My son is the player CAdad refers to in his comments. He is only partially correct in his speculation of my son's situation so I thought I might give you my point of view.
My son missed his sophomore season due to an injury. When he came back he switched positions from catching to pitching. He always threw hard but the coach put him on JV to give him time to develop as a pitcher. He had pitched on a limited basis in his freshman year but was not a pitcher in LL. The varsity team had 5 senior pitchers and 2 junior pitchers with experience. These were kids who had pitched for many years. The coach could have put him on the Varsity team, but he would not have pitched nearly as much.
It is not unusual for this coach to put junior players on the JV team (the year before approx 1/3 of the JV team was juniors, and very good players I might add), though my son was the only one last year. Believe me my son is competitive and was not happy about it. He decided to work hard and dominate.
Today he pitches 90mph and has excellent control of a slider, curve and changeup. He works at his baseball skills every day and deserves the credit for his success. As far as the comments about pitching coaches, JV pitchers do not get to work with the pitching coaches at our school. However, we do have a wonderful friend who is a former pro pitcher who worked with him. And in October he started with private pitching lessons.
Do I think juniors belong on the JV team? Yes, sometimes. Now that my son is a senior, I have observed that the skill level of each class can vary greatly. In our program, the JV team is a good place for sophomores and juniors to develop. I am glad our coach does not cut kids just because they are juniors. I am also glad he does not carry them on varsity without providing any playing time.
That being said, I do believe a junior on the JV team must have some baseball skills. He should be there because the coach expects him to continue to improve and contribute to the varsity team the next year. I can see the difficulty for coaches. How do you know if a kid is a late bloomer or has run his talent to the fullest? That is the dilemma.
CApitchersmom,
I ran into one of the coaches before the holidays and he said that the big improvement was in command as opposed to velocity as I had written. He had a lot of good things to say about your son.
Thanks for the correcting my observations. It is always better to get the information from someone who has first hand knowledge.
I ran into one of the coaches before the holidays and he said that the big improvement was in command as opposed to velocity as I had written. He had a lot of good things to say about your son.
Thanks for the correcting my observations. It is always better to get the information from someone who has first hand knowledge.
Grateful- I wish I could KEEP some D1 prospects, let alone CUT them! Only been here 3 years, though...give me time! ha ha
It's a big country and situations are different throughout. Seems to me that trying to apply a cookie cutter philosophy to all doesn't make sense, if in fact some believe this issue should be handled universally. If I'm a varsity high school coach I am going to do whatever benefits my team first and my individual players whenever it doesn't detract from the overall team and is within the rules. If that means I'm developing Junior pitchers on JV so they can be effective as Seniors, that's what I'm going to do. Make no mistake about it, we have some very good players up here in the frozen tundra who can compete, but nowhere near the depth that CADad sees on the left coast. The young man who needed pitching development on JV because he hadn't pitched in youth ball, would most likely have pitched in youth ball here and would not be part of this discussion. Totally different circumstances that require different actions by coaches in my view.
I've can imagine seeing Juniors on a jv team that may not be the best players but they provide leadership and display the type of "team" attitude that other jv players may be lacking. Sometimes in the HS arena parts of the game are played outside the lines. Not many players are going on to the next level of baseball, but, most are going on to the next level of life. If you have the ability to carry these types of players and they understand their roles, it can't hurt.