[Microline133]

Teams are more routinely shying away from mandating that pitchers throw a certain number of each pitch in a game at the minor league level, and in my offline discussions with some coaches, its not being done in Detroit.

In some discussions with other organizations, there was a mounting belief that there were two negative primary effects of forcing pitchers to throw a certain number of a particular pitch in games. First, the pitchers were obviously struggling and there were effects on confidence. Not just confidence in their ability to win ball games, but also long term effects on confidence in the pitch. When it routinely gets thrown in the dirt or gets tagged to the wall in games, its easy to lose all sense of confidence in the pitch, even if you know you're trying to learn it. Secondly, there were some effects seen on the development of catchers and their game calling. By not allowing them to truly call their game by studying hitters and knowing tendancies, etc., many catchers were struggling to make the strides in game calling that they needed to make at the minor league level.

More and more teams are relying on the use of bullpen sessions and flat ground sessions to improve the grip, arm speed, spin, release, and command of secondary and tertiary offerings; and the same organizational types that indicated they were shying away from mandated pitches, have reported positive progress with these methods.