I am a Junior Catcher that is 5'11" and around 180 i am playing for a Travel Team this summer and am going to showcases, but what is a good 60 time for a catcher the last one i ran was a 7.62
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It depends on how far you hit it and if you project to stay behind the plate in college.
1st and foremost you must be able to hit. The sixty time doesn't matter much if you don't hit well. You should try to get your time down to 7 or less. The guys that run 7+ on my son's college team are mostly pitchers.
The college catchers that I have seen don't look like they run 7- 60s. Defensive skills and hitting for power would appear to be more important.
First thing is the last thing you need to worry about is your speed. Yes catchers must be able to hit, and it would be nice of they could hit for power. But before you even worry about hitting, you must be able to THROW out runners. You must be able to receive the ball, have agility, be able to block the ball, and more importantly you must be able to take charge on the field, and know how to call a game and work with your pitching staff. I always told my guys that to me they are a catcher first, I would sacrifice 1 bat in the lineup and rely on the other 8 if I have a catcher who can handle the pitching staff, call a game, and throw runners out.
The big bat is nice, but defense wins championships.
This is my opinion.
The big bat is nice, but defense wins championships.
This is my opinion.
Generally in college, the catcher that hits best plays the most, if not all the time. If there's not much difference in the hitting skills between catchers on a team, then the guy with better catching skills will play.
A college player with sub 7 time and good bat can also find playing time in the outfield.
A college player hitting 250 or below will have trouble finding playing time, unless the other catcher is hitting 200.
A college player with sub 7 time and good bat can also find playing time in the outfield.
A college player hitting 250 or below will have trouble finding playing time, unless the other catcher is hitting 200.
As an aside here is a list of skills coaches look for taken from another thread. Its a good list and worth repeating often. It was in response to a question to well known college coach about skills he looks for in catchers:
quote:Originally posted by jerry weinstein:
1. Athlete
2. Passion for the game
3. Student
4. Offensive potential
5. Catch & throw potential
6. Can he play?
Being a catching guy, it's hard for me to put offense above defense in this position but I always felt if we had an athlete with character we could develop his defensive skills.It was much more difficult to take a guy who had limited offensive skills & develop him into an above average offensive player.IMO the college game,especially with metal bats, is based on offense & pitching. There is little room in the lineup for a non offensive player. Certainly that is contingent upon the skills & abilities of the players who surround you.There are exceptions. But when you recruit in college baseball or scout for professional baseball, you have a role profile & if you make exceptions,you end up with a lot of mismatched parts.
We primarily found players at showcases.We got a lot of follows as the result of e-mails that were followed up by phone calls to coaches & local professional scouts.Once we had our list based on our needs, then we would see the players in games that meant something.We also saw lots of players in our camps. We always encouraged players who were interested in our school to attend camp so that we could have an extended look at them 7 have a hands on experience.
Hope this helps.
JW
