How To Throw A Breaking Ball | Tips with Trev Ep 2 w/ Trevor Bauer

today's topic is three keys to throwing a nasty breaking ball and this is tips with Trev the show where I give developing baseball players some easy tips to end their slumps faster and become a superstar sooner let's get to it [Music] [Music] there's a very good chance that how you've been taught to throw a breaking ball is dead wrong so let's fix it tip number one stay neutral as long as possible and what do I mean by that well you want your hand to be in a neutral position like if it was hanging down by your side or if you were shaking someone's hand you would not shake someone's hand by being supinated or being pronated to go shake their hand now you offer the handshake in a neutral position same thing with the baseball you do not want to be turning the ball towards second base you do not want to be maximum supinating you don't want to just stay neutral that's it just stay neutral as long as possible so that means as your arms coming up you want to be in a neutral position there's no tension in my forearm right now it's just you know this is kind of where my forearm hangs out and that's the position I'm gonna be in as you're going to throw you want to stay neutral you don't want to be turning right here and then being you know trying to throw and and no don't do any of that just stay neutral that's the that's the first tip you got to just stay in a neutral position as long as possible to let your arm unfold that's going to put you in the position to be on the outside of the baseball and we'll talk about that a little bit more but tip number one is stay neutral tip number two is what I call karate chopping so if you had a board in front your face you're gonna try to chop through it with your hand you would have a stiff wrist you would line everything up just like this and you would chop through you would not have a bent wrist you're not your wrist like this there would not be limp and it would not be like super strong and in a fist no you just have a nice aligned stiff wrist like this in a credit opposition and you would go like this so same thing you get your grip you line your wrist in this position karate chop grip the ball and that's how you're gonna throw the curveball or the slider or the cutter or anything it's just you have to have a stiff wrist and you have to karate chop it put your hand on the outside of the ball so here's my curveball grip for instance this is stiff wrist I'm not gonna bend it I'm not gonna try to curl my wrist to get around it I'm not gonna try to twist my wrist I'm not gonna try to pull the lampshade down or what's the doorknob or anything like that no I'm gonna stay neutral with my arm position and I'm gonna lock my wrist in a stiff karate-chop tight position and then I'm gonna deliver the ball what does that do that puts my hand on the outside of the ball so now I can actually go from this position and generate a curveball spin or I can generate a slider spin or I can generate a cutter spin or I can generate I can do a lot of different things with the ball if I'm pronated early in the delivery I'm working behind the ball and then when I go to try to throw it I'm trying to turn around the ball that's not gonna work you can't do that you can't time things up correctly it's going to be inconsistent you're putting your arm in the exact opposite way it's supposed to work the arm is supposed to work from supination to pronation as you're throwing supination is tied to external rotation of the shoulder pronation is tied to internal rotation of the shoulder as you're throwing your arm externally rotates then it internally rotates similarly you would want to supinate to then pronate so we have to stay neutral that's going to allow that natural transition to happen we have to have a stiff wrist we're not trying to manipulate our wrist just lock it in get your grip and that's it tip number three is to create tension what do I mean by tension I gotta take my ring off really quick so I can show you when I say create tension you want to create tension on the ball but you don't want to do it by squeezing the ball super hard you want to have something in your grip create tension so I can hold the ball in here like this and if you can see there's a lot of you know there's tension on this finger you know if I try to if I try to rip the ball out of my hand when I have a good grip on it like there's tension I can't just pull it out super easy I'm not trying to squeeze it I'm just talking about getting the grip to the point where you create tension on this middle finger this is where the ball is going to come off of this is what's going to spin the ball and increase the spin rate of the ball which is important but you have to create tension so you can do it in a couple different ways you can do it by pinching between the ring and the middle finger that creates tension you can do it by pinching between the thumb and the middle finger some people's hands work better that way that creates tension do it by pulling the ball into your palm there's you can do it by spiking the ball you know if you spike the ball and then there's tension here you can create tension between the thumb and there's a lot of different ways to create tension but you have to have some sort of tension on the ball if you have a loose grip on the ball it is going to slip out and you're not going to get to the point in the delivery where you're going to actually be able to rip on a seam or impart spin to the ball and make it spin faster so this is how I do it I used to in college tuck this knuckle below the seam and this finger tip on this seam there's a lot of tension there and then I would suck the ball into my hand with my thumb and kind of keep it deep there's a lot of tension on the ball right now I don't do it that way anymore I just kind of rest this finger down here on above the seam but the ball is deep in my hand and then I spike the ball like this and as I'm pulling this finger back this creates a lot of tension right here on this finger tip and that's what actually spins the ball that's for my curveball anyway on my slider it's the same thing I holding the slider like this I put my thumb underneath this seam right here and then I squeeze between the thumb and these two finger tips on the seams so now I have tension on the ball so when the ball comes out these fingertips when the tension is relieved off the thumb the fingertips that have pressure then flick there's a reflexive nature to it that's what really spins the ball and you have to spin the ball fast in order to have a good breaking ball it makes everything sharper it makes everything more difficult for the hitters to hit so tip number three create tension on the ball now these three tips are not the only things you need to do in order to throw a good breaking ball there's other things that go into it like the spin axis and where you locate it and how you throw it and you know who you're throwing it to and all these different things those are in advanced advanced things those are second level or third level things in order to like you have to start with the basics and the basics of these three things that I just laid out for you you have to create tension on the ball you have to have a stiff wrist and you have to stay neutral as long as possible those three things you're going to be in a good order to throw a good breaking ball and then you can advance from there so pretty quick episode today but hopefully it helps let me know what you think of these tips what your experience is how you've been taught if this will help you or hurt you what let me know what you think in the comments below and if you haven't already like subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any future content and I will see you guys on Friday

Channel: Trevor Bauer

Views: 30,607

Rating: 4.9912214 out of 5

Keywords: baseball, MLB, milb, major, league, leagues, major league, major leagues, trevor, bauer, trevor bauer, momentum, stike, strikeout, ball, bat, watch, documentary, story, movie, video, pitching, mechanics, hitting, cleveland, indians, cincinnati, cincinnati reds, reds, manfred, rob, rob manfred, commissioner, pitch, pitches, breaking ball

Id: yfH-2U2ixPU

Length: 7min 22sec (442 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 21 2020