HS Pitchers & Travel Pitchers

[triplethreat]

Had an interesting realization this summer after watching my dd have a tremendous spring against HS Pitchers in which many are D1 Bound kids written about in the papers frequently. What I didnt' know is she also faced some really good pitchers that nobody writes about that play on decent travel programs that compete really well at showcase tournaments. It was fascinating to see kids that my dd's HS team run ruled now dominating against line-ups at Showcase tournaments to the point we didnt' realize it was the same kids until after the games.

My daughter and I talked on ride homes on how/why these pitchers would perform so much better in the summer vs. better line-ups and quickly realized that lots of HS pitchers are under-rated because of the performance of the rest of their team. It was amazing to watch one our our conference pitchers who's HS team finished 5th in our division strike out almost the entire team once during the course of 5 innings and actually dominate for 3-4 innings against a roster of D1 bound kids simply because she had confidence that there were 8 kids behind her and also appearently had someone on the bucket calling 4-5 pitches instead of two. What a difference.

Thought it was an interesting situation to witness and wanted to share with those parents and pitchers out there who aren't blessed with overall good HS teams and or HS Coaches to just keep working as the cream rises and it certainly showed it out there on the fields this summer. Much props to the 4th and 5th place pitchers in our conference as they did as well on the travel scene as the 1,2, and 3rd place pitchers in our conference did at the same major showcases. The pitching field certianly evens out when you have 8 quility kids behind you.

[fastpitchcoach1]

I would just like to comment on this last post. I know several of the posters in here HATE HS ball and view it as inferior but I think what is lost in the previous post was the unique challenge HS coaches face. The rise in pitching performance in summer has been solely attributed to 2 factors better coaching and better fielders. However, many factors were left out of this equation. First, these players are not playing one game after being at school all day. Having to deal with the stress of tests, papers, social expectations, fights with friends etc. Mentally the HS game is harder than showing up saturday at 11 AM and playing ball. Second, the weather in HS ball is different. It is usually colder and more damp, the ball slips grips are not perfect pitches are harder to execute in cold weather. Third, in HS in most conferance games you will get the best lineup possible ie my best CF, LF, RF, SS, etc. In travel you may not be facing that teams best lineup on a fresh basis they may be 3-4 games into their day already. It is easy to assume that travel coaches are better but I bet if you took all the coaches in the state and had an honest assessment the percentage of competant coaches in both travel and HS would be about the same. I will never forget a question posed to Carol Hutchins when a travel coach asked her if she even looked at stats from HS or talked to their coaches. I will not forget it because he was so smug about it.. she looked him dead in the eyes and said YES absolutely, the factors they play with in HS are similar to what they deal with in college only here it is magnifyed! So to answer your question perhaps the reason why those pitchers are DI is because they can get it done in summer and in spring. I will let everyone know i coach HS and have coached travel for many years so I have seen this issue from both sides. Enjoy the game no matter when or where it is played you only have so many years to watch your daughters play.

[triplethreat]

Thanks for the add on. Like I was saying, my post was only comments about what my dd and I saw and the response is what we came up with. Your certainly added on a ton of what appears to be great contributors that I would agree with. Thread wasn't started to knock HS Coaches, but the single biggest thing we noticed is both girls were throwing 4-5 pitches instead of two... so, that is the only reaons HS Coaches were mentioned. Agree about the percentage of good coaches both ways... no doubt. At the end of the day, these two girls were flat out as good as anyone we saw all year and the thread is about how interesting that is. Thanks for your great input.

[18U Coach]

I have found just the opposite to be true in my years around the game. Most very good HS pitchers are mediocre at best come summer. The extremely dominant ones dominate in summer as well. Not trying to draw any conclusions...just an observation. However, if I had to guess, I'd say its the tougher level of competition in summer ball.