What's the Deal with Spin Efficiency?

Total Reading Time: 6 minutes

Check out some things I hope will ignite your curiosity, you’ll find helpful and that will make you enjoy coaching your pitchers. My passion is helping people and I hope this newsletter does just that!

Today's Topics:

• The Power of Journaling

• Handling Your Doubts and Uncertainties

• What’s the Deal with Spin Efficiency?

The Power of Journaling

Journaling is a powerful tool that will help your pitchers in lots of ways once they get into the habit of it. At first, you’ll have to help them make it a habit, but once they get used to it, your pitchers will like it, and really benefit from it.

Some of the benefits your pitchers will get from journaling include:

• It helps them record all their breakthroughs.

• It’s a place they can write down everything you teach them.

• It’s a safe place for them to get random stuff out of their heads (this was one of my pitchers’ favorite sections in their journals)

• It acts as a guide to help them breakdown their game performances.

• It can really help them have more intentional and focused practice sessions.

To me, the biggest role that Pitching Journals play is they help your pitchers think more specifically about their pitching - whether a bullpen or a game - instead of simply thinking they were “good” or “bad”. Good or bad might be accurate, but they’re too vague to help lead to any improvements.

Journaling prompts your pitchers to be specific through the questions you ask them. A great example of this is the Post-Game Journal page that Trish Ford has her pitcher complete. She detailed how her pitchers journal in her sessions at the Pitching Summit.

Journaling might sound intimidating but it can be as simple as having your pitchers jot down their post-game thoughts in a spiral-bound notebook, to completing a detailed after-game report like Trisha Ford has her Texas A&M pitchers do, all the way to a printed out year-long Pitching Journal.

If you’d like a FREE COPY of either my Pitching or Catching Journal (Word version so you can edit however you find necessary) - just send me an email: [email protected]

Handling Your Doubts and Uncertainties

Fall is an exciting time for sure. Football has started, cooler temperatures are on the horizon (unless you live in scorched-earth Southern California), and your new team is on campus and ready-to-go.

It’s also a time of doubt. It’s common as pitching coaches for doubt to fill our heads - doubt about how good our pitchers will be, doubt about whether our freshmen will ever get it, doubt about whether we can help them…doubt, doubt, doubt.

I’ve talked to numerous high profile pitching coaches this Fall who are struggling with doubt and wondering what’s wrong with them. My answer is nothing! Of course we’re supposed to be confident leaders, and in some cases we are, but as offenses get better and more pitchers enter the portal, pitching can be overwhelming at times.

I can’t magically make your doubts vanish, but I can offer some ways for you to help manage them:

1. Know that EVERYBODY who cares about helping people wonders if they really can. This wonder is often called doubt. If you REALLY care about helping your players then it’s normal to have some doubt. Doubt is normal, and doubt means you care.

2. Insert the word “wonder” every time you find yourself doubting your skills to help your pitchers. As in, “I wonder if I can help them”. “I wonder if I can use Rapsodo right”… wonder implies curiosity and curiosity is the beginning of a solution. Wonder instead of doubt.

3. Acknowledge YOUR superpower. We can’t all be good at everything but that doesn’t mean you aren’t REALLY good at something. In my case, I doubt my skills in pitch design but helping pitchers with their mental game is my superpower. YOU have a superpower. Acknowledge it, and know that you’ll be more confident and comfortable when you’re working with your pitchers in your Superpower area. And then grow in those areas where you feel weaker.

4. Be vulnerable with your players. If you aren’t sure of something you can say “I’m not sure if this will work, but let’s try…”, or “I don’t know but I’ll find out”. Showing your vulnerability lets your pitchers know they don’t have to be perfect. Plus, they all have their doubts, too. Your pitchers just need you to be their supporter, their confidence-guide, their nudger, their belief-coach, their teacher - not their perfect adult.

5. Finally, don’t beat yourself up. Just like your pitchers will have aspects of their game they’re stronger at, so will you.

What’s the Deal with Spin Efficiency?

Or, Should All Pitches Have the Same Spin Efficiency? More on that in a minute. But first, let’s talk Rapsodo. Rapsodo tells us a lot of cool things to help our pitchers get better, but the information (or data) listed can also be overwhelming, Very overwhelming.

So I’m starting a series each issue explaining the main data elements of Rapsodo and the role they’ll play in helping your pitchers improve.

Let’s start with Spin Efficiency. One of the most prominent elements on the Rapsodo app is Spin and Spin Efficiency. Spin is also referred to as Total Spin, or the total number of times the ball rotates in a minute, not the number of rotations from release to homeplate. And Spin Efficiency is also True Spin, shown in a percentage.

Spin Efficiency is basically how much of the Total Spin is contributing to the pitch’s movement. And while it seems like the closer you can get to 100% on every pitch the better, that just isn’t the case.

Each type of pitch has a different range of ideal Spin Efficiency and it’s based on 2 things:

1. Gravity pulls every pitch down.

2. Softball pitchers release above the ball which, unlike baseball, causes naturally released pitches (think fastball) to have topspin.

So based on this, pitches that move down - think Drop - won’t need to have as much spin as pitches that move up - think Rise. Here’s a list of the Spin Efficiency rates for each pitch:

Pitches that go up are like rockets and pitches that go down are like rocks. Rockets need big engines to overcome gravity and go up and spin is the rocket for up pitches, while rocks don’t need much to go down and likewise neither do drops.

Get access to all the 2024 Pitching Summit presentations by Jen Roche, Kirk Walker, Trisha Ford and Nate Walker.

Hope you enjoyed this Issue. If there’s something specific you want to read about send that to me at [email protected]

See You Next Week!