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Reply to "D1 Camp Readiness"

I take Momball11 at her word when she mentions her son has an elite bat and her evaluation is fine with me.  All of our sons, to an extent are big fish in small ponds and that is why there may be some skepticism trying to evaluate posts here from words (or stats) alone.   When you get to the college level, every guy has something going for him and your son's job is to beat them out.  Making matters worse, your sons in many cases are boys trying to beat out established men.  It is one of the most difficult challenges one can imagine.  Mental toughness and heart play a huge role in whether or not someone ever gets on to the playing field.

That said, back to the  original topic about 7.0 and/or other measurables.   adbono is right about too much emphasis placed on the measurables.  Coaches at the end of the day are looking for winning players - good hitters and pitchers who don't hang their head when everything doesn't go their way each and every time out.  Really good players can beat you in multiple ways.  Maybe they went 0-4 on a given day but they made great, game-changing plays defensively or used heads-up baserunning to help score additional runs.  Maybe a pitcher gets roughed up early in a game, but he has the mental toughness to hang in there and give his offense a chance to win the game late.  This question is to everyone out there - is your guy one of those guys?

Here is a real world story and of course anecdotal evidence of one, but it demonstrates how much uncertainty there is.  Gary Gilmore of Coastal Carolina is one of the winningest coaches in all of D1 baseball highlighted by the 2016 national championship.  He mentioned in a newspaper article that they found this lightly recruited guy out of Canada.  They took a flyer on him and invited him down.  Apparently, the kid had no other offers pending and it was very late in the recruiting process.  In batting practice and based on that alone, they offered him a scholarship on the spot.  Unfortunately for Coastal, a Cincinnati Reds scout happened to be at that workout and he saw the same thing Coastal did - an elite bat.  There were no exit velocity tests back then - it was strictly the eye and ear test - how far does it go, how often does it go there, and what does the ball sound like coming off the bat.  Guys that know what they are looking for, know it when they see/hear it.

Here is the now 39 year old "kid's" PG profile.    From the sounds of it, Momball11's son may already have better measurables (e.g., footspeed, arm talent) than this guy.  Read the write-up and notice the scouting report about how they evaluated his bat.

https://www.perfectgame.org/pl...ofile.aspx?ID=118560

For those uninterested in clicking on the link, that player's name was Joey Votto.     

Last edited by ClevelandDad
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