What velocity is necessary to get onto a college roster at certain schools?

Just have to add more 2 cents from our very real experiences:

Because PG now lists for some their ACT/SAT scores, there are indeed players (including pitchers) committed to Ivies with ACT scores as low as 26.  That was really disappointing, to be honest, to see. And their PG velo does not make them such studs (ie the 120 index mentioned above).  Recent Harvard RHP commit with 83 mph and a 30 ACT; Yale a LHP with a 30 ACT and 81 mph; Dartmouth has a guy with an equivalent 26 at 86 mph -- just to name a few.  The test scores are their best but their velocities may likely NOT be.  As mentioned they could easily have thrown faster at HF or Stanford or the school's own camp.   Our 2017 is listed on PG at 4mph less than what he threw this summer elsewhere (documented, not a dad with a radar gun).  So sadly his PG profile reflects a number which is not his best.  PLEASE try and remember that the velocity is a snapshot.  The test scores are unlikely to be a misrepresentation but the velocity very well may be, especially if captured from one event.

Obviously I did my kid wrong based on all this with a 31 ACT and an 86MPH FB. We went to Headfirst in LI and played multiple events at IVY schools yet didn't get a sniff from any of them. Had plenty of interest from high academic D3 and he will be attending one, but IVYs had no interest.

9and7dad posted:

Curious how you determined who their top pitcher is?

He had the bulk of innings pitched for season and the best ERA

Backpick25 posted:

Nice guidelines and data. 

Locally, we have 4 - 2018's that are currently 90+ guys. None, are committed and one has been in front of PG. After the PG event was invited to two UOV's.

Do I believe the others are D1 prospects? Should be, but you never know.  Likely, the only schools that know of them is with in a 2-3 hour radius. So if they desire to play D1, they might get recruited but from my perspective 90 means very little and these local schools have their private fishing pond, unless they go on a national level to pressure recruiting.

Many kids in my area choose JuCo for many reasons, playing time, more games and ability to be drafted sooner.

At the same time D1 rosters tend to turn over about 50% of the previous years incoming class. 

 

What part of the country are you?

MKbaseballdad posted:

If you think it's frustrating to read posts from everyone who says that you need to throw 90s to be recruited - wait until you have a RHP who throws 84-85, try to help him get recruited D1 and see how frustrating it becomes!

The problem with the scenario you describe above is the sheer number of RHPs who throw in this range - it describes virtually every starting pitcher we saw the summer between my 2016's Jr and Sr year and most of the RHPs on his summer team.  So there are a lot of RHPs waiting for the spots to be filled and dust to settle, smoke to clear, etc - and then you're talking about waiting until Nov (or so) of Sr. year to find a spot with most likely a preferred walk-on spot at best to a D1.  And that assumes that out of the colleges you have been in contact with, have seen you, etc there is one or two who didn't fill the spots they had for RHPs and there is a match and you get to them first instead of any of the 100+ other RHPs they have seen the last 2 summers.  

Can it happen?  Sure.  Does it happen often?  Not from what I've seen here in the northeast the last three seasons.   Most of those players end up finding spots at another level before they get to that stage. 

I feel you. Lots of tire kickers and "Let's see how he looks this spring/summer"...

CmassRHPDad posted:

Backpick25 posted:

Nice guidelines and data. 

Locally, we have 4 - 2018's that are currently 90+ guys. None, are committed and one has been in front of PG. After the PG event was invited to two UOV's.

Do I believe the others are D1 prospects? Should be, but you never know.  Likely, the only schools that know of them is with in a 2-3 hour radius. So if they desire to play D1, they might get recruited but from my perspective 90 means very little and these local schools have their private fishing pond, unless they go on a national level to pressure recruiting.

Many kids in my area choose JuCo for many reasons, playing time, more games and ability to be drafted sooner.

At the same time D1 rosters tend to turn over about 50% of the previous years incoming class. 

 

What part of the country are you?

Cmass- I PM'd you.

Lived it for 3 years.  So frustrating and yes we had to wait until October of senior year to get a D1 to show interest. Kids that were not as good as him were getting offers, but they had "projection".

One finally figured it out, but he came into freshman fall as one of the "last guys" in all the drills, but by the end of the year, he was the 2nd guy out of the bullpen, and ended up w/ a sub 2.80 ERA with 40IP, and this year is being counted on to anchor the back of the bullpen.

A lot of those kids that threw 90 in HS but didn't win (even in high school), didn't pitch last year in college and are now moving on to JC's, as they couldn't be counted on in college.

As his summer coach says, you can't coach velocity..........but you also can't measure heart and the desire to win either, and I'd rather have a guy that will compete his butt off than a kid that throws hard, but tends to "choke".

All he needed was a chance, once he got it, he was off...........now he uses that rejection to fuel the fire.

Youngest will not be a pitcher and he'll have tools to show on the field and in the box, so hopefully I won't have a Momma that his mad at the whole baseball world. 

MKbaseballdad posted:

If you think it's frustrating to read posts from everyone who says that you need to throw 90s to be recruited - wait until you have a RHP who throws 84-85, try to help him get recruited D1 and see how frustrating it becomes!

The problem with the scenario you describe above is the sheer number of RHPs who throw in this range - it describes virtually every starting pitcher we saw the summer between my 2016's Jr and Sr year and most of the RHPs on his summer team.  So there are a lot of RHPs waiting for the spots to be filled and dust to settle, smoke to clear, etc - and then you're talking about waiting until Nov (or so) of Sr. year to find a spot with most likely a preferred walk-on spot at best to a D1.  And that assumes that out of the colleges you have been in contact with, have seen you, etc there is one or two who didn't fill the spots they had for RHPs and there is a match and you get to them first instead of any of the 100+ other RHPs they have seen the last 2 summers.  

Can it happen?  Sure.  Does it happen often?  Not from what I've seen here in the northeast the last three seasons.   Most of those players end up finding spots at another level before they get to that stage. 

Since a couple of posts have revived this thread, I thought I'd chime in as the dad of a kid who fits the mold of that first paragraph.

Be realistic about where you fit athletically, and even more importantly academically. Through the course of my son's recruiting process there were indications that he could probably find a lower level D1 spot, but the more he looked, the less it looked like there was a real combination athletic/academic fit that would really match what he wanted.  On the flip side, there were a lot of D3 schools that ended up in his sweet spot for both.  If the D1 athletic experience is really the driving factor, maybe it's worth stretching for it, but if other factors are more important to your son than that, don't overreach just to say you could do it.

anything you would have done differently now that your sons are Jr's or Sr's   where were your sons in 9th grade?      ive got a 9th grader  who has lifted some weights but not that diligently,  hopefully this summer he puts in the work,  we keep talking about doing weighted ball/driveline program but something always comes up and we maybe do a session here or there.    he does like to throw and we will long toss on occasion  twice a month.    

But that being said he is 6'3 170 now,   and was 83-85 mph over December.    His best pitch might be his curve ball though,   70-72 mph can throw it to either side of the plate with sharp bite or loop it in starting at your head breaking down to your knees.  He can hit his spots pretty well although we have been focused on velocity during the fall.    We havnt gone to any camps,  showcases, or big events.   But that will change this summer where he will likely do all of the above.   We did do a scout day at a small D1 that his travel team scheduled.   He said they coaches talked to him a lot asked him a lot of questions.  

Gunner, I don't know, to be honest. It's hard to say what the optimal path is. Each kid is different. Certainly it's different for a PO vs a two-way guy. And very different depending on the kid's high school school program.

I will say this. My son said to me "Recruiters only really care about two things: how hard you can throw and how far you can hit the ball" and I think that is mostly correct. So optimize on those things for recruiting purposes. 

gunner34 posted:

anything you would have done differently now that your sons are Jr's or Sr's   where were your sons in 9th grade?      ive got a 9th grader  who has lifted some weights but not that diligently,  hopefully this summer he puts in the work,  we keep talking about doing weighted ball/driveline program but something always comes up and we maybe do a session here or there.    he does like to throw and we will long toss on occasion  twice a month.    

But that being said he is 6'3 170 now,   and was 83-85 mph over December.    His best pitch might be his curve ball though,   70-72 mph can throw it to either side of the plate with sharp bite or loop it in starting at your head breaking down to your knees.  He can hit his spots pretty well although we have been focused on velocity during the fall.    We havnt gone to any camps,  showcases, or big events.   But that will change this summer where he will likely do all of the above.   We did do a scout day at a small D1 that his travel team scheduled.   He said they coaches talked to him a lot asked him a lot of questions.  

"But that being said he is 6'3 170 now,   and was 83-85 mph over December."

Those are top 1% numbers for a 2021.  Your son is elite and a top commodity.  From what I have seen from our circle with those kind of numbers is keep him healthy!  Manage his pitch counts and annual innings carefully.  

Build a database of contacts for schools of interest.  Choose your summer schedule based on getting in front of your target schools.  Develop a 1 minute video verifying his velocity.  Start an email campaign and track responses in your database.  Email should include summer schedule and any academic info available.  

Spend as much money and time insuring his grades are 3.5 or higher as you do on baseball.  

thanks  been on top of him on the grades  doing ok so far.     His summer team schedule is very state centric this year but they had a few 15u kids commit to top D1 schools last year with the same type of schedule.    I believe you he has an acquaintance who is basically same size and build  little shorter,  thinner   who threw 85-86 in a showcase this fall and was inundated with offers  basically all of big 12 and sec  and he verbally committed a few weeks ago.    He definitely went out and got a lot of exposure,  played in various PG events.   

gunner34 posted:

thanks  been on top of him on the grades  doing ok so far.     His summer team schedule is very state centric this year but they had a few 15u kids commit to top D1 schools last year with the same type of schedule.    I believe you he has an acquaintance who is basically same size and build  little shorter,  thinner   who threw 85-86 in a showcase this fall and was inundated with offers  basically all of big 12 and sec  and he verbally committed a few weeks ago.    He definitely went out and got a lot of exposure,  played in various PG events.   

The top 1% er's in our area have multiple offers.  While we are not in that situation, from the outside it seems like the ones who hold off accepting an offer early have much more leverage than those that jump at the first offer.  As the kids get older it seems better and better offers keep coming.  Of course, this assumes the players talent continues to grow as anticipated.  

gunner34 posted:

anything you would have done differently now that your sons are Jr's or Sr's   where were your sons in 9th grade?     

Gunner,

Great question.  I honestly don't think there's anything my son, my wife, or I would have done differently in regards to son's velocity development (which is what OP was asking, and I think you're asking?) through the HS years.  Ironic, because son's velo path was about as slow and non-exciting as it gets.  

These are things that I know did not help him with pitcher  development, especially regarding velo.  But with that in mind, these are also things that we would not change or do differently:

1.  Playing basketball from October until mid-March for 9-years; did not help with pitching.  It helped him become a 6.9 runner, but it delayed his ability to throw 90mph off the mound, as he never had time during basketball season to throw, and certainly no time for an off-season throwing program.  Basketball was son's choice.  

2.  Sending son to boarding school 6-hours from home at age 14.  With no car, or reasonable off campus transportation son was never able to work with a personal pitching coach during the high school years.  Or ever for that matter.  Boarding school was our choice.  

3.  Spending Junior year of HS living abroad in Europe did not help his pitching development.  Did wonders for his French though.  Spending year abroad was son's choice. 

4.  Consciously sending son to a HS with an anemic baseball program did not help his pitching development either.  For example, they never practiced on Fridays (???).   We chose the school for it's academics, not athletics.   Our choice. 

So Gunner, in the end, yeah there's lots of things that I guess son should have done differently in order to be a better pitcher today but would we do them differently knowing all this?  NO.  

As parents, wife and I have always tried to err on the side of encouraging son to pursue LIFE, in addition to the BASEBALL LIFE.  Encouraging him to play multiple sports all through HS and to spend a year living abroad at age 16-17, were things that in no way helped son in his quest to become a pitcher, but we believe they will help him be more prepared for the 40-years post college, not just the 4 at college.   

It's a fine line to tread Gunner.  All choices have pros and cons.  Researching both sides of each choice is highly recommended.  The choices ultimately dictate the outcome.  

Real Green,  the kid we know accepted a 90% offer,  it sounds like he had similar offers from others.  

Interesting topic. My 2022's life's dream is to play baseball for the Oregon Ducks.   Funny for a Wisconsin kid but probably speaks to the fact that there's only one D1 baseball school in the state.  So I showed him how to look up the team's roster and Perfect Game profiles.  Turns out the # looks like 89 mph.  Kid throws 78 so he has some room to go.

gunner34 posted:

anything you would have done differently now that your sons are Jr's or Sr's   where were your sons in 9th grade?      ive got a 9th grader  who has lifted some weights but not that diligently,  hopefully this summer he puts in the work,  we keep talking about doing weighted ball/driveline program but something always comes up and we maybe do a session here or there.    he does like to throw and we will long toss on occasion  twice a month.    

But that being said he is 6'3 170 now,   and was 83-85 mph over December.    His best pitch might be his curve ball though,   70-72 mph can throw it to either side of the plate with sharp bite or loop it in starting at your head breaking down to your knees.  He can hit his spots pretty well although we have been focused on velocity during the fall.    We havnt gone to any camps,  showcases, or big events.   But that will change this summer where he will likely do all of the above.   We did do a scout day at a small D1 that his travel team scheduled.   He said they coaches talked to him a lot asked him a lot of questions.  

That is basically where my son was last year minus two inches of height.  During spring season of Freshman year, 83-84.  He threw 87 at the WWBA after his freshman year.  We started playing at almost midnight, so only one coach still there.  My son got interest from him.  Went to a couple of showcases this fall and threw 88 and is now talking to some of the schools he had on his original list.  I think having movement is a big plus.  I think being taller, if he hits higher 80s by the end of the summer he will get good D1 interest.