Expert Tips for Youth Baseball Pitching Development

In Episode 7 of Season 9 here on THE Robby Row Show Baseball Podcast we’ll be discussing what I see as an extremely important factor when it comes to developing youth baseball players and more specifically youth pitchers. This Podcast episode was recorded for a YouTube segment in the lab which you can watch by clicking here
This episode can provide insights for parents of youth baseball players as well as any baseball player struggling to find the joy they once had for this beautiful game we call baseball.
As always - reach out to me with your questions via my question platform (linked below)

Aceletiqs Rebounder Amazon Link

Encouragements to Discouraged Youth Ballers + Their Parents
Just another way of saying control the things you can control if you’re a parent of a youth athlete who is struggling to obtain confidence within a sport he/she loves. 
Here’s 2 really big factors that I see worth emphasizing 👇
A) FREEDOM TO FAIL ❌ 
Control the environment to influence comfort at an early age.. determine how much competition needs to be sprinkled in because every kid is going to respond differently to performance but we can always create a safe environment initially to influence joy. Joy is going to be what propels the work for a kid. 
B) REPS ON REPS ON REPS ON REPS ⚾️
Freedom to fail is going to influence this dynamic a lot because what you end up creating is a kid who understands adjustments come from experience and experience can be amplified if we can increase the repetitions. Obviously there’s going to be a ton of questions pertaining to how much volume.. here’s my answer.. don’t limit/restrict any kid from reps.. unless there’s obvious health issues that need to be addressed. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yo, What up, dude,Welcome back to the pod. How we
doing. I'm good, Thanks forasking. Hey, I did a lab
segment. Lab segments are when Ijust go out back in the mornings and
take inspiration from maybe some questions orjust some things that are on my mind.
I've been doing a lot of inperson pitching lessons lately with youth athletes,
youth throwers, and it's really likeopen my mind to wanting to discuss

(00:25):
this development for youth pitchers at adeeper, somewhat deeper level, and wanting
to speak more towards like what doparents do. And I'm not saying that
what I'm saying here is right orwrong. It's just maybe some encouragement,
some things to look at, andhopefully this can provide some assistance in youth

(00:47):
baseball development. Who knows. Ifif you ever have any questions for me,
personally reach out to me on myquestion platform, the Robbie Roshow dot
Com slash ask. This video segment'salso availed on YouTube my YouTube Robbie Rolling.
You can go check that out.The link to the video itself will
be in the show notes, aswell as a link to the specific product

(01:08):
that I talk about a lot inthis segment. Hope you guys enjoy again.
Questions reach out to me always openon my question platform. All right,
A, hope you guys had afreaking fantastic fourth of July. Hope
you guys enjoy much love. See, in order for kids to pitch in
Little League or you know, whateverleague, they need to throw strikes.
Coach won't pitch them if they don'tthrow strikes. Now, there's instances where

(01:30):
the games will blow out and theymight get in whatever, But there's this
mental notion for any kid, evenwhen you get older. I've been in
professional baseball, trust me, there'sthis underlying fear of throwing a strike,
and when it becomes present in theperson's mind, the task of throwing a
strike and commanding the baseball becomes moredifficult. That's why you see a lot
of kids, in my opinion,who struggle with the fastball location because there's

(01:53):
an expectation that the fastball should beput in the zone. I saw it
a lot in when you got thesekids that have very low confidence within their
fastball because of the expectation of puttingthe ball where you want. Because it's
the fastball you've been throwing that forever. So then when they go to throw
their off speed, they're breaking ballsecondary a third pitch. You know,
there's lower expectation, right, andthey have more freedom and they're able to

(02:15):
consistently repeat their slot because their overallmotion is that of a lot loose rhythmic
flow than it is when they goto throw a fastball, because there's this
hesitancy in their mind that doesn't allowtheir body to enter a full state of
flow. Now I'm talking a bunchabout these mental and physical limitations and restrictions.

(02:37):
Obviously, if you're a kid likefourteen under, you know, especially
in Little League ten U twelve U, these kids aren't going to recognize the
mental emphasis on their ability to throwstrikes. They'll they'll recognize how when they
do go into the game and they'reon the mound, how uncomfortable that feels.
Right, So now this is wherewe can truly target the growth for

(03:00):
those kids. My whole point forthrowing strikes and commanding the ball is a
you have to have the reps youhave to have if you're a kid and
you don't have the understanding yet ofhow to obtain internalized conviction and confidence within
your stuff. Then you need todo that like subconsciously. So stay with
me here, A kid isn't goingto notice their preparation consciously as more they

(03:25):
are going to notice it subconsciously.Right, So the more reps you do,
the more throws kids make. That'swhy I say that I am not
a believer in the brake pedal approachtoday, the do less approach today for
youth athletics. I think we're tryingto take pitching, which is one of
the most sensitive fricking task in theworld, just because of the repeatability of

(03:46):
the ball on your fingers and howthat influence is where the ball is going
to end up, and you've gotto put it in a specific square,
you know, from a X amountof feet, Right, it's a superior
athletic movement the throw is. Sowe just want to increase the amount of
repetition for these youth kids for themto gain the subconscious familiarity and confidence within
throwing. I like to take itkind of a step further and obtain familiarity

(04:11):
and confidence within a young guy's throwingby like I said, increasing the repetitions
of the throw itself, increasing therepetitions of unique deviated throws right, we're
not just throwing kids from a legliftright, being able to feel the ground
ball shuffle and get the timing rightof when you need to slam on that
drive foot and release the hands ofthe glove and throw right. All of

(04:33):
these things are superior athletic movements thatas kids, especially just because of how
sensitive motor patterns are and skill acquisitionis. We need to make sure that
we're doing a lot of the variabilitiesgrowing up to have all this access to
these movement windows for then the subconsciousbrain for these youth kids, because we're

(04:53):
not doing this consciously at the youngestlevel, right, we're not trying to
recognize mentality really all much of anything. You know, as soon as as
soon as the kid gets out ofmaybe high school, college, then we
can start talking about ways to increasethe mental fortitude of things. But at
a young level is we just wantto do it subconsciously. So you do
that by physical activity and reps andputting in unique environments for them to accomplish

(05:17):
task or you set aside different challengesfor them to compete at and win and
track how much they're getting better overtime. And you do that by like
target acquisition and taking eyes off thetarget. This there's so many different examples,
so I can just run you throughhow I would approach, Like a
very simple case, right for akid that's just struggling, that's struggling throwing

(05:41):
strikes. Something that I would dofor this kid is get them a pitchback.
I don't know if you could seeit over here, I got.
I got a pitch back. It'sI could throw into it and it comes
right back to me. The mind'sfrom asthetics. You want to just contact
me the Robbie Roshow dot com slashask for the link. My number one
favorite tool for any wanting to getbetter at throwing is a rebounder because they

(06:02):
can do it alone and b theycan just freaking get reps. Right,
So just this right here, mejust told it's mine's angled a little bit.
I got to throw it in thenice spot, but freaking reps.
You know, this is why Ialways liked basketball growing up, because it
was like I didn't have to relyon anyone else. I could just go
do it myself, you know whatI'm saying, And that just was freeing

(06:23):
for me. The rebounder gives methe same kind of sensation. Same joy
is like got a ball and Igot a glove and I can just throw,
you know. And I think that'shuge for kids to be able to
do because now you're not only justincreasing the physical reps of throwing, you
know, but you're just you know, there's so much self exploration within just

(06:44):
the increase of reps because right now, you think about it, kids are
limited to how much they can throwin a day. So the throws that
they do make in a day,they're probably super like fixated on certain things,
or they're not fixated on any youknow, the opposite ends of the
spectrum. But either way you cutit, that's not going to improve the

(07:05):
kid's mentality and confidence within their taskof throwing a strike or be the physical
replication of throwing the ball into thestrike zone. Now, I love the
pitch back because at a young ata young age, there's not much identification
for them. Right You're not goingto sit and tell a ten year old
kid all these things about what theyneed to do and asking them what their

(07:29):
pregame routine is, you know whatI'm saying. So just putting them in
the right environments for them to increasetheir repetitions while subconscious gaining familiarity within themselves.
It's an absolute huge win. Sotake this a step further, the
throwing aspect of it, right,and just getting to a point where the
kid loves throwing, and you putthem in an environment where there's no there's

(07:53):
no risk, you know, youput them in a very safe environment for
them just to have fun and bejoyful. Then it's going to carry over
right from the backyard thrown into alittle pitch back, that's going to carry
over into the games. But nowwhen they're on the mound facing a hitter,
right, the brain doesn't really recognizethe task itself as completely different.

(08:16):
Right, Like, it knows likewhen we get this ball, our objective
is to throw it in a particularspot to get the hitter out. It
knows that, and it knows thatwhen we throw into this pitch back too,
And you can take that a stepfurther with these youth kids is start
really feeding into the challenges and thecompetition. Put little little strings or or
little cones on a pitch back.You know, I have a soccer rebounder

(08:37):
too. It's supposed to be forsoccer balls, but it's a lot bigger,
and it gives you so much opportunityfor location targets with a pitchback,
so pitchback, you throw it andit comes right back to you. I
just think there's so much there's somuch good to be had if you're a
kid, to be able to justincrease the repetitions of your throws while obviously
improving your actual movement, because thebody is a adaptable The body's smart.

(09:01):
If you get a kid that's gotan athletic foundation and you just put them
in a freaking environment in which it'sgonna tell him to throw a ton,
you know, like his body's gonnafind ways to maximize the leverage of the
mechanics of it for health reasons andpower output reasons because you're doing it so
much, dude, And this ishow amazing the body is, and this

(09:22):
is how I understand the body.It's adaptable, dude. You increase the
repetitions, you're not going to blowout. Be smart. Don't just go
into it going a one hundred andfifty fricking percent. Ease into it.
The rebounder stuff doesn't even have tobe max effort, dude, it's just
me just grabbing the ball. Throwing, catching it, throwing it, catching
it, throwing it, catching it, you know, and you change the

(09:43):
task too with a kid, youknow, rebounder throw it. One's a
ground ball, one's a pop upoff the wall. Another one's a pop
up off the green monster Boom,I'm turning glove side on that one.
Okay, this one glove side,this one, catch armside, boom up
in the air. Throw. I'mtelling you, the more reps you give

(10:03):
kids that force athletic adjustability, it'sgoing to be amazing because now they don't
have to think, they don't haveto fear. The more stimulus this brain
gets of a certain emotion attached tothe throw. The emotion that it gets
attached to the throw is extremely importantfor the development of that kid, because

(10:24):
if there's a negative emotion attached tothe throw, which usually is from kids
that have a really bad experience ingames, not throwing strikes, feeling embarrassed,
having doubt, all of these things. So that emotional attachment that these
kids' brains have towards the sport andtowards the ball matter. So you want
to make sure that they're getting putin very free, non judgment fun environments

(10:50):
with the ball, right. Sofor me growing up, there's a lot
of just Dad hitting fungos to mefeeling ground balls and BP I would like
say, hey, I'll hit last, go up to the park. Whole
family's hitting BP. I just wanteda shack, right. So then my
brain's emotional attachment to this ball andanything that comes with this ball, hitting,

(11:11):
fielding, throwing snackshack right, it'sall very positive emotional attachments because I
was put in these environments, thesejoyful environments, before I got put into
a game environment that I felt,you know, embarrassed, because I think
any kid is going to struggle withputting the ball where they want, you
know, and there's gonna be thissense of embarrassment when they can't do that,

(11:33):
you know, and freaking the merrygo rounds going, you know what
I'm saying. And it's I thinkit's our responsibilities as instructors, our responsibilities
as parents to just make sure weunderstand that the kid has a very sensitive
approach, you know, to thegame, and it's and it matters how
he and how his brain is perceivingthe game. And that's why I think

(11:54):
like the competition is going to embodyso much more joy and fun for the
as opposed to, like that kid, Hey, we got to hit fifty
miles an hour today, dude,you know what I'm saying, Like where
we get into this fine line oftaking a ten year old and being like,
big picture mindset. If you wantto play big leagues, dude,
you gotta throw ninety right now,you know what I'm saying. That takes
like the joy and the competition awayfrom them, and it kind of puts

(12:16):
them into this like I have todo this mentality right, Like the same
thing a lot of times when kidsget up there and they really want to
freaking throw strikes, you know,because they won't pitch again if they don't
throw strikes, And then their mentalitybecomes don't throw a ball, you know,
and it's passive, and now theirphysical movements are super freaking limited.
As opposed to, Hey, Idon't really care so much about like throwing

(12:41):
ninety as a ten year old,I just want to kind of have fun.
If that's the goal, that goalis going to influence a lot more
productive development throughout his career, asopposed to, like it's a task orientated
approach. If a nine year old'strying to throw you know what, do
they throw sixty miles an hour?So that's what I got. The practical

(13:03):
encouragements that I would give parents orcoaches at the very very youth level is
a rebounder is like the best freakingproduct ever for me as a kid,
it was I had a bunch ofrebounders, but I also had the hit
away. The hit away was thedevice that you put on a pole and
you swung and hit it and itwrapped around the pole and then slowly untangled,

(13:24):
came back and you freaking hit itagain. That hit away, those
rebounders are what I believe made meso joyful around the sport of baseball because
that was where I was falling inlove with it. You know, Like
you could make the argument that Iwas falling in love with the game when
I was, you know, playinggames. But if you watch freaking VHS
tape of me at seven years oldplaying the outfield, I was chasing butterflies,

(13:48):
you know what I'm saying. LikeI wasn't really focused on like throwing
sixty miles an hour. You know, I think the most important part at
the end of the day, whenwe deal with youth sports and youth athletes
is first and foremost establish a perceptionin the kid's mind of this ball influences
joy. If we get that downright, If we understand that this and

(14:11):
when I throw this, my lifeis better. You know, when I
catch it, I am having morefun, you know, Like I throw
and I catch this thing, andmy life becomes in that instance funner,
better improved. You know what I'msaying. That is the goal because that
layer of a foundation for kids whyis so much stronger than like, oh,
I play it to get money.I play it because I'm good at

(14:33):
it, you know, I mean, it's going to burn out. So
biggest encouragement youth sports increase the repetitions, influence areas and environments that influence joy,
right, that invoke positive energy.I'm a big energy guy. Energy
is carried in a lot of differentsports and a lot of different environments.
Every brain knows how to perceive energy, whether it's subconsciously or consciously. So

(14:56):
it's a coach's responsibility at that ageto be he's truly observant to what that
kid's body like, the way hisbody's energy feels about like certain tasks in
the game. How does he respondto taking ground balls, How does he
respond to throwing? How does herespond to pitching? How does he respond
to fielding flyballs? You know,how does he respond to catching? Like
all these things, because you justwant to feed. You want to feed

(15:20):
the passion, you want to feedthe love, you know what I'm saying.
Whereas older, it's more like,all right, dude, like life
sucks. Kind of life is goingto be really hard, so you know,
deal with it because you're not gonnayou're not gonna enjoy everything that you
do. You know what I'm saying. As a kid, it's the opposite.
I gotta do with something so influenceareas of a joy. A rebounder

(15:41):
is a great tool. Hit meup if you want to get the one
from athletics. Like I said,there's another soccer rebounder that I have that's
super dope. But I anytime Iwork with kids that are you know,
twelve views so still in literally likea big thing we do is rebounders,
ground balls, catches, overhead catches, all the different you know, stimulus.
Essentially, all these different tasks forthe kid to complete is just ingraining

(16:06):
variability and adjustability for their actual mechanics. Because more more oftentimes than not.
Like, obviously there's a layer ofmechanical inefficiencies for any for any kid twelve,
you, there's gonna be mechanical inefficiencies. There's just too many instabilities present.
We're not trying to give a tenyear old or eleven, twelve year
old, nine year old, eightyear old, four year old ideal picture
perfect mechanics. Now, we're justtrying to get them to fall in love

(16:29):
with the game, so then thatlove will then influence their desire to get
better every single day for them tohopefully accomplish their dreams. Right, Like,
that's the freaking foundation, that's thegoal. So take it a step
further. Is using like different objectsyou know, to build arm path Athleticism
is to be able to use youryour throwing mechanics, even if you're a

(16:52):
ten year old, twelve year oldwhatever, to accomplish the task. When
I was a kid, I threwlike little rocks at the at the river.
My grandparents lived on the riverbed,and I would go to the river
and I'd skip rocks. I'd throwrocks over on the other side. I'd
grow up throwing a football, growup throwing a tennis ball, I threw
some golf balls, I threw newvortex balls, frisbees, all of these

(17:12):
different objects, and for you tojust like throw it instead of making the
adjustment via like articulation and thinking toyourself, how do I physically adjust to
accomplish the task? When you throwjust different objects, it's like, all
right, rep all right, wherewas the miss? Okay, now let's
just do this. You know,especially if you're a kid. That's the
beauty of the rebounder stuff. Andthe amount of consistent repetitions that I would

(17:36):
encourage kids to go through is becausethen you start teaching their brain that adjustments
don't really happen mentally. They do, but they like physical adjustments don't happen
mentally. They happen in a flowstate, which is so hard to instruct
or coach. But the best adjustmentsin the world are the ones that you
don't really have a conscious thought to. It's just like, oh, I

(18:00):
cut that fastball down in a wayand I, you know, freaking bounce
past the catcher. Well, insteadof going frick panic, I got to
like get my hand out earlier toget my arm enough time to then allow
it to make me set side tothe little gloves or arms side, No,
dude, like you have enough repetitionsunder your belt, so then the
adjustment just becomes all right, Ijust missed a pitch, Like, now
I'm just gonna throw it freaking rightthere, you know what I'm saying.

(18:21):
And I really do believe that that. And again this is not to top
my own or toot my own horn, but I really do believe that that
that development foundation for me growing upwas the biggest reason why I was so
successful in high school and growing upgoing through Little League. Was it,
you know, getting drafted a highschool eighty eighth pick, you know you're
doing something right. And I reallydo when I look back at my career,

(18:42):
the best that I have been,you know, is when I had
that mindset. And it was justmore so because like I did the physical
preparation at a very young age,and I as soon as I got into
the game, then it was likethis started wanting to go, you know,
instead of just what made me sogood in high school was that I
have the layer right, I've donethe work physically to prepare my adjustability,

(19:04):
you know, my command, allthese things and they just happened organically instead
of having to force it. Iguess that's the full message. The whole
theme of this video is that withkids, it's a very unique time when
they're coming up because a parent,a coach, they have so much power
right when it comes to influencing thatthat kid's brains perception of the throw.

(19:27):
And you can do that by youknow, putting him in the right environments
to find joy. And that doesn'tmean like it joy is a guarantee,
but it gets them out of likethat restrictive headspace, you know. And
I think a lot of people gowrong because when they see a kid in
a restrictive headspace, they try tolike think through it and they challenge them
mentally, when I believe it's moreof a physical challenge. Kids don't really

(19:49):
need to think, don't. Idon't want kids to even be taught how
to think, because as soon asthey recognize what thought is and the correlation
of thought in sports, then it'sit's an uphill battle. I guarantee you
so learn from me. I didn'tknow how to think until I started to
fail, which was probably the worsttime to fail because I had never really

(20:11):
failed before until I got into professionalsports. Because you know, most people
don't fail when they're most superior athlete, right, So I was learning how
to fail in professional baseball on thefly. And that's when you know,
things go wrong because of the powerof this right. So get kids in
the right environment, have them throwobjects. Football is tennis balls, whiffleballs.

(20:32):
That's another huge thing, dude.I grew up playing whiffle ball.
Whiffleball is great in my opinion forarm health, arm speed, and shoot
even like consistency. Think about it, if a kid can grow up playing
the sport of baseball with different objects, you know, Like I grew up
playing a ton of whiffle ball.Sometimes we wouldn't have a whiffle ball,
and we would play with the tennisball, you know. And sometimes we

(20:55):
would play with those foam balls thatmy dad used to throw at us to
prack, just turning into a pitchand we got hit, you know.
But like you grow up and thoseall of those are different weights, you
know, all the different sizes yougrow playing football, And what you do
is you just establish brain body connectionwithout having to articulate mentally physical movements.
Physical movements need to be freaking flow, you know what I'm saying. So

(21:18):
when you grow up having different objectsbut completing the same task throwing with a
balls, throwing foam balls, tennisballs, baseballs. You know what I'm
saying. I'm not sitting here sayinga kid should go out and throw a
twelve ounce baseball and then go pulldown on three ounces. You know,
that's not what I'm saying. Butjust slight little reps, you know,
over time allow for this athletic variablearm action that allows them to not overthink

(21:45):
about the task of throwing a strike. It just allows them to feel more
secure and confident knowing that they cando it because of how many reps they
have at that point, with theamount of different objects. Well, if
a kid can throw a wiffle ballfor a strike followed up with throwing a
baseball for a strike, it's apretty athletic arm path. It's a pretty

(22:07):
repeatable arm action. It's a prettypretty repeatable mechanics. And the beauty of
that is that nothing was really tough. You just said, here's a ball,
go out and compete that day.It was a wiffleball, and actually
it was a tennis ball. Ithink we get away from that because,
like the baseball industry, right Nowsports performance industry is great. There's so
many advancements that are taking our humancapabilities to a whole different level physically,

(22:33):
and I love that, but Ifear that it's going to get us away
from what made kids really good atone point, and it was just growing
up playing the game, playing thegame because it was fun, not playing
the game because it was a job, or because your buddies did it,
like playing baseball, throwing a baseball, playing wiffle ball, playing law ball,
wall ball, whatever. You didthose because it was fun. So

(22:56):
your brain automatically instill a specific emotionattached to the activity, and that emotion
at a young age, dude,is going to be the difference. My
biggest encouragement for parents dealing with kidsthat struggle with throwing strikes and obviously their
confidence is going to like get themin environments that are a lot more freeing
so they can slowly kind of changeand alter their perception of the task of

(23:21):
throwing. Some kids will get reallyembarrassed, you know, and then they
don't want to do it. It'sa fear for them, right, there's
doubt link to it. So youjust want to make sure that the environment
you're putting them in is going toa give them freedom to mess up and
make mistakes. That's great, it'slearning one hundred percent, and then be
the amount of reps something that wecan actively control. REPS is huge,

(23:44):
right, Reps is going to solvea lot of issues. So hit me
up if you want that link forthe rebounder or the soccer rebounder. I
have a bunch of different rebounders.Like I said, my favorite my favorite
tools are the ones that you cango outside on your own with a ball,
with a bat, whatever and justdo it and not have to rely
on anyone. Those are my favorites.