thank you for the reply's everyone!
I posted this for others(parents and players) who maybe are in the recruiting process or thinking about making a move...
research and interview the PC. find out if you click and if it is a "match"
so far our 3 pitching coaches : none has "taught" or really given any mechanical advice at all.. not once.
it is kind of odd...
all are nice guys though..
I think that this maybe 80 % of the D1 situations.
have to figure stuff from other sources.
Fishtale,
they are not “miracle “ workers. During our 25 years of International travel I selected MLB former pitchers as pitching coaches. Check the name Dave Laroche
Bob
@fishnsail posted:thank you for the reply's everyone!
I posted this for others(parents and players) who maybe are in the recruiting process or thinking about making a move...research and interview the PC. find out if you click and if it is a "match"
so far our 3 pitching coaches : none has "taught" or really given any mechanical advice at all.. not once.
it is kind of odd...all are nice guys though..
I think that this maybe 80 % of the D1 situations.
have to figure stuff from other sources.
Hitting and pitching coaches aren't just doing practice stuff like mechanics, physical training and so on but are also involved in game planning, strategy and maybe even some scouting.
I don't know much about the pitching side but I know some older mlb hitting coaches do some quite outdated cueing when it comes to mechanics but pro hitters still enjoy working with them because they prepare them really well for the next game and pitcher.
For example there is a video of Kevin long having hitters smash balls straight down into the ground with the knob of the bat.
Many guys in the social media would rip him for that and personally I would likely not teach that drill but long is still very respected by many hitters and often his teams where among the lowest in ground ball rate in the league despite such cues.
At higher levels those coaches often work more on approach and game planning than doing a lot of mechanical overhauling.
Of course there are also successful coaches that are very hands on, in the end a coach is still not judged by his process but mostly by his results, even though that has shifted some with some teams.
One of the reasons that the NCAA added another paid coach more than likely is because there is a lot to cover in a short period of time. There are time frames within the year where coaches can and cannot instruct or practice with staff. The only time allowed with no restraints is if the player is in rehab. Unfortunetly it's like anything else in life, the more money you have to spend, the more chances of winning a championship. Being a student athlete in a top 50 program, is NOT for everyone.
It's also about $$$. Most P5 programs can afford a loaded staff. Their success depends on how many are there to help the program be successful. Even the smaller programs have more hands on deck than ever before, even in some smaller programs.
My suggestions, look at staff rosters and read bios before making a decision.
Ask questions. Understand staff expectations and goals. And understand that your player needs to find the right fit to match his goals.
Another important job for all coaches is scouting reports. Think about it, if a team has 4 games a week, pitching coaches have to scout almost every hitter that they will play, and relay that info to the pitchers before each game. Same goes for the hitting coaches scouting the pitchers. There is plenty of resources to accomplish these tasks as well as contacting area scouts for opinions. I think that the portal which has created more new players on staff each year makes work even more time consuming on all coaches.
I think it multiplied by the changing of rosters each year. People ask why our pitchers are getting hit a little more this year and I believe a large part is analytics. They had a year to prepare for them because our rotation is identical to last year even though we start a new fielding unit, our pitchers are almost unchanged. The ability to use all the technology is incredible, but time consuming.
@TPM posted:Another important job for all coaches is scouting reports. Think about it, if a team has 4 games a week, pitching coaches have to scout almost every hitter that they will play, and relay that info to the pitchers before each game. Same goes for the hitting coaches scouting the pitchers. There is plenty of resources to accomplish these tasks as well as contacting area scouts for opinions. I think that the portal which has created more new players on staff each year makes work even more time consuming on all coaches.
Iowa had a great system for that — student managers. They have tons of them, maybe 20? They do everything from writing scouting reports to on field promotions. They learn real skills and make the life of all the coaches easier. And when they graduate, they get jobs.
For anyone reading this, a similar discussion is going on in a different thread at the same time: https://community.hsbaseballwe...ruiting-story?page=4
Juco coach had a written plan for every pitcher. Follow it, don't follow it, that's up to the player. He was also very good at recommending small changes here and there that seemed to produce big results. They had a track record of developing arms for D1 and the draft and that is exactly what we saw during his two years. I felt like it was a great balance of player freedom within a proven framework. D1 has been almost completely on his own.
just a thought.. if any of your kids eventually become a pitching coach ..
and you want to give them some advice..
be different.
first thing to do is to coach/teach/develop
the rest is logistical...”
Fishnsail…
excellent topic you bring up. I’m 💯 in agreement with you. My son played in juco and at two D1 schools and none of the pitching coaches did anything in regards to coaching of players. Their mindset was either 1) if you aren’t good enough coming in then we’ll just upgrade you in the portal 2) either do it exactly my way or you’ll be sent to the back of the line (the end of the 25-man pitching roster).
They did nothing with video. Were masters of PFP work. Seemed like their whole job was holding runners, pfp & dialing the phone all day long in the hopes of finding as many arms throwing over 90.
One of the team’s my son played for completely turned over his own recruiting class 💯 in just two years before being fired. Oddly, the school kept the pitching coach. Our experience with college baseball has left a really bad taste. Between enormous rosters due in part to the ridiculous covid eligibility to semester to semester pulling of scholarships and incessant hyper recruiting 24x7…we left the scene wondering why so much investment was made all those years ago
@Bballsavante posted:It is a weird situation..just a thought.. if any of your kids eventually become a pitching coach ..
and you want to give them some advice..
be different.
first thing to do is to coach/teach/develop
the rest is logistical...”
Fishnsail…
excellent topic you bring up. I’m 💯 in agreement with you. My son played in juco and at two D1 schools and none of the pitching coaches did anything in regards to coaching of players. Their mindset was either 1) if you aren’t good enough coming in then we’ll just upgrade you in the portal 2) either do it exactly my way or you’ll be sent to the back of the line (the end of the 25-man pitching roster).
They did nothing with video. Were masters of PFP work. Seemed like their whole job was holding runners, pfp & dialing the phone all day long in the hopes of finding as many arms throwing over 90.
One of the team’s my son played for completely turned over his own recruiting class 💯 in just two years before being fired. Oddly, the school kept the pitching coach. Our experience with college baseball has left a really bad taste. Between enormous rosters due in part to the ridiculous covid eligibility to semester to semester pulling of scholarships and incessant hyper recruiting 24x7…we left the scene wondering why so much investment was made all those years ago
Bball.. yes it seems like the case in 90-95 % of D1 situations.. there are exceptions such as TPM son..
check out the other Hall of Fame thread that broaches some and more of this topic :A recruiting story..
https://community.hsbaseballwe...56#75784881073112856
I have a new funny story about the PC deal..
so on son's team we have a 6' 5" built RHP who can throw fairly hard 92-94 ish..
however he has a difficult time pitching downhill.. last few appearances he tends to fall off way left on his landing foot and will literally fall down once every couple batters .
It is clear as day and a fairly easy fix(compared to other fixes).
and the fix "could/should" even improve velo to a very highly desirable range with better control that would work well in higher places..
I asked son(friend of this kid) "has the PC tried to help him with this"?
PC has never said anything about it. ...
I mean if you were a LL coach you would probably try to fix it..
but yeah the PC- he is a nice guy though..
kind of explains the whole deal .. it has been the same for 3 schools..
I will add another story for next week..lol
have a great weekend.
I'm gonna call this. It seems that the ones who have went to and stayed at D1 schools have good experiences and like most situations, the ones that are not the front line pitchers have had bad experiences. I find the same with hitting coaches and head coaches. When your son has a good experience, you seem to think the coaches are good and when you get "shafted" you think the coaches are idiots. Is that a fair statement?
I would only add - Odds would indicate half of all pitching and hitting coaches are below average…
@PitchingFan posted:I'm gonna call this. It seems that the ones who have went to and stayed at D1 schools have good experiences and like most situations, the ones that are not the front line pitchers have had bad experiences. I find the same with hitting coaches and head coaches. When your son has a good experience, you seem to think the coaches are good and when you get "shafted" you think the coaches are idiots. Is that a fair statement?
...and when they start playing my kid, they seem less idiotic.
Thank you for the compliment.
As an FYI for anyone, there are many very good college pitching coaches all over the country.
They are found at all different programs. The problem is that everyone thinks they all work at D1 programs.
I agree with JucoDad half of most coaches are way below average.
If anyone follows D1,2,3 RPIs, you can get an idea of who is getting it done and who isn't. That's the best indicator of who has the better coaching staffs.
JMO
@PitchingFan posted:I'm gonna call this. It seems that the ones who have went to and stayed at D1 schools have good experiences and like most situations, the ones that are not the front line pitchers have had bad experiences. I find the same with hitting coaches and head coaches. When your son has a good experience, you seem to think the coaches are good and when you get "shafted" you think the coaches are idiots. Is that a fair statement?
I think that this is generally true and simple math will support that it is. If you have a 40 man roster only about half see regular playing time - 10 pitchers & 10 position players. So half of every active college roster is not happy - more or less. Now consider all the players that are in the transfer portal. All of them are unhappy, with a few NIL exceptions. That tips the scales to the point of more players being unhappy than players being happy. Which I believe is the reason you hear so many bad stories. It’s a greater probability that you will hear a bad story. I know that this is over-simplified but nonetheless true IMO.
When my son started HS, we were so happy because we thought that finally there would be coaches who weren't dads, who were committed to helping all the boys become better players. And, we found that to be correct, although we did not quite expect that the players would be still doing instruction and workouts on their own time in addition to team stuff.
So I assumed that college would be one step more professional than that. That the coaches would be hired because they knew baseball and were good at teaching it and would have every incentive to do so for all players. D3, of course, is very different from D1 in terms of practice time allowed with coaches, and we knew that, too. I think it has worked for my son, he has gotten help when needed, and he works and studies baseball very hard on his own, too.
Also, as a non-baseball person, I did not realize how many different parts there were to pitching - not just mechanics, but also scouting opponents, pitch sequencing, analytics, etc. I am continually being educated about something new. I say this for readers who might not be experienced in pitching. No coach could handle all of this with an entire large staff, and no doubt some PCs are better at some parts of it than others. I'm going to assume that college PCs are looking at more than just velo and mechanics when deciding how much and what kind of effort to put into each pitcher.
Having said all that, there has been much conversation recently about changes to recruiting rules, and the fact that college coaches won't have as many years to talk to recruits. I do wonder, what was said in all those years of conversations? Did it lead HS recruits to believe that the PC would develop them and help them improve? Are those who are disappointed mainly late recruits who did not spend years talking to the PC?
Parent,
you have acquired a great knowledge. College coaches have the insight of coaching players who have several previous pitching coaches and advisors. The 1st step is to learn the player opinion of his previous coaches. The question of WHY? When? Where?
What? And How? Then the next step to success.
As Joe Morgan said in our clinic. I can talk base running and base stealing for 10 minutes or 10 hours.
Bob
Another player parent said something last week that rings true….when you see the underbelly of just about anything, it becomes much less appealing.
For me, a pitching coach in college is not a pitching instructor. He has 20 plus guys to work with and very limited time to do it. He will take the pitchers and the skills they have and add to them. He does not have the time or energy to rebuild a pitcher's motion. He cannot spend 30 minutes a day with each pitcher. No different than hitting coaches cannot spend 30 minutes a day with each hitter. The parents or player who thinks the coach can take them from where they are and add 10 mph or teach them a new pitch a year are unrealistic, imo.
My son's pitching coach does a great job per numbers year in and year out throughout his career but there are those who just can't pitch for him. He has crazy numbers of guys who have/are pitching in MLB as does a few others. But he also has a few quirks that will keep guys from pitching for him. He despises walks. You walk a lot a guys you don't see the mound. People ask me all the time why so and so does not get to pitch and I say look at his strikeouts versus walk ratio. Too high. Some guys can't figure out the location thing and so they don't get outings. He also is adamant that a pitcher does not change his motion to hold runners on. If you have a slide step and it does not hurt you, then fine, but he is not teaching it. If you do your job the farthest they can steal is third. If you did your job, they would not have got on.
