2019 -evaluation

What about the "6th Tool"

 

Bob

 character as the 6th tool? he has it , loved by teammates and coaches

6th tool is courage, instinct and the heart. no measurement possible, except winning games.

 

Derek Jeter, Torii Hunter examples

 

Consult , the answer is yes , hes a game changer

A couldn't agree more. Great point.

c2019, I'm all about asking the oddball questions about youngsters, ask anyone on here....BUT....you can't be seriously asking people to project your kid based on these stats.

 

I've been on here researching for my 2020, IF he ever asks me anything I want to know the answer or know where to find it, BUT, being a 2020 no one can predict what he will do/be because no one knows how hard he has worked up to now, how hard he will continue to work, or even the definition of hard work. 

 

Some kids may need to practice 2 hours a week and they are top of their game, others may practice 10 hours a week and still need more work.  Some kids at 15 are near full grown, others have barely grown.  All of these factor into what a kid can/will be capable of.  It is 100% possible this is his peak, he will never get better, and 100% possible that this is just the beginning for him.  Too soon for anyone to tell, in the mean time encourage him to play on the best possible team where he gets significant playing time.

 

Seems like he has a great arm and swings hard, but then again he is older for his year group, so the other 2019 will/should be slowly catching up...i recall you mentioned that he is 5'9?  which is ok at his age...i would definitely watch out for overuse on an arm of any 15 yr old that throws mid to upper 80's...

I can't tell if the OP knows the stats are really good and just joined the board recently to mess with us or if he's really looking for projections.  

 

Regardless, as the parent of a PO I don't claim to be an expert on catchers but a brief scan of PG and the commits they have there would show that your 2019 projects very well just looking at velo and pop time.  I'm not sure about the drills or if they'd ever come to play in recruiting though.  I did notice that there seems to be more catchers w/o these stats on PG than with them.  Not sure why that would be.  

Looks like OP took off the "inquiry"...

 

Now its back on....

 

I don't know what a OP is , yes I am new,  I just came on here to see and what others are doing , one of the reasons I never looked at these boards is cause of all the bashing and Haters, My Daughter who plays softball and plays for a Top travel program has just verbal to a D3 school as a Pitcher ,cause of her major, could've  played D2 but wanted to focus on her  Major,

 

 so I know all about the recruiting process and what it takes to play at the next level ,and how soon you must start.

 

 

 

my sons numbers are real , I just put them out there to see where he would stack up!

 

im glad I didn't give out all his info lol!!

 

 

 

 

OP means original poster.  And no bashing or hating on my part.  Just commenting.

 

I'm sure someone with more experience than me will chime in eventually but I looked up a few players I know of from our region who are committed D1 Cs.  They are both 2017 players (for the committed players I could find no stats for 2018 or 2019) and their arm velos were 80.  80mph in the class of 2017 is good for 93rd percentile - so pretty good.  My guess is that 89 for the class of 2019 has got to be 99th percentile.  But that's just a guess.  

 

You didn't give a specific pop time but I know below 2 is where you need to be so a good starting point.  Regardless - with velo like that he could always be moved to P if the catching doesn't work out.  

 

To me that projects well.  My research is not scientific though - just one guy bored on a Friday and trying to kill time until the work week is done. 

 

 

It doesn't look like he's a pitcher. I took that to mean arm velo across the diamond (3B - not catcher since, from the crouch, that would be an utterly remarkable #).

Maybe that's where my research went wrong.  C2019, Where is the arm velo measured, which position?  

FYI, I'm not trying to be a hater either.  I'm trying to give it to you as real as it's been given to me, it tends to keep you grounded more in reality and less in the clouds.  I'm guilty of lurking in those same clouds when something exciting happens but then I come on here to report it and get the reality check I need. I hope this site can provide the same for you. 

 

My son is a 2020 and just turned 13 in August, so your kid is one of the lucky ones that is old for his class, that is great. That could help him, but still something to keep in mind when talking about stats. If you are into the compare/contrast thing you might want to look at 2018's, but then again it all comes down to how grown up is he...my son is almost 5'10, he's been hit by the dumb-stick, *cough*, I mean "puberty stick" pretty hard, is your boy about done growing?

it would be from the infield and outfield .hes not a pitcher just yet

I assumed OF...humm...now I want to know too.

More non-scientific research - 89 from the IF or OF would be the highest velo measured by PG as far as I can tell for 2019s.  Right now both have 85 listed as the highest for that class (2019).  

 

For comparison sake I looked at 2018 and the highest was 90 - so 99th percentile or so at 89mph.

 

89 mph is pretty good from wherever you are on the field right now as a 2019 so long as you're able to field the ball prior to throwing it.  

Get him to a PG showcase immediately.  Tell him to run the entire 60 yards this time.  Once the 89 IF number gets posted, get ready for the offers to roll in - assuming his older sister didn't teach him to throw.  

At risk of being a hater...  these numbers are quite astonishing for someone who doesn't even know if they are a prospect.  May I ask where exactly these numbers come from?  If it is a camp I would think the host school would be all over him.  Something seems just a bit amiss here.  The only number that seems normal is the exit velocity.  The other numbers especially positional velo...

lol,

 

was not a school camp. was a Area Code invite camp, and other numbers are from his training Academy.

Ok the point is then if he was invited to an area code camp then you already know he is good.  There are probably colleges already interested.  Why do you ask your question?

I'm not sure if the Area Code drills really come into play - other than the 60 time.  The velo, pop time are probably your most important and then the bat exit speed.  Surely his travel coach has told you how impressive the velo is after he threw 89, no?  

 

So I've been saving this story and waiting for a time to throw it in here - I didn't want it to come off as a criticism of PG so I haven't mentioned it but it is a good indication of how highly velo is thought of (not that we really needed additional indication).  My 2016 went to one PG showcase at the end of last summer.  The first day was 60s, infield, outfield and catchers pop time (and velo).  I watched just about everything since there was nothing else to do.  

 

Throughout all the drills there was one player who stood out - he was the only player who went twice from both the infield and outfield.  On both attempts he never once came close to the first baseman and never came close to his target on any of his OF throws.  When I say top of the backstop off target I'm being generous.  Some balls we're 30-40 feet off line.  I really thought it was a joke - like maybe the kid was screwing around for some really odd reason.  The next morning the first player listed in the scout blog was this player and how impressive he was - based on his velocity.  There was no mention of where the throws went. 

 

Then day two.  This player was part of one of the highly ranked travel programs from the NE and my sons friend played with him and I found out who he was (he played on his travel team and they also ended up on the same team at PG).  He pitched the game after my 2016 but we left after his game so I didn't see.  I asked the dad how this kid looked pitching and he said it was horrible, hit a bunch of batters, no control, throwing the ball over the place, etc.  Scouts blog for that game - XXX continues his impressive performance this weekend hitting xx on the gun.  

 

I just looked - that player is a 2017 and he's committed D1.  So my first point is that I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about and my second point is that his velo in the IF and OF was 89 which is still 95th percentile for 2017s.  As a 2019 at 89mph I think your son would be able to throw the ball anywhere he wants at a PG event and get some notice.  

 

Please note - not being critical of PG or it's events.  

Mkdad! Thanks for your story ! I agree with your input. And I Value it , some people May I ask how does your Son throw so hard ?trust me I was just as surprised. He was at 80 in April , and I thought he was gonna be at about 85, but it's not a surprise to my son , he said pop , thats still not where I want to be at !
It does help that he  always has thrown hard Since he was little , and we always did long toss , and he can throw a baseball 350 feet ,

note I have Always coached him or have a Asst on his teams , and he's the kid that's never  satisfied .  When he we invited to Areacode , we have no idea of what it was . All we knew that Bryce Harper and other mlb guys had been to them , I don't like paying for camps and clinics ,  I did that with my daughter and thought it was a waste of money .  I came on here to see what other kids are doing . And my son was never timed or radar until this year .

It's still a work in progress ,

Mkdad -- I believe we were at the same showcase!  I am a huge PG fan too so it isn't critical at all, but the "control/effectiveness" was not as critical as the velo.  Our 2017 was an IF and he was one of the only boys at his position to make the throws in the defensive drills.  Rankings were by velo only, and same with pitching.  Ours had a great outing (lots of Ks, no walks, two hits I think), but did not then throw as hard.  It really matters much more than we naively thought.  

 

The good news is the experience helped him.  He always says control what you can control and dont worry about the things you can't.  So he is focused on ensuring his velo is higher and his effectiveness doesn't decrease.  The best news is he is already significantly higher (over 5mph!). The wild kid who committed, we wish him the best! Hopefully our 2017 will have his chances and options in the future and we are trying hard to ignore that white noise of all these early commits.  I had to comment as I am sure we were there and saw this too.

Grading the arm from the outfield...

 

velocity and carry.

 

body control and arm action.

 

release time.

 

accuracy.

 

The easiest of those to improve is from bottom to the top.

 

Also, keep in mind that the throws are based on time from release to target.  The perfectly accurate throw isn't any good if it can't get to the target on time.

 

A good example would be two catchers.  If both catchers were receiving pitchers with 1.5 release to pop times and one catcher was 1.9 pop time but 9 out of 10 throws were inaccurate, while the other was 2.2 with 9 out of 10 right on the bag.  Which one would throw out more college or pro base runners attempting to steal at this time.

 

That would be the catcher that wasn't accurate.  Reason being he would throw out at least one out of ten baserunners.  The catcher with the accurate arm would throw out zero out of ten.  Because he could only throw out those base runners that took 3.7 or worse to steal 2B.  In college or pro baseball those that run 3.7 or worse don't steal bases.

 

Add the fact that the catcher with the wild arm is going to improve his accuracy the more he plays and it becomes a no brainer which catcher has a higher ceiling and a better prospect.

 

It is the difference of seeing the performance and scouting the player.  Sometimes the guy that performs the worst is actually the better prospect.  Maybe not the best player on that day, but the best prospect for the future.

 

My mother, if she were still alive, can tell us who the best player on the field today is.  And sometimes that is also the best prospect and sometimes it isn't.

 

just to be clear... A strong accurate arm is better than a strong wild arm.  But a strong wild arm is better than a weak accurate arm.

 

 

 

That is a terrific explanation by PGStaff.  It helps me, and others, remember it is more to it than meets the eye.  I feel like we have hijacked the original poster"s inquiry but this is very good stuff above!

I am convinced that the "wild" pitcher at that particular showcase was focused on raising his velocity.  We have seen him pitch and he was never ever that inaccurate previously.  I think he wanted to see a higher number when you looked at his profile.  The college that committed him had to see him pitch live elsewhere, probably a PG event where he was a little slower but likely projected he could up that.  I think his efforts were targeted at hitting a higher number - there was one point in the game where he threw 11/12 straight balls.  But they were fast! 

There are certain numbers where you can understand that - if a kid has hit 89, he may want the elusive 90 to show when you open his profile.  Or similarly 79.  Or even an 84 wanting an 85 because colleges have told him he needs to be at least at 85. 

Ok back to the 2019 evaluation!

Will bring it back from being hijacked.  I really have a hard time buying those numbers.  No disrespect.  Looked at many sites, and kids/catchers this age, and just can't buy it. 

No, you have no clue about the recruiting process in baseball.

 

Thanks PG staff I agree totally , like I said before I have been in contact with Greg from PG and im trying to set up a date to attend PG , you guys are funny , your right I have no idea of the recruiting process , that's why I reaching  out to pros that who do ,

Ohio dad , there is no reason for me to hype up numbers , next time I'm in Cleveland to visit my sister I'll stop by lol ,

At the end of the day's numbers don't lie , yes I have been told my sons numbers are good  but when your in Chicago there not much to compare too ,

Here are some numbers from his testing this week at his academy . I took out the names for the kids privacy ,mine is the 2019


Top Junior/Senior
95mph     2016   * All time high 100mph
96mph  2016  
92mph          2016
89mph       2017

Top Fresh/Soph
89Mph         2019
88mph     2019

Top 7th/8th Grade
86mph          2021

On the numbers, my son was also invited to an area code camp, so the numbers are online and documented for some of their drills.  The 60, vertical and shuttle time are all online and verifiable.  The exit velo, arm velo numbers, pop time are not. 

 

Remember that he's a 2018 aged 2019 player.  Exit velocity is probably at the higher end, but many the same age are higher.  Most of the numbers can be verified by the Area Code Training Camp results list.

 

The outlier is the arm velocity.  But as we all know, some kids are gifted in that manner.  But there's a lot to still be determined... for every HS aged player.

Yes area code is online , weather he is aged for 2018 , he grads in 2019 , that all they see SR year . Wow i didn't know my Op questions would draw so much .. I guess I might limit my questions on here

I am confused as to the 'not much to compare to' statement.  Did you mean cause there are so many good players?  Cause there certainly are a lot of them.  The myth that all the great players are in the south or california is just that a myth.  I grew I p in a baseball hotbed outside of chicago - joliet.  My alma mater had three kids throwing 90+ last year.  One was mainly a catcher and was drafted as such!  The best of them is a senior now so has a season left.  Way back in my day two kids were drafted from the class three years ahead of me, two in the class one year ahead of me, one from my class and three in the class behind me.  I would say there is plenty of talent to compare to in the chicago area.

everyone understands the year group piece, but from a numbers perspective its a little easier to explain the great numbers.

Note, my 2018 is only 4 months younger than your 2019...and yes, 2018 will probably be the only thing they see these next couple of years while he is attending the showcases and camps.

BTW, his numbers are ok for his year group

77 velo off mound

81 OF velo

7.03 60 yard

He's 6ft with write-ups as "high levels of physical projection left"

 

Good luck to both you and your son...

 

Quick story:

I'm a weekend warrior (baseball), and last night we had our first night game...was funny to be on the other side where my son videoed my swing (line out to third) and how he sat down with me and we went through the Coaches Eye and did the slow-mo stuff...it was a great night...whole ride home we talked swing mechanics and how he can't stand not throwing (we are attempting to do the "shut down throwing" this month before picking it up in December)...anyways, just wanted to throw it out there...time is flying by...seems like yesterday that he was playing with dirt in the outfield

Not to come off like a stalker, but since I'm the one who first doubted the numbers I did a quick search and found this player on Area Code and then found a site that listed his velo as posted here.  I think the numbers are legit.  

 

c2019 - no reason to limit your posts here.  You asked a question and got lots of responses.  Sometimes you post and get very few replies here and sometime a post draws lots of interest for one reason or another.  I think you'll find that most here are trying to help.

I just question the pop times below 2.0 at that age.  That is my only real question.  Who timed the pop time, what was the technique like, etc.  No biggie. 

Thx MK ,,

I guess the crowd here is a very informed one.  Maybe sometimes we forget that.  When someone comes on with stunning numbers like that more or less asking are they good?  We right away get our cynical hats on.  Hard to imagine someone could be that good and their parents don't realize it.  I for one bolstered by MK's info will try to be a little more patient next time.  C2019 please understand it is hard for US to understand someone who n wouldn't realize the significance I f those numbers.  As I said before only the exit velo is fairly normal.  Everything else is very very high level.  You have a  player there.  Good luck.

So much for remaining anonymous!