What would you say are good and very good rates for HS?
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Most high school pitchers aren’t college prospects at any level. Therefore, velocity and strikeouts will vary widely. The key is hitting the strike zone away from the middle and getting outs. From a walk standpoint I’d like to see three or less per seven innings.
It’s a lot easier to throw strikes when you’re a D1 prospect facing non college prospect hitters. You can bring it down Main Street with a “try to hit it sucker” attitude. A kid throwing 80 or less has to pick at the edges of the strike zone.
Definitely not more walks than Ks
@RJM posted:Most high school pitchers aren’t college prospects at any level. Therefore, velocity and strikeouts will vary widely. The key is hitting the strike zone away from the middle and getting outs. From a walk standpoint I’d like to see three or less.
It’s a lot easier to throw strikes when you’re a D1 prospect facing non college prospect hitters. You can bring it down Main Street with a “try to hit it sucker”attitude. A kid throwing 80 or less has to pick at the edges of the strike zone.
That is right, the old command vs control debate. In any case you need to be able to throw it close to the box, if you miss regularly by 3 plus feet it is not going to get it done.
However if your stuff is very good for the level you can just aim down the pipe and have low walk rates even though fine command is not great.
A lesser stuff guy needs to be much fiber with his command to keep the walk down as he can't just put it down the pipe.
You even see that in pro ball that a guy throwing 98 has decent k rates in the low minors because his stuff is too good but once he gets to higher levels he has to nibble a bit more and walks spike up.
Low walks are good but even worse than walks are homers, so if you get knocked around you have to be a bit more careful and maybe walk a few guys more.
Not all walks are created equal either, if you miss closely in a full count that is a good pitch. But if you miss the first pitch up at the shoulders And then bounce a slider on the second pitch those are obviously not good misses and point to control issues which is really deadly and much worse than command issues, as a pitcher who can't put it near the box is just not very useful.
About three years ago I watched a game with the dad of a Boston College pitcher. The kid was standing Harvard on their head.
The dad commented he wished his kid would relax and throw like this in ACC games. He would get tense in conference games (better competition), pick at the corners, miss, then come too far into the hot zone and give up a bomb.
RJM "It’s a lot easier to throw strikes when you’re a D1 prospect facing non college prospect hitters."
I was thinking 15 ko's per 9 and 4 bb per nine were pretty good. But I think your explanation makes more sense to me.
I'll give an opinion in numbers
Walks per 9: 2 or less very good, less than 4 good
K's per 9: 6 or more good, 9 or more very good
There are a lot of variables that influence K/9 vs BB/9, so I've learned to approach this from a different angle. Over the years, I just want my pitchers thinking Strike 1. After that every usually falls right into place.
Looked up sons. 53 varsity games pitched. 238 1/3 innings pitched. 56 walks. 434 strikeouts. 10 earned runs. So that is 34 7 inning games. 1.64 walks per game. 12.76 strikeouts per game. I went 7 inning games because that is HS.
I would put his numbers in the top range. I think the high ones would be 2 walks and 12 strikeouts per 7 innings and the average would be closer to 7/8 strikeouts and 5/6 walks. Son's goal was to throw 75% strikes in a 7 inning game.
@Good Knight posted:RJM "It’s a lot easier to throw strikes when you’re a D1 prospect facing non college prospect hitters."
I was thinking 15 ko's per 9 and 4 bb per nine were pretty good. But I think your explanation makes more sense to me.
The best defense is 12-15 strikeouts.