How to figure out best fit?

Keep getting your son good exposure, and the "market" will tell you where he fits in. For the most part, the schools where he will fit will be the ones that show interest.

Have him start contacting a variety of schools in which he may be interested. I would recommend that next spring he visit some of those schools, walk the campus and attend some of their games. Meet the coaches.

Follow that with a good summer schedule and continued contact. It will go from there...

When you have time, please PM with a status update on him.

My son rarely hit 84as a HS senior and he had a bunch od D1s and other types of schools after him. It is more about performance than out and out velocity.
I listen to lost of college games over the last 2 years and the announcers constantly mentioned velocity. There were lots of guys who threw below 84 on top D1 teams. My son's max so far after 2 years was 85mph. We always told the coaches he pitched at 81-82 and not one said thatwas too slow.
You should see the number of Asians in the World Cup throwing 130-140 KLms. That is 78-84mph.

Coaches will figure it out for you by their attentiveness. Son was #1 on varsity staff all 4 years of high school even though he TOPPED at 78 frosh year... over 4 years he was touching 87 as SR but pitched at 84-85. Would be at showcases and overhear some coaches remark "if had had another 5 mph I'd be all over him" as he went about his business of throwing an 80 pitch CG.At this point we did most of our looking at NAIA thru DII's and concentrated on getting letters and bios out to those that interested us as it seemed 90 was the magic # for DI. By summer before Sr year 4 D1's showed more than token interest so that's where we concentrated...looked over rosters...checked out returners and what they had done..noted IP by freshman previous couple of seasons...and most importantly in my book factored in team GPA. Son is 6'3" 180lbs was 6'2" around 165 ... is now touching 90 and sitting in the 87-88 range while still possessing pinpoint control..coach where he ended up may have projected this but bottom line is he took a kid who could pitch at the 84-85 he saw.Son couldn't be happier that he's playing DI( though playing any level would have sufficed) So in answer..send feelers out to all levels and let the coaches actions determine what level to continue at...each one looks at the same kid a different way.

IMO, there are not too many HS players who can pitch consistantly in the 90's. If they do, they are the top prospects and some usually won't make it to college.

More importantly is how many pitches does the pitcher throw for strikes? Does the FB have sink? Is it straight and flat? Does the pitcher use the inside corner? Is he willing to be coached and go with thru ups and downs of adjustments. Things like that.

As a junior in jupiter mine was just touching 90. When he signed a year later he was hitting around 90-91 but lived in the 86-88 zone, by summer before college he had hit 93 on the FB, living in the 87-89 zone. But I think the high interest was because he threw 4 pitches for strikes and used variations on his CU that created different speeds, not afraid to use it and just beginning to use the slider, which is the preferred pitch in college.

Start getting seriously seen junior year and that will determine interest which will help in your search.

Rick,
I liked your comment about noting combined team GPA. I wonder how many parents take an interest in that? Team GPA average tells alot about the coach who is recruiting your son and his philosophy.

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Start getting seriously seen junior year and that will determine interest which will help in your search.

If only the parents of 10U to 15U stud pitchers understood this rather than letting them pitch too much, star and toast their arms at irrelevant (to future success) levels.

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Originally posted by RJM:

quote:

Start getting seriously seen junior year and that will determine interest which will help in your search.

If only the parents of 10U to 15U stud pitchers understood this rather than letting them pitch too much, star and toast their arms at irrelevant (to future success) levels.

Not that I don't disagree with that but...... didn't you say the other day that you were putting me on ignore?

I peaked

I had some wise folks on here tell me the letters and the calls will pretty much dictate your "level." I did not believe them, at the time...but Fungo, TRHit, et al...were dead on. The advice by Texan is good...get him the exposure...and a good personal trainer/workout plan may work wonders.

From the time we first started thinking about this stuff, we mainly looked at DIII because my son simply wanted to go to a really good school with a smallish student body (2000 or less)....his baseball skills didn't enter that initial 'framing' at all. We figured if he threw 85 or 95 it just didn't much matter where he played so long as he was able to play. In most everything besides baseball, DI's were never a 'fit' for our kids interests and view of what he wants his college experience to be. D3 schools we've looked at and been in touch with are Trinity (TX), Occidental, Redlands, Willamette, Haverford, Macalester, and Kenyon. Academically, they are all as solid as it gets, and there's some pretty good baseball mixed in there as well.

Our guy is a bit of a late-bloomer like yours, as you know....6'1" 155 pounds, fairly late b-day for an '08. But there have been several coaches out there who've seen past his current size, looked at his current velocity, mound maturity, and poise -- and see a player they really want to bring along over the next few years. That's all we can ask for!

I know CASon will find a place - with his body and his current velo, someone will 'read' his future and bring him in to their fold. I have no doubt about it!