Whats up baseball players, coaches? I'm coach Dan Blewett.
in today's video,
we're going to go over right handed pitchers pick offs to first base.
So we're going to go over all the footwork of it.
We're going to go over your fastest move, your medium move, your slowest move.
Some do, some don't.
And be sure to check out the timestamps in the descriptions.
If you want to jump to one spot or the next, you'll be able to easily
do that in the description of the video below.
All right, so pickoff so let's get let's get down to it.
Number one, we're going to talk
about the footwork and how you set up on the mound.
So one of the reasons that you're that you're set
position is important is because you want to have enough weight and enough
distance between your feet so that you have room to do footwork.
So when I see young pitchers come set with their feet super close together,
you can't do an effective
pickoff move this way because your feet have no room to move
and sort of escape each other.
So you never see any high level pitcher have their feet really close together.
And that's why you're just more unstable having your feet set off as one big post
rather than having this good base support, which is about shoulder width.
So I'm going to have a little more weight,
my back leg, a little less weight in my front legs.
And now this one can move easily and I can go home anytime I want,
or I have still enough weight distributed where I can then move this right foot.
So the right hand pick off move. Let's start with the basics first.
And then again, we'll get to advanced stuff as we go the right foot.
You don't have to do this where you step back off and then throw.
You can do that anytime you want.
But the right hand to pick off move, that's the fastest that you would do in
the game is the right foot's
going to disconnect forward from the rubber at an angle
and then a left foot is going to step towards first base.
So when you do this at full speed, it's going to look a lot like one fluid motion.
But in reality, this foot is moving first and then they land together.
So, again, I'm going to demonstrate these at full speed and throw it,
but that's the footwork.
So, again, it's once you're here, it's you disconnect for to an angle
and then you're going to turn and complete it.
And again, when you do that, a full speed, it looks a lot like it's one motion.
Now, let's talk about the difference between your best move
and your worst move.
So what a lot of pitchers do to like not show them their best move is
they'll do this.
They'll pick the first and they'll lob it.
And this has absolutely no effect. It's a waste of everyone's time.
It slows the game down and it does nothing to show the runner what you have
in regards to making him nervous about staying there or not. So what A real
A, B and C move look like are this.
There's subtle differences
that are going to allow the runner to get farther off the base
because they think they've seen your best move when you lob a grenade.
No one in the ballpark thinks that that was your best move.
They just think you're patronizing them
or you just don't really understand the game.
What the real difference is, is separating essentially your hands from your feet.
So you could have fast feet or you could have slow feet.
You could have a fast arm or a slow arm.
And then when you mix the two together, you get three different combinations.
So basically what this looks like is slow feet, slow arm is your worst move.
And that means my feet are going to be a little more one, two.
And my arm is going to be a little bit longer.
That's going to be your worst moving again. I'll demonstrate this in a second.
Then your body move is going to be fast feet. Slow arm.
So my feet are going to go really quick,
but my arm is still going to be long and kind of slow.
That's going to give him just a little bit more time to get back.
And then finally, your best move, the one that you're maybe in a catch,
a guy who's just a little bit too far off is fast feet and a fast arm.
And what that looks like is your feet are super fast.
So all one motion and your arm is going to be more like a catcher
infielder, where instead of having this long loop to it, it's going to be boom.
It's already in position all at once. OK,
so let's go over a couple of those pick off
moves at full speed so you can see the difference.
And it's going to be subtle.
But the way this works is you show them your C move, your worst move,
which is slow arm, slow beat
and or long arm and slow feet.
And that allows them to get one more step because they can make it back.
But it still looks pretty convincing.
And then your feet quicken up
with your arm, stay as long as they get another half step.
And then if they're just too far to get back or they lean, they hesitate.
Now, fast feet, fast arm might catch him if you make a good, strong throw.
So let's go over some of those big old moves in full speed.
OK, so this is going to be your slowest move.
So again, this is slow feet and a larm in a large, long arm swing.
So what you'll see
while I do this is you'll see a definite right and left
and you'll see a lot of length to my arm.
New more. OK, so that's your worst move,
it's not a lab, it's not something silly, it looks like a normal move, right?
If you didn't know any better, you think that was my pickoff move.
And that is exactly the point.
OK, so now we're going to go to your B move.
This is fast feet long, slow arm.
So you can see it looks pretty quick.
My feet are moving much more as like one unit.
There's very little one, too.
Between my steps and my arm, however, is still pretty long.
Let's do one more of those.
OK, so now we're going to do your fastest move,
this is fast feet and a fast, shorter arm action.
A lot an infielder or a catcher?
Everything is compact as my body
starts to move into throwing position and the balls on its way.
Basically, as soon as my feet touch down, that's the goal.
So hopefully that makes sense.
Let's go over a couple. I'll do one of each.
I won't tell you which one.
And you can guess at home and leave your comments.
Which one you think was which? Throw number one.
Pick off number two or pick off number three.
You can tell me if that was my amove, my B move or my C move.
OK, so I hope this video is helpful.
Pickoff moves to first base for right handers in baseball.
It's something that you really need a master.
It's something you should play at work on playing catch out in the outfield.
This should be part of your routine somehow. Right.
So the more you do these, the better you'll get.
And you can see I haven't made a pick off to a base in quite a long time,
but this is muscle memory.
And my throws are pretty, you know, downhill, pretty accurate.
The footwork doesn't go away.
But that's because all those years I had great coaches helped me and say, hey,
this should be part of your routine.
We're going to work on this as a team as well.
But this needs to be something that you get better,
that you want to really be good at holding runners. OK.
So thanks for watching. I hope this video is helpful.
If you want more pitching knowledge,
check out the links in the description below. You'll find my books.
I'm working on a third as we speak here in late twenty twenty one.
You'll find my online courses, other videos that are related to this as well.
Thanks again. And I'll see you in the next video.