Pitching Basics Guide
Use the Pitching Resources in this Guide to help develop the basics in your team's pitchers
We wanted to provide you with some great pitching basics to get your pitchers off to a great start both mentally and athletically. Pitching can seem very straightforward, but it does require some foundational ideas to communicate to your team. Please use the following videos and bullpen chart to help teach the foundational ideas in this Pitching Basics Guide.
Basic Pitching Components
Every coach needs to be able to communicate to their pitchers what the basic components are to pitching. In this video, Steve Nicollerat highlights a few that you should start teaching and talking through with your pitchers
Pitching Backwards
One of the best pieces of advice you should be teaching and working with your pitchers on every day. Pitching Backwards is a philosophy to throw a type of pitch the hitter is least expecting. This video describes what pitching backwards is and how to teaching it to your pitchers (and even catchers if they call the pitches!)
Pitching Bullpen Charts
How does a coach help his pitchers work on the Basic Pitching Components and Pitching Backwards? Bullpen Charting. Here is the Bullpen Chart we've used for 30+ years.
How to use the Coach Baseball Right Pitcher Bullpen Chart during bullpen throwing, make sure you have a pitcher, catcher, and either a coach or additional player who can score. When a pitcher "starts" a hitter in the session, the scorer will assign a point in each of the categories: was it a first pitch strike? were they ahead in the count after 3 pitchers? did they get a strikeout? Then total up their total pitches and total points. For more advanced pitchers, mark where and what type of pitches they were on the plate. Please download, share it, adapt it to your team.