What will bring success to most HS pitchers?

Good stuff. 

 

One additional thing we place emphasis on is keeping the ball down. I have a couple pretty hard throwers, but my most successful kid last year was one who was able to effectively mix in his off speed and kept the ball down. even when he was struggling to throw strikes, he at least kept it down. no fat ones, just ground ball pitches. kids at the HS level will chase balls here and there, but there is a difference between a low ball and an inside ball, or a high ball. some kids can really turn on/drive those pitches in certain locations out of the zone.

 

my least successful guy was one who had good heat, but no secondary pitches and his ability to keep the ball down was not there so when he missed, a lot of the time they were pitches a hitter could drive. 

 

 

Give me the heat any day of the week.  Why do we always assume the kid throwing hard is going to walk 5 kids an inning?  That has certainly never been my experience in 20 years of coaching.  So leta say he walks one an inning (thats a lot) but overpowers the rest maybe gives up two hits and seven walks over 7 innings.  How many runs will that be?  Not many unless they were gro Iped in one or two innings.  In fact it is entirely likely that performance would yield 2 runs or less.  Since the beginning of baseball hard throwrrs have been king.  As much as we want to fall in love with the location, location, location guy this will never change!

If I were a coach, I'd gladly give up 5mph (say 80 vs 85) if the pitcher never gets the ball up above the belt.  This will get you a few K's but also lots of safe ground balls (when its kept really low these will be 2 hoppers in the infield) and the occassional pop fly on a golf swing.  Walking 7 in 7 innings is fine if you can limit it to 1 per inning - get 2/3 followed by a hit and you end up down several runs.  85+ and down is even better - also helps to have a good catcher framing up the low strikes.  If I was given three wishes they would be 85+, low and 50%+ first pitch strikes.