My son has a good strong arm and wants to try out for pitcher on his team (he’s 8). Back when I was in little league, I started as a pitcher and did OK but the coach moved me out of the stretch and into a windup (no stealing allowed). My mechanics went all to hell and I was moved to 2nd base. Since then, I really believe kids need to develop a style that works for them and from there develop naturally.
The problem is that the pitching coach is running the drills so everyone pitches the same way. My son’s style doesn’t match his (so the coach won’t let him tryout) and now I’ve read that any drill is detrimental since it teaches the kids to pitch in pieces rather than one fluid motion.
So what drills (if any) should I have my son work on? Currently I take him out and let him work on his motion (stretch of course) and get consistant. Interestingly enough, he’s developed a hesitation and slow motion delivery that the kids that were handpicked to be pitchers have as well. That just furthers my idea that drills are bad and the kids just need to pitch with good mechanics until they’re consistant. What do y’all think?
I think you’re already on the right track. Eight years old is FAR too young for a pitcher to work on anything other than learning to move himself through the pitching motion in a fluid, consistent manner. Beyond good stretching and lots and lots of throwing, and teaching him to stop pitching when his arm is tired or sore, you’d be overdoing it for a kid that age.
Children that young should be throwing fastballs and nothing else. It’s widely said that they should not learn breaking stuff and whatnot because that’ll hurt their arms and that might be true, but I’ve never seen evidence it was. In any event, kids should be just learning how to throw fastballs consistently because that is how they learn control. Adding different pitches simply makes it harder to learn the fundamental pitching motion. Control and location must be learned before pitch variety can be increased. He needs to just pitch, pitch and pitch some more, and learn how to keep his arm and body loose and healthy.
You say he has already learned a changeup of sorts. If he feels comfortable with it and it doesn’t strain his arm let him work on it, but I would strongly suggest he not add the curveball at least until he’s 12-13, and that would be young.
Limit his pitching to about 100 pitches (real pitches) per week. Mix in ordinary catch, some long toss, and playing other positions and such, but actual pitches off the mound should be limited to 100-120 a week, in no fewer than two sessions of pitching (e.g. 50-60 pitches per session if you have two sessions.)
He should be working on defensive fundamentals a lot, though. Pitcher is a hard defensive position to play.
I would wait even longer on the breaking stuff. My husband used to pitch (up through college) and so did two BILs, and none of them would allow their own child to throw a curve ball until high school.
Just sayin’.
Is your kid a lefty, by any chance? My husband was putting crayons in my toddlers’ left hands for so long, hoping against hope…
