The Importance of Proper Hand Separation

Here's a good three minute discussion by Dan Gazaway of The Pitching Academy about one of the most fundamental parts of the throwing motion: hand separation.

At the youth level, this is one of the most often flawed parts of a player's mechanics. Many kids take the ball up and out of their glove, directly behind the ear, which leads to pushing the baseball forward. The result is a lack of power and additional stress on the shoulder.

More than half of my young pitching students spend time correcting this flaw. And throwing mechanics are not easy to correct once the bad habits are entrenched. If they can learn at about the tee ball level or even younger how to correctly separate the hands (like in the picture of Tommy Hanson above) with fingers on top, thumbs down and plams out, it would help them avoid this trouble down the road.