Absolute #4 – You Need to Throw Every Pitch as Hard as You Can

I love twitter.  If you follow me (@CoachOpe) you probably already know this.  It is my source for news and information, but also a unique medium to connect and converse with people all over the world.  Back in early December I was engaged in a twitter conversation with former Major League pitcher Jim Parque (@Parqman40).  This was cool for me, as I remember watching him pitch on television while I was growing up.  To interact with someone who pitched in the big leagues, who I have never met, is exactly why I love twitter.

One of the topics Jim and I were tweeting about was adding and subtracting to a fastball.  Jim said this was something he frequently did and he feels it was a major part of the success he had.  This was one component to a bigger picture discussion about how every pitcher is different and it is a coach’s responsibility to figure out what is best for each individual pitcher, rather than forcing every pitcher you coach to do the same thing.  During this conversation, a prominent collegiate pitching coach from a school in a “Power 5” conference jumped in – another example of twitter’s awesomeness.  Now, I seriously doubt he had followed the entire thread and did not know the entire scope of this conversation, but what he interjected was:

“Pitchers need 2 attack w/their best at all times.  Saving ur best til u need it is a gamble”

“@Parqman40 Most P’s R not as talented as u were Jim.  To ‘save for later’ might be following start.  Attack”

If we had been talking about the pitching MENTALITY, I would absolutely agree.  Since we were talking about physical exertion, I was a little surprised, and quite frankly disappointed, at the closed minded comments of a well-respected coach in this profession.  What works for one pitcher, or most pitchers, may not work for another, and certainly won’t work for all.

Jim pitched at UCLA and this is what his Wikipedia page says about his college career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Parque#College):

From 1994 to 1997, Parque attended UCLA and led the Bruins to the College World Series in 1997.^[2] Parque earned second-team Smith Super Team honors in his sophomore season in 1996.^[2] In his junior year, Parque was voted first-team All-American by Baseball America, first-team All-Pac-10 Conference, second-team by the Sporting News, second-team by the American Baseball Coaches Association, and third-team by Collegiate Baseball.^[2][2] Parque is one of the most decorated pitchers in UCLA Baseball history.^[2]He currently ranks second in career games started with 50, second in career total innings pitched with 334²⁄₃ innings, second in career strikeouts with 319, third in career pitching wins with 25, and seventh in career complete games with 10.^[2] In terms of single season pitching records for the Bruins, Parque ranks third in wins with 13 in 1997, ninth for games started with 19 in 1997, ninth for innings pitched with 125²⁄₃ in 1996, fourth in strikeouts with 119 in 1997, and fifth in strikeouts with 116 in 1996.^[2]

 

That’s a pretty impressive career…..Good thing Jim didn’t have to pitch for this guy in college!

My desire with this post is not to proclaim my disdain for philosophies different than mine, and I have not and will not give the name of the coach I am referring to because that is not important.  The point is that we collectively as pitching coaches need to be better.  We need to do a better job for our athletes of learning and understanding who each one of our pitchers are, and what they uniquely do to get outs.  We need to send our pitchers out as prepared as we can to get outs the best way they can.  I wrote this article for Phil Tognetti at the Full Windup a few years back describing what we do along these lines:

http://www.fullwindup.com/2012/11/the-three-pillars-of-pitching/

I don’t want to get too far off topic here, and the specific topic I started on was whether or not a pitcher needs to throw every pitch as hard as he can.  I am going to defer to Hall of Famer Greg Maddux on this one:

“When they’re in a jam, a lot of pitchers…try to throw harder.  Me, I try to locate better.”

There certainly are guys that velocity is the foundation to their plan, but as I blogged a few weeks back (https://coachope.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/absolute-1-you-need-to-throw-90-miles-per-hour-to-pitch-beyond-high-school) velocity is just one piece to the pitching puzzle, and to try to throw a blanket over all pitchers is just flat wrong.

There are guys, very good pitchers at the highest level that go as hard as they can every pitch, and need to.  These guys typically have top of the scale fastballs and their game plan revolves around velocity.  The pitching process has so many layers to it, and it is our job as pitching coaches to peel them back as quickly as the pitcher is ready for us to.  We need to stop coaching every kid the same way, we are ruining careers by doing this.

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