What's up guys, Coach Madden, official trainer YouGoProBaseball.com, and today I've got the
top 10 pitching grips for you, but before we get into that video I want you guys to
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Alright guys, grab your sack, let's get into the video.
Alright so the first one is going to be the sinker.
Of course, it's my favorite.
If you guys been following the channel, my YouTube channel, for any time you know that
the sinker is my favorite pitch by far and it's because it was the most effective for
me.
I truly believe it is what got me drafted and took me to the next level in baseball
and it's such an effective pitch that at some times I thought it was almost like cheating
because when you throw it well the batters swing and miss hugely.
So it's such a great pitch and it's very safe for the arms.
So, how do we grip the sinker?
What you are going to do, at least what I did and what was successful for me is, I would
grab it on the seams here with my pointer finger right here on this seam and my middle
finger right next to it.
I have fat fingers so it kind of looks like I'm on both seams, but I'm actually trying
to be on this seam with the pointer finger and the middle finger is right next to it.
My thumb is going to be in line underneath with the pointer finger, so I've got more
on this side of the ball than I do that side of the ball.
Now the most important thing for the sinker when you throw it is going to be your arm
angle and your wrist angle and getting on top of the ball.
So if you're a guy who is a little bit higher, you're going to have to be a little bit lower
with your wrist angle.
So if your arm angle is higher, your wrist angle has to be lower.
If your arm angle is lower, then your wrist angle can be in line with your arm angle,
but the most important thing is that when you throw this pitch you want to get over
it.
So when I release, I'm coming over that ball and that's what's going to give that movement
down and slightly arm side.
You want more depth, downward angle, than arm side movement to have a good sinker.
The next pitch is going to be a cutter okay.
Now when I threw a cutter I was never very good at it, but I could throw a good one on
flat ground and I never really took it to the mound.
But the way I threw it was a natural cutter okay, and for a natural cutter the way I gripped
it was across the seams and I would put my middle finger on this seam right here and
my pointer finger would just be underneath that other seam okay.
Now for this one I wanted my thumb to be more on the middle finger side okay, so right here.
Now when I threw this ball I wasn't trying to force any spin on this like it's not a
forced cutter; this is more of a natural cutter I just wanted to come straight down through
and I'm actually going to pronate on this pitch.
So I'm not going to throw it like a curveball or anything like that; I'm actually going
to pronate and I want the last thing touching this ball is the inside part of my middle
finger on that lace and it's going to give a little bit of extra rotation on that side
of the ball which is going to make it cut to my glove side.
So that's another great pitch for you.
The third pitch is going to be the circle change up okay, I know you guys all know the
circle change up.
Now here's the thing with the circle change up, if you're a sinker guy you want to grip
it like your sinker so the rotation looks the same.
If you're a two-seam guy, grip it like the two-seam.
If you're a four-seam guy you want to grip it like the four-seam; so let's say you're
a four-seam guy okay, so if you're throwing a four-seam fastball you want to grip the
circle change up like a four-seam.
So I'm going across the four-seams like I would a fastball, my middle fingers hooking
that seam right there, its giving me a little extra pull down on that.
I've got my circle right here on the inside and my pinky finger just kind of falls where
it feels comfortable.
As I throw this pitch I really want to focus on pronating as I get through my release point
and that's going to give it the extra change of speed as well as movement and depth that
we need to get batters out.
The fourth pitch is going to be the Vulcan.
I threw this pitch for a few years in pro ball as my changeup because my circle changeup
was garbage so I threw the Vulcan and the Vulcan is just like a split-finger except
it's more like a forkball actually not a split-finger, but it's with these fingers instead of these
fingers.
So basically you're going to go on the outside of the horseshoe like this, the pointer and
thumb is going to be in a comfortable position as well as the pinky and all we're trying
to do is come straight through that at release point and kind of get a slipping action as
we release it okay.
If you get inside of the ball a little bit it can kind of have a wobble and a down an
arm side movement; if you come straight through sometimes it'll get like a knuckle movement
and kind of just fade out and drop.
Those were the two ways I try to throw it when I was throwing it.
The fifth pitch is going to be a slurve.
Now the slurve is like a curve, but the way I think of it, just to put it in perspective
is a cutter is more like this, a slider is more like this, a slurve is more like this
and a curve is like this, a 12-6 is like this.
So if you think about it on a clock that's the way I like to describe those pitches.
So if we're talking about a slurve now it's going to be kind of in the middle, so it's
not necessarily a 12-6 and it's not necessarily a cutter so it's more in between okay.
To grip that pitch the way I used to throw it was right here on the big horseshoe on
the inside, middle finger there, get a good grip on it and then the thumb in line with
that middle finger more on this side of the ball.
Now when we throw this pitch, I'm not really trying to snap the wrist; you hear a lot of
people say “snap the wrist, snap the wrist”, I'm going to try to snap the wrist, I'm just
trying to have really good arm speed and let this ball come out this way and get this rotation.
The way the seams spin, the axis on which it spins, is going to create the angle of
the movement; so if I'm trying to throw a slurve I'm going to be throwing it this way
right on that axis and that's the angle I'm trying to get with my wrist.
Number six pitching grip it's going to be the 12–6 curveball, we just talked about
the slurve, the curve is the same exact grip, the only difference is like I talked about
on the movement wise, we're trying to go from 12 to 6, hence like on a clock, so that's
why they call it a 12-6 curveball.
So we're trying to come and get that four-seam rotation going more straight down versus on
the slurve it was more this way right.
So same exact grip except we're trying to get different rotation or different angle
of rotation when we release that ball everything else stays exactly the same.
Not a whole lot of wrist snap, it's more arm speed and getting a good release point.
The seventh pitch is going to be this slider, so on one end of the slurve we got the 12-6,
on the other end we've got the slider.
So now slider you can throw a couple different ways; you can throw it like that slurve or
that curve with the same grip and stay on the on this side of the ball and really pull
it across this way.
Some guys throw it that way or you can think fastball, fastball, fastball, same exact grip,
but think fastball, fastball, and fastball and then cut through it this way as you release
okay.
Some guys throw that pitch that way effectively okay, the way you like to think about that
is coming fastball, fastball, fastball and then turning a doorknob this way okay.
I didn't throw mine that way, I wasn't as effective, to me it wasn't as tight, but I
have seen many guys throw it that way and have a good pitch, good slider that way.
Now one thing I do like about throwing it that way is its more deceptive to the batter,
it looks more like a fastball is coming if you do it well.
So if you're throwing that hard, sharp, less movement slider; that may be the way to go
for you.
The eighth pitching grip that I'm going to share with you guys today is going to be the
fork ball okay.
Fork ball is these two fingers like the Vulcan was these two fingers; fork ball is going
to be these two and we want to split it nice and wide off of the laces right here.
Thumb can be on or off; I actually threw this pitch with my thumb off, so basically just
these two fingers, all you want to do is come straight through and try not to tilt it any
which way.
You can when you get good at it, tilt it one way or the other to get certain kind of movement,
but what you want to try to do at first is throwing straight through and have this ball
flip out and when it slips out it kind of gets that knuckleball rotation and dances
all crazy that's the beautiful thing about this pitch, okay.
Try it out on the flat ground, nice and easy when you get better with it maybe you can
bring it to the mound.
Now a very similar pitch a cousin or a brother perhaps to the fork ball will be the split
finger.
The difference of the split finger versus the fork ball is the split finger is on the
laces okay, so I'm on opposite horse shoe laces, I've got one in the middle okay.
Same thing thumb can be on or off depending; now the only thing with the fork ball is,
excuse me, the split finger is you want to pull down with this pointer finger as you
come through it, so you get a little bit of pronation and when you pull this down it kind
of gives it a little bit of knuckle, a little bit of depth and a little bit of arm side
movement so it's a really great pitch.
And number ten, the last pitch, is the Dead Fish.
I learned this pitch my junior year in college actually when I learned my sinker and my sinker
was my best pitch.
The dead fish is actually a play off of the sinker or pitch off of the sinker; basically
it's a BP fastball and when I used it was let's say for example there was a guy on first
base and maybe I had a lefty up and I wanted to induce a ground ball.
So instead of something throwing something hard pitch in there, I would just take a little
bit off, get that nasty sink and let them beat that ball onto the ground whoop easy
DoublePlay okay.
I can't tell you how many times it worked like clockwork okay, slowed it down a little
bit I wasn't necessarily trying to throw a swing and miss pitch because with a swing
and miss pitch that's great, but I only get a strike right there.
If I actually let this dude hit this ball and beat it into the ground now, I got two
outs I'll take two outs over one strike all day long, so it's a very good pitch.
Now you've got to make sure that you got that pitch, have it able to sink.
If you're throwing that pitch up there that's a little bit slower and it's a meat ball and
it's not really moving BOOM now you got two runs versus one strike.
So you got to be very confident and comfortable with this pitch.
The dead fish is basically the sinker grip, the only thing you're going to do is take
your thumb and move it to the side of the ball right here right and now you're just
going to throw it just like a like a BP fastball.
Good arm speed but you're not like maximum, maximum effort, so you're just getting here
and you really want to focus on that sink.
So getting on top of the ball as you throw it let the ball do the work for you let that
guy beat it into the ground, get you that double play head on back to the dugout.
Guys, I really hope you guys are enjoying these top ten Thursday videos, if you are
go ahead and give me that thumbs up if you're interested in learning more pitching
grips in my pitching 365 program which is on sale right now.
It has tons I think over 30 different pitches that you can learn, obviously you don't want
to throw 30 pitches in a game, and your catcher doesn't have that many fingers to give you
signs.
You really want three or four really great pitches, but at least it has a resource for
you to learn and try these pitches so you can find what works best for you and use it
and again that's just one module of 12 in my pitching 365 program
which is on sale right now.
I'll leave a link below where you can get that so if you're interested go and check
that out.
Also, leave me a comment below let me know what pitches you throw right now and rank
them in order from number one to number whatever however many throw your best to your worst
leave it in the comments below I will talk you guys there you.