14 year old in the 80s

What were you guys using, a Radar ball.... LOL

That is pretty good, I have a son who hits 74 and just turned 14 last week. We have played AAU ball since 9 and he has never been more than 3-4 MPH off the hardest throwing kid we have ever seen, and we have played and seen the best from Indiana to Flordia. So if he can throw strikes and get another pitch he should be well sought after.......

baseball I just watched a 14 year old that topped out at 85 and cruised at 82 pitch sunday nite..Pitched a complete game in championship and never dropped off...It was on a stalker so they are out there..

quote:

What were you guys using, a Radar ball.... LOL

That is pretty good, I have a son who hits 74 and just turned 14 last week. We have played AAU ball since 9 and he has never been more than 3-4 MPH off the hardest throwing kid we have ever seen, and we have played and seen the best from Indiana to Flordia. So if he can throw strikes and get another pitch he should be well sought after.......

Sorry, but I can tell you in all certainty that you haven't seen the best 14 year olds from Florida if the ones you've seen have only been 3-4 mph higher than 74 mph.

Mid 70s is good, but there are many 14 year olds we've seen in the low to mid 80s. We've even seen a few touching 90, if you can believe that. They are very rare though.

We use nothing except Stalkers!

Most important is how good they are when they're 17-18, not at 14.

Excellent post PG. We have two guys that are both sophs now. One was 83-85 as a 14 year old and now he is 85-88. The other was 78-81 as a 14 year old and now he is 83-85. It is rare to see 14 year olds in the 80's but if you look at it from a national perspective instead of a local one there are many. I have always told my guys no one is going to care how good you were at 14. Make sure you work to be the best you can be when it matters. Some kids come into HS throwing low 80's and finish throwing low 80's or mid 80's. Some come into HS throwing mid 70's and leave in the 90's. Its not where you start it where you finish.

I have to agree, you shouldn't worry too much about were you are at right now. Obviously you have to stack up but there is alot of changes that the body makes between 14-18 At 14 I was throwing low 70, now I am 16 and throwing mid 80, so don't be too caught up with the gun and be more focused on location. Depending on were your goals are, in the minors throwing in the 90's is dime a dozen, it's how well you can move the ball around the zone. Going into highschool make sure you start to have that commanding second pitch.

great point, although i HIGHLY doubt that theres been a 14 year old in the 90's, several are in the 80's as 14 year olds and never get faster. some of these guys just peak younger and never get better. as stated above, its not where you start, its where you finish.

If PGSTaff says he's (they've) seen a few 14 y/o's touch 90 before, you can take it to the bank. They evaluate more players than any other org out there, and they see the best.

There is so much variation in the physical maturity of the kids that this is a huge factor until probably about 17 or so.

We have all seen the big moose who could really heave it at 11YO. But by 14YO, he was done growing. While others are still growing stronger their senior year in HS.

I have a 12yo on my Dixie Ozone team that registers 74 on my Stalker. He probably benefits from his 6' frame. We also had a 12yo last year that cruised at 72-74 and he is now pitching as a 7th grader for the HS JV team. His dad pitched for Clemson and he is about average size. We have a lot of kids go through our Dixie system and we usually only have one or two a season that can legitimately touch 70mph at 12yo.

We've got a 7th grader in the area maxing out at about 77. He's 13 but could be a league age 12yo with the new rules. Can't wait for somebody like him to show up at the LL WS throwing 80. Based on his parents and his older brother I'd guess he still has a fair amount of growing left.

We had a lefty in our area a few years back who was 11 when I first saw him, he was not 12 yet and he stood 6' 170. He looked like he was 17 yrs old and threw 72 mph and hit a baseball in a tournament game that cleared a 300' fence by 50' and landed on the roof of the concession stand! No joke! I was sure this kid was going to be an MLBer, how could he not be? Funny thing, saw him in HS as a sr and I wonder if he was even touching 80 and some squirt freshman was striking him out. Some things don't make any sense...

CADad, you have to wonder what the youth leagues were thinking when they backed up the age eligibility date from August 1 to May 1 -- that is, they are going to allow even older boys to play on that 60' square diamond.

Looking back at those years when my son played both Little League and travel ball, I have to say that AAU, USSSA and others have it right when they start expanding the diamond to 65', then 70', then (optional) 80', on the way to 90' from ages 11 through 14.

The Little League diamond may be OK for Little League regular season, but when you start getting the elite players in that age group out there, it's ridiculous, and maybe even dangerous. In fact, regular season may be worse, since you have the big studs out there with just the regular kids from the neighborhood. I can't tell you how many times I thought there must've been an angel on some kid's shoulder, as a line drive whistled past the third baseman's ear.

I have heard that the youth leagues are transitioning to using the calendar year as the turning point. That is, at some point they will move the age cutoff date back even further, to January 1, to conform to international competition standards. If that's so, they're heading towards letting kids well into puberty play on the small field. I guess they want home run derby on the LLWS telecasts or something.

It's one thing to change the age cutoff date, but the Little League-sized diamond was already out of date, and now it's absurd. If they're going to stick with the age thing, they need a 70' square diamond, 50' pitching, and deeper fences -- especially in center field.

Innocent,
We had another kid in the area who hit 79 or 80 max at 12yo. He's up to 95 at 16yo. He's leading one of the nation's better HS leagues in hitting. Another kid from the area maxed out in the mid 70s according the the ESPN LLWS guns at 12yo. Now he's reportedly hitting low to mid 80s as a 14yo. I think he'll do pretty well next year as a freshman.

Midlo,
I thought the age change was dumb when they proposed it and I think it is dumb now. In our area at least it very definitely has not done what it was supposed to do, keep the kids in LL another year. Our numbers are down, not up. The local PONY league has benefitted with most of the best players, including a lot of the kids from the 2004 LLWS team going there for the competition. I'm pretty sure they're looking to make a run at the PONY WS although it will depend a lot on if they get some of the kids who are playing HS ball back after the HS season.

This kid JT was throwing mid 70's as an 11 year old in my league.
I mean, people were scared to face him

But not he throws low 70's and hes 16..

Best couple words I've heard was a pro pitcher told me

Do you wanna throw 85 now? or when your 18?

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We had another kid in the area who hit 79 or 80 max at 12yo. He's up to 95 at 16yo

Stock? i threw low 80's when i was 13 and i am still their

Our team played against the Wisconsin Diamondkings, they had multiple kids throwing mid 80's. Some of them were not all that huge either

I played with/against a kid who was low to mid 80's we guessed when he was 14 now a high school sophomore he throws acording to a scout from Tampa Bay crusing at 92 peaks at 96 wow

People do tend to exaggerate, but there are a handful of sophs throwing that hard around the country. I will say that Perfect Game has no one on its top prospects list for the sophomore class from NC. So if this kid hasn't gotten himself seen yet, he should get busy.

Not that's it's too late or anything. I have been told, whether correctly or not I cannot say, that the Jeffress kid didn't get to showcases or otherwise get himself seen until after his junior year. He just got drafted # 16 in the first round. So you don't have to be seen early to impress folks, you just need to get seen at some point. But why wait? If you have that kind of stuff, there are lots of doors just waiting to open for you.

I have a question for PGStaff...
Have you seen AJ Derby, the 8th grader playing JV for Iowa City West? I ask only because during tryouts he hit 86 and is only 14. I know he's probably not the hardest thrower you've ever seen at that age, but he sure is something special

I am completely with PG on this one, does it really matter what your son or whoever can do at 14??

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I am completely with PG on this one, does it really matter what your son or whoever can do at 14??

That's not exactly what PG said ---- he said it was MORE important at 17-18 but I took it to mean in regards to a player making it to the next level. I can tell you it mattered to me what my son was doing when he was 14. I got as much pleasure watching my son play at 14 as I did in college. I’ve seen some 12 year old throw “heat” ----- it just wasn’t quite as “hot” as the older boys.
Fungo

quote:

Originally posted by gogolf18:
I am completely with PG on this one, does it really matter what your son or whoever can do at 14??

I guess it depends on what their goals and aspirations are. My son would love a chance to play Div 1 baseball at a "solid" school. Since he's a RHP, I would imagine he'd need to be throwing in the mid to upper 80's to have a shot. Granted there are a ton of variables but looking at velocity alone, I think he has a beeter chance if he's throwing in the 80's at 14 compared to another boy topping out at 68-70.

If a kid is throwing in the 80's at 14 it doesn't mean he'll be successful in HS or college but I think it significantly increases the likelihood of his success. When he's throwing that hard early, he can concentrate on consistantly hitting his spots and on his other pitches like his change-up, while doing long toss and hoping for some incremental gain in velocity.

BUT, if he's topping out at 68 - 70 at 14, I think it would be a serious challenge to be throwing mid to upper 80's by the time he graduates. Nothing is impossible, and everybody is different, but I think if you charted their velocity each year, I think a jump of that much would be an exception.

And like I said, it's only relative if he aspires to play beyond HS and at what level.

Hey i just turned 15 2 weeks ago, and ive been playing baseball/pitching for 2 years now..and i throw maybe low 70s , maybe 71-72, im a 6'2 righty, do you think from just pitching and gettting older throughout highschool ill be able to hit atleast 80- 84 by the time im a senior? anything i should do for that to come true? send me an email with an answer please if someone has the time and knows what they are talking about bballnemesis@yahoo.com