If you're a new pitcher forget pinpoint accuracy until you get a consistent release. A bucket can help with that, because if the balls are in a ring with a 10' circumference, you're likely not going to be able to throw a strike in a crucial situation. It takes some guys weeks or longer, and other people five pitches to get the feel down. Once you get the technique down, you'll be able to locate the ball much easier.
The only difference when I threw a knuckleball or a basic lob was what I did with my pitching hand in the last foot before my release. Who cares if you know to throw a knucklespincurvedroppedbyangels pitch if it doesn't get over the plate. Everybody here suggesting placement are dead on. If you can go flat and outside, deep and inside, and everything in between, you will be very difficult to hit solidly. Don't use a pitch you can't throw for a strike. If you're consistently around they'll have to swing at some junk, though.
There are two videos Mike Macenko put up on Youtube over the winter. First off, you know he got his ass into one because his hip wasn't happy and he ever so slightly stumbled on his follow through. I played on that field for over a decade and NEVER saw anyone else hit the fence behind RF, let alone put one into the yard. I cleared those trees, but that was with a redlining Blur. Still not close.
Anyway, back on target. The two guys pitching to him are up near the best I've seen. And all they do is locate. And both have made me (and a lot of people, to be fair) look stupid. Actually the oldest of the two was pitching in a Texas shootout and one of the teams said if he pitched against them they'd try to hit him. They swapped pitchers. I tended to run tourney teams that were a bit... ghetto. They didn't like that so we hung out in their bleachers for awhile.
Anyway, location.
Mask and shinguards at the VERY least. And if you lay an average size batbag down it's pretty close to a strike zone.
