Evaluating pitchers

I’m not going to bother to address your grandson’s baseball potential anymore. Until he proves otherwise on a big stage it’s little or none. His chances of playing college baseball are slim and none. Your ignorance regarding baseball, is mind boggling. Stu Miller pitched fifty plus years ago. Do you think there just may have been some advancement in average velocity over fifty years? You have absolutely zero clue what it takes to become a college baseball player. Maybe you’re just trolling to see who will continue to bite. If so, shame on me. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re a teenage internet troll.

You provided one of the best tips he’s not a college pitching prospect. You’re still catching him. When my son got to sixteen I started becoming afraid to catch him. I played college baseball and I started wondering if I could pick up, block or get out of the way of every pitch because of the velocity and movement. And his velocity was still developing.

Grandparents and Parents are supposed to be their grandkids and kids biggest fans. But, this is really something else. I am happy for the lesson on how to not be delusional. 

I know my son can pole vault. I know he can pole vault well. He has done it in track and field at high school. BUT, he will not be a pole vaulter for a college and he does not/ did not love that sport. He DID love baseball and it showed. 

Thank you for the entertaining read. 

The posts are written so awkwardly that they do FEEL like a delusional grandpa writing them, and most people aren't so clever to pull off that kind of trolling. Considering the poster also posted years ago, maybe it is all real. Let's say it is for now.

It's hilarious how you say IT ALL COMES DOWN TO HOW GOOD YOU REALLY ARE AGAINST YOUR COMPETITION AND ANYTHING CAN BE SOLVED THAT GETS IN THE WAY OF YOU GETTING HIM.  and yet your grandson has faced absolutely no competition since Little League...why doesn't have actually play some baseball and prove what he can do? Otherwise you sound ridiculous continually asserting that he should easily handle top high school players because he did well as a pitcher when he was 10. Do you see the missing logic there?

Kingsman a very quick way to get somewhat of an idea of what you are saying is accurate is to try and get your grandson hooked up with a team playing in this summers  PG WWBA tournament in ATL ( I guess its still there this summer?).  Teams are always looking for pitchers for this tournament.   There is a decent chance he will see some good competition.  One area I do disagree with is "One has been working all his youth to be good,….the other just picks up the glove and goes out there and gets people out.  Pitchers are born not made. Guidance is important but a coach can’t create with lessons what isn’t there."   NO pitcher, zero, zilch, just picks up a glove and goes out there and is successful.  Thats like saying the horse who won the Belmont Saturday (which speaking of genetics was 100% bred to run races) could have won even if it had not trained, been in similiar situations with crowds, other horses, etc... The same could be said for a successful pitcher.   Every single pitcher that you will see in the CWS has spent years working on his skill level, arm strength, mechanics,  etc...     My son is a very athletic RHP, but I promise you without a tremendous amount of work and training for years  could NOT go out and pole vault successfully.    

Shoot, take the kid to a showcase and let him rip. He’ll face plenty of college recruits there and when he does well  he’ll get offers right away. All he has to do is show up. That’s what my kids both did. You really don’t need advice here; we can’t sign him. But I bet there are thirty coaches at Headfirst or a similar showcase who’d love to watch him pitch. You will need to let them know you’re coming though. 

smokeminside posted:

Shoot, take the kid to a showcase and let him rip. He’ll face plenty of college recruits there and when he does well  he’ll get offers right away. All he has to do is show up. That’s what my kids both did. You really don’t need advice here; we can’t sign him. But I bet there are thirty coaches at Headfirst or a similar showcase who’d love to watch him pitch. You will need to let them know you’re coming though. 

In the email you tell the college coaches you’re coming don’t forget to provide his LL velocity with the MLB equivalent. 

I do have a very important qualifying question. Did your grandson make the Little League all star team?

And the fact he has a funky arm slot that worked 6 years ago to get out 24 of every 25 batters he faced.

Kingsman, I was serious about getting him to a showcase or camp at a school he’s interested in. You said you wanted him to face good competition and he should. The coaches at these events are looking for talent and they’re the ones pulling the trigger on offers, not us hsbbw denizens. THey also don’t have extra time for private  tryouts unless they’ve  seen him pitch before and like what they see so much that that they invite him to one.  Your grandson could be a special player but there’s no way you’re gonna know if he doesn’t face real competition and soon. I know I’m repeating a lot of what’s been said already but you need to get the kid out of this frying pan and into that fire to see what he’s capable of. And you do NOT have a lot of time. I’d also suggest a plan B. Every contributor on this board had at least a plan B for their sons and some of them even had to use it (including me). 

I am  with you a 100%. Its past time for talk. Its time to get up to form and then take what ever he has got in front of the lions to see who gets who. I am not familiar with this show case some one wrote about. It sounded like  all colleges with baseball teams hold them  and if there was a college he really wanted to get to, he could go to their show case when he's ready and show them what he has got. Is that really correct? I don't know.

Also someone wrote about some discrepency  in what I said about him being the top high school pole vaulter in Mississippi  in 2019.  I do not see the discrepency in what you said vs what I said, except he did not do that as a Senior. He will be a senior  this fall.  Kingsman

I forgot someone asked when in little league did he ever make all stars. Yes he was a county  all star every year in Dizzy Dean baseball. When they started pitching at age 9 he threw his first no hitter against other all star teams at the Dizzy Dean state championship that year.  He threw 3 all together another one was also against travel ball competition and he should have had a fourth at age 12 his last year but another coach who was friend of his father tried to help him by teaching him to throw a cut fastball that day. He could throw anything you taught him, went out and used it in the game that day and finally gave up the one hard hit ball of the day off of it. I often wonder if he had thrown one of his regular pitches at that moment would he have had a fourth. He didn't need any help. He was doing fine with what he had developed.

He experimented with a lot of stuff. Even had a knuckle change up  he could get over.  But then a good hitter reloaded on his approach to the ball when he saw it wasn't going to be a fast pitch and drove it into right field. We learned a lesson that just because you can get a strange pitch over doesn't mean it is going to fool anybody and he put that pitch on the ash heap.....and later the cut fast ball after it cost him another no hitter. We kept book on ratio of batters to hard hit balls of the pitches he threw and when a pitch would begin to slip into poorer ratios off it  or too many balls off it rather than strikes  he would discard it.  That's  how he always kept sharp and ahead of his game.

Kingsman, camps are held at colleges/universities and most of the time only the coaches for that particular school are  there.  They're usually one or two days and the kids that go are basically auditioning for that school's program.  Sometimes D1 programs will hold camps that include other division coaches so kids who may not be d1 caliber aren't completely wasting their time.  Even if a parent or player is extremely confident about the level they're shooting for it's a good idea (I think; others may differ) to go to camps that are at your dream level as well as camps that include coaches from other levels.

Showcases usually have more kids "auditioning" and many more coaches at the event. Some showcases have upwards of 70 different college coaches looking for players and the events are usually 2-3 days long.

For pitchers each type of event will have bullpens where the players' velocity is recorded and they may also pitch in game situations.  Field players will work out in the outfield or at shortstop.  Catchers will get a chance to catch of course, and pitchers may pitch in two consecutive days.

As you are researching what college camps/showcases you might take your grandson to you HAVE to get a video ready that shows him pitching AND has a radar gun visible in the video that records his velocity. In my opinion the video is a must.  You need to send that video to the coaches of the programs your grandson imagines he might play for.  Ask the coaches if they have a camp this summer and what showcases they are planning to recruit at.  If they see a video of your grandson and they send him an email or text that they're interested then do what they ask for.

I'm not an expert on recruiting at the level you see your grandson at, so I can't help you with particular showcases that would allow him shine at the at level.  One good alternative no matter what level a kid is at is Headfirst.  The events you still have time to attend are in June, July and August, and the fall ones might be okay, too. Headfirst  is either in California, Long Island, NY, or Florida.  Google Headfirst baseball showcases and you'll find what you need.

I hope someone else will chime in with a little more information about stuff like WWBA.  And I second Chasing 90s idea:

Just a thought.  Find somebody to catch a bullpen and post up some video.  There have been plenty on this forum that have been through the recruiting process that would give an honest assessment of whether or not he might could play at the next level. 

This method would be the cheapest and most efficient way to get help about whether a specific college might be interested in your son. Chasing 90 means post the video HERE, to this site. You'll get an accurate assessment of your grandson's talents immediately.  The video is also important because Coaches want to see stuff like that video and they want to know as much as possible about their recruits via personal emails before they go looking for them at whatever event they're at.

As they say, time is of the essence.

this thread is gold...yes lets recommend that this kid from Mississippi who needs a duel scholarship from college to be able manage the cost of it, who hasn't played in 5 or however many years but was a dizzy dean super star and obviously had a family full of analytics experts should jump on the old airplane and travel to Stanford or long island for a showcase. This is a dumpster fire with zero chance of being successful outside of wasting money they obviously don't have. 

Sorry to be the grumpy old man but you have better chance of just showing up at a PRO open invite and going directly to the farm team - research Syd Finch for motivation, the probabilities of success are about the same. 

Wait, where is Bob...this kid should get an invite the area code games if he has the 6th tool...

Old School, I didn't notice in the thread that they didn't have the money to pursue this.  There are a lot of words people have shared so I might have missed it.  My point was that if he's serious about getting the kid seen then he needs to go to where the coaches are, and he needs to let them know he's coming via emails, with a video attached.  He'd get better guidance if he'd send video to a few of the folks here first.  That's it.

smokeminside posted:

 

I'm not an expert on recruiting at the level you see your grandson at, so I can't help you with particular showcases that would allow him shine at the at level.  One good alternative no matter what level a kid is at is Headfirst.  The events you still have time to attend are in June, July and August, and the fall ones might be okay, too. Headfirst  is either in California, Long Island, NY, or Florida.  Google Headfirst baseball showcases and you'll find what you need.

I hope someone else will chime in with a little more information about stuff like WWBA. 

 

The WWBA is a bad idea for 50% of the field to begin with and those kids play year round. 

In State tuition at Ole Miss and MSST are about 8k a year. If they can afford to drop 2500 on a weekend at Headfirst something tells me they can afford in state tuition. 

In our town football started at age 9. Mine played soccer until 9 when it started. If he asked about a soccer scholarship now  I would probably take him back to the field where I would take him directly to the medical tent and have him checked. 

After reading this thread - I noticed not once did I see that this is something that the grandson wants.  I might of missed that, but is he aware of these plans?

2005 thread on majoring in architecture and playing baseball:

https://community.hsbaseballwe...s-with-good-baseball

If you google "majoring architecture baseball roster" you can see what schools have architecture majors on their rosters.  It's mostly D3s, with no scholarships.  If the point of this is to afford college for architecture, then all the stuff about evaluation is irrelevant.

Smoke, I know your response was sincere, but I think the point that several of us have made was that if anyone involved was serious the kid would have actually, you know, played baseball at some point in recent years. Getting him in front of people is great but he has to have something to show. He hasn't pitched since he was a kid.

I would think we are being messed with except you can look up the Mississippi track state championships and see the kid's name.  I won't put it on here but he seems to be a decent high school pole vaulter.  I just don't see his pole vaulting getting much attention in larger colleges.  I think he is a small college pole vaulter yet granddad thinks he is a D1 baseball player after sitting out for 6 years.  I'm with PABaseball.  Pretty much every juco in Mississippi is free if you have decent grades not adding in Track.  Go that route.  If you are really serious, almost all of the jucos in Mississippi will give you a tryout for baseball.  Just don't tell them you haven't played in 6 years because they would laugh their heads off.  If he is throwing upper 80's with control, pm me and I will get you a juco scholarship tomorrow.  Seriously.

His parents had hired a company to act as agents to get him into college. We haven’t told them about pitching because he has not gotten into the mind to find out yet if he still has anything.  Several SEC schools and Conference USA schools have graduate schools in architecture and with full athletic programs.

As to why he never played high school ball. He did try out a couple of times in Junior high but apart from pitching he was only average in other aspects of the game…good but nothing special, and they never tried anybody out as pitchers. I guess they thought they could just take hard throwers and make them pitchers. And he had some conflict issues with some of the other players when they were all allstars in little league that carried over. Of course as you all know high school football and baseball has a lot of ‘politics’ involved as to who gets to play and his family were not the ‘right’ people. But I have gotten him to pitch to me over the years. His very good control has always come back. He is really tall and lanky and just naturally throws hard now.

It has gotten too dangerous for me to try to catch him anymore the speed it is and the way the ball moves. I just get behind the backstop net and hold the mitt in place now.

I would agree with Pitching Fan on his vaulting but he has another track season to go get the all time state record for all classes his Sr year. He is getting some coaching from a former Olympic vaulter. But it is plain he is not going to get his education just on his pole vaulting. And Juco is a good idea. That may be what he can afford to start out. As to speed, I said once before I don’ t think he will ever make it as a fastball pitcher. He was never the fastest in little league, only the best at getting playable balls. So his speed would not impress you and as I also said no coach can tell how good he really might be until he starts making his best hitters look bad. Pitching greatness is an intangible. We discussed that before.

This is unbelievable. Absolute nonsense. I wish I knew we didn’t need to invest so much time and money on baseball training.  My son was quite the little league player. That’s where we should have stopped. Why did we waste all our time??? 

Ridiculous.