Finger Pressure On Pitches
Tim McCarver
During a break in the action before Carlos Martinez came in to pitch for the Cardinals in the 8th, the conversation in the booth came around to Pedro Martinez and subsequently Greg Maddux. Tim McCarver started talking about changeups, how both of their changeups were almost unhittable, finger pressure and how they manipulate their pitches. Now this gets way too in depth for me because I never pitched at that level, but the point resonated with me. Pitchers can alter the flight of their pitches with different finger pressures (either firmer or lesser pressure with right or left finger) on the ball. Think of Mariano Rivera and how he can make his two seam break either direction.
Why this struck such a chord with me is because back in the day I distinctly remember talking to Bret Saberhagen (my former teammate) about the same thing. Well, he was talking to me about it. He was one good, smart pitcher who won the AL Cy Young, World Series MVP in 1985 and had a nice career.
Pitchers, here is my point, practice throwing with different grips and different finger pressures (see your pitching coach). The one thing we did practice last year is throwing with different grips during warmups.
When I do hitting lessons, I strictly throw with a four-seam grip. This is natural to me. To throw with a different grip feels… weird and I don’t feel I can control the pitch. Pitchers need to get used to throwing with a variety of different grips to get the feel for them and learn how to control them.
Bat Grip and Finger Pressure
Xander Bogaerts - Red Sox
Occasionally I see a hitter during lessons who likes to keep his fingers really loose on the bat, fingers off the bat during their approach. I can understand the reasoning why, their coach or dad wants to keep their hands loose and keep tension out of their hands/forearms. Valid point. But, what I try and explain to hitters is when your fingers are really loose around the bat and you take your approach, your fingers naturally will want to grip the bat as you start your swing. When this happens, it changes the angle of the bat/barrel when the fingers tighten (try it). The most important aspect of consistent hitting is getting the barrel to the ball and creating a consistent path with your hands and the barrel. When the hitter loses where his barrel is (i.e. especially on the way to contact), he becomes an inconsistent hitter because he may not be sure where it is when he delivers it to the ball.
If you take a close look at Bogaerts last night, his barrel angle changed during his initial stride. I took a closer at his fingers in his stance and noticed why, his top hand fingers were off the bat. When he took his approach, his fingers closed around the grip and his bat angle changed dramatically. Now granted, he is a young major leaguer with tremendous talent and strong. It was also part of his load. He may have also practiced it 10,000 times. If he can keep that consistent, he can have success. Only time will tell if he can repeat it. There are/were many major leaguers with imperfect approaches to the ball who had success, incredible success.
My approach is this: Keep your grip pressure and bat angle the same throughout your approach. I am not saying it needs to be too firm, but not too loose. You need to know where your barrel is all the time and changing grip pressure affects bat angle and can produce a different swing plane causing different swings, leading to inconsistency.