Loading ...For Pitchers and Hitters, ‘Change’ Is In The Air
There are few immutable laws in baseball:
- On 2-0 and 3-1, load up and look for one pitch in one spot
- No good pitcher strikes out any hitter on three straight strikes
- Anyone worth his inflated salary (read: Andruw Jones) can hit a fastball
And the changeup is the best pitch in baseball.
While local little league coaches across America are teaching their kids to throw the Bugs Bunny curveball—in any count, in any situation—just so they can talk about their undefeated U-12 team at their local bar, far too few coaches are teaching the pitch that makes hitters miss more often than the latest Chris Rock vehicle.
Trevor Hoffman, with his 550+ saves, is the universe’s best closer and became so because he mastered the changeup.
Jamie Moyer has 251 wins, can’t break a pane of glass with his fastball, but owns a very recently earned World Series ring because hitters can’t keep their hands back on his changeup.
Though twenty-three years Moyer’s junior and on the same staff, Phils’ World Series MVP Cole Hamels boasts the sickest change in the business right now.
For fans of the changeup, watching batters wave at what they think is a fastball has become on par with homer enthusiasts waiting for the latest Adam Dunn bomb to land or everyone outside of New York cheering the collapse of another Mets/Yanks season.
The true beauty of the changer-uppers is in the work they must put in to master the pitch. In an era of baseball that has fans and brass alike expecting the next black eye caused by steroids (thanks, Manny!), ne’er-do-well cousins, or narcissistic photo shoots (though they may all be akin to the same player, you surely get the point), changeup artists like Greg Maddux prove that the true measure of a professional athlete is, in fact, his attention to detail.
Experimenting with grip, demanding the same arm action, and locating the change can’t be achieved through a well placed shot in the buttocks or a couple extra reps on the bench. In effect, change up pitchers use…..wait for it…..wait for it….their brains, not their brawn, to make hitters miss.
As a high school baseball coach, I’m constantly asked to take a look at the next phenom, usually some son of an overinflated ego-owning father, too proud to let his glory days go or too ashamed to admit he never had them, and invariably I’m left staring at a kid who throws hard. And that’s pretty much it.
So, as both a reminder of why I coach and as a necessary nudge in the right direction for so many fathers posing as coaches, I ask if the kid can throw a change to which I’m answered in a myriad of ways:
“No, but his curveball drops 12 to 6!”
“Nah, he really doesn’t need it because he throws so hard.”
“I tried to teach him one but he likes the knuckle-slurve better. Gotta see this thing move!”
What separates the change from the aforementioned curveball, being prescribed by so many youth baseball coaches, is the fact that the curveball is infinitely more hittable than the change. There are drills designed to prepare kids for the deuce, there are counts in which you can expect the bender, and there are balls flying over fences all over America because of another pitcher hanging the breaking ball.
But the changeup—there’s the rub.
With proper coaching and discipline, young pitchers can rely on two pitches to get hitters out (Hamels is just now working a third pitch, a curveball, into his sparse but effective repertoire)—a properly spotted fastball and an equal-arm-action changeup.
That’s it.
So, much to the dismay of hitters everywhere, I’m imploring coaches of kids as young as 12 to teach the changeup. I’m not suggesting a curveball be put on the shelf, but I am demanding that its use not be overvalued, especially when being used to strike out hitters who are begging to get back to right field to finish that pesky weeding project.
whatever i can do to help…
my bad, ron…he probably is the best in the bizz
my vision is still clouded from the WS parade, i guess…
pretty sure santana has the best change in baseball. although i am a mets hater, i can still see with 20/20 vision…
my dad tried teaching me the curve..couldn’t do it so instead I went with change..and it worked quite well for me freshman year. Sabathia has a mean changeup too.