re: The Quality of Pitching in College Baseball Today

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the balls are the only legitimate explanation for the large jump in conference ERA

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I think the smaller strike zone is having an effect also.

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somewhere along the line parents decided little Johnny needs to "specialize" in baseball rather than be a kid a play all sports.

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I can attest to this being true. My son is 6 and a decent amount of kids in his grade are already on Travel teams that play both a summer and winter season.

While these kids do still play the other sports, I fear that it will be short lived and they will be forced to choose baseball over everything within a year or two.

As a parent I feel kind of trapped. right now my son only plays baseball in the summer for his local playground. He is a decent little player but by no means does it feel like baseball is his definite calling. On the flip side, I also don't feel like baseball is out of the cards for him either.

It just feels like if baseball does turn out to be his best sport then I am letting him fall behind his peers by not getting him on travel team and getting him a hitting coach (other kids his age already have them). But the rational parent side of me says frick that, I am not making my kid specialize and if baseball is his best sport, he will be fine playing all the sports.

So I fear both sides. I fear not getting him on a travel team and regretting it down the line if he falls behind developmentally and doesn't get to compete in the sport he likes most in HS. And I also fear making him play travel ball and burning him out or having it turn out that football or basketball or something else entirely is his calling.

Weird insecure parent rant over.

Year round travel ball has to have more effect on a pitchers arm than the high school season.

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I agree with this wholeheartedly. I also believe there are more good hitting position players than there used to be 10 yrs ago due to Travel ball and the easy access to youth instruction. Not better hitters persay just more of them.

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This is absolutely true. 9-10 year olds have polished swings that I didn’t develop until I got to high school. They also see a lot more game situations and probably get a lot more swings in the cage. In the 80s-90s we would have to go to the park and get swings on those yellow balls from a machine that threw up at us. Now they have pitching machines that can simulate different pitchers/breaking balls etc.

It is not so much the quality has gone down but the umpires have been squeezing the zone all year

The SEC now grades umpire’s strike zone accuracy. Their reward is participating at Hoover.

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you have lost your mind.

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no he is just clueless

1) pitching is better than it ever has been, at all levels. anyone that thinks other wise has revisionist history syndrome or is fricking clueless

2) the same tech and techniques that gave pitchers huge advantages for over a decade are now being used by hitters and they are catching up

3) the reason for the TJ surgery is less about overuse and velocity but more because kids are throwing harder with less strength and muscle mass than ever before. Sure they are throwing more but most injuries occur from being underprepared and being weak than anything else. example not being able to do 13 full dead hang, chest to bar chins increases TJ chances by 400%. not being able to hold a reverse lunge for 3 min or perform 1 good rep with bodyweight...800%. not being atleast 2.5x bw in height increases the chance. not having the mobility to perform broomstick dislocates or flat back reverse bear crawls...big time indicators

4) kids and teams do not understand arm care and think doing a bunch of band work is arm care and are not doing any form of readiness testing with crain scales, grip testing, or using devices like the armcare.com app to test and see if a player is ready to throw or not. also in off season the lack of understanding on how to use weigthed ball programs and on ramps are rampant at the younger ages. just print off internet and dad has you throwing 3oz run and guns over and over again.


the final thing is, the strikezone is way way more strick now a days. complain all you want but its 1000x better than in the 90s and even a decade ago.


some of yall are completely clueless and just spout talking points over and over despite the evidence that shows the opposite.

Our biggest issue this year has been on the injury front without any doubt.

Yes the balls seem to be juiced up a little, yes zones have been squeezed.

But when you are without:

Jaden Noot
Grant Taylor
Kaleb Applebey
Chase Shores
Garrett Edwards
Nate Ackenhausen
Javen Coleman

All at the same time/extended period of times, it's really difficult. Thats about a half dozen guys (Applebey excluded) you would expect to be high leverage guys and some even potential starters.

Coleman/Ack coming back recently could prove to help ton down the stretch, but still overcoming losing the rest of those guys could rear it's ugly head when we get to game 3's in regionals/super regionals/cws or especially if we dropped a game in regional/cws having to have that 4th game in a short time frame (especially regionals) and just basically praying the offense explodes for 10+ runs to give us a shot. Thats where we want to avoid at all costs. In a 3 game situation it can get bad enough, a 4th game in a short time frame I just dont know if we have any answers at pitching with so many high quality guys out.

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What’s your issue with them?

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I've watched high school teams pitch a kid over 100 pitches and then he is playing 3rd base the next day. Followed by him pitching another 100+ pitches 4 days later. That is a recipe for injury and it is happening everywhere.

Travel ball has multiplied the injuries over time as well.

The pitch count rules, under the current guidelines, is not working.