Getting drafted

johnny that is a great question and I really can't give you an answer that you are looking for. Only thing I can say is go watch people take BP. When a player has "it" the ball sounds so much different off the bat than anybody else. It jumps off the bat better than anyone else. When they hit pretty much everything stops so people can watch them.

We got a kid who's a Junior and he's got it. Right now he's touching low 90's off the mound as a righty but when he hits it's amazing. We were playing in a wood bat tournament about 2 or 3 weeks ago. There was a game going on that was pretty good and we were taking BP in a cage near the stands. While our kids were hitting we got a few glances over between pitches but nothing major. When this kid stepped into the cage and hit his first ball - almost everyone in the stands stopped watching the game just to watch him take BP. The crazy thing is the ball wasn't going anywhere because it was in a cage but the sound of the ball off the bat was just a better sound than anybody else.

In a recent 3 game tournament over spring break he went 8 for 10 with 4 HR and they were no doubt shots even to the opposite field. There was a HS team from Michigan on their spring break using our field to practice on (not in the tournament - they weren't allowed to play) and they came to our games just to have something to do. When our kid hit as a team they would "ooh" and "ahh" as the ball left his bat. I was standing near them and just started cracking up listening to them be in awe of our guy.

Over the years my teams have competed against other guys who have "it". You just know it when it comes off the bat. But it's better to judge it during BP than a game. In a game the good hitter may not even sniff a pitch to hit but a poor hitter may get the planets and stars to align and crush one. It's misleading overall but in BP where everything is fairly controlled the studs stand out.

I realize I didn't give you a quantifiable answer but that's the best I can come up with and what I've seen in my time.

Although I do not have first hand evidence, and there are many more qualified than I, here is my take.

What pro scouts need to discern is can a player make the adjustment to wood. Is he getting the barrel of the bat on the ball or is he getting cheap hits off the handle. Is he hitting line drives or fly balls? Line drives will remain base hits, fly balls are outs.

Bat speed is important, but so is how a player handles his at bat. Does he display confidence, does he have a plan. How does he take pitches, does he get himself out. Can he read a pitch and lay off. Can he hit to all fields with gap to gap power.

It is all about the ability, or perceived ability to hit against good pitching with wood. IMHO.

Also remember when they do hit a pop up, sometimes no one can catch them, happens to Pop up all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by floridafan:

It is all about the ability, or perceived ability to hit against good pitching with wood. IMHO.

This is why you should be making sure you are playing in tournaments that wood bats are being used. Leave no doubt.

quote:

What pro scouts need to discern is can a player make the adjustment to wood. Is he getting the barrel of the bat on the ball or is he getting cheap hits off the handle. Is he hitting line drives or fly balls? Line drives will remain base hits, fly balls are outs.

Bat speed is important, but so is how a player handles his at bat. Does he display confidence, does he have a plan. How does he take pitches, does he get himself out. Can he read a pitch and lay off. Can he hit to all fields with gap to gap power.

How long does the bat stay in the hitting zone.

APPROACH, APPROACH, APPROACH , it is a lot about the approach.

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While I would agree so far...generally...

Sat in the stands for a few years watching college games with a former major league manager who won a World Series ring as a manager...

He said that every year the organization would send him kids who were not "baseball players" in the classic sense but were simply great athletes...

Echoed everything I saw in 10 years of the collge recuitng process, college ball and the draft

Like it or not there is a lot of "body" that goes into it for many scouts and organizations...strong, lots of quick twitch, speed, perhaps size in cases (but I think that is overrated by parents)...equates for them into remaining upside.

While I agree with that view or not I know that it has a name in the buisness, it is called, "The Look"...and it would explain in part why statistics are not always the determining factor...unless you have a cybermetrics organization...and you have fired all the old time scouts.

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