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3 Ways to Naturally Increase Spin Rate without Foreign Substances

posted on December 9, 2020

Trevor Bauer engineered his way to a Cy Young Award in 2020. Interestingly, his average spin rate went up 415 rpm. Last year, his spring rate was around 2400 rpms and this year it was over 2800 rpms without an increase in pitch velocity. He wasn’t the only one to increase their spin rate as many other pitchers saw increases but most of their increases were in the 200 rpm range. He has claimed for years that the majority of pitchers were using foreign substances but he has to be doing something different than most.

What has Trevor done to engineer a 2X increase spin rate compared to others in the league?

Interestingly enough, I also increased the spin rate on my fastball by 400 rpm (up to 2100 rmp) the last few months without a major increase in velocity. Trevor may not be sharing all his secrets, but I’ll share what seems to have worked for me.

People talk about how sticky or tacky substances like pine tar increase spin rate. I’ve even witnessed an experiment where Bullfrog sun screen (this person tried other sun screens but Bullfrog performed the best) and rosin could increase spin rate significantly. There is chatter of other custom compounds being used as well for this. Eno Sarris wrote about how almost every MLB pitcher is using some form of grip substance.

The advantages of using grip substances are unmistakable.

“It’s better than steroids,” said one player development executive about the benefits, which have been demonstrated by major league pitchers in real time before. Trevor Bauer, after making some comments about how a pitcher could add spin rate and throwing some shade at Astros pitchers, ended up doing what can only be described as a public experiment when it appears he added spin rate to his fastball for one inning in 2018, when he was with Cleveland.

“For eight years I’ve been trying to figure out how to increase the spin on my fastball because I’d identified it way back then as such a massive advantage,” Bauer himself wrote in a piece for The Players’ Tribune. “I knew that if I could learn to increase it through training and technique, it would be huge. But eight years later, I haven’t found any other way except using foreign substances.”

It wasn’t for a lack of experimentation.

But what if you are not looking to use a foreign substance but want to try and increase your spin rate?

Professional pitcher and vlogger Robby Rowland recently put out a video where he shared his theory on what he thought helped him unlock additional spin rate from his fastball by gripping the ball by the seam and ripping down with his fingertips. He explains it more detail here:

This is interesting especially when you think about how slick professional baseballs are and wanting to find a way to get a better grip on the ball and create the friction to spin the ball of your fingers. The seams may be the only spot to create natural tack.

After having watched Pitching Ninja, Rob Friedman’s interview with Professor Barton Smith discussing Seamed Shift Wake, I wonder how much of the increase is in actual spin forced on the ball versus the change in seam orientation Robby is now experimenting with by where he places his fingers.

3 things I have done to naturally increase my spin rate

I don’t think I have the answers but I track my stuff pretty well. The first thing I did was increase the spin efficiency on my fastball. Years ago, my pitching coach Scott Lacey showed me with Rapsodo and video how I was cutting almost all my pitches. He had me focus on just throwing a four seam and slider and remove other pitches for now. Earlier this year, I did an experiment where I showed how using Clean Fuego before throwing a baseball helped increase my spin efficiency and total spin by over 200 rpm.

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Secondly, I have really started throwing a football regularly these past few weeks and feeling my body sequence better (while also using the Core Velocity Belt) and focusing on throwing cleaner spirals. I have been tracking the results of my sequencing with video and ProPlayAI.

Getting a Grip on Spin Rate

However, it is the third thing that has the most questions for me. During this time my grip strength has increased significantly to around 125. This is something I’ve been curious about for a while when I saw that grip strength could also correlate with bat speed.

I’ve had conversations with coaches like Austin Wasserman who shared how he has seen some of the healthiest throwers have the strongest grip strength compared to his average throwers. Cesar Garcia, owner of Indoorance Sports and Complete Game Gloves, had a similar discussion with Kevin Poppe about finger and grip strength. That grip strength may also help protect the UCL. Professional pitcher Tim Dillard told me he has been using Theraband hand exercise balls for years and he has had a 20 year pro career. He kept one in his bag, in his car, etc. I’ve been using it for the last couple of years and it is why it is one of the items listed on the best gifts for baseball players.

Bill Miller, author of Swing Fast, has also been looking at two different kinds of grip strength. Overall and immediate. How much grip strength do you have in an instant squeeze on a dynamometer. Does that extra grip strength or finger strength transfer more force to the ball by sticking to the index and middle fingers better?

What have you seen work on increasing spin rate? Have you tried these 3 ways yet?

Time to Talk Training Timing in Hitting

posted on November 29, 2020

A thinking man’s pitcher, Warren Spahn would describe his approach on the mound as “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.” While interviewing former big league pitcher Lary Sorensen, an executive from F5 Sports who make the PitchLogic smart baseball, he shared that Hall of Famer Eddie Matthew’s said “he could time a jet airplane going through the strike zone if it was straight enough and he saw it often enough.”

The best hitters are masters of timing.

For all the arguments of the swing up or swing down club, they both require you to time the impact of the bat’s barrel to the baseball to produce a favorable outcome. There are those that will argue a ball on the ground is better than a ball in the air. There are those that will argue that you swing down to hit under the ball to create backspin. They can all be right because ultimately it’s still all about timing. Isn’t that why we can sometimes see the ugliest swings still produce extraordinary outcomes?

Timing is impacted by the bats path and how long the barrel is in the trajectory path of the ball. The longer you can keep your barrel in the zone the more time it seems “you buy yourself.” If you are steep up or down in the zone, the barrel is not in the zone long and you will have a smaller timing window. If you ask a hitter would you rather have more of a window of time to barrel a baseball or less, I don’t think any hitters would say less.

So it seems we can possibly set up a mechanical advantage to timing a baseball. Create mechanics that keeps the barrel in the zone a long time like Ted Williams said in his book “The Science of Hitting.” Although, Ted Williams doesn’t talk much about timing in his book. Maybe he just assumed it wasn’t something that needed to be taught or talked about. What he did say clearly is to look for a good ball to hit. In fact, that is nothing new because it was Rogers Hornsby, who told Williams that the single most important thing for a hitter was to get a good ball to hit.

Two Times Timing

Seems to be two parts to being “on time”: one to recognize that you are getting a good ball to hit and two the mechanical time to have your bat meet the baseball on the sweet spot of your barrel. These seem to be the most important elements that transfer to a game. We’ve all seen plenty of bad swings (poor mechanics, poor movement patterns, etc.) that were timed properly or the batter adjusted his timing to get a hit.

Perry Husband who teaches effectively velocity talks about “The same speed pitch located in different parts of the zone has different reaction times for hitters. This ‘not-so-simple’ concept is the beginning of understanding timing.”

Can timing be taught or is it something that you are just born with?

In my 10+ years of being on ball fields I have heard coaches talk about loading “early” or you are “late” to the pitch. Of course, I’ve heard the expression “slow the game down.” Plenty of people use timing words but are they actually teaching it? I’ve seen plenty of kids who gather and load up late and can’t catch up to fastballs that are faster than they are used to and kids who struggle when they see pitchers who throw much slower than they are used to in practice. But I have rarely heard anyone train based on timing up pitchers with their delivery, rhythm, arm action and pitch type. With the exception of limited amounts of Live ABs. How many pitches a week should you see at game speed to train your timing?

The mechanics of your swing has a time.
The pitcher’s movements and pitch has a time.
A hitters job is to learn how to sync the two together.

We spend tons of time swinging off a tee. Does that help with training either timing component? How does front toss or flips help? BP or hitting off the machine has some timing component but does that prepare you for game-like timing? This can help you time up your body movements. They have their place and value, but timing a pitch is what needs to transfer.

Matt Nokes says “Timing isn’t isn’t a random skill set you inherit, the swing has a timeline, the pitch has a timeline, and you gotta match your swing time with the pitch time. That’s how you do it soft toss, but soft toss is only from 12 feet away. So what do you do when you multiply the 12 feet by 5 and now the pitchers throwing from a mound 60 feet away. The variables you were managing automatically in soft toss, from 60 feet those same variables suddenly become unmanageable unless you know what the variables are. You can’t cope with a situation like a pitchers delivery when you don’t know what’s important to pay attention to and what you need to filter out…

When you understand your mechanics in a way that makes timing the top priority, the best hitters find a way to rehearse with a flow, making sure all their movements are natural and powerful, short and quick…this puts you in position to automate your mechanics and focus on the number 1 most important ingredient to hitting…and that’s timing.”

In my recent podcast interview with Chris O’Dowd, former big league catcher and CEO of baseball virtual reality training company WinReality he shared this story of Steven Souza Jr, and how he had gone through a number of swing changes over the last year and a half, two years.

“But the feedback that he was getting, in our quick recognition challenge was so consistent that he was making his decisions about six to eight feet too late. That he may never have needed to make a swing change if he moved his decision-making up, that it could have put him in a position to where he was getting better information about where he could improve as a hitter. And so he’s, he’s been doing different drills where he goes quick recognition training WinReality. High velocity, fastball machine and going back and forth, just to move up his decision-making four to six feet out, yeah. Without WinReality, you really, there’s no way to quantify where was I’m making a decision. Spatially what does it feel like to make a decision earlier?”

This is what inspired me to ask you “what percent of a hitter’s training is spent on the most important game skill, timing?”

How are you training hitters to be “on time?”

Best Gifts for Baseball Players 2020

posted on November 25, 2020

There are so many amazing tools out there to help baseball or softball players get better. Of course this holiday season you can buy them a new bat or glove, but I wanted to share my starting 9 for baseball best gifts of the year:

#1 in our lineup:

WinReality pitch recognition training app on Oculus Quest 2

There is nothing that can replicate the experience you get from standing in the box and facing live pitching. Until, WinReality came along and created a virtual reality world where you step into the batter’s box any time and any where. You can compete against a number of pitchers at different skill levels (from youth to Pro), see a true delivery at game speed, the rhythm, the timing, the way the ball comes out of the hand, the different pitch shapes, trajectories the, emotion of how a pitcher is setting you up and then trying to put you away. The app on the Oculus Quest 2 (which is now a standalone unit- no computer is needed) feels immersive and you can feel your heart race as you compete. I have had it now for a little over a month and have seen over 2000 pitches from college and pro pitchers. It would take the average high school kid all 4 seasons to see that many game speed pitches. WinReality just announced that hitting will be coming to the app soon. Bonus: you can use the Oculus to play other games like Beat Saber as well.

You can also listen to my interview with the CEO of WinReality Chris O’Dowd.

Investment: Starts at $24 a month (you can get additional pitcher packages) + $299 for the Oculus

#2 in our lineup:

Pocket Radar Smart Coach radar and app.

Today’s game is about velocity. How hard can you pitch. How hard can you hit. How hard can you throw it from your position. The Pocket Radar is a radar gun the size of a cell phone that is accurate +-1 mph at a max 120 feet. So it isn’t like the guns the scouts use in the stand but able to be setup behind, or in front of you to get readings. Then you can use the Smart Coach app to record yourself (I like the side to see my mechanics) and it will overlay the velocity on top of the video. These are great to share on social media as well since the app automatically clips the video to get the action in 8 second videos. The radar gun allows you to learn how adjustments impact your velocity. I have had a Ball Coach pocket radar for years and am thrilled to have the new Smart Coach.

Investment: $399 but this week (Nov. 23-30) it is only $349. You can also get it on Amazon.

#3 in our lineup:

The PitchLogic Baseball

This is a smart baseball that tracks all these incredible pitching metrics. It provides more than a dozen important metrics you will want to have for every bullpen and throwing session. For every pitch you can see velocity, spin rate, spin direction, arm slot, ball movement and more. They have also just begun to offer a pro version of the app with even more features. The information for every throw is securely stored in the cloud for later access. pitchLogic can be used with your entire team with individual profiles for each player. All of these capabilities are available without subscription costs or other fees. They use real MLB quality leather on the baseball and if the leather gets too worn you can send it in to be replaced for a fee. The app is available on Apple and Android.

Investment: $250 on Amazon. Check out the PitchLogic gift bundle includes a PitchLogic ball, a 3 month subscription to pitchLogic pro and a pitchLogic t-shirt for only $299.

#4 in our lineup

Clean Fuego pitch design training tool

These are just fun to throw. They look like a hockey puck but are weighted like a baseball. They also have a heavier one for overload training. When I first got my pair of Clean Fuegos I threw them a few times during the week and right before I did an experiment with the PitchLogic ball. Using the Clean Fuegos my pitches started spinning truer and also increased in total spin rate. What that means is that the fastballs I was throwing were more efficient. I use them now to practice my changeups and my sliders as well. They love helping the community throw unicorn fastballs and UFO sliders.

You can check out the interview I did with the founders.

Investment: $99 for the set from CleanFuego. Plus they have awesome tees and hoodies. 20% off site wide this weekend with code BlackFuegoFriday.

#5 in our lineup

The Perfect Throw arm path rhythm trainer and Flatty

You can practice your throwing inside or outside, rain or shine, with proper throwing technique for all throwing sports. I love how this helps you promote proper timing and sequencing to creates the different arc patterns in the throw. If you want to make sure you stay “inside 90”, this tool allows you use it as a warm up tool prior to throwing, a patterning tool for the sequence of throwing, conditions the joints, muscles and tissues of the arm and body. Teach your arm to feel whippy. The Original is perfect for the average 12 year old to professional or you can check out the Shorty. Make sure to add a Flatty to your order so you can carry a home plate to practice with in your pocket or hang it as a target on a fence. If you are on Instagram you probably have seen Coach Ferber and many others besides myself use it.

Investment: $49.99 from Revolution Throwing and the Flatty is $20.

#6 in our lineup

Back-Spin 7 x 10 portable net

You want to practice getting those big hits, practice with a BIG net. I love this massive net after using the normal 7 x 7 nets. This net has two pockets so you can have the proper target to hit line drives into. It is 7′ wide X 10′ tall. It is portable and can be setup or taken down in just a couple of minutes. Setup you tee in front of it or pickup a Back Spin tee and take your hacks. I also love hitting baseballs or hitting plyos into the net off the tee. You won’t outgrow this net.

Investment: $179.99 from Back-Spin Tee.

#7 in our lineup

The Personal Pitcher Pro mini wiffle ball machine

I like practicing hitting small objects, from lima beans to mini wiffle balls. You have probably seen John Madden on YouTube or Instagram use this machine from everything for catching practice to hitting indoors. The Personal Pitcher Pro is a small, portable, affordable, battery powered, mini whiffle ball pitching machine that develops elite level hand-eye coordination in baseball players of all ages that you can use indoors or outdoors! It has for speeds (25, 35, 45, 55mph) that can give you a perceived velocity of 95 mph+ depending on where you set it up. It holds 55 balls and throws fastballs and breaking balls and has a green light that shows you when the ball is about to be pitched.

Investment: $199.99 from YouGoPro.

#8 in our lineup

Bullet Proof your shoulders, arms and wrists with J-bands and Theraband hand exerciser balls

I use these every night before I go to bed. I do a whole routine with bands to work my shoulders and arms. I squeeze the Theraband hand exerciser balls every time I am bored to improve my forearm or grip strength. The J-Bands come in youth and regular sizes. They also offer a variety of colors so they can match your team or favorite color. I started with a youth when I was around 10 and now use the regular version. I was told about the Theraband balls by pitcher Tim Dillard who had a super long career. He said he had one in his bag, his car, and his night table and used it every moment he could and has pitched for almost 20 years professionally.

Investment: J-bands are $34.95 and Theraband hand exerciser balls are around $10 depending on resistance level.

#9 in our lineup

The best recovery tool on the market – Marc Pro

I first saw a few professional pitchers use this after throwing and after heavy lift days at the training facility I work out at. We spent some time learning about it and found out that it offers “active recovery” to flush out your muscles after you fatigue them. This is a long term investment. I use this after I pitch in a game or workout hard and start to feel a bit sore. This is not what it looks like, a TENS unit. A TENS unit is meant to electro-stimulate the nerves so you don’t feel pain. This is meant to sit on the meatiest part of the muscle you are looking to flush out. I learned a lot about why to use it and we finally bought one after listening to the Pro Sports Director Gary Reinl on the Eric Cressey podcast talk about why you don’t want to ice after a workout.

Investment: The Marc Pro device is $699 and you will eventually need replacement pads. You can use promo code: PLAYBALL.

Have a great holiday season and work hard this off-season.

How to convert your video to MP4 format?

posted on September 30, 2020

Convert to Mp4 video Go to the Online Converter website, upload your file and choose “convert to Mp4.” Once it is finished processing the file you can then download it as an MP4 file for use on our website. You will just click on the words “Download Now.”