What it takes to succeed in pitching today.

In recent years, they have developed ways to get pitchers to throw with greater velocity. And they’ve become good at that to the point that high velocity isn’t very rare anymore.

So then they started developing ways to get extreme or different movement on pitches, and pitchers have worked on that to the point where that isn’t rare anymore either.

But what’s been neglected has been command. Pitchers today need all of those qualities to compete now.

Because now the game has changed, and you have to be able to execute pitches too, you have to be a pitcher, you can't be a thrower anymore.

In today’s game, you better have something else besides velocity. You're not going to overpower them with velocity all the time. You better be able to throw where you want to throw it and command it. Especially as you get to AA and up, the batters are smart and have a plan.

There aren’t many pitchers at the big-league level that are really separated from other pitchers in terms of their ability. The only thing that really separates them is their command. You have a pitcher throwing 97, but a lot of pitchers are throwing 97. But what makes this pitcher better than the next pitcher? And the separator is the ability to command.

You can chase the metrics on your pitches, and there is a time for working on certain metrics for making your pitches better. But if you don't make better pitches then you have no chance. Making better pitches is commanding your pitches in the correct locations for the situation. A lot of pitchers chase their vertical movement, they chase their horizontal movement, but none of that matters if they don't command the pitch and make better pitches. If you have 22-inch fastball vertical movement but it’s off the backstop, that’s of no use in a game. You need to find your "useful velocity" , which is the velocity you can compete in a game with.

Before going into command, it’s important to understand the relationship between velocity, command, changing speeds, mental focus, mental toughness, reading batters, sequencing, and movement in baseball pitching. Pitchers need to develop all of those skills and qualities, where all are equally important.

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