Or this.
What’s up with that?
They start with their front arm and hand fully extended and then rip their arm back and their wrist inward to create as much counterbalancing acceleration as possible to offset their throwing arm coming forward.
It’s about generating rotational power, starting with the legs, then hips, then torso, then finally the shoulders and then the arm, such that the final element, the pitching arm and hand, act like the end of a whip. That rotational power, leading to the whip-like delivery, is the key component to pitch velocity.
Just be clear, OP was talking about “the off hand,” i.e. the non-throwing hand, but of course Bullitt is correct on the reason for that point.
Princhester’s “counterbalancing rotation”–a confusing term I never heard of (which proves nothing, of course) is fascinating and is an unusual application of the conservation of angular momentum–which, thanks to his post, I never thought of before.
Famously seen used by ice-skaters who lower or raise both arms to sped up or slow down, respectively, the skater, changes the momentum “symmetrically” around his central axis; the baseball pitcher (if Princhester is correct :)) does it asymmetrically.
Nice non Wiki (for a change) explanation: http://btc.montana.edu/olympics/physbio/biomechanics/cam02.html
And then I found this, and damn if this isn’t on topic and fun, if too short:
*Momentum: an ice skater throws a ball *
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/linear-momentum/momentum-tutorial/v/momentum-ice-skater-throws-a-ball#!
Then of course the linear-momentum-around-a-circle turns into linear momentum of the whole system, and the pitcher (or outfielder throwing home, say) staggers forward absorbing it; the skater spins out of it in a loop to continue his routine. Discus hurlers stagger forward, come to think of it, talking about uncurling momentum…
I wouldn’t mind seeing what smarter people than me say about that situation, or the pitcher, of course. Like a plane on a treadmill…
About “linear-momentum a circle,” spacecraft orbits (a skater in a twirl is orbiting also, which is a cute image), as posters here often mention, can be thought of similarly. So a de-orbit could be done by having it stick out a big piece–a left turn signal stuck out the window which actually makes it turn. I think it would turn downwards, but somebody has to page Stranger or the other physicists. Would be rough on the ship, though.
Except I didn’t say that. I said “counterbalancing acceleration”. It’s all fine tuning of the same thing. The pitching is accelerating his throwing hand very hard towards the plate. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and all else being equal this would tend to accelerate his body away from the plate, which is going to absorb some of the energy of the throw. However, if the pitcher (at least insofar as possible) accelerates his non-throwing hand inward towards his body it balances the acceleration of his throwing hand, meaning he doesn’t move as far back, meaning more of the energy goes into the ball.
Moderator Action
Moving thread from General Questions to The Game Room.
Agree with all of the above, though I wonder if there’s also an advantage in obscuring their throwing arm, hand, and the ball before the forward motion starts.
If the pitcher can hide / obscure the ball during the delivery as much as possible, it definitely is to their advantage. Throughout the pitching motion the batter tries to see the ball as early as possible. The later this happens, the less time the batter has to act on the pitch, and that works to their disadvantage.
Sure, but are pitchers deliberately hiding the ball that way, or is just part of the natural motion? Would they change their motion to further obscure the ball, or try to get the most energy into the ball? I’m sure there’s no one answer either, pitchers are also trying not to let variations in their motion give away the pitch they are going to throw so they’ll try to use the same motion for all pitches.
I was not a pitcher, I played a little at 3rd and short. My understanding is that your first priorities as a pitcher are location, control and velocity. Once you have those, then if you can obscure the ball a little while keeping command of location, control and velocity, then that’s a great thing. But without that command, forget it, it doesn’t really matter.
Are there any pitchers or pitching coaches here who can enlighten us?
I Googled outfielder throwing and they pretty much all do it. Even the clip art in the search results show the wrist bend.
I think we’re over thinking this. It’s the glove weighing the hand down, the thrower getting the glove out of the way, then exaggerating the hand position.
I searched for pictures of cricketers throwing and many have the off hand raised up, which looks just as unnatural as the gloved hand tucked down.
I pitched in college. The first couple responses pretty much got it. I’m a RHP so to get maximum hip rotation I want to whip my left arm close to my body down around my belt. Like this guy.
http://dailybruin.com/images/42203_web.sp.5.9.baseball.wrap.picao.jpg
Or this guy.
http://www.baseballaccessories.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/baseball-pitchers-arm.jpg
And here’s Chapman again a little further along in his motion.
https://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/usatsi_8078354_168380427_lowres.jpg?w=1200
I can whip that arm down faster if I keep it compact. Really it’s aerodynamics. If I just keep it loose or straight, it doesn’t clear out as fast.
I would also note that this is not an uncomfortable thing. You don’t have to contort your wrist like a pretzel, just bend it enough to make your arm swing down as fast as possible.
That’s what I was going to say, often the fingers are splayed as well. That’s from the outfield, when they’re trying to throw down the stumps, the fingers will more likely be flattened out and perhaps pointing at the target.
The extend of the “bend” is visually exaggerated by the glove, which bends away from the hand.
That said, the basic technicalities are well explained. When teaching a small child how to throw a ball, one of the pointers given is to teach them to aim their glove hand at the target while bringing the ball behind them to load up the throw. (Later, in providing more advanced training to the student who’s played a little ball, it can be specified that you are primarily aiming your glove ELBOW at the target, and should be moving the glove towards the target as the throw begins. But often this just happens with the right early coaching.)
This has several mechanical benefits, one of which is the creation of “rotational power,” as Bullitt calls it, or inertia or balance or whatever; the power of drawing the glove hand back counters the power of propelling the baseball forward. It’s just natural to bend the hand back as you’re doing this. You really don’t have to be taught, it’ll just happen.
(The other benefit of having the arm that way is, of course, that you will actually hit what you’re throwing at. Aiming with the glove arm forces the body to line up to the target.)
I would imagine that most pitcher “deception” is fairly non-deliberate, but if they can do something to increase the amount of deception to their delivery without affecting their stuff otherwise, it is to their advantage to do so. The pitching motion is a series of tradeoffs and compromises.
That’s my conclusion also based on the comments here, and especially the pics running coach provided. Outfielders may deke occasionally, but they don’t care if you pick up their grip unless they don’t actually have the ball in their hand.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some pitchers did adjust their motion to help hide the ball, but I can’t see a pitching coach trying to change someone’s good delivery just to add that.