quote:Originally posted by #32 DAD:
Stats, numbers were for Varsity. Not ment to brag or anything just curious. Information in on MaxPreps for all to see. I am confortable with his ability. Looking forward to this his Junior year. Hope everyone has a great season.
Didn’t take it as a brag at all, but rather a simple statement of fact. Hold on to your drawers for that Jr. year. For pitchers more than hitters, the Jr. year can be very “trying”. Many times a kid who makes it to the V as a So and does really well, gets a wakeup call the next year. Many people think that what happens is the opponents figger him out and he doesn’t have nearly the kind of great season, but it’s a bit more involved.
A kid winning in HS has a lot more to do with his team than it does about him. If he comes in as So and his team plays great defense behind him and they score lots of runs for him, if he throws at all well he’ll have a great year. As long as the team doesn’t change much and everyone has another good year, likely he’ll have another good year as well. Unfortunately though, HS teams have a way of losing their seniors every year, and with them most of their best players.
If those guys are replaced by players just as good or better, everything’s fine. But its not at all unusual for a good team to have a dip in performance the next year, especially if they lost a lot of good players. Of course it works the other way as well, where a weak team because of inexperience, breaks out the next year and everyone benefits.
We have a kid on our team who’s gonna be a Sr this season who’s had that happen to him. As a So, he won more games than anyone in the league by far, didn’t come close to getting beat, and pretty much made a shambles of every team he pitches against. Then last season he had a good year, but he got handled a few times. But, we’d lost 2 great infielders, 2 great outfielders, and 3 great hitters.
In 2010 he got 9.3 runs per game in support and the team made 6 errors behind him in 47 innings. In 2011 he got only 7 runs per game support, and they made 16 errors behind him in 54 innings. Heck, we had a pitcher last season who got drafted in the 3rd round, and his Sr year was a disaster compared to his Jr year too. What I’m saying is, a pitcher needs a lot of support to have a lot of success.
I hope your boy’s team doesn’t have a similar drop off, but it won’t make any difference. I’m sure he’ll take the rock and give it everything he can!