Group Project

And it is restricting when following through the entire motion. In other words, it feels like I clip the edge of the sidewalk.

I feel like I’m going to fall over.

2000- 2001-

I feel pain in my left knee when I do it, like it’s about to snap in half.

This looks bad.

Jered Weaver seemed to have a bit of an angle last night, too, but he looked lighter on his foot, whereas Snell just looks like he’s stopping his own momentum.

I can’t really tell which way his foot is from that angel, but it seems to be less sideways.

The easiest way to get a little leaguer to throw strikes was tell them that everything needs to go at the catcher. Starting with the foot, then up the body and the arm will follow the rest of your body.

Snell has to be fighting to get his arm across his body. This is exactly how I felt when I angled my foot, my arm was fighting across my body instead of following it.

As a college pitcher, I’ve worked a lot in the past on my mechanics, so I already knew what my answer would be.

Closing off the front foot is less important than how the foot lands. Landing on the heel is essentially like putting on the brakes, as many have mentioned, whereas landing soft on the toe allows the momentum continue towards home.

Snell looks like he is landing almost flat footed. Either way, he is forcing his body to pivot around the front leg as opposed extending out and over it due to his front foot.

In High School, I used to land similar to this. In addition, I would step with my feet aligned towards the 3rd base side of the field. This is a chick/egg issue, not sure which caused which, but they are directly related. The flat landing meant my body would generate the torque on the arm in a side to side manner (sorta like when you spin a yo-yo and then let go!) Stepping towards 3rd meant after my hard landing, I had more time to turn and whip my arm towards the plate. It’s difficult to tell where Snell’s feet are aligned, but I would guess he does not step directly to home (regardless of his toe placement.)

For me (and I imagine, most pitchers) this had two consequences. First, and most obvious, I had a lot more trouble throwing strikes than when I stepped towards home. This is simply because the axis on which my body weight rotated through (and as a result, my arm) was not in alignment with home.

Secondly, after adjusting to stepping towards home, my arm angle became much closer to straight over the top, whereas before is sat at a low three quarters arm slot. This was basically my arm following my body’s motion. If you watch most sidearm guys pitch, most of them close off their front side from the plate and throw across their body, much like Snell is forcing himself to do here.

Jeff, I’m not good with pitch f/x and heat charts like you are, but it would be interesting to see a profile of Snell’s balls and strikes, specifically in recent starts where his landing foot is as pictured. My hypothesis would be that he has a tendency to miss his spots either inside or outside, across much more of a horizontal axis than he does vertically.

Again, citing my own experience, since stepping towards home/becoming more over-the-top, I tend to miss the strike zone either high or low, but generally am over the plate with most all of my pitches. I rarely hit batters at all. However, when I used to have the “hard” landing and throw three-quarters, I frequently hit batters when my fastball would miss up and in. I’m saying that I throw more strikes pitching this way, it’s that I miss my spots in a different way. my guess would be Snell shows a similar correlation.

It would be neat to compare data from any of Snell’s starts where he had a “softer” landing to data from his more recents starts. I’d be curious to see if HOW he missed the strike zone has changed, as opposed to how often.

First off, I haven’t pitched since my first year of Babe Ruth ball and secondly my knowledge of pitching motions doesn’t really expand past very basic stuff. But my impressions are this:

Going through my motion, I find that my foot lands pointing towards the plate naturally, something I’ve never really paid alot of attention before. When I land, everything is natural and fluid. I can repeat it over and over without really thinking about it.

When I make an effort to land with my foot pointing towards first base, everything becomes herky jerky. It’s not as bad from the stretch as it is from the windup. And it may be more because I have to make an effort to do it, I’m not sure. During the follow through, I almost have to roll my ankle in order to complete the motion.

I had a similar problem(although mine was a result of me getting tired near the end of the game) and I had trouble releasing the ball and following through with my delivery. When it’s point I can rotate much better and the delivery is more fluid and I don’t stop abruptly mid delivery.

It feels so uncomfortable. Pointing the foot forward resulted in a much more natural and fluid delivery for me.

my foot points to third because I try way too hard to fireball it. This in turn causes me to have absolutely no control. That could also be because I am not a professional baseball player, but I share the sentiment that everyone else seems to have with a feeling of lost balance.

Conversely, having my foot pointed to third (as a righty) makes my balance feel shaky and seems to limit my ability to follow through on the pitching motion.

Landing with the foot pointed to first base is much more conducive to transferring momentum to the front leg and produces a smooth follow through to the mound.

Landing with the front foot pointed in even the most relative direction of third base stops lower body momentum, puts undue stress on the left ankle, and creates unnatural torque in the torso and upper body. As Jeff mentioned earlier, it’s like “stopping (your) own momentum”.

This is no surprise to me though. I’ve had it pounded into my head since junior high to keep my toe pointed toward home plate. While it is more of unnatural position, it is much better mechanically than what Snell is doing. I have no idea how he got to the Majors without this being fixed at some lower level.

Most of the time, if I started losing my control while I was pitching in Little League, it was because my toe was pointed in the general direction of third base. Again, it’s so simple, I don’t know why Snell hasn’t corrected or hasn’t had this corrected before.

I fell over when trying to point my foot the first time because I rolled my ankle and then I tried it with less angle and it still felt completely wrong. My body felt strained and knee hurt at I landed my foot.

Going with my foot towards home I felt completely fine. This is how I have always thrown the ball, even as a fielder, because I get the ball to go more towards where I want it to go.

I think I’ll go down to the nearest field by my house tomorrow and try the two foot positions on the mound there and report back. I’m interested in seeing what it feels like when you have the downward motion as well.

towards home felt much more natural.

as a RHP, and I really felt a lot of tension in my knee/ankle when I pitched the Snell way. Due to a few soccer injuries when I was in college, I have weak ankles, and I did not feel at all stable using Snell’s technique – I felt like I was a few millimeters away from toppling over.

When I pitched the “foot-forward” way, all the pieces flowed as I would have expected them to. It’s more natural – even for me, who was never a pitcher or really a baseball player after the age of about 12.

I didn’t fall over, and my experience was a bit different than what others are saying. When my foot was angled toward third—not a 90 degree, but more a 45-60 degree, my core muscles seemed to be working quite a bit more. If Snell has a really impressive core, perhaps it’s that that is giving him his power?

If I pitch with my foot angled toward the plate, it seems as though the power comes from my arm and my back. Maybe it’s power, maybe it’s a perceived sense of control from reliance upon these muscles, but there just might be a reason for it.

And without weak knees and with a good sense of balance, I didn’t feel out of control at all.

When I tried it the Snell way and aiming at the first base side I felt like I was checking someone rather than throwing something because I just came snapping over the top of my legs

As I thought about Snell’s foot positioning, it struck me that he’s doing exactly what most batters do when they swing. When a batter rotates his hips after reaching maximum shoulder-hip seperation, he tries to keep his front foot pointing towards the opposite-field (first base for a righty or third base for a lefty). This helps prevent the batter’s foot (and therefore his shoulders) from flying out to the pull-side and killing all his opposite-field power.

A pitcher, though, kills his momentum if he keeps his shoulder in like a good hitter does. The pitcher should WANT his hips to fly out to his glove hand side because that’s the most effective conservation of momentum (or whatever you call it).

So Snell, in some sense, seems like he’s trying to hit to the opposite field when he’s pitching. That’s why it seems unnatural to me, at least.