WORKING HARD TO ACHIEVE ZERO
Written by Dave Elder on June 12th, 2017.
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As our pitchers are working hard in preparation for this year’s Junior World Championships in Florida, I have had time to reflect on what might be considered success as a pitcher at this level.
Unlike most other sports and positions in sport, gauging how successful you are as a pitcher is normally measured on things like Earned Run Average (ERA) with a target of zero. So pitchers start a game/tour /tournament with zero and if then work flat out to stay at zero. It doesn’t really seem like a fair measurement when you consider that if a pitcher pitches 100 pitches and gives up 20 hits it is considered a disaster as that is far too many hits and would never be accepted. However, if you are a hitter and you get 20 hits out of 100 bats this is considered a less than satisfactory and not enough hits.
So I thought I would share my thoughts on a pitchers preparation and what our pitchers have and will be doing as the build up to the Junior World Championships in July.
At the end of a very long season while everyone got to take a well deserved month off, the pitchers were:
As a pitching coach I cannot guarantee zero as an outcome but I can say that I already know that my measure of success,
(Do Everything You Can To Be The Best That You Can Be)
Is well underway to be achieved by our pitching group.
However.
THE TARGET IS STILL ZERO.
Unlike most other sports and positions in sport, gauging how successful you are as a pitcher is normally measured on things like Earned Run Average (ERA) with a target of zero. So pitchers start a game/tour /tournament with zero and if then work flat out to stay at zero. It doesn’t really seem like a fair measurement when you consider that if a pitcher pitches 100 pitches and gives up 20 hits it is considered a disaster as that is far too many hits and would never be accepted. However, if you are a hitter and you get 20 hits out of 100 bats this is considered a less than satisfactory and not enough hits.
So I thought I would share my thoughts on a pitchers preparation and what our pitchers have and will be doing as the build up to the Junior World Championships in July.
At the end of a very long season while everyone got to take a well deserved month off, the pitchers were:
- Starting their strength and conditioning programme as well as doing two to three sessions each week at home without a ball working on the technical aspects of their pitching in front of a mirror.
- After 4 weeks of this they were joined by the rest of the squad with further strength and conditioning, squad trainings and an additional three pitching sessions per week on arm speed and leg drive.
- From the start of June until we leave for Florida the pitchers increase the pitching sessions from 3 times per week to 5 times per week working on an intense programme in preparation for Florida.
As a pitching coach I cannot guarantee zero as an outcome but I can say that I already know that my measure of success,
(Do Everything You Can To Be The Best That You Can Be)
Is well underway to be achieved by our pitching group.
However.
THE TARGET IS STILL ZERO.
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