quote:But you know what, this past weekend I saw three different D1 colleges play my son's school and in the games I saw I did not see an opposing pitcher with velocity over 88mph.
That is the dirty secret about college baseball. Dad04 has been posting that number for years and by reading many posts around here, you would think most college pitchers are low to mid 90's guys. Every D1 game I have ever been to (probably 50 or so) I peaked at the radar guns and the number was almost always 88 mph. What you throw at a PG event is often not your cruising speed. What many people post around here are max velocity numbers recorded on their kid's best ever day. For the college guys who throw above 90, most I saw were in closing situations. Some of those same guys, I saw their velocities drop by several mph when they were forced to conserve in a starting role however.
I think kids need to learn to pitch within themselves and take a long term view on things in order to build up to hopefully what are higher velocities later down the road. For some, that may mean eeking into a juco situation, gaining strength and maturity and seeing their velocity grow years down the road when they are physically capable. Velocity is great but there are lots and lots of high velocity high school guys who can no longer pitch due to injury.