You guys are all so great, You even remember me back several years.
Gooseegg wrote:
You specifically said "he want[s] the truth."
Here's the truth: THERE IS NO WAY HE CAN USE BASEBALL "TO GET TO COLLEGE." PERIOD. FULL. STOP.
First, he clearly has no love or desire to play baseball (even at the HS level). Second, he has no baseball skill set to offer. Third, he has no measurables. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Fourth, HE DOESN'T PLAY BASEBALL AND HASNT SINCE LITTLE LEAGUE. Fifth, he has taken no lessons to develop his skills. Sixth, you don't seem to want to understand that of 430,000 HS players, 38,000 go on to play college NCAA baseball - and your grandson isn't even one of those 430,000. These aren't odds stacked against him; a power ball lottery ticket has a better chance. While this is correct. It would also be true of Sandy Kaufax who never played baseball at all till he went to college on a basketball scholarship if you know his story. I remember the 1963 World Series very well.
Look, this may come off as harsh, but it's an absolute insult to not do anything in baseball - not play, not take lessons, not ANYTHING - and think he can somehow, someway use baseball to leverage his way into college.
I appreciate your frankness. But in the interest of time I did not tell the whole story as it was not part of my question.
First, pitching is a phenomena that is not computerizable. 2 guys with the same stuff, same speed of fast ball. One gets batters out, the other one gets knocked around. One has been working all his youth to be good,….the other just picks up the glove and goes out there and gets people out. Pitchers are born not made. Guidance is important but a coach can’t create with lessons what isn’t there.
My grandson never has really been a fastball pitcher as many great pitchers were not. There have always been plenty of pitchers faster than him when he played. But they didn’t get people out like he did. He finished little league with a ratio of batters to hard hit balls of 12-1. When you factor out hits off pitches he was experimenting with he determined didn’ t work for him and quit, and hits off broken and wrong deliveries you can see in videos when he gave them up back when we didn’t even know what a correct delivery was for him, his real ratio was 20 or 25-1. He has one overhand delivery that he just used on 2 travel ball games that never gave up hard hit ball at all no matter what he was throwing. One game was one of his 3 no hitters.
When I say hard hit balls I don’t mean hits. A liner to center field or third is an out but still a hard hit ball you can judge how they may be getting to your pitcher. A weakly hit ball that finds ‘where they aint’ is a hit but the pitcher did his job.
If he were half that good now at the high school level that would still be 10-12 to 1.
I have monitored major league, college and high school pitchers since I discovered this about him and the best pitchers at any level are rarely better than 4 -1 over a whole season, most of the best between 3-4, some not even 3. If he really turns out to be 10-12 to 1 against quality high school hitters. If he were only a third or a fourth that good against college hitters he is as good or better than any scholarship pitchers on the Ole Miss Rebels or any other college team and could certainly get a scholarship when they try him out.
He is a fantastic athlete. When he quit baseball he became a pole vaulter. This last year, his junior year, he set a new state 4A record by a foot, 14 ½ feet, won the state gold medal and wound up the top vaulter in Mississippi in all classes for 2019. He long jumped in street clothes enough to have been one of the 8 state finalists this year. He is going to do that also his Sr year.
He will get a scholarship in track and field, but he wants to be an architect and that is very expensive and those are only partial scholarships. He needs another sport to give him a full ride. We believe baseball can be that and that is why we want to find out what he has really got against some good high school batters. If he is still 10-12 to 1 against them, if he showed to be even half that good with college hitters in a try out, he would be the best pitcher that team has ever had ready to take a team to a conference championship somewhere.
It is sort of bold to tell a college baseball coach, “Bring on your best hitters and let me show you how I can consistently get them out”. But that is basicly what he has to do if he is going to get that other scholarship. And I believe he can do it IF it turns out he is that good. So you see I am not as crazy as I may sound part of the time.