THE BEST PITCHER EVER

Goose,

Not sure how old you are or if you may be Kyle Drabek's cousin. Kyle is no doubt a very good high school pitcher, but the best ever. NO.

Second, he is not ready for the MLB, not yet. Pitcher's typically dominate in all star games. Especially, when most hitters see a new pitcher each at bat.

Yes, he did get hit at the high school level. Rockwall beat him in the Regional finals.

sorry, not his cousine. I live right outside of chicago and i am a hs player. we have some pretty good talent up here. I faced Michael bowden (throws 94-5, got drafted 47th by boston this year) but drabek looked unhittable to me. Is he the best hs pithcer in Texas? If he is not ready for mlb will he be going to college? maybe Austin? we also have two pitchers from illinois going to U of Texas. Tim Dennehy(left, good stuff throws in high 80s) and Miles Clauss, was a conference foe of mine(righty throws between 90-92) The reason i am saying all this is because i have seen some good hs pitching but never any as good as Drabek. But hey thats just my opionion

Goose,
His teammate (Kyle Walker) struck out 14 of the first 15 outs the night before Rockwall beat Drabek. Somehow Rockwall won that game as well. Walker is his name and thank God he graduated. Drakek was named Player of the year in 5A by Texas Sportswriters Association.

It was my impression that Drabek didn't throw particularly well in te AFLAC game, although the potential was obvious. PerfectGame named Jordan Walden the best (current) HS pitching prospect. Goose, if you saw Drabek, you also saw Walden.

There are scores of great HS pitchers in Texas -- and none are ready to pitch against major league hitters. Some will compete and do well against pro players soon -- but some of the recent best had lofty ERA in the minors this year.

The key to developing a major league pitchers is obvious.....patience. Right Rangers?

quote:

Originally posted by Panther Dad:
The key to developing a major league pitchers is obvious.....patience. Right Rangers?

Brrr. Was that the ghost of David Clyde passing by?

was walton the kid whos dad is the head coach at oklahoma st?

The kid's name is Walden and he is the real deal from Mansfield. Our team has always enjoyed going up against him. Look forward to April 4,2006

quote:

Originally posted by Goose:
was walton the kid whos dad is the head coach at oklahoma st?

No, thats Brett Anderson, Frank Anderson's son

Walden will be lighting up the radar guns before we know it!!!

so i think that its clear to say they in terms of hs texas pithcers it goes 1)walden and 2)drabek. How hard does walden throw? Where will these two players most likely be drafted next year?

quote:

Originally posted by Goose:
How hard does walden throw?

Heard he hit 99 this summer.

wow, that is straight gas. its hard to believe that a hs pitcher hit 99 mph this summer. Maybe people have inflated it a little. Either way he sounds like a REAL STUD.

Goose~You have a PT

No inflation. Straight from a scouts mouth to my ears.

I have seen Walden pitch and him being gunned at 99 would not be a surprise.

Based on what I have seen from him, my bet is he probably touched 99 once or twice but was consistenly throwing 95-97.

Had a kid once throw in the low 90's. He gave up 14 hits all season, 7 were on curveballs. Whoever was calling those pitches and speeding up those HS kids bats should have been fired...oh wait...that was me!

Look at it this way funneldrill -- unless those were the only 7 curve balls you called all season, that pitch was pretty much unhittable too! Who called the 7 fastballs that were hit?

Funneldrill, you're right on. Walden 3-hit the Mustangs in the AABC Regional semis and I was told after the game that the Stalkers in the crowd had him around mid-90s all night and he touched 99 a few times. He flat out dominated a good hitting team and it was one of the best games I've seen him pitch. IMO, people tend to throw around 90+mph a lot when talking about good HS pitchers and that has jaded some of us on believing such touts. That's not the case here. Jordan has been blessed with an incredible gift and he's a great kid, too.

We faced a lot of good teams this summer and I probably saw a dozen kids that legitimately pitched into the 90s. We were fortunate to have had several play for us:

Clayton Kershaw - Highland Park (Texas A&M)
Tim Matthews - Newman Smith (Baylor)
Gary Poynter - Flower Mound Marcus (Weatherford)
Stuart Slakey - Gunter (Arkansas)
Shawn Tolleson - Allen (Baylor)
Jordan Walden - Mansfield (Texas)

Back to the topic at hand ---- Sid Finch!

Poynter = F.M.Marcus

just keeping info correct ........ and beating "oldbat" to the task!

He didn't cruise in the 90's in HS -- must be the summer league coaching!

Melynda - sorry for the slight.

PD - Gary wasn't one of our rotation pitchers but threw 89-91 on his better days. Hear he's doing really well at Weatherford. Definitely wasn't the summer coaching!

I saw Poynter throw 3 innings this summer he rarely dropped below 90 for his entire outing. He mostly stayed at 91-92 and touching 93.

quote:

Originally posted by Panther Dad:
Look at it this way funneldrill -- unless those were the only 7 curve balls you called all season, that pitch was pretty much unhittable too! Who called the 7 fastballs that were hit?

I called those too. Really not that difficult to do...oh what pitch should I call??? Stop thinking dummy...the 90-92mph fastball!!! Unfortunately had that conversation with myself a few too many times.

A couple of "great" pitchers to come out of the Dallas are: Quincy Hill, Jimmy Jones.
You old timers know who I am talking about.
Great arms on these two guys.

I've seen abunch of good performances and ten years of state tourneys..I think the top performance i've ever seen was Luis flores. He was flat unhittable.

If we are just talking about complete shutdown type of hs pitchers, only 3 pitchers come to mind to me from the Houston area.

Josh Beckett
James Loney
Scott Kazmir

All could quite simply dominate any game...and usually did.

i heard kerry wood hit a 100mph in highschool, i know he hit it alot with the cubs before his surgery. is this true and how dominating was he in highschool?

Quite dominating -- but grossly overused (from all accounts that I have heard).

1995 Region Finals (maybe semis, but I dont recall) he pitched both ends of a doubleheader and had a total of 175 +/- pitches.

The best part of that story, to me, is since this happened two days before the draft, many teams (Cubs included) were angry, to put it mildly. Kerry's dad and his coach at the time "justified" him pitching that much by saying that Kerry could handle the workload becaue he had thrown that many pitches in a single day on previous occasions.

quote:

Originally posted by kevin in missouri city:
1995 Region Finals (maybe semis, but I dont recall) he pitched both ends of a doubleheader and had a total of 175 +/- pitches.

The best part of that story, to me, is since this happened two days before the draft, many teams (Cubs included) were angry, to put it mildly. Kerry's dad and his coach at the time "justified" him pitching that much by saying that Kerry could handle the workload becaue he had thrown that many pitches in a single day on previous occasions.

I was there that day, he looked unhittable. It was the semi's and if my memory serves me right, he had already been drafted. But, heck, I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

I recently was at the perfectgame website and under the college commitment section they had Joran Walden commited to Texas. Will he go to Texas or will he get drafted too high? Also, if a player signs with a school can they still enter the draft?

Yes, he can commit to UT and also be drafted -- that is the norm. If the pro offer does not meet his requirements, he can enroll at Texas or a junior college. The team that drafts him retains his rights until shortly before the next draft or until he begins his secondary education at the D1 -- at which time he is ineligible to be redrafted until he concludes his junior year or reaches the age of 21. He can be drafted after his freshman or sophomore years at a JUCO.

Jordan will be drafted -- all projections indicate a high draft pick.