Baseball Fielding Tips: How To Fix Common Throwing Problems
Players, coaches and baseball parents who have a son who is struggling with his throwing should read some common baseball throwing problems, how to fix them and what you can do to improve your throwing accuracy. One in particular, and if this doesn’t improve your accuracy, we have a real problem.
Hey, an errant throw can decide the ball game. Usually, it’s pretty easy to improve a player’s throwing accuracy. Sometimes baseball fielding tips get overlooked and I never could quite figure out why. Doesn’t a poor throw that allows an important run to score count just as much on the scoreboard as a hit in a key situation to knock in an important run? Let’s look at some common throwing problems and how usually, they can be easily fixed.
Throws Are Overthrown and Sailing High:
There is a very good chance that you are not raising your throwing elbow to shoulder height. I’ve witnessed this hundreds of times over the years. I was watching a high school Varsity game and observed as the first baseman was throwing grounders to his infielders in between innings. He threw them a total of eight grounders. Out of the eight throws back to him, four of them sailed high. Guess what? When making all four of those high throws, every one of them was too high because the infielder did not raise his throwing elbow high enough. Four throws were high and four elbows were not raised to shoulder height. Watch closely to replays on TV when infielders overthrow their first baseman because the throw sailed high. In many cases, you will see for yourself the infielder did not raise his elbow high enough when making the throw. Just remember, “Elbow low, ball high.” In essence, the ball is being “pushed” and not actually thrown.
Another possibility for overthrowing your target is you may be releasing the ball before your landing foot hits the ground. This will cause your release point to be too early thus causing a high throw.
Under Throwing the Ball:
The problem is usually at your release point. If you release the ball too late, your throw will almost definitely be too low. (This also applies to pitchers when they are missing their target low.)
Another strong possibility for under throwing the ball is that your front shoulder is dipping down below your throwing shoulder. If your front shoulder dips, there is a good chance your throw will be low and short of your target.
Whenever possible, make sure that your shoulders stay level throughout the throwing motion.
General Erratic Throwing:
There is no substitute for spending time practicing your throwing. If you throw a baseball every day, your throwing will improve. Just remember, every time you throw a baseball you should aim for a target. It’s one of the easiest yet most important baseball fielding tips for overcoming any baseball throwing problems. If having a catch with someone, aim for their left shoulder, then their right shoulder, left hip, right hip, etc. Every time you throw a baseball, aim for something! How can this possibly not help? It has to help and it will help.
If throwing erratically, the problem could very well be in your footwork. Not getting their feet set up properly is a very common throwing problem, especially with youngsters. Their feet are not set when they throw the ball because of their impatience to want to throw the ball too soon. They have no balance or foundation when they throw. Like we mentioned above, keep your shoulders level and keep them square to your target. Make sure your front foot is pointing to your target and your back foot lined up like you are using the pitching rubber.
Once again, every time you throw a baseball, aim for a target. Just doing this one very simple thing will help you overcome any baseball throwing problems. Baseball parents, players and youth coaches, I post a new FREE baseball article on hitting, pitching or fielding every Monday at LarryBaseball.com that you can add to your favorites now. You will be raising a few eyebrows!
