against "drafted players, minor leaguers and good college players" with an 82-84 mph fastball. I'm sure with growth and maturity his velocity will improve and he may some day have success in the Major Leagues as well. Hope he does. It won't be with an 84 mph fastball.
This thread keeps moving away from it's original question.
It'sNOT "Can a pitcher be successful throwing off-speed pitches and a well-below average fastball with good control in HS, College, or Minor Leagues?"
It's "What stat does a scout look for in a college pitcher?" Scout meaning ML scout if im reading TPM correct.
I think most of us and knowledgeable baseball people agree that ML scouts
do not care about stats, but if there were one "stat" that would give a scout a verifiable indication of a pitcher's avg. fastball velocity then that would be the stat they would use. THERE ISN"T ONE. However, a college pitcher with 160 k's in 80 innings will bring some scouts to see him to see if he is throwing hard. If his competition has been awful and he is throwing 84 they will pack up and leave. PERIOD. If the pitcher has 160 K's in 80 innings and the college is in a credible conference- you can believe they already know about him.
82-84 mph in college will get no interest from a scout unless the kid is a lefty-and then only minimal interest if the kid is projectible.
Please, I mean no disrespect to your son-I have one also throwing 82-84 in college right now and has been red-shirted this year. He also has had success against pitching against BBAmerica's #1 ranked player of a few years ago and KC's first round pick the previous year. He would get bombed in the Majors.
He also knows that if he wants to get any interest at all from scouts he must
get his velocity to at least 88-90.
Someone please start a thread "Asking whether control pitchers can be successful in college". I'm through with this one
.