I wanted to return to this subject after Jupiter. I love Diamondkast. It worked well at Jupiter for every game I followed (which was a lot of games). It also allows me to look into a few things that always confuse me since it gives velos for every pitch. I often see these guys who show top velos that seem to come out of nowhere and have to scratch my head. Info from DK answered quite a lot of these questions. Before I begin, I completely understand that PG has to basically follow a thousand pitchers or so at a tourney like this and can't correct for every input or take the time to find and look into suspicious #'s.
When I take a look at the velocities, I found a few that looked suspicious, so I looked into them on DK. It didn't take long to find a few answers. These are only guys I looked at because I know them or follow them for any variety of reasons. Examples
Player #1:
Now, from Jupiter has a high velocity of 90mph. However, when I look closer I am intrigued that he was only topping out at 82 in July and his best ever was an 85 in June. As it turns out, he didn't have another pitch that cleared 84mph in two innings of work and the 90mph was recorded on a ground out. So, it was probably actually an exit velocity. Looking at Trackman confirms it as the high from this game for this pitcher on TM was 84mph.
Player #2:
Topped out at 92 per PG at Jupiter. Closer look reveals more. His previous high had been 87mph in July. His range in that game was 84-92 and, when he pitched two days later, his range was 81-84. Trackman shows him with a high velocity in that game of 88.9 and he came in immediately following a stud who throws a legit 92-94. DK didn't record the pitching change that brought him in, so it's hard to tell if he somehow got credit for the 92 the previous pitcher threw when walking a guy.
Player #3:
Got credit for a 90mph at Jupiter. Trackman showed him with a high velocity in the game of 86.4mph. The 90mph per DK was on a ball 4 pitch. He was only in for 0.2 innings and his fastballs in that inning were 84, 84, 90, 85, 85, 84, 84, 84, 84. His previous high had been 87 in July. No doubt, he could have winged one in at 90 out of nowhere, but given the TM numbers, I'd guess it was a misread on the gun.
I found several others with high velos 2-3 mph above any other pitch and they were almost always on a struck ball, so I believe there are probably a few high velos out there that are questionable. I wouldn't expect PG to be able to catch these, so it's no indictment on PG. I was watching one game, though, where they obviously did catch it. There was a 95mph measured on a loud foul ball. No other pitch by this guy was above 88. It stood several hours after the game, but, when I checked back the next day, it had been taken off the play-by-play and no velocity was entered for that pitch.
All-in-all, though, I found Diamondkast to be well worth the money and made a lot of games more interesting to me than they otherwise might have been. I'm only sad that this is the end of the road for my kid as far as travel ball goes. It made Jupiter sort of sad.
