rise ball or drop ball?

heard lots of discussions over the last few years about which pitch is more effective, the rise or the drop.Some say perfect that rise ball and you will rack up plenty of strikeouts and you'll be a dominant pitcher. Other say develop a good drop ball and have lots of ground ball putouts and it will keep your team in the game .Of course you got the curve and the screw as movement pitches (in and out),also the change up. Always a plus to have them all.But lets face it, even the good MLB pitchers many times have only one or two consistant and effectivepitches in their arsenal.Lets just say hypothetically that a pitcher has a good change up, what would a college coach rather see when recruiting a pitcher,a drop or a rise?

 

Down pitch is harder to hit

I think most would say keep it down but it is great to have both.

 

Agree with Cardscoach the down ball should always be effective. Riseball is great and virtually unhittable at times if it is good. But discipline batters will stay off that pitch until you make a mistake, and leave it just above the belt. And we know where that one is going.

 

JMO

Riseball.....the hitter moves up in the box and hits that bad boy before it has a bigtime move.
Step back in the box and maybe the ump will judge a nice pitch as a ball.

With runners on base, the dropball will eventually lose a game for you.
Dirtballs, no matter how good a catcher is will get away and move runners.

I'm in the "hitting" side of this equation. Trust me, hitters, not batters, hitters, will pick apart the up and down pitches unless they move like crazy.

Inside tight or outside down and away can also be detected by coaches and very good hitters

A pitcher with a great rise, drop, fast, curve, screw will be exposed until they learn to change the speed of the ball without changing the delivery.

Hitting is all about timing.

fish

 

'Down, hard and keep it in the yard'

Frequent readers have heard my thoughts on this. The rise ball is 'high risk, high reward' pitch. For those pitchers who perfect it it is very effective, lots of K's. But . . . . I said PERFECT IT. If you have ever seen Angela Tincher pitch then you know what perfection is. If you can't be perfect like Angela you're far better off staying down. My DD took this approach and, believe it or not, never gave up an over the fence HR until she got to college. Of course that changed there but she still never surrendered more than 8 in any season. Remember, there's no defense for the HR.

The problem for most young pitchers, especially if they throw hard, is they can dominate HS and alot of TB games with a far from perfect up pitch (I hesitate to call some of these rise balls as they really aren't close to spin pitch that Tincher throws). Then, when they get to college the batters just leave the up pitch (which is almost never a strike) alone. The adjustment for the girl that does not have a good down pitch is to simply throw lower. The results are rarely ever good!

 

Agree

All you really need to be a successful D1 pitcher is to be able to throw and 64+ mph fastball wherever you want , whenever you want to (yes you can throw a fast ball to D1 hitters, I watched it done very successfully for the last four years); a change at about 53 mph preferably thrown off your breaking pitch (not the high school change at 45 mph that college batters can read every time) and any one breaking pitch. That's three pitches. I laugh when a dad tells me his 12 year old has seven pitches. After all, how many fingers does the catcher have??

 

Thanks guys! great replies so far.Just what I hoped for when I started the thread.Keep em coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

....nice post.

 

2%

of the TB level pitchers actually throw rise balls....the other 98% think they do.

A pitcher's job is to "slow your bat down." By eliminating bat speed,
strikeouts, ground balls and pop ups result...

85% of the coaches who think they are teaching rise balls, don't have a clue what one is, or how the teach it.... Throwing a high hard pitch with improper forced movement, ie bullet spin, will get you in trouble quickly with good hitters.

Down and hard,..... for you pitchers, nose over toes....