A risk with throwing the four-seam fastball is that it has no movement. If you place the ball in the center of the strike zone, or a batter’s wheelhouse, you can give up a big hit. A two-seam fastball is often a few ticks slower than a four-seam fastball, but it tends to have more movement. With a two-seamer, the ball moves in the same direction as whichever arm is being used to throw it (meaning a right-handed pitcher gets rightward movement on a two-seamer).
Essentially, you want to throw the baseball with the most amount of backspin. Your fingers should hold the ball across the seams allowing you to get good spin. Following UCLR, Major League Baseball pitchers experienced no changes in horizontal or vertical movement or velocity of the curve or slider in either time frame.
I guess everything could be relative to the particular pitcher in question and their arm slot. For myself, there was no question that my 2 seamer rode in on a RH hitter…and the kids that I have coached since then have seen similar results. One idea that comes to mind is that he may have more of his fingers in touch with the baseball on his 4-seamer if his hands are small. He could 2 vs 4 seam fastball be just gripping the 2-seamer with his finger tips but reaching across the horseshoe for the 4-seamer he may have all of the pads of his fingers on the baseball. His coach likes his two seamer as he gets pretty good movement on it. He does a good job at throwing the ball on a downward plane to the plate so he must be pulling down on the ball and throwing it off the two fingers.
This difference in grip also affects how the ball moves, with the 4-seam fastball flying straight and fast, while the 2-seamer tends to tail away from the pitcher’s dominant hand. Oftentimes, the desired result of a 2 seam fastball is to “miss the barrel”. For pitchers who don’t have issues throwing strikes but seem to give up a lot of hard-hit balls, a 2 seam may be the best option. Throwing a pitch with more movement creates more deception for the hitter. On the other hand, the movement of the 2 seam fastball depends upon the throwing arm of the players. The answer to this question really depends upon who you are asking.
Your thumb should be directly underneath the baseball, not touching any of the seams below. The pitch gets its name because it looks like you can see four seams when it travels towards you. As the ball rotates you see four seams which is different than what you see with a curve or a two-seamer. The fastball is a POWERFUL weapon when used with a purpose at ALL levels of the game. You want to keep the ball out on your fingertips as much as comfortably possible, yet still possess good control.
The pros and cons of the two-seamer both deal with the movement. It’s a great pitch for you to use if you want to jam or confuse a hitter. If you are a righty, the pitch will run in on a right-handed batter. If you are a lefty it will run in on a left-handed batter. The ball tends to run or drift in the direction of your throwing arm’s side. The con, or hard part, about using the two-seamer is that it can be hard to spot in the strike zone.
The four-seam fastball typically is thrown with a straight overhead swing of the throwing arm. Further, backspin combined with the steady rotation of four seams in alignment with the direction of the pitch stabilizes the ball’s flight-path. This pitch is going to feature more horizontal movement than vertical movement to it. And that horizontal movement will occur towards the arm side of the pitcher. So for example, if a right handed pitcher is throwing a 2 seamer to a right handed batter, the pitch will dart in toward the batter. Historically, the plan with 2 seamers was to keep them low in the strike zone and try to get hitters to hit the top half of the ball for an easy ground out.
You will see more pitchers deliver a 4 seam fastball instead of a 2 seam because of all the mentioned reasons, but mastery is that need for any ball to gain its advantages. The 4 seam fastball is devised exclusively for gaining pace; it moves towards the batter with slight or no “break” in a straight-line trajectory. The aim is to test the batter’s reaction skill rather than bluffing him with a pitch that breaks towards the bottom or at one side or the other.
You will find many pitchers who throw the traditional four-seam fastball over 100 miles per hour on the Major League Baseball level. My son used to only throw the four seam and last year at 12 his fastball was around mph and he tried a two seam and loved the movement but it was around mph. A year later now at 13 he has leaned how to control his two seam and does not throw the 4 seam at all. I asked him to throw a 4 seam just to see how hard it would be but he told me he is more comfortable with the 2 seam and does not want to throw a 4 seam anymore. I think its a matter of what you feel and there is no method to which one is faster it depends on the player and what they are most comfortable for with. Commonly referred to as “Bauer Units” , SPV is defined as Spin Rate per Velocity.
A two-seam fastball that has a high horizontal break and drops less is often referred to as a running fastball. It is often higher in average velocity than a traditional two-seamer. Place your index and middle fingertips directly over the corresponding ball seams. Because of the arm-side movement of the 2 seam fastball, it works great when it is paired with a sweeping slider or a fading changeup. This causes hitters to hit a lot of ground balls and swing and miss over top of the pitch.