Well my son is a catcher, and he is interested in improving his throw down to second / pop times.


So just for the heck of it I started recording pop times on some of the college and MLB games I have been watching.

The best pop time so far in a game situation was 1.9 seconds, I have a DVR and run it back just to get a few times just to see if I am correct. Surprisingly most of the pop time in the MLB and college are around 2sec to 2.2seconds.

The best pop time of 1.9 seconds was a perfect pitch and a perfect thrown the got the guy was out with a glove tag while the guy was sliding head first. I mean he was out by a mile/few feet.

Ok, my dilemma is you can work all you want to on arm strength, foot work but what I see as the most important thing in just the catchers responsibility when in comes to pop time is accuracy. You can have the best pop time but if you cannot throw down to second with accuracy you are doing nothing but fooling yourself when in comes to good pop time.

Am I missing something here when it comes to just Pop time to second? Is it really that important when I am timing the pros and college at around 2 seconds? Why is pop time such a big deal to some people?


Love always that #2 position,

drill

thats very true.A strong arm will only go so far.

Sometimes baserunners take off on offspeed pitches,which are much more difficult to throw on.That could account for a slow pop time too

Guys;
Don't put the cart before the horse. If the ball does not beat the runner, it does not matter how accurate it is.Accurate & late & you lose.Figure out what you need to do to get the ball there before the runner(ie.footwork,transfer,positive mometum,rotation,arm strength,etc.)& then get enough reps with those mechanics to become accurate.

JW

I've seen catchers who don't have great arms but do have very good pop times. The problem is because they don't have strong enough arms they can't make accurate throws.

Strong arms make it easier to make accurate throws as well as to come up with faster pop times.

quote:

Originally posted by CADad:
I've seen catchers who don't have great arms but do have very good pop times. The problem is because they don't have strong enough arms they can't make accurate throws.

Strong arms make it easier to make accurate throws as well as to come up with faster pop times.

I have seen weak arms with proper body position make one hop throws to second base and still get the guy out because of the accuracy of the one hop throw.


drill

I would respectfully suggest that you need both arm strength and accuracy to succeed. If you are trying to make it with one and not the other, you may want to switch positions, because you won't make it behind the plate.

Same goes for if you aren't so good at receiving the ball, etc. You can have an accurate cannon, but if you muff the pitch, you aren't going to get anybody, and that's the bottom line -- do you or do you not stop the running game?

What is a good arm? 90? 80? What is a weak arM? below 75?


The biggest problem I see with many catchers is "cutting" the ball which allows wind conditions to significantly effect ball travel and a fading ball is more difficult for a fielder to consistently catch.

However the bottom line is pop time, no matter your arm strength or ability to catch the ball.

whats slow?I think thats the question.I average about a 2.12 for my throw downs to second,but its accurate.Many people consider that very slow,while its average to others.

This is an ongoing discussion...

College parent: anything above 80 mph is VERY strong from the crouch. Above 75 is in the good to very good category for HS catchers. Most are 70-75.

Just an example but there's a 2008 catcher in the PG database with sub 2.00 pop times who was 77 mph on the throw to second. He was 91 mph throwing from the outfield.

Thats very wierd. I read somewhere on this site that the difference from a crouch and regular should just be up to 5 mph...

quote:

Originally posted by Catch43:
Thats very wierd. I read somewhere on this site that the difference from a crouch and regular should just be up to 5 mph...

Catch43,

You may be refering to an article I have written and posted on this forum where I discuss the difference between "crow-Hop" velocity and crouch velocity.

In that article I indicated that a good athlete should have no more then a 5% (percent) drop from their max velocity (usually crowhop) down to their crouch velocity.

If there is more then a 5% drop then there is something in their mechanics that is "eating" MPH and needs to be fixed.

The example given of the PG kid with 90+ outfield throwing velocity on only 77 from behind the plate reflects a 15% loss of velocity. If there are no unusual circumstances going on there and this is the normal difference in his throws, then that young man has some serious issues with his throwing mechanics to be loosing that much velocity.