The intent to throw hard – the phrase was coined by Paul Nyman. Simple on its face, it is routinely rejected by pitching coaches everywhere from the outright dismissal (“just throw strikes”) to the subtle sabotage (“block with a firm front side”). Intending to throw the ball hard means, well, maximum effort. And lest people think that “max effort” is a bad thing, the reality is that no one was more of a max effort thrower than this guy: Yet countless scouts will point to someone who has “max effort” mechanics and say “Oh, that guy will never hold up as a starter.” Remind me again, was Nolan Ryan not a durable starter? What scouts think they see when they see someone who is “max effort” is really a guy that has serious recoil issues, can’t repeat his delivery, or is undersized. Great examples include Jake Peavy, Marcus Stroman (someone I am very high on), or Jimmy Sherfy: But the point of this blog post isn’t to debunk the myth of “max effort,” it is to discuss intent. Simply put, the intent to throw the ball hard IS defined as effort, and usually maximum effort if you are trying to throw reasonably hard. What that looks like depends very much on your mechanical patterns (good forward rotation and good deceleration patterns will avoid you becoming a “max effort” guy – also not being 5’6″ helps), but the intent to throw hard is useless without an underlying base of fitness. That last part is important. Too many people have taken the idea of “intent” to mean that it is something that creates velocity. But that’s not what it is at all – intent simply reveals velocity. […]
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