I've been thinking about this for a while. I haven't been around a ton of different pitchers, but my unscientific feeling is that I don't know very many who made massive velocity increases during their high school years. While I think a lot of those 12u pitchers throwing 65 are just radar gun myths, I also can't think of any pitchers I saw throwing 50 as a Freshman who were at 65 as a Senior. I'm sure they exist! They must. That's the point of this post. I'm trying to figure out how often pitchers make big strides later.
Let's assume a few things.
1) I'm not talking about pitchers who start pitching very late. Let's say the pitcher started pitching in the 8-12 range.
2) I'm not talking about pitchers who have made a massive change to their mechanics (HE to IR) that can explain a big jump
3) I am talking about pitchers who most would look at and say "pretty good mechanics." Nobody's mechanics are perfect, of course, but I'm talking those girls you see and you just know she's a pitcher.
At what age did you see the biggest jumps in velocity for your pitchers?
Were those gains connected to obvious growth spurts/puberty?
How often have you seen a pitcher throwing 51-52 as a Freshman (again, with solid if not perfect mechanics) who found a way to 60-65 by Senior year?
And a question that's probably harder: How can you project an eventual top speed? What do you look for? Baseball scouts can, with varying degrees of accuracy (and possibly nothing scientific), look at a teenager and project an additional x mph based on body size, fixing certain flaws, etc.
Let's assume a few things.
1) I'm not talking about pitchers who start pitching very late. Let's say the pitcher started pitching in the 8-12 range.
2) I'm not talking about pitchers who have made a massive change to their mechanics (HE to IR) that can explain a big jump
3) I am talking about pitchers who most would look at and say "pretty good mechanics." Nobody's mechanics are perfect, of course, but I'm talking those girls you see and you just know she's a pitcher.
At what age did you see the biggest jumps in velocity for your pitchers?
Were those gains connected to obvious growth spurts/puberty?
How often have you seen a pitcher throwing 51-52 as a Freshman (again, with solid if not perfect mechanics) who found a way to 60-65 by Senior year?
And a question that's probably harder: How can you project an eventual top speed? What do you look for? Baseball scouts can, with varying degrees of accuracy (and possibly nothing scientific), look at a teenager and project an additional x mph based on body size, fixing certain flaws, etc.