Will the 60 hold me back

It is too early to worry about how the scouts will consider your son according his speed. What I can tell you is that 7.3 at age 16 it is not that bad, with hard work and the apprropiate trainning, your son may be under 7 for his senior year.

Clemente, I have an '05 that is also not very fast. He has a very strong arm and bat. While I think speed may have prevented him from getting a couple of offers from schools that recruited him, it certainly didn't cost him the opportunity to play in college nor prevent him from being on some "watch lists". Kids that are slower do usually have to move to a corner, but most can live with that! As many will tell you, if you can hit, they'll find a place for you!

Not every MLBer or D1 runs <7.I bet that there are less than 2 catchers that do, not many corner infielders do, scouts want to see raw speed as well as functional speed. I believe that there is shift on going to "baseball players" versus track stars. See the attached...
http://www.performancebaseball.net/html/5tools.html

7.3 at 16 is not bad. 7.3 at a corner IF spot is not bad.

At least he is young enough to work on it. Cutting .3 with no previous speed work is not too hard. He can likely cut .2 on cleaning up his form alone.

I was a middle IF at a D1 running a 7.1.

Geez redbird5... Did you run with cement in your shoes?

Jason

quote:

Originally posted by FlippJ:
Geez redbird5... Did you run with cement in your shoes?

Jason

It looked like it.

It is possible to lower your 60 time with speed training

Clemente21

Work on your son's hitting. Babe Ruth did a lot of jogging around the bases.

Work on his running form, sometimes speed is not optimized due to bad running mechanics.

We had a player ran 7.5 and got a full scholarship a D-1, but he could hit, he had a BA over .575 with lots of HR's. they won't care that he runs a 7.3

I think it is important to improve footspeed.

With work if he improves his footspeed, it will separate him from some other players. As Ramrod said he had a heck of a hitter batting 575. I think it probably is easier to improve footspeed a couple of clicks than hit 575.

It will just give him more options and that is what you want.

quote:

Originally posted by Clemente21:
Son07 goes to pro try out. Scout grades him.60 throwing.40 fielding.40hitting.40power even through he hit 2 out with 8 swings.Not bad,Then comes the 60 which was the first thing they did.7.3. My question is how much will this hurt with his quest to play at the next level ? I know not every major leaguer or D1 player run under 7. You would probably consider him a utility player with his strenght at corner outfielder or 3rd.

To answer your main question about a mediocre time hurting your son's quest to play at the next level...........it won't have much effect on him playing if he is a good fielder and hitter. If he is a SS or a CF at this time, he may end up being moved to 2B, 3B or a corner OF spot in the future. As far as the 60 time itself, in 2000 the #1 pick in the nation (Adrian Gonzalez) ran a 7.7 60 at the Area Code Games. He was a 1st baseman who could swing the bat and had a nice glove.

Thanks for that post bbscout. It should open some eyes around here. 7.3 as a 16 year old is good. If he works hard there is no reason why he can not lower it. But even if he does not he can be a good baserunner and a great baseball player. Will he play ss or cf probaly not. But who cares if he is still playing. Where can you play, can you hit, are you a smart heady player, are you a smart baserunner with good instincts? Speed is important but more important for kids that do not have power and play the mif or cf. A legit 7.3 for a 16 year old kid is good. Again , with some hard work and dedication there is no reason why he cant lower it before graduation from HS. And even if he does not if he can play there will be opportunities.

Clemente,

You will be surprised at how much you can improve that time if you work hard at it and practice the right things.

You sound pretty quick to me at age 16. Just keep at it.

there are 5 needed things in baseball to be very succsesfull....

1.hitting
2.fielding
3.throwing
4.running
5.(i forget this one)??

so i think a player should work on all 5