Evaluating a target college's recruiting classes

Be careful in cross checking your information, and unless LHP2012 is a complete stud don't take any school that fits his profile off of the list.

There may be reasons for bringing in a lot of kids, and if a school has already received a commitment for a 2012 you can be assured he is a stud regardless of what PG has listed. I know a kid who is listed on PG's site at 84, as recently as two weeks ago and threw 89 over the weekend. My experience is, particularly at one of their tournaments, they will spot check a pitcher's velo and not really take that many readings.

Regarding the two situations:

1. Don't cross off the first school without at least hearing the coach's side of the attrition situation. High attrition can be a sign of a problem, but it can also be a sign that a solution is being put in place. I think I can guess which school you're talking about, and the coach was very open about explaining what's going on and why. Let him make his case. Good thing about being a 2012 is your son will have more information for evaluating whether the plan is working before he has to commit. (You can PM me if you want to talk more specifics.)

2. If your son were a shortstop, a commitment from a stud shortstop could be a reason to look elsewhere. Pitchers are different. 56 games times 9 innings times 3 outs per inning means every coach needs enough pitchers to get about 1500 outs each season. Anyone who proves he can get his share of those outs will have plenty of work. A couple early commitments from other pitchers, even other LHP's, shouldn't deter your son if he thinks he can compete for that school.


Best wishes.

I can see where that might happen at the tournaments but as my son never did those I can't speak to that, but my experience with the PG showcases is that they gun virtually every pitch. There's no way to tell how much a player who hasn't had new results posted for quite a while has increased their velocity in the meantime. Even when the time difference is just a month or so I've seen big jumps just because some days a kid has it and some days they don't. If you look at the kids who do the Sunshine events and then go on to the PG National the next week you'll see some who stay the same and some who make some pretty decent jumps in just one week. No way to explain that other than just being more pumped up at the bigger event.

Mine had a real good showcase one year where he worked 83-84 and touched 86, throwing only two or 3 innings. The next year he started the game and went 4 or 5 innings working 83-85 and according to the blog touched 87. He was listed at 86 giving the impression that he hadn't made any progress for a year. I didn't get the impression from speaking to the people doing the gunning that he had hit 87 or even 86 so maybe that was a typo in the blog. Who knows? Yet a few weeks earlier he had worked 86-87 at a camp throwing to only a few batters. Pitchers just plain vary and sometimes the luck of the draw as to when they are on or off makes a big difference.

Eventually, they'll have to perform for whatever team they are on and what they can do consistently is what counts.

quote:

Originally posted by BOF:
Be careful in cross checking your information, and unless LHP2012 is a complete stud don't take any school that fits his profile off of the list.

There may be reasons for bringing in a lot of kids, and if a school has already received a commitment for a 2012 you can be assured he is a stud regardless of what PG has listed. I know a kid who is listed on PG's site at 84, as recently as two weeks ago and threw 89 over the weekend. My experience is, particularly at one of their tournaments, they will spot check a pitcher's velo and not really take that many readings.

BOF,

I saw a kid over the weekend in Arizona have the same jump in velocity with good life, and a sharp breaking ball. He's a good size kid with projectability. I hope he enjoys his upcoming recruiting trips...I'm sure his parents are proud!

Tell him only to cross off the schools he thinks he cant beat somebody out to earn game time play.

And, hopefully those school already know he cant compete there.

I would recommend that he not cross any colleges off the list---treat them all equally as if they were the # 1 choice---you never know what will happen and you do not want to limit the options

BOF,

Of course it is always possible that a young pitcher could increase his velocity over a period of time.

However our scouts, have direct orders to get a gun reading and chart every pitch. This includes tournaments because we need to know how long pitchers can maintain velocity and exactly when they start to lose velocity and what their absolute peak velocity is (whenever that occurs). If that isn't done someone loses a job. We can't be so unreliable to get a 89 mph pitcher at 84 mph. We wouldn't be around too long if we did that.

Also, no one said that the two commited players were not "studs", just that their velocity wasn't overwhelming. We would have to know what overwhelming velocity is... Is it 95, 90 or 85? Some of the very best left handed college prospects in the country do not have overwhelming velocity, by my definition. Regarding those two commited lefties... Our reports are obviously from the events we saw. We could have documented low 80s for a kid who now throws high 80s depending on when we last saw him.

After the boy whittled down the list we really started to check each school out. 4-5 visits to each school. The baseball programs were all fine. He sat in classrooms,checked out dorms, spoke with other students other than atheletes. At one U.C a student complained about too many Asians... And he was Asian. Of course we checked out the archived rosters and stats to see how things were really run.

The classes with 12-15 per class I loved, he hated. He sampled food and checked out the surrounding area for things to do. We talked to other atheletes about academic support. Schools we encountered with football programs had tremendous support while the others were a little sketchy.

Peel back the onion abit, before you start eliminating

PG,

I probably was not clear but you are correct that many times players don't go to a lot of your events and you may have old data. Just because you have a player listed at 84 does not mean that what he throws now, it is just your data at a particular time. He could also throw 84 at your event and the next week have a better outing. It happens all of the time. My point was not to be critical but that your data is your data and it is not the end all.

I don't want to get anyone in trouble but I saw a number of games at the PG Nationals that your guys were not gunning every pitch. Not that I really think they should, just that they seemed to be spot checking, which is just fine, but also means they could be off 1-3MPH. I also want to be clear that the public reports that I saw seemed pretty accurate from what I actually observed.

You guys do a good job, but I am sure there are lots of kids not ranked by you that are "studs" and will play D1 ball somewhere. There are also guys listed at "x" in your data and they actually throw "y". Someone should not make a decision on a school based on your, or anyone's data for that matter. TR is correct don't throw out a school, particularly based on one data point.

quote:

I don't want to get anyone in trouble but I saw a number of games at the PG Nationals that your guys were not gunning every pitch. Not that I really think they should, just that they seemed to be spot checking, which is just fine, but also means they could be off 1-3MPH. I also want to be clear that the public reports that I saw seemed pretty accurate from what I actually observed.

You may not think it is important, but I do! It is standard practice at every event we do. In fact, we have run 216 team tournaments and gunned every pitch. The only exception would be if batteries went dead and there is always a replacement, so only a pitch or two is missed.

There are more DI roster spots than we have rankings spots. So there will always be more DI players than we have listed. But we don't miss hardly any of those who get to Omaha or get drafted.

Not sure what the definition of a "stud" is. Is that Matt Purke or Gerritt Cole or anyone who plays college baseball?

Accurate and honest information is critical in our business. I will only say that the information is very important to many college programs.

That said, I will definitely discuss this with our people who were at that event.

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
Not sure what the definition of a "stud" is. Is that Matt Purke or Gerritt Cole or anyone who plays college baseball?

I don't know too many 2012 commits, but of the two I know and have seen, one is a righty that has been clocked up to 96, and the other is a lefty throwing low 90's. I think we can all agree they are "studs".

Verbal commitments are not as unusual as many think from the 2012 class. For example, South Carolina already has 8 verbals from that class. It is a good idea to be aware of the status of the incoming class as well as the 2012 class. This information should not be dispositive but it is best to be aware of all information available in making your decision

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Swampboy, the school I was referring to is in CA. Were you thinking of a school a bit closer to home?

Yep.

Geting back to the original thought of this thread.

Roster turnover is certainly something to look at.
As mentioned, the reasons can range from grades, homesick, poor performance, change in coaching philosophy,lack of playing time,don't like coach, don't like town, etc, etc.

But, keep in mind that even if you have done your due diligence on current roster and incoming signees, a new crop will be coming in after your Freshman year.

At my Son's D1, he was one of only 6 scholarship players in his class, and he was the only OF.

Now, starting his Sophomore year, the Fall roster has 19 new players, 4 of which are OF's.

No coaching changes, just normal attrition due to above reasons and a couple of possible draftees leaving early.