How to Throw a Circle Change-Up

Baseball pitchers are at a disadvantage right from the start when they step out on the mound. All they have is a bump in the middle of the field where they can throw a small ball at a batter with a bat. Basically from the start the batter has had the advantage. To make the playing feel more even, pitchers needed to develop off speed pitches to combat the consistency of just throwing the same pitch over and over again. There are plenty of ways to throw a change-up and the most common is the circle change. There are three main elements to throwing the pitch and throwing it effectively.

1. The grip. The grip of the circle change is one of the easiest outside of the four seam fastball. To start hold the ball like you were throwing a two seam fastball. The laces of the ball wrap around to where there is a point where there are two parallel lines of stitches. In a two seam fast ball you want to have your middle and pointer fingers right inside the two parallel pitches. For a right handed pitcher or a left handed pitcher, you move your pointer outside of the seam and take your thumb up and touch the tip of your pointer with it, to a form, a circle.

2. The arm speed. The arm speed of off speed pitches is very important. Inexperienced pitchers tend to slow their motion down and experienced batters will catch up on this and recognize the pitch as being off speed. If you keep your arm speed the same as you would if you were throwing a fastball, the batter will only have the split second when your hand is at its highest to recognize the grip you are holding the ball in to recognize the pitch.

3. The wrist. Unlike the curve ball where you want to snap your wrist forward to get that front spin, on a change-up you want to snap your wrist to the inside. Throw the pitch just like you would a fastball and snap your wrist into your body, like you were throwing a football. This should cause a spin that will resist the wind and slow the ball down and make it break a little bit.

If used correctly, the change-up becomes one of the hardest pitches to hit, just look at Greg Maddux.