This coach does an excellent job breaking down each part of a youth pitcher's mechanics. Please have your player watch this and work on checking themselves in a mirror as explained. Coach Troy outlined these bullet points from what is shown in the videos.
start relaxed and balanced with feet shoulder width apart on the pitching rubber. Emphasize to be loose and relaxed!
glove is up at chest with hand gripping the ball
small rocker step back or to the side, keep head and shoulders from moving, eyes on the catcher’s target
pivot throwing foot in front of rubber and raise leg to balance position, nice and tall on vertical axis (not leaning)
Important: do not kick or swing the leg up, it should just be raised “To the Top”
at leg balance, knee nice and high and pointing to 3B for righty or 1B for lefty
“From the Top”, lead with the hip and step (glide) forward, landing foot is straight in line with home, about 45 deg off center
Important: at landing point, keep the shoulders closed, front shoulder is pointing toward the catcher
landing point is a “Power A”, head is in middle, front leg has slight 45 deg bend (should not be stiff, should not land on heel)
at the Power A, we take the ball out of the glove “down, back, and up”, so the elbow is above the shoulder, baseball outside the elbow (we don’t want to push the baseball in the throw), and we see the back of our hand.
with ball at the top, a righty should have the ball slightly tipped towards 3B (reverse for lefty)
MIRROR CHECK: keep working on the “down, back, and up” until they get the ball in the right position! Kids can do this in front of mirror at home.
after “down, back, and up” looks good, work on raising the glove elbow with straight sights on catcher like a “gun sight”
Important: keep working on “retrace your steps” until this combination is good
explain that eventually as the foot glides forward from the top, we are also doing “down, back, and up” with hands in sync
at the Power A, we release the back heel, drive the front elbow down hard, and square the trunk. Pulling the front elbow down hard is to generate power.
MIRROR CHECK: Stop at this point (from Power A to squared hips, elbow down, glove tucked) and retrace steps until this looks right (retrace from A as well as full pitching sequence)
at this point with squared trunk, they imitate a throw and follow through with arm going over front leg.
for backside drive, we want to pull the hips through the pitch as we come off the rubber.
Important: Keep the leg/hip inside (almost like a hitter), it shouldn’t fly out.
the combination of the 2 forces (frontside and backside drive) give us our power
Please have your son watch this video to learn two types of grips to throw a changeup. I like how this video continues nicely from the first by the same instructor. However, at this age they should ignore the last "OK" grip as their hands are not large enough to throw it.
Trevor sent this video in early March. It has good base foundation information, that we will start ingraining in our hitters. The whole video is good; base foundation is in the first 10 minutes.