The obvious importance of pitching in HSB

I think once you get to high school and above the term dominating takes on a different meaning.  As you go up the ladder you are going to find fewer pitchers who flat out dominate most hitters.  You find guys who will have dominating performances where nobody can hit them but the overall average is that the other team is able to put the ball in play.  In youth levels you will find that kid who is more mature and will dominate a league where nobody hits him.  But as that kid gets older the other kids catch up and learn to hit him.  The ones who maintain that dominance the longest will end up (usually) making up the ladder the farthest.  At some point they all still need to learn how to pitch but the dominance becomes more an appearance thing than just a person who can't be hit.

 

Hope that makes sense.

In our league of 7 teams I've seen zero dominating pitchers this year.  I have seen several pitchers dominate a team, typically my sons team who can't hit the broad side of anything.  Saturday's pitcher threw complete game 3 runs, 4 hits, 14k's.  He dominated the game but by no means is a dominating pitcher.

 

Last year our league had one dominating pitcher and he is now playing pro ball.  In our area each team will have one or two really solid pitchers and a couple more that are good enough to get the job done. 

IMHO...Dominance is dominance whether it is high school, college or professional.  It is one person forcing their will on the other team.  I think some high school pitchers can dominate with one or two pitches.  As you move up the talent ladder, more pitches, more velocity, more control and scouting reports are necessary to dominate.  I don't recall seeing a college or major league starter dominating with just two pitches.  

 

Typically our high school district will have a 3-4 guys that will dominate with heat.  This year I only know of one that throws heat (90+ RHP) and the other is more deceptive with multiple lefty pitches throwing mid to upper 80s depending on the week.

 

Domination can take many forms.  It doesn't have to be strike outs or blasting it by people (see Greg Maddux).  You're forcing hitters to hit your pitch in your count when they don't want to swing.  Pitching to contact or avoiding the barrel of the bat is an artform, and that can be dominating too.

I see very few consistently dominating pitchers in our HS leagues.  Some years there are 1 or 2, some years there are none.

The best high school defense starts with the pitcher getting 10-12 Ks.

Around here there are a few dominating pitchers (we have a couple on our team). Each good team has at least one pitcher who can dominate. The best pitchers around here are guys who throw mid to upper 80's consistantly and all will go on to play college ball.

I have noticed that superior pitching often exceeds a teams ability to play defense if a lot of balls are put into play via ground balls to third and ss. Determing a pitchers value in hs is the ERA stat. 

Skylark,

 

Its really amazing how much different places vary. I know what you say is true in some areas, SoCal for instance, but around here, even with well over 200 HS teams within 100 miles, the number of 90+ guys is few and far between. There are loads of low to mid 80 cruisers, but very seldom do we see an actual beast. Our team had a pitcher drafted in the 3^rd round a couple years back and he could get 90 on the guns regularly, but he didn’t dominate anything. In fact quite the opposite.

 

Almost every team though, does have at least 1 pitcher who can throw BB’s, but very often they can’t throw strikes too, and unlike LL where a lot of hitters will swing at just about anything, I seldom does the HSB I see have a pitcher who the other team is just plowed over by. But that doesn’t mean those kids aren’t out there! After all, with well over 16,000 HSV baseball teams playing, there’s bound to be at least a few.

 

Like what you see, the best pitchers here are typically mid to upper-80’s, but we sure have a lot of guys who don’t get anywhere near those velocities that win lots of games against some pretty good teams. Heck, 2 weeks ago we played the #1 team in the country and faced the pitcher who had beat that team from Tx at a national tournament. The game was televised, and I was scoring it in the press box and saw the gun readings after every pitch. The highest I saw was 86, but that was very rare.

 

I used to really value ERA, but over the years I’ve found out that a lot of HS scorers don’t know how to reconstruct an inning without the errors to make the ERs valid. I’m not saying many don’t do it correctly, but its not at all unusual to find it done poorly, so I’ve lost a lot of faith in the stat.

 

The best pitcher in our conference last year threw in the 83-85 range with a 2 pitch combination, a hard sinking running fastball and a tight hard hard slider. Our area is probably the same with most other areas in that you have to get into the upper 80's to start blowing it by average hs varsity batters. A mid 80's pitcher in hs who has command of the strike zone and has filthy offspeed stuff is equivalent to your professional pitcher in the bigs who throws low 90's with the same type of pitches.

Skylark,

 

That’s pretty much the same as here, and I agree with you overall. The thing that most can’t seem to do though, is to understand that a blazing heater isn’t at all necessary to have a great deal of success at the HS level. They seem to confuse HS success with what attracts pro and college scouts, and it ends up causing a lot of “tension”.

 

I truly wish more people would forget there’s a “next” level, and concentrate on the current one, but I’m afraid that won’t ever happen. I find it sad that parents can’t/don’t enjoy the moment because of dreams of the next level. Their kid’s out there busting his hump to succeed and help his team, but dad’s up in the bleachers all PO’d because the boy had to put down a sac bunt rather than swing away in front of scouts, never realizing that the scouts probably value the ability to drop a good bunt just as much as a liner in the gap.

Stats,

 

I agree with everything you just wrote except the part about scouts liking a good bunt as much as a line drive in the gap.  No question about the importance of the bunt.  However, when it comes to scouting, it is just an add on ability provided the hitter shows he can hit. Obviously it is much more important to the coach and the team. And that is what everyone should want at that time.

If a player (and most do) wants to play at the next level (college) he s
hould be thinking "next level".  The best pitchers in hs are the ones that have future potential either at the college level or pro not necessarily the ones with the most wins though the best in the country are the most dominant because of their over powering stuff based on their FB velocity.

PGStaff,

 

I’m guessing what I was THINKING didn’t come across in the words I used. I was THINKING what you said, but obviously the words didn’t describe it well. But my point was that the perceptions of some are sometimes clouded by things that have nothing to do with the moment, and I think that’s something of a shame because it takes away from the moment.

TPM,

 

Sure he should be preparing for the next level, but he shouldn’t be doing that when he’s in the batter’s box, on the mound, or in the field of a HS game.

 

I disagree with your characterization of “best”, likely because we don’t look at the numbers the same way. To me the BEST HS pitcher is the one who helps his team the most, not who are the most dominant. A good example of what I mean is the year we had that kid who got drafted in the 3^rd round. Obviously he was thought of as the best pitcher in this area by those who supposedly know the most about talent. But for sure he wasn’t the best pitcher in our area, our league, or even on our team. Being the most projectable isn’t the same as being the best. Different concepts, at least to me, but I know where you're coming from.

Stats, I fully agree. The best high school pitchers re not necessarily the hardest throwers. Over the years in our area the best hs pitchers have never had overpowering velocity except for only 2 that come to mind. Most of the high velocity guys lack the control which makes them ineffective to dominate teams. My own son pitches games differently than what he does in his bullpens on off days. In the games he is not trying to pony it up for the radar guns but rather take some off, change speeds and be effective at that level. In his bullpens he ponys it up always working on improving mechanics and velocity.