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PABaseball posted:

I don't think there is any magic number for velocity anywhere. I knew a kid who was being recruited hard by a few Ivys and he was topping at 86. I know others who were 88 and couldn't get an email back. All anecdotal, but being around players who have had interest from these types of school I would say the majority would be closer to 80 than 90 on any given day of the week. 

There is definitely good baseball in the Ivy League, but to say recruits need to be 88+ at an Ivy bottom feeder probably wouldn't be accurate considering there are probably less than 30 guys in the Ivy League total throwing 90+. It helps to throw harder no doubt, but you aren't disqualified with an 86mph fastball. Lefty pitchers throwing 87+ really have to want the Ivy education because there are plenty of power programs that would be interested. 

This! ^^^

So, here is what I can offer anybody on this board after watching 80+ in conference Ivy league games over 4 years....velocity matters a lot.  Right directly behind velocity is pitching variety, and control.  Whether you want to believe it or not, velocity is big but other parts of the total recruiting package have to be in place as well.   In terms of recruiting, velocity matters, command and control matters, grades matter, ACT/SAT scores matter.   Where this kind of goes down a different path is when you consider the kind of pitcher the recruit is in the eyes of the recruiting coach.   The recruiting coach is trying to build a pitching staff.   Coaches know what they are looking for and know what their team needs.  Ivy teams have roughly 32 players (let's keep it simple).  Half of the roster is pitchers..so 16.   Half of those recruited pitchers will not see the field with any great number of innings in a particular year.   3-4 guys are going to be your SPs.  2 relievers and possibly a lefty specialist and a couple closers at best.   So, in total 7-8 pitchers are going to be carrying the load on the mound for the year.    Those are the Ivy pitchers that I (and others on this board that I know) saw the same thing in terms of velocity between SPs, relievers, specialists and closers.   Most teams had a variety of those pitchers that got the bulk of the innings.   My sons soph year there were:  2 freshmen SPs, 1 soph SP, and a senior SP.  We also had a middle reliever, a ground ball specialist that was filthy, a lefty specialist and a freshmen closer.  The higher velocity SP guys and our closer were hitting 90s routinely but they only had two pitches....they eventually would go into pro baseball.  The soph SP and senior SP had 4 pitches with pinpoint control and could hit 90 if they needed to, but rarely needed to. These guys were more of your Greg Maddux, Kyle Hendricks types.

So, ask yourself when you hear these anecdotal stories....is this Ivy guy I'm hearing about finding the playing field or is this guy on the bench.   For the guys on the field, is this guy a two pitch flame thrower or a 4 pitch control pitcher?  If you hear about a 4 pitch flame thrower then he is probably playing for Stanford.   The Ivy used to play 2 doubleheaders on Sat and Sunday and they played within a division format.   Since that time, they've gone to 3 game format on fri, sat, sunday where every team plays each other 3 times.   Bottom line...there are less SPs now.

Just my experience....

Whitesoxcubscout,

It is no big secret that many asst coaches and recruiting coaches are terrible communicators.  Chief among them is the ability to tell time and follow up as promised.   I guess this is no different than most walks of life.  My son worked with some outstanding coaches who did exactly what they said they would do when they said they would do it, and then there a handful of RCs that just lied to his face.   This can be a tough lesson for a 16-17 year old kid that is excited about the possibilities of playing college baseball at an Ivy or elsewhere.   

My best advice is a cast a wide net among the Ivys and other HAs you or your son may be considering.  Over the 20 months my son was active with recruiting; he had communication, interest or serious interest from 7 of the 8 Ivys. Clearly he was fishing in the right pond.   There was one school that never responded to him....yes, you guessed it.   That was under a different Head Coach, but as I said earlier in this thread it appears not much has changed.

Just our experiences.   Best of luck!

Roster Turnover Insights

 

Looks like Brown average between 6 and 8 new players per year

 

  Player Attrition
  201820192020
  OutgoingIncomingNetOutgoingIncomingNetOutgoingIncomingNet
Brown 86-2770682
Columbia 5941512-3119-2
Cornell 1413-11514-19112
Dartmouth990129-3990
Harvard 594792149-5
Princeton 107-355076-1
Upenn 1211-191018113
Yale 671770891

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