Location- the ability to throw the baseball accurately to a target; mixing locations and throwing to locations where the hitter is weakest.
Speed- the ability to throw the baseball at a variey of speeds--causing the hitter to guess what's coming next; and/or the ability to throw with enough speed to overpower certain hitters.
Movement- the ability to spin the baseball so that it changes direction as it approaches the hitter (e.g., curves, sliders).
Young pitchers (even through the high school level) are generally encouraged to work on mastering the first two areas (location and speed) before concerning themselves with the third area (movement). I've found that pitchers who devote more of their time practicing gaining command over speed and accuracy have much better results than those pitchers who devote their time to learning trick pitches.
Many times, pitchers think that their control is better than it actually is. An effective way to improve performance is to measure results. The following measurement tool can be helpful for monitoring a pitcher's progress.
Pitching Accuracy Chart
The idea behind the chart is to measure a pitcher's ability to hit a target. At the Mustang level, the chart is simply a rectangular strike zone (centered on a piece of paper). The pitcher throws a number of pitches (e.g. 30) while someone stands behind him and places an "x" where the pitch was thrown. Hopefully, a good Mustang pitcher will throw at least 75% strikes when tossing medium speed fastballs without a hitter.
At the Bronco and Pony level, good pitchers should be able to throw to a target somewhat more precise than just the entire strike zone. Therefore, the pitching chart now breaks the strike zone into four segments (high & outside, high & inside, low & outside, low & inside). To use the chart, someone stands behind the pitcher and announces a desired location ("high & outside"). With a desired location of "high & outside", the tracker would place an "x" where the pitch was thrown in the upper left portion of the tracking page. Ideally, after 30 pitches are tossed, the distribution of "x's" would be along the outside corners of the "Pitching Accuracy Chart".
Older pitchers would throw to a more precise target. For a professional pitcher, dividing the strike zone in to only four boxes would not be challenging enough. Rather, the chart would contain nine boxes (and resemble a tic-tac-toe board. The "Pitching Accuracy Chart" would then have nine of these boxes positioned on the page with descriptions such as "middle & inside, low & inside, etc."
For starters, I recommend that a pitcher measure his accuracy while throwing medium speed fastballs (about 35 to 40 mph). As his accuracy improves, the pitcher should then be challenged with mixing his pitches. Rather than simply asking the pitcher to throw "High & Outside"--the tracker would now say "High & Outside Change-Up" or "Low & Inside Fastball." Any Bronco pitcher who can hit the target on a high percentage of pitches using this approach will most likely be of All-Star caliber!
Here's a copy of the chart...click on it to enlarge:
