Mighty-Pronk

[Pronk]

Never mind I see it. Does the increase in pullback now needs to be from:

a) Scap
b) Lower back

[Pronk]

Real happy for the kid he made some late changes mid-season and it really does look a lot better. Can he tighten up? Absolutely still a little push there but he's starting to find the back. I think as he learns really feel a click-back to rear leg opening much sooner he'll really start to get it.

Last JV game playing a district opponent one who's varsity we haven't beaten (yet) and he also pitched 7 innings with no earned runs we won 7-1. We have two varsity games left and playoffs not sure if he'll get any at-bats. Strong finish though.

First shot was drilled to LF one hopper easy double.



Deep flyout to LCF, you can see he missed sweet spot




Line drive hit to CF hit hard

[Teacherman]

Just realized I can talk my posts with my phone. Add this.....

....to what he's doing and BINGO.

[Pronk]

Ha!!!!

Just made this clip. I can come to no other conclusion. What drives Posey's elbow up? His elbow? His shoulder? No way.

[Pronk]

Just looking at last night's double, his timing was a little early, guessed wrong and caught closer to the end of the bat. I'd assume an easy homer on the sweet spot, but even from the low handset to start, the elbow goes up. He is basically doing what you did there with little Carter's from a slightly different handset. Now the shoulder rising does help the elbow get up for sure too, but.... The shoulder rising by itself won't keep the front elbow from staying at the same relative height and working around the body instead of up.

[Stealth]

Great stuff! Love to see him have success!

[Pronk]

Here is a question on Pitching.

Song over at BBF posted that clip of Rivera and said he told his kid to feel like he's hitting himself in the neck and is doing much better. From this clip here:







Now this is interesting, I've heard teach say to throw the ball rearward (or hand).

Here is why I think this is interesting. If you go back to the Nyman days of Bow-Flex-Bow, I was looking at the fact that John's FLEX was missing. By Flex I mean that big open chest, meaning spread wide. See these guys here, but I see those guys except for Greinke (who does but it's quick) getting into that neck slot, but I see it more of having more flex. That is their chest muscles, are well stretch and they have off the charts thoracic spine mobility to create the big FLEX.



Here is John's clip where I see it as a needing to add a good flex, and assuming it to be poor spinal mobility to allow the deep flex. but I wonder..





Is the weight of the rearward sent baseball what helps 1) create that good pinch behind the neck AND 2) of course helps get the chest to open and spine to flex back more? If so isn't the rag loose forearm a very smart thing to add into his toolset?

[Stealth]

You know how we have always talked about the ridiculous upper cut drill in hitting? Try this and let me know what you think. If you get a ball and try to throw it as far as you possibly can straight up unto the air what happens?

[Pronk]

Interestingly he asked me to throw him some pop ups the other day and I was not able to so I underhanded the hell out of the ball. But I hadn't thought of trying any of this stuff either.

[Teacherman]

Stealth's idea is good. What that will do is get him to work 'around the ball of the femur'. John is a waist separator. Get it down in the leg.

Pretty hard to throw the ball straight up separating at the waist.

[Pronk]

So I grabbed this clip tonight. It's funny John looked at this and said he's still got some refining to do. He wants to relax is lead foot and get the front shoulder down a little. He sees a tad of an arm lift there which doesn't allow for that cleaner barrel path of Manny. Still it's a lot of coordination here. He thinks the lead foot is staying open too much, wants it more neutral like Posey to see if he gets a better tilt. But, I am pretty happy here he smoked this pitch.


What I am looking at is the degree to which he got turned open relative to how long the hands stayed back near the shoulder. Right at the end he does kind of lift the arm a little and flatten, but I was looking at when the barrel is back in behind the occipital bone line, the degree to which the belly button has gotten turned. The elbow gets moved right down in there without thinking move the elbow. Closest I've seen him get to a little scap circling. Or maybe the closest I've seen him get to swearing in, remember he's always struggled when the elbow gets stuck back.

[Pronk]

Frisbee, Frisbee. Turn the ever-living shit out of the handle back. Trust it.

[Teacherman]

Much improved in my opinion. Finish it by getting rid of that pause....and he's there.

As he goes forward....he should be turning open in the rear hip socket....or at least trying to....and stretching against it.

LOWER BACK. ARCH THE BACK. Let the hip socket project forward a bit. Hold back against it.

He's dang close. And having success as he learns.

He will get there.

[Pronk]

Finally got John out to play on one of these showcase type teams. He had to wait his turn, two at once is a killer on the wallet.

He looks good, he's plenty quick. He just glides too much still. The back foot goes into eversion before any turning of that upper thigh, so his arms have to get involved. He needs to find way to click back into an immediate turning forward. I tried to get him to hold the scap but he loses that back toe and even if you hold the scap you lose stretch. He also went 4 scoreless on the mound. He was only gunned at 78 so I don't think we'll be pushing hard for pitching at this point, though I swear the watch him anyway since he's almost 6'5" now and does have decent looking actions. At least one major college coach watched him for a bit, yesterday and at the showcase/tryout for this team he got a letter from a good D1 school to attend their camp. I figure they think some maturity will get the speed up, but I don't know we'll see. I like hitting anyway.

[Pronk]

My system got trashed at work and I don't have much editing stuff right now. Not having Animation Shop is the killer. Might just have to plunk down and buy something. Quick Pro might be useful with so much mp4 out there so I don't have to convert before using virtualdubmod.


Anyway, I wanted to get an idea here, I am seeing some real progress with this guy. In the cage he is absolutely killing the ball now. Possibly even harder than his brother. So here is what I see. I am posting this not for the swings (no good pitch) but for the warmup swings. I think he's really OVER the foot more. Or should we say OVER the RHPP, and I feel a good tilt happening (even if he's still rolling to the heel). But in the game I feel him drifting out still. He's close. Hitting .400+ after the first two plus weeks, leads team in doubles and hard hit balls. Maybe even RBIs. But there is much more in the tank.

Anyway the warmup tells me he now knows what he should feel like. Also the 2nd one shows his hit. Pounded it down but hit it through the hole. The downward plane his fall-back when he loses the foot and stacked pivot points. I really think we just need to get to a trust point of just staying back.

These are unlisted, don't post anywhere please. His other hit today was a line drive up the line at 3B but I had left to get some work done.