Pitcher Development

Couldn't hook up with a good select team?

Glad to hear he is back on the mound.

Coach discourages playing on select teams, then again he's never done this to rising juniors before. In the past they've always gotten a chance to face decent competition in the off season with the school's teams.

Coach is making a mistake IMHO, and not acting in the boys' best long term interest.

I know nothing about pitching or pitchers,son is ss
but since its the only team available couldnt this be a good time to work on new things, different pitches ... mistakes may not hurt the team? as the would with higher level hitters? Just a thought

quote:

Originally posted by CADad:
What is better for a pitcher - getting a lot of innings against weak competition or fewer innings against challenging competition?

I think it depends on what he needs to work on.

If he needs to work on his pitches (e.g. control, movement, and break) then I would go for quantity of innings.

If his pitches are solid and what needs work is his approach, then I would go for quality of innings.

To answer your question. It is akways better to face the best competition as a pitcher. Work on your stuff in the bull pen.
It is when you have to dig deep that you learn to pitch. A true pitcher wants to face the best hitters. Many parents travel for miles to find a high comp league.

Innings, a guy has to throw a lot to develop and nothing is the same as a game. It also builds confidence to dominate even all the time versus the shelling experience. Had it both ways over the years.

njbb,
Good points, however when a pitcher is facing hitters a level down a changeup is often right at the speed they are used to seeing. CASon's change is about 70-72 mph which is a typical freshman fastball in our area. Once the kids have geared up to 80+ mph then that 70-72 mph change is effective, but this time of year most freshmen aren't able to gear up to 80+ and the change just speeds up their bat.

smalltown,
Versus shelling yes. I doubt that's the case though. Before he was injured he went up against the kids who IMO will be the #1 HS team in the nation in 2008 and held his own.

CADad,
Why not do a little of both? You could appease coach by doing his little summer league, and perhaps hook your son up with a select team in the area for a tourney or two to challenge him. Your son can always count on the fact that somebody will always be looking for a quality arm. There ought to be some real good opportunities in your area, perhaps even after the summer league has concluded if that's the only way with this coach. There should also be some great chances in the Fall. How does CASon feel about it?
Your call here, but I would certainly put CASon's interests above the team if needed, especially since coach has already delegated him to the developmental squad. If you have a beter plan for your son's development, then be square with the coach and go do it.

There isn't a pitcher out there that hasn't been beat up at one time or another. If you can't handle the good with the bad play a different game. A true pitcher wants the ball and he wants to face the best simplely put. If you are afraid to get hit you will never go far. When you are getting beat up you dig deep and start thinking about each pitch and you build character. If your pitches need work do live bull pens if you feel the need.

They play pretty much the whole year and the letter the coach sent out said if they missed games they'd be cut. The coach isn't really quite that hard over about it and we'll try to work in some prospect camps where we can do so without a conflict.

spizzle,
The little summer league is 3 games a week so there's not much room to do anything else. Once school is out in a couple weeks and they aren't practicing we should at least be able to structure his throwing and pens such that he can do a little work on developing his arm strength and his pitches.

CADAD


Suggestion: for the summer play where he can get innings and repition in a controlled situation---coming back from injury this is key---then in the fall see if he cannot move up to stronger competition

I think this would be more debateable if he were younger, but at his age I think he needs to test himself against tougher competition and either sink or swim. If you think he needs to throw more, he can do extra throwing. But he needs to face tougher hitters and tougher situations to progress and to prove that he might be a potential college player, if that's his goal.

It constantly amazes me to hear talk on this site about what high school coaches tell kids to do over the summer and fall. If I EVER heard of a high school coach around here trying to dictate to kids in the off season, I would launch a campaign to have his job. This is entirely inappropriate, especially in the case where the coach is pushing kids to pay a fee to play on HIS travel team, but really in any situation. You give the HS coach 100% during his season, but otherwise it's your call, period.

I would be careful with the play with the JV team and hook up with a travel team idea. If he is recovering from an injury - and it seemed to be a major one since he missed almost a year and a half - he needs to be careful and not reinjure himself.

Let's say on a Friday his JV team pitches him 4 innings for about 55 pitches and then on Saturday he goes to his travel team and they start him on the mound and he goes 7 innings and throws around 90 pitches here. That is way too much and I have seen guys do this over the summer.

Make sure your son recovers from his injury first. Just because he feels good doesn't mean he is not actually doing some kind of damage.

Regardless I wish your son the best and hope he doesn't have any complications from the injury.

CaDad
I don't believe that pitch at upper levels will help a pitcher development, especially after long time inactivity. He may try to pitch with an extra arm effort and injure his arm again. What should help the development of a pitcher is to pitch at his level, and after he can prove dominance over that group, then pass to the next level. Don't rush him yet, he has enough time, like TRhit said.

TR,
Good suggestion. The reality is that this is pretty much a hypothetical question. We don't really have any viable options other than sticking with the HS program so he'll pitch and play where he's put by the coach and we'll try to supplement that as much as is safe. He's plenty good enough to play varsity ball as a junior but realistically the team doesn't need him at that level unless they get some injuries in the meantime. They've got a couple kids who can throw high 80s, one of whom is a legit pitcher and one or two other kids who are probably legit pitchers if they don't run into arm problems as well as a couple other kids they can use for mop up innings. The real question is if the team is better off in 2009 leaving him down at the JV level in 2008 and getting him plenty of innings against weak competition or pulling him up and giving him limited innings. Although the coach seems to believe 2008 is their year the league is going to be a monster in 2008 and they probably have about a 1 in 3 chance of coming in 4th and reaching the playoffs. In 2009 the league as a whole drops off a bit although the best team will most likely be a nationally ranked monster again, and they have a real shot at coming in 2nd or 3rd in league if they develop their players well.

Personally, and I realize what I think doesn't matter, I think they should give him some work at the varsity level during summer and winter ball and then make their decision about the 2008 regular season rather than relegating him to the lower level team without giving him a shot as seems to be happening. This is all speculation of course and a dad who is probably worrying too much.

Racab,
He was very effective and possibly dominated his level and now has in effect been moved down a level from where he was dominant. His injury was not to a tendon or ligament so he simply needs to build arm strength and endurance and is not overly susceptible to re-injury. Basically, he just needs to go through spring training.

The lesson he got last night was that on a night where he came into the game with less than his best stuff he could throw the ball down the middle and not get hit. I don't think that's a very good lesson.

CADad -

Doesn't your son's school participate in the VIBL (I know you're Marmonte league like we are)?

For the rest of the short summer league, can your son pitch against the freshman teams and use the time for fine tuning control and then move to better competition in the VIBL "A" team for his school? I know the VIBL "A" teams are typically the players who will be on varsity the next year, so the competition should be better.

Just a thought....

ProudSocalDad

ProudSocalDad,
It looks like he may not get a chance to play VIBL. Almost every team in the Marmonte league takes their rising juniors along with the returning varsity players and splits them into 3 squads, then plays two of the squads each game so that everyone gets playing time, no arms get destroyed, and they get to see all the players against strong competition. VIBL is either 27 innings a week or 28 innings a week depending on if the they play in the 7 inning league or the 9 inning league so there are plenty of innings for a large roster. Our school isn't going to do that this year. They are going to go with a smaller roster than they've ever had for regular season and play that team in VIBL. The plan seems to be to use the returning varsity pitchers and use current position players including one or two who as rising seniors have no pitching experience and max out in the low to mid 70s to do the pitching rather than giving the rising junior pitchers a shot. I don't know if that's really the case but that is the way it is looking so far. My guess is as VIBL goes along that won't work and some of the rising junior pitchers will get a few innings here and there, but we'll see.

Pitchers that can get away with mistakes against weaker competition are not learning. When you throw that 2-0 fb over the heart to a quality hitter you will pay and pay bigtime I dont care how hard you throw. Pitchers that are way above the hitters really dont have to pitch they just have to throw. IMO I would have a talk with the coach and tell him my son needed to be challenged and I was going to find him a situation where he could be challenged. Im with MidloDad on this one. The HS season the HS coach is in charge. During the summer and fall the kid is in charge. He should have the ability and the opportunity to seek out the best place to get better. Being a rising JR it is critical that he face serious competition and learn from it. He needs to see where he is at and he needs to learn what he can and can not do. JMO

I find it hard to believe your son would even consider playing down.

The reality is that unless one is willing to uproot and move the HS coach is in charge. That's real life. The coach decides who plays and that is all there is to it.

This coach is not a tyrant about playing outside the program, he just expects the players to support the program and in the past the players always got the opportunity to show what they could do against stronger competition as rising juniors playing in the VIBL and the competition was almost as good as you were going to get anywhere, so very few players did anything else other than the occasional showcase or scout team. This is a new situation that has come up in reaction to a couple poor seasons in a row and there really isn't any easy answer or precedent to work off of.

Who knows, maybe he just doesn't realize that rising juniors have always gotten a chance to show what they could do against good competition in the past and won't get that chance now? I'm a little bit surprised at this approach because you never know who is going to be able to step up until you've seen them over time against strong competition. If you don't give a large group of players a shot you are almost certain to pass up someone who could make a difference in your season and there's no way to tell in advance which player that might be.

On the other hand if I had to rank the players I doubt I'd rank them any differently than he seems to have, other than ranking a couple pitchers higher and being a pitcher's dad that shouldn't be any surprise.

There is ball outside of HS ball...

Texan,
I think my son's goal for now is to play HS baseball. Playing beyond HS would be nice but for now the goal is to play HS baseball so no there really isn't ball outside HS baseball for him. In fact, one good thing about this situation is that with the prevalance of showcases what you do in HS baseball doesn't mean a lot as far as getting to play college ball if you've got the ability. There are still scouts attending HS baseball games but they are usually pro scouts and it is pretty rare for kids to first get noticed at a HS game these days.

Anyways, this all built around speculation and what ifs. They're having a scrimmage today and for all I know he's getting a chance to play against the varsity players that he hasn't gotten previously right now.

Thanks everyone who has commented on this thread. "Talking" through this has helped me realize that whatever happens it really isn't the end of the world and my son will be OK.

Just as an update my son and several other rising juniors did play in the scrimmage and it sounds like he played fairly well. It also sounds like three of the varsity kids who pitched looked pretty solid. They do have some pretty talented pitchers and they may have a better shot than I figured as there's one more who is probably a pretty decent pitcher. Not real good news for my son as a pitcher as there are probably at least 4 ahead of him at that level for now that he'd have to improve a lot to catch up with.

CADad, put me on the list of playing better competition. My son is a rising senior, and I can assure you that he would not be where he is if not for playing up at every given opportunity. He is very fortunate to have a HS coach that is a very good developer of players, and pays strict attention to arm care for pitchers. I sometimes regret that he did not get to play jv ball in high school, but I think he has developed much more as a pitcher because of being thrust into a higher level of competition.