Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Dugout Dish: In the Clubhouse with EMD | Why Evaluating High School Hitters Is Difficult in Today’s College Baseball Recruiting Landscape

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Dugout Dish: In the Clubhouse with EMD | Why Evaluating High School Hitters Is Difficult in Today’s College Baseball Recruiting Landscape · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
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• 1:12
  Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kiri Kitties, joined by my Lovely Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing?
• 1:20
  Speaker C: Great. How are you? Good.
• 1:23
  Speaker B: We had a recent interview with Coach Manmulo from Delaware and I think we've talked about this a little bit in the past, but figured we'd make it a targeted topic. One of the, I would say one of the common consistencies across the evaluation and recruiting landscape is that it is. It's very difficult to evaluate high school hitters. And as Coach Mamula put it, it's, it's the hardest thing to do is evaluate a high school hitter and figure out whether what they do currently is going to be able to translate to the college level at any level. Division two, Division three, Division one, Upper Division one, whatever it is. But that high school hitter evaluation oftentimes can be a difficult one. I can, you know, and you can as well kind of speak to that. There's definitely some truth in that. And there's guys that you think are going to be really good that end up not being good. There's guys that you think are going to be good that end up being good. And there's guys that you think are probably not going to be the greatest offensive players and might be really good defenders, and that's why you recruited them who ended up being good hitters. And I think there's some stuff to point at as to why that process can be hard. And I'll kick us off real quick with kind of the first thing that's on my mind is that you Rarely get to evaluate a high school hitter against the quality of pitching that they're going to see at the college level. And being really good against 82 to 84, which is kind of your average high school guy. Even 85 to 87, which is, you know, an above average high school arm, being really good against those guys who you know, aren't going to throw with the velocity you're going to see in college. And we've talked about this if you're a Division 1 guy, like pretty normal to see 89 to 93 on any conference weekend in any conference in college baseball, better breaking stuff, better command, ability to cross count, you just, just an advanced level of pitching that you're going to see in college and in high school. You know that 85 to 87 for good high school hitter isn't going to be all that challenging of a velocity, the breaking ball and the ability to command pitches and get count leverage and do some of the things that, that allow pitchers to be really good isn't going to be as frequent at the high school level. And it's easy. I shouldn't say it's easy, but it's, it's easier to get fooled by a kid who performs well against mediocre competition and make yourself feel good about your evaluation as a, as a coach because you see them do really well. But if you don't see them against that 88, 89, 90, it's hard to get a really good determination of if a kid's going to be able to handle that type of velocity. Does this swing decision quality go down when he starts to see better velocity or better breaking balls? And I think that's why a lot of hitters, or I should say a lot of coaches, err on the side of taking toolsy hitters because if a guy has really good bat speed and he's able to hit the ball really hard, regardless of some of the swing decision stuff, at least he has some of the ingredients that are required. So if you don't get to see a guy against some of that better velocity or that better breaking stuff, you got to be, you got to feel really good about the tool, set the bat to ball skills, the bat speed, the strength, that type of stuff. And, and even feeling confident about that can, you know, doesn't always translate. It's, it's, you know, that's the first thing that comes to mind for me as to, as to why it's hard.
• 5:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think the.
• 5:06
  Speaker B: It'S.
• 5:07
  Speaker C: Easily the hardest part of evaluating the the high school hitter, because you have, you never really know what you're going to see them face, right? Like, and, and I think that that's why, especially during the high school season, you'll see more college coaches if you're, you know, paying attention in, in the local scene when a really good arm is throwing and they're, they're playing good team. Like, there's probably going to be more college coaches at that event and at that game because they want to see how some of the hitters are going to, are going to be able to handle that type of pitcher slash how that pitcher handles what could be potential college hitters. It gets even harder in the summer because you don't really know. You know, it's no fault of anyone, right? Like you, you go to these tournaments, you don't really know who you're going to be playing. It's all, you know, determined via. I don't even know how they do it. But you get into pool play and you might be playing some teams that aren't very good. And it's hard to evaluate hitters when they're playing below average high school competition and extrapolating that out to college hitters, because if you're playing below average high school hitters or pitchers, excuse me, it's hard to be like, wow, I saw him handle 80, but we're never going to see 80, so what does that look like? And I do think there, there is some truth in. And you know, Jimmy Jackson is a big believer in this and Coach Rossi as well. Like, hitters hit, right? We've all seen it. But I think a lot of, like, those guys are kind of outliers where, like, yeah, there's guys that can handle 80, there's guys that can handle 85, there's guys, like, they can handle 80, 85, 89, 92, 93, and they do it. But there, there's going to be a big leap with a large portion of the high school hitters where they're going to struggle against 87, 88, 89, 90. And it's your job as a coach and our job as coaches and, and your job as a player to be able to figure out where your deficiencies are in being able to handle that velocity and how you get better at it and how we can coach that into players. Are, are they going to be coachable enough? Are they athletic enough to be able to make the jump, to be able to handle that? Do they have the bat speed? Are they able to move well enough, be able to get the barrel in position to be able to get that, the barrel to the baseball, things of that nature. And that's where I think it gets incredibly tough when you start evaluating those guys, because, you know, there, there's, there's a lot of different movement specialists out there. And, you know, how do guys move? What do they do this way? How athletic are they? And there's no real secret sauce to it. You know, like, coach talked about it and, you know, we've had a lot of people, you know, Coach Mamula went, you know, talked about it. There's guys that I've coached that I would never teach them to hit the way that they hit. And they had an extraordinary amount of success and went on and had a great pro career. And there's other guys that you would kind of look at and be like, that's the pitcher, perfect swing. And they hit.220 in Division 1 baseball or 280 in Division 3 baseball. And maybe it's just they, they, they didn't move well enough. They didn't, they weren't athletic enough. You didn't make the right adjustment. And, you know, those are things that you have to live with as a coach. But, you know, I, like, I, I, I think hitting in and of itself is incredibly difficult to really break down to what it is that you want from an evaluation standpoint. You know, everyone kind of has their core tenants of what they believe really good hitters do, and they'll, they'll recruit guys that do those things. But you also have to be able to show up and show out. And we've talked about this, where when the lights are on, you got to be able to produce. Where if I show up and I'm watching you throw, hit against a guy who's 87, 89, if you get blown away, I'm gonna walk away and be like, I don't know if he's gonna be able to handle in college. Now, the flip side of that, Andy, is that you also have, you know, if you're a, if you're a rising Senior, you have 12 full months of playing high school baseball still, and then another kind of full year at this point until you're playing college baseball. So from a coaching standpoint, you have to look at it in a recruiting standpoint of like, can, does he have the tools that I can coach into him to get him to the point where he can be able to do these things? And that's really where it becomes difficult. Right? Like, it's not necessarily the, and this sounds Convoluted and it is rightfully so, which is why we're talking about it. But there's certain things that coaches are going to key in on of like okay, he has the bat speed, he has the hip flexibility, he has the hip mobility. You know, they're, they're, you know, everyone uses different terms like, you know, his hands go this way or there's slack in his swing and the, the stride is able to lengthen what he has to do to take slack out, put slack in, whatever it is. Right. But everyone's going to kind of have their own take on what it's going to, what it's going to be for that young man to be able to play the next level. And it, it gets incredibly convoluted and it's tough. You know, I think the easiest thing and, and it sounds like this is Captain Obvious, but like train yourself with machines and the technology nowadays is so much better than it was when you and I came up in this, in this game where we had the two wheeled jugs machine that only spots spat the, the dimpled yellow balls at you and you, you know, they put it in the same spot every single time nowadays, you know, with Hack Attack and spin machines and all the, we have three wheeled machines and ATAC and all these companies that, that have these machines that can dial up fastballs and two seamers and right and left handed break curveballs. Right, left handed sliders change ups like don't even spit knuckleballs at you. But you can get the velo up at least to where you can start to. You can see, all of, you can see the spin, you can see the velo and you can do these things and train yourself to see. Okay, I've seen 92 off a machine in, you know, and there's a variation right on these machines. It's not going to put it in the same spot every time, but I've seen 92, 93 and I can get the barrel to it and I think there's some from a training aspect and you know, we've talked about like, you know, be good at playing baseball. Not just drills, but there is a certain aspect of hitting, of being able to do those things and train and see it at the very least, right. Like when you and I came up in this game, the first time you saw 90 plus was likely in a box in, in a game, right? Like, like we didn't have the, we didn't have the, the technology to be like, hey, we're gonna pump 90 at you. Off this machine with a real baseball wall and see where, see what we can do. It was just like, dude's got a live arm, gotta have it ready. And that was kind of the crux of the conversation that you had. And, and I think nowadays it like if you're deficient in those types of things, there's so many mechanisms for you to be able to get better at those things. And I think that, you know, it's, it also comes back in the, the recruiting process of like, you know, are they capable of if I can get him on a hack attack or said machine for six months, can I get this kid to be able to handle the variation in velocity that he's going to see at our level? And if the answer is no, they're going to move on. If the answer is maybe, we'll see what happens. If the answer is yes, you're likely going to find yourself recruited. And if you can handle it, it's a non issue. But you know, I, I, it's, it gets incredibly difficult nowadays being able to evaluate the high school, the high school hitter for those reasons. There's just there, there's not enough arms out there that you're going to see on a regular basis that are going to be college comparable for guys to be able to make a really good evaluation on you. And that's where it really gets difficult for coaches to be able to make those evaluations. If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, non stop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. 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• 14:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's why there's such a premium put on trying to see guys in events and at games where they are facing good competition, right? There's a reason that coaches from all over the country flock to Georgia to go to the pbr. Future games because you know that the filter for that game is going to allow you to see guys compete against other guys who are really high level players. And your evaluation is a lot cleaner. You know, you can see a guy against 88 to 91 with a good breaking ball and figure out how he's going to handle that type of stuff in that particular setting. You know, that's, that's gives you clues, right? And I think coaches, you know, from an evaluation perspective, they, you know, they lean on their history, they lean on what they know has worked in the past. Like many coaches try to comp guys to guys that they've had in their program before or guys that they've coached or guys that they've coached against, like, hey, this guy reminds me of this guy. This guy was really good. Here's why. The frame's the same. Swing path is really similar. I feel like he controls the strike zone in a similar way. And like, you start to try to find these comparisons that you've seen historically that give you some context into, you know, whether a guy's going to be successful or not, or at least increase the probability that you're on the right type of guy. I think where it gets difficult from like a player or a parent perspective is that success at the high school level doesn't necessarily unlock certain levels of college baseball. Like hitting.500 in high school doesn't mean you get to play in the sec. Because there's other pieces of this equation. There's the physicality piece, there's the positional component that comes to it, there's the athleticism that's a part of the evaluation process. But you know, coaches at their core, they're going to look for bad speed, they're going to look for the physicality, they're going to look for guys who control the strike zone to a certain extent. They're going to look for guys who show the ability to drive the ball to the middle of the field. I think those are some pretty common things that most guys are going to look at. The other part of it, if you want to look at it from kind of a slightly different perspective, is that it's way easier to say no about to a kid. It's way easier to say no and check a guy off and say, hey, I don't know, I don't think that guy's a fit for us. Swings and misses too much. Major red flag. If you swing in much, if you swing and mix a bunch in high school, it's not going to get any better. In college. And that's something that most coaches are going to shy away from, has trouble with velocity. You see a guy against 88, 89 to your point. Now you get into the conversation of can I get this kid right or can I go find a guy who already is ready? And most coaches, right, as much coaches they want to do in college, you want to get guys to your campus that are in a position to make an impact to your roster right away. Especially with the reduced roster size, you don't have as much wiggle room to take on the project. That might take a full year before he's even ready to kind of get in the mix. You kind of need guys that are ready to go when they get there. But the physicality piece is massive in terms of being able to transition to the college level. But it's a, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to do, is to evaluate a 16 or 17 year old hitter and feel really confident that he's going to be able to play at your level. Right. Especially when you start to climb the ladder of the competition level in college baseball. Because there's things that happen between the years that can unlock a kid's ability. Right. It takes a pretty mentally tough, a pretty mentally sharp young ball player to be able to go play at the highest levels of college baseball. Because the mental side of the game is going to be a separator. Because once you get there, the tool set, you're not going to be able to out talent the game the way that you can in high school where you can just, hey man, this pitch is probably going to throw me three fastball strikes, I'll hit one of them. Well, you get to college, you might only get one really hittable, you know, drivable pitch and in that bat and if you miss that one, like good luck man, you know, here's 97, you know, see what you can do with it. And it just, it gets harder and harder. And I think every coach would tell you that high school hitters are hard to evaluate and it's, I don't want to say it's a coin flip because it's better than a coin flip, I would like to think, but you know, it's difficult. And I think there's a reason that at the upper levels of college baseball where they're actively kind of going in the portal to find guys, I think that, and I feel this anecdotally, but it's also conversations with guys in those higher level conferences that we want to get our High school, our high school guys, we want them to be our middle of the field athletes. We feel comfortable going into the portal to get the corner guys and get the bats because it's way easier to evaluate a college hitter who's already done it for a year or two than it is to take a guess on a bat at the high school level. And I agree with him 100%. If you're going to recruit a left fielder in high school, that kid better, you cannot miss. If that kid's a left fielder, he better bang baseballs, period. But you can go find, you can go find a college hitter at any level that can go play left field, and you have college numbers to back up your assumption. You've seen how do they do against velocity. With all the data these guys have now, you can break it down. I want to see every single fastball this kid faced that was above 92 miles an hour. And you can see. All right. Yeah, this kid handles that really well. Good. Well, that'll probably transition to our level of play or, hey, this kid just murders mediocre pitching. He's not going to see mediocre pitching in our program because of the conference we play in. This kid's probably not going to be a fit for us. It just, it's just a much easier evaluation.
• 20:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the data that's available in the transfer portal is more than it's ever been. But that, that's why, like, and I, I get the thought process behind going after high school guys in the middle of the field because they're, you know, if you can defend, as we've talked about before, you don't necessarily have to hit a ton. You have to hit enough. And the, the goal is that in watching you and seeing what they think, like your defense is going to be able to be, get you on the field. We can bring the hitting along and we'll plug and play in the corners. And that's a pretty good recipe for success. You know, it doesn't mean that they're not going to recruit high school corner guys, but those high school corner guys are going to be dudes that can bang it and, and play defense early in their careers. I should say as a caveat, like, you might not be doing it right away as a freshman, but like, you know, you're, you're going to be in the mix as a freshman and likely playing, you know, having the, the first run of being a starting third baseman, first baseman, right, left fielder as a, as a sophomore.
• 22:08
  Speaker B: 100%. Yeah, it's difficult. And I think it's. I just think this topic. 1. I think it's fascinating one, because I. I just think the evaluation of players is. It's. It's very much an art. I think all the data that people have right now, it helps. But there's a reason that there's some guys who are really, really good at it, and there's some guys that are just okay at it. Like, there's. You kind of get a knack for seeing things that you like, seeing things that you value, body language, movement patterns, and that kind of cues you in. And a lot of that has to do with experience and having recruited guys before and evaluated a ton of guys and seeing guys that you really liked who were good, guys who were really liked and turned out not to be as good as you thought, guys that you didn't like when they were in high school who ended up being really good players two or three years down the road. And you. Forces you to kind of recalibrate on. Man, you know what? This is what I didn't like about that kid, but I overlooked that he did these three things really well, and this is what actually translated and made him a really good player at the college level. And you can kind of recalibrate the things that you value when you're trying to look at high school hitters. But every coach would tell you they want to see you against good competition because it makes their lives easier. That's really what it comes down to. Just makes it easier for them to get an evo.
• 23:27
  Speaker C: Yeah. And I. I do think, you know, it's a little bit tougher nowadays where you have the. You know, some of these tournaments are so big that they get to the end and, you know, teams drop out and, you know, you're excited to see somebody play against someone who's a good arm, and you don't get to see it. So, you know, that makes it, you know, even more. It's. It's not. Doesn't happen all the time, but, you know, I think under the current landscape, it becomes less and less, which is why some of the bigger tournaments are as recruited as they are, because the likelihood of you being able to see a guy, whether it's a pitcher or a hitter, pitch against college hitters or vice versa. College hitters pitching a hit against the college arm are a lot higher in those situations.
• 24:21
  Speaker B: 100%. Anything you like to add to this?
• 24:26
  Speaker C: We could probably make this a long. If we keep going, but no, for the short. No.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: All right. Well, thank you for Listening listening everybody. Hopefully that was some valuable insight for you all. Tune in next week. We'll have more for you then. Thanks everybody. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.