball by them and when they see
those men those body cues of this pitcher is like boom really coming at me and then it's a change up
it increases the deception and it increases the likelihood that the hitter is fooled
and on their front foot and not on time to hit the ball hard so you cannot underestimate how
important it is when you're throwing this in the bullpen or in a game to throw it absolutely
as hard as your fastball if not mentally at a higher intensity than your fastball you want
absolute high arm speed as much as the fastball if not more to really get great deception which
will increase the amount of swings and misses and miss hits on your changeup so how do you learn
a great change of how do you develop it and get it to where it's really effective in games
number one you've got to play catch with it over and over and over again and you need a
partner to give you good feedback so when you throw this ball to your partner at low speed
just playing catch ask your partner hey if you see it spinning diagonally or with like this
disco ball spin can you tell me so i can say that felt like this and my partner said it was good
then the more you throw this and you get that good feedback you'll be able to associate the correct
feel out of your hand also with the way it moves also with your partner's feedback and the more
and more you throw this you'll start to see it fade to your right if you're righty or fade to
your left if you're a lefty you'll start to see that it's hard to throw changeups to your glove
side because they want to move to your arm side so this is all important part of the process
my change up really developed the first winner that i tried throwing it because i threw 2
000 of them over like a six week period in my winter you know in college you have winter break
it's usually four to six weeks something like that like december until mid-january
and i was like i'm teaching myself a change up and so i got a net because i didn't have a partner
every day some days i did some days i didn't and i'd warm up and i'd play catch and i would throw
50 to 100 change ups low speed just like playing catch but just working over and over teaching
myself how can i get this thing to move and sink and be slower and i was asking for feedback
and i was working with it every single day that made a huge difference so there's no magic if
it's not working right away you can definitely tinker with different grips and i encourage
you to do that don't take my word for that just this grip is the only grip because there's a lot
of different grips but this one's a really easy effective one to get started with and then it's
up to you to put in the work and consistently play catch with them after that when you start to get
good with it you have to throw it in bullpens and you have to force yourself to throw it in games
it's very common especially for young pitchers that they'll start to learn to change up or or a
slider they get in the game they bounce a bunch they walk a couple hitters then they freak out
and they say i don't want to throw that chain up anymore because i can't locate it well it becomes
a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you never throw it in games you can't throw it in games if
you're too afraid to throw it in games you become even more afraid to throw it in games if you can't
locate it you become even less likely to locate it because you never work on it in game situations so
you have to force yourself to throw change ups if you want it to get better so hopefully if
you've made it here to the end of this video then you've learned a lot about how to throw a chain up
to different grips the physics the flight all that stuff if any questions leave them in the comments
below and again you can support my channel on patreon through buying a book or online course
all of which you'll find in the description thanks again and i'll see in the next video