Total Reading Time: 7 minutes

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Alter the 9-Ball Net to Dominate Movement

The 9-Ball net. Ugh…we all have a love-hate relationship with it. As coaches, we kind-of love it because it lets our pitchers practice without catchers and keeps them honest in their control. But our pitchers hate it because it’s so unforgiving with their control.

Theoretically it should help our pitcher’s control get better, but it doesn’t seem too. No matter how much our pitchers use the 9-ball net, their control never gets better.

Recently I grabbed a can of spray paint and attacked the 9-ball net to better help pitchers understand the following about the 9-ball net:

• It’s NOT the size of the strikezone. It’s actually MUCH bigger.

• Use it to keep their movement pitches within the zone or the zone fringe.

• See how they angle their pitches toward the intended movement zone immediately after release instead of throwing the movement toward the middle and letting it break near the zone.

I caught myself saying “throw it toward the zone” about 150,000 times without anyone doing it, so I realized the problem was me - not them.

So, to help them better understand (and see) what I meant I did 2 simple - and yet HUGELY effective things:

1) SHOW THE VIDEO: I showed them the following clip of MLB pitchers throwing their pitches into the K zone so they could see what movement into and closely around the zone actually looks like:

2) PAINT THE 9-BALL: Now the fun part!

I bought some highway orange paint and highlighted the MIDDLE square - to highlight what “throw your pitches toward the middle” actually means.

Then I painted an orange-dotted line the width of the plate and the approximate height of a strikezone to highlight the actual size of the strikezone they . I realize the dotted zone is a bit off - but you get the idea, and your pitchers will too.

This gives your pitchers a clear visual picture of where the actual strikezone is, and allows them to start their pitch toward the middle and see where the break takes it.

This was HUGELY helpful with the group of pitchers I was working with!

Suggestions:

• First: have them throw 3 of each of their pitches to notice where they each end up.

• Second: Notice if they’re steering the pitch from their shoulder (It’ll be a huge miss), or breaking it with their hand.

• Third: Have them alternate between their FASTBALL (

• ) and then alternating between each of their movement pitches.

Competitive Drill to Improve Feel & Intention

Recently I was working with some pitchers who were just starting fall ball. Their control was sketchy and their frustrations were high. The more I watched and asked questions, the more I could see that their self-talk was toxic and their focus was just like their control…all over the place, like confetti at a party. 🎉🎉

These pitchers were either struggling to feel their release, or were thinking about 300 things on each pitch. They were being extremely critical and hard on themselves and their brains were crammed with all kinds of negative thoughts.

Our brains are thinking machines. That’s what they’re built for. When we tell ourselves to “stop thinking” it’s a command that our brain doesn’t know what to do with. Pitchers who don’t know how to successfully manage their thoughts think that having thoughts is the problem. When in actuality, they’re just not having helpful thoughts.

Every physical skill we do first starts with a command from our brain. Muscle-memory is simply a state we achieve when the brain commands the body’s movement without us having to be aware of our thoughts programming our skill.

The pitchers I was working with were miles away from that state - as are most pitchers. They were being distracted by their misses, and disrupted by the quantity and quality of their thoughts.

So I needed to find something that would get them to better control their thoughts - zoom them in if you will - and to ignore (for now) the misses, or their lack of control.

What I came up with I called “COMMAND and COMMIT”. It’s a very simple exercise and one that turned out to be extremely effective. The pitcher’s focus is to give herself a Pre-Pitch COMMAND and then to COMMIT completely to her release (since so many pitchers release with their brains filled with doubt).

Here’s how it works:

• Your pitcher starts by picking 2 pitches that she’ll alternate throwing for a total of 10 pitches.

• On your scoresheet, you’ll mark 10 “l” for each pitch she’ll throw.

• The pitcher gives herself a Pre-Pitch COMMAND and then COMMITS completely to her release.

• No matter where the pitch ends up - if she gave herself a good COMMAND for the pitch, and then COMMITTED fully to the release - she says “Yes” and you cross that I.

• If she did one but not the other, or she did neither, then she says NO and you just put a dot over the I which lets you know what number pitch you’re on.

• If they miss a pitch, no do-overs, just throw the next pitch in order.

• After 10 pitches its easy to count the number of pitches where they gave themselves a good Pitch COMMAND and COMMITTED to their Release.

My scoresheet detailed:

After 2 rounds of this each pitcher commented on how much this helped them REALLY focus on what they needed to do to dominate the ball, and to dominate their thoughts. They all said how this helped them start to really “feel” their release, and be more aware and in control of their pre-pitch-thoughts.

They’ll need to work through a couple different COMMAND options until they wind up with the right one for that specific pitch. Keep in mind, that each pitch will require a different COMMAND.

Thanks for reading this week’s Curveball Chronicles. I hope it helped give you some insight to help your pitchers, and to give yourself some encouragement, knowledge and grace.

Go make this a Great week!

Missed some previous issues? Don’t worry, I’ve got them all on my website: https://pitchingcoachcentral.com/curveball-newsletter/