Becoming a Mound Magician

By Nate Barnett
I remember being a twelve year old pitcher and trying to strike every hitter out by throwing hard fastballs by everyone. I carried this same mentality into high school with some success. But, it wasn't until I pitched in college that it was clearly communicated to me why throwing a good change up as well as changing the speeds of my fastball was so important. At first, I was quite nervous with the prospect of throwing a slower pitch. I had a tough time with the fact that I would be taking speed off of pitches to produce positive results. Once I began to change velocities, however, pitching got much more fun.

So what makes Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Mariano Rivera so effective as pitchers? They change speeds, angles, and create movement on most all of their pitches. The goal of a pitcher should always be to mess with the balance and timing of a hitter by changing speeds. This doesn't mean that pitchers should be less aggressive while throwing a fastball; it simply means that all fastballs thrown should not be at 100% effort. There are a lot of pitchers who throw with great velocity. But, few have mastered the ability to change speeds like Greg Maddux and Jamie Moyer have.

You don't need a blistering fastball to compete as a pitcher. You do, however, need to create the illusion of a blistering fastball by keeping hitters off balance. Learn a good change up; it will be one of the best investments of time you make as a pitcher.

Nate Barnett and his business partner, Dan Gazaway are owners of the The Pitching Academy, a pitching information website designed to improve your on the mound performance as a pitcher.

The Pitching Academy contains information, products, training, free articles, and more on pitching, pitching workouts, pitching mechanics, different baseball pitching grips, and much more.
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