Summary

Alex has a very strong arm, more than enough to get batters out. His ball is ‘heavy’, meaning it has some natural sink to it when he throws it properly. This should make it harder for batters to barrel up his pitches and should generate more ground balls. If he learns how to use his body properly his velocity should naturally increase.

Alex gets himself in a good position at foot strike, with his front foot open and pointing towards the batter and his shoulders mostly aligned towards home plate. This allows his to create torque and velocity.

There are a few areas he should focus on initially to gain better control.

Hand position in windup

As Alex completes his leg kick he tends to let his hands get outside of his lead knee. This tends to lead to his hands getting wide, which drops his throwing hand and elbow below his shoulder and it’s hard for him to ‘catch up’ as he delivers the ball. This is likely a big reason why he tends to throw high and inside to right handers–his arm his dragging and getting on the side or underneath the ball as his delivers.

Compare where his glove his relative to the dotted black line:

To this:

He should work on keeping his hands tighter to his body through his leg kick. His hands should be closer to his chest, with his glove pointing up, not out. Think about his hands connecting to that knee with a string so as he raises his hands straight up he pulls his knee up. If his hands go out it will pull his knee, and the rest of his body, in that direction.

Being more intentional with his glove side

Alex loads well and gets into a good position at foot strike, but after that his glove side isn’t doing the kind of work it needs to. The glove side should be helping to open his hips and chest towards home plate and allowing him to be square to the batter before delivering the baseball. At foot strike, however, his glove side isn’t doing any work.

Compare this:

To this:

deGrom pulls with his glove side, which increases his hip rotation getting him in a good square position at release and increases his velocity. Alex generates all rotation with his chest and throwing arm.

Finishing out over front foot

Finally, Alex will tend to finish with his chest and chin pointing up, which pulls the rest of this body high and leads to leads to high pitches, usually inside to right handed hitters.

Alex needs to finish out over his front foot. A physical cue is that his chest comes out in front of his landing foot as he completes his pitch with his throwing hand finishing down towards his opposite hip or knee.

Compare this:

To this:

With Alex, you tend to see the front of his search or under his chin after he delivers the pitch, whereas other pitchers show you the back of their throwing shoulder or the top of their hat. Getting out over that front foot and falling over it like it’s a fulcrum will help with his tendency to throw high.

Homework

Alex should take a tennis ball and do 10-15 dry deliveries in front of a full length mirror per day. The point is not to throw the ball, but to watch himself and match up how his body feels when he’s delivering properly. He should pay special attention to his hands on his leg kick, being intentional with his glove side, and finishing low and over his front foot.