Good to great high school slash line?

High school stats are hard to judge. A kid who hits .300 in 6A might hit .500 in 2A. Even in 6A the kid who led my son’s conference in homers played his home games on a 300-330-360-330-300 field. The homers instead of doubles or fly outs impacted his slash line in a positive way. Then there’s the matter of who is keeping score.

My 2021 kid hit .400/.472/.700 in his Senior year of high school and played every position that year besides pitcher & catcher.  To say that he dominated a lot of those games would be an understatement.

He ended up (deservedly so) as a 3B/1B at a mid-level D3.

High school stats are next to meaningless other than a fun memory of getting to be the big kid in the high school game.

When he got to College fall ball it was like night & day.  As he said “no more facing 15 & 16 year olds at this level.”

I'll always get a kick out of these numbers.   The top four players on 2017's team during Junior year in HS.  One junior and 3 seniors.

1  -  453/505/536 

2 -  410/479/622 

3  - 333/436/500

4  -  326/440/448

1 - is my 2017. Played D3. Now in banking

2 - is a senior pre-season All American at an NAIA program

3 - played Juco, then D1,  now playing a CoVid grad year at a D2

4 - will be returning for his 2nd year in MLB if Rob effing Manfred ever ends his effing lockout.

So yeah, pretty meaningless.

238/478/500 senior year (25 games); 348/464/739 in an abbreviated junior year (9 games). 372/465/500 in short season in the minors (26 games).

@PTWood posted:

238/478/500 senior year (25 games); 348/464/739 in an abbreviated junior year (9 games). 372/465/500 in short season in the minors (26 games).

I would think that a pro prospect player like your son didn’t see very many good pitches to hit in his senior year. That on base percentage certainly reflects that. I’ve seen draft prospect players from our area have similar stats in their senior year high school. The scouts would come out to watch them walk.

@3and2Fastball it was part that, part facing high draft-pick pitching on a regular basis, and part a stretch where he just wasn't trusting his swing (which was facilitated by the previous two factors plus a couple of games with really rough strike zones). He learned a lot about himself (steady, resilient), what people think about you (you can't control it so you might as well be yourself) and baseball (a fickle master, my friend). Most importantly, he learned that high school stats don't tell the whole story. ;-)

I’m with Paula on this one. During HS senior year son’s line was 241/364/373 in 28 games. As a college freshman it was 381/424/572 in 46 games played. My son had a glitch in his swing in HS. He was trying too much to lift the ball. Once that got fixed he took off.  Often players are drafted or recruited based on projections of what someone believes they are capable of more that what they have already done.

@adbono posted:

I’m with Paula on this one. During HS senior year son’s line was 241/364/373 in 28 games. As a college freshman it was 381/424/572 in 46 games played. My son had a glitch in his swing in HS. He was trying too much to lift the ball. Once that got fixed he took off.  Often players are drafted or recruited based on projections of what someone believes they are capable of more that what they have already done.

Absolutely! Heath Hembree couldn’t get on the mound at a ranked program freshman year. He JuCo’ed and transferred to a mid major. Junior year he had a 6.52 ERA with 18 walks in 27 innings.

Hembree was drafted in the 5th round. Despite his numbers he was 6’4” 220 and threw mid 90’s. This will be his 10th year in the majors.