johnlanza posted:Goosegg posted:My son was a LHP. He was about your velo as a freshman. He went on to be drafted out of HS, played D1, and was drafted again in college.
Here was what we did and didn't do:
• found a great PC who could teach and from whom he would accept the teaching. Up to that point, he had great PCs, but who focused on his age pitchers. The (then) new PC was a "develop velo" guy who focused on older HS, college, and pro guys. He went from your velo to sitting upper 80s, touching 90+ in his senior year. (Size may or not matter on velo development; son was 5'9" 135 lbs when he got his driver's license and 5' 11" 150 in his senior year.)
• played sparingly on travel teams. He played several years for a scout team. (Here is where his PC connections became important; and your PC should be well connected with teams and college coaches.) We also had a method of putting together pick-up games with other HS players (he had access to a great diamond) where he had live game action plus his PC ran a college team in the local league and where innings were given to HS pitchers (team played 10 games per week and had something like 50 pitchers). He never did a showcase, never traveled more than locally. (But getting live action is critical, so you'll need to figure that out in your area.)
• worked 360 days a year on baseball. That included hitting several hundred balls a day (turned out to be futile in making him a batter, but developed discipline). He threw virtually every day, rain and shine, cold or hot, home or on vacation; long toss, long toss, long toss.
• began working out with the PC and his (older) pitchers 3 times a week in 10th grade.
• focused on academics right out of the box in HS. Took the hardest curriculum, did his homework, was closely watched by us (parents) who accepted nothing less than his best efforts. (Academics opens as many college doors as baseball.)
• he sacrificed much of his HS leisure time to baseball and academics. For him that meant no video games or parties (until late in his senior year). (He made up for it in college.)
• did Headfirst and Stanford camps in his rising junior year. Did the same plus an additional HF camp in his rising senior year. Was available to the local D1 for their HS tournaments.
• parents began digging into the college process in his 9th grade so we could all be on the same college page when the time came.
• the baseball budget went into lots and lots of lessons (the wasted batting ones, and the successful pitching ones), gloves, bats, and physical training. For us, not much spent on travel type stuff; the camps were expensive.
Our theory was that baseball is an individual skill game masquerading as a team game, so until YOU have cleared the baseball skill hurdle (different with each college), there isnt anything to offer colleges; that concept drove our focus on developing his individual pitching skills.
• we also went to alot of college games - JUCO, D1, D3, NAIA - to see what skills levels were playing.
Every path is different, but there are similarities: work ethic is one. Nothing is a substitute for hard work. If you're not constantly working to improve, there are hundreds of players who are.
There are lots of good threads here which will speak about the relationship of velo, command and control and which factors are the most important in getting recruited. We believed - and nothing has since shown it to be wrong - that velo, velo, velo was the single most important piece to the puzzle. We put our chips on that theory, eschewing the traditional showcase and travel route.
Good luck, you've got plenty of time - if you have a plan.
Great post, Goosegg!
Seems like there are good opportunities for pitchers. Would you propose any changes for a position player?
Johnlanza,
Others will provide you with some important perspectives. Below are some of the demographics based on state participation. Please note there are nuances for every situation, some of the insights will help you understand where people from your particular state have played over the last 3 years.