One of the true pleasures I have when I turn on my XM Radio, is hearing the voice of Braves announcer (oh yeah, and Hall of Fame pitcher) Don Sutton.
He’s unlike most former players that enter the broadcast booth. You know what I mean: analyzing “mechanics” and just flat out talking too much. Sutton instead likes to pick his spots and talk about pitch sequences, how to get certain hitters out, or as Sutton likes to put it: being a pitcher and not someone who simply throws off the mound.
The other night when Jair Jurrjens was giving another stellar performance, Sutton was in mid-season form…
The topic: why Jair hasn’t racked up a lot of strike outs so far in his career.
The “other announcer” started in on the question at hand by stating that Jair isn’t the type of pitcher like a Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson that “tries to strike everybody out.” He went on to say that Jair doesn’t have a dominating “out pitch,” and despite his early success in The Bigs, he wondered if Jair lack of K’s would come back to haunt him.
Mr. Sutton chimed in right away and said, “I didn’t throw like Nolan Ryan either, and we both ended up with the same number of wins.” (324)
For those of you too young to remember, Don Sutton pitched for 23 years in The Show. He didn’t throw tremendously hard (and maybe not hard at all), but he did strike out over 3500 hitters, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is a far cry from Ryan’s 5714. He was definitely a pitcher that had to have a plan of attack, a command over his pitches, and movement on everything he threw. Seeing that he is a Hall of Famer, I’d say he had a pretty good grasp on all of those qualities!
But back to the overall point Sutton was making…
Sutton pointed out that Jair, like 99.44% of every pitcher not born in the U.S. began to learn how to pitch (not just throw) once they picked up a baseball. That means Jair had to learn how to:
- Throw his pitches to a location
- Change speeds…
- And make the ball move, in order to get hitters out.
(As Sutton was explaining this, Jurrjens threw a five pitch at bat, where each pitch was a different speed and location… and yes, got the hitter out.)
Contrast this to the major topics/instruction that young aspiring pitchers get in The States:
- Mastering “perfect (cookie-cutter?) mechanics”
- Adding 4-6 miles on the heater/ putting up big number on the radar gun/ throwing hard(er)
- Never calling your own game… that’s the coach’s job!
Because of this, young U.S. pitchers never learn how to pitch, never develop their own “pitching identity,” rely on their coaches to tell them what to do, and spend too much time worried about what the radar gun says, or what their “mechanics” look like… especially after a bad outing. (As Sutton put it, youth pitching/pitching instruction in The States today is like a parent walking into the classroom with their child, sitting next to them, and giving them all the answers to an exam. The child may end up doing very well on that exam, but there’s no way of knowing if he/she learned anything and will be able to “pass the test,” somewhere down the road, when someone isn’t giving them all the answers. I will DEFINITELY talk about this in more detail in another post!)
Listen…
Just because Nolan Ryan threw an 0-2 fastball just above the belt for a swinging strike out, doesn’t mean that’s how YOU need to approach an 0-2 count. That being said, just because Jamie Moyer likes to throw 2-1 change ups, doesn’t mean YOU need to throw 2-1 change ups.
Also, just because your coach thinks he knows what you should throw, doesn’t mean he’s always right. (Have you ever heard this before, “You can shake me off, but you better be right!”) Then again, maybe that works for you. Either way, pitchers figure out what works best for them by doing, and not by following a cookie-cutter, general rule of thumb. You need to do the same!
The way to find out: a little “trial and error,” and using your own noggin instead of relying on someone else telling you what to do.
That the first step to becoming a pitcher.
While I think it would be nice to see Jair Jurrjens strike a few more guys out, at the end of the day I really don’t care. As long as he keeps getting people out the way he knows how, well, that works for me, Don Sutton, and the Atlanta Braves!
Coach Bones
P.S. – Before I go, let me say that I am a big fan of strike outs. They come in very handy when you need an out with men on base (scoring position), and more importantly, they force hitters to take swings that aren’t – how can I say this – oozing with confidence (aka defensive swings). That being said, I know that perfect “mechanics,” and a fastball are NOT a guarantee for K’s.
