Category: Pitching
Type: Tip
Equipment: baseball
Venue: Indoor & Outdoor
ARM SLOT ANGLE
My Son CJ Showing a 90 Degree Arm Slot as well as a windmill type angle
One of the big things to look for when evaluating a pitcher, whether it be your team's or an apposing pitcher, is their arm slot. The arm slot is the position of the arm as the pitcher is turning their hips to release the ball. By observing an athlete's arm slot angle, it becomes fairly easy to tell if that pitcher’s fastball will have movement or not.
As a coach, you want to look for the arm slot to be somewhere around a 90-degree angle or more. This is measured from the shoulder, to the elbow to the hand and baseball. If you can imagine you are at the plate facing a right-hander, that area I just described should look like an "L." If it does, the pitcher’s fastball will have some movement, and that movement will usually be in towards a right-handed batter. Just the opposite is true for a lefty (depending on pressure points, etc.) The reason for this is that at release of the baseball (for a fastball or change) the hand naturally supinates, or turns away from your body, causing movement in that direction.
If you have, or see, a pitcher who does not have much in degree of arm slot, their ball won’t move as much or at all. Recently, I had a pitcher who threw the ball and his arm slot was about 150 degrees, but his elbow was not on the same plane as his shoulder so he looked like a windmill while throwing. So I had him try to throw completely sidearm. He looked at me like I was crazy, but tried anyway. His arm slot then decreased to a 90+ degree angle by dropping his elbow, and his ball moved readily. I then asked him to show me about where he thought his arm slot was, and he showed me by putting his elbow below his shoulder and the ball at about pectoral level. I laughed at him, and showed him where it really was. It was simple to fix and just takes the athlete some getting used to with plenty of pen work.
So take some time with your pitchers and look for that arm slot. Make sure that the arm slot stays the same with each pitch the athlete throws. Be sure not to vary the arm angle with a different pitch because as the athlete gets older, a good hitter or opposing pitching coach will pick up on the different arm angles related to the pitch thrown. Video taping your pitchers can make reading their arm angle easier. It can also open the athlete's eyes as to what he looks like, compared to what he may feel.
The elbow should stay on the same plane as the shoulder. I realize that the angle correlation I am making may seem confusing. It’s ok to have an angle of more than 90 degrees as long as your elbow is aligned with the shoulder. If the elbow gets to be on the same plane with the neck or head, obviously your arm angle will be more than 90 degrees, but your ball will have no movement, as you will be throwing right over the top. Those athletes also have breaking balls that break straight down and have no breaking angle across the plate. Curveballs that only break across one plane are generally easier to hit.
Good Luck!
Submitted by: CoachB
|
|
|
