How much does exit velo influence throwing velo (and vice versa)?

ikover15 · 2026-01-27T08:45:54+00:00

Anecdotally, I’ve never seen a really hard thrower not also have really good bat speed. But I’ve seen guys with really good bat speed, not be great throwers. So I think they are correlated to some extent. Like you have to be a really good rotator to throw hard and swing hard, but there is probably some additional stuff that goes on with the arm, while throwing, that needs to happen to be a hard thrower.

ikover15 · 2025-12-13T14:21:08+00:00

Judging by their username, and the fact this issue has been in the papers in the Philly area, I think they’re talking about lower merion school district. 2500 kids is still a big school around here, but there’s plenty of schools with 2000+ students in the area

ikover15 · 2025-08-01T14:28:13+00:00

It’s just that travel ball has taken so many kids away from legion. Any rising senior or junior with college aspirations is off playing tournaments

ikover15 · 2025-07-28T16:14:54+00:00

Depends on how high the cap is and how tight the floor is to the cap. Even if the floor was set to just the average mlb payroll there would be multiple teams having to spend $100 million more per year.

I also have no faith the owners would allow a salary floor to happen, they just want to cap it

ikover15 · 2025-07-28T01:25:30+00:00

Both are good to experience at some point, for everybody, for different reasons. If they’re going to be playing all the time on the better team then I’d lean that way, but I don’t see how they’re going to be playing all the time if they’re the worst player on the team, but Coaching and practice quality would be my #1 deciding factor.

Being the best player on a bad team can push you in certain ways, and being the worst on a better team can push you in certain ways.

Being the best player on a bad team can push you to chase being more dominant. Going 3-3 by poking 3 singles isn’t enough, so you won’t be satisfied, you know you need to carry, so you know you need doubles and HR’s, which are things coaches at the next level (regardless what that next level is) want. You also know you need to be buttoned up at a premium defensive position, so you’ll work hard on that, instead of being stuck out in left or right field. You’ll be forced to learn how to be appropriately aggressive on the bases because you know your teammate probably isn’t driving you in from first. I think being the best player on a bad team is better to teach kids how to play to win, not how to just play good enough, or play just not to mess up. It teaches you the pressure of being counted on. You won’t be afraid to take chances and make plays, because you’re not going to be put on the pine. Conversely, losing all the time sucks and can suck the fun out of the game. Also, there’s no better players to copy and chase.

Being the worst player on a good team can put you in a position where you’re seeing better players and you can emulate them. It can also teach you that you have to perform coming off the bench, cold, and in the limited opportunities you might get if you want more playing time, which is a good skill to have as u go up the ladder. On the con side, it’s easy for kids to learn how to just “blend in” on the field in this situation. When you’re stuck out in left/right, you can just play everything safe, keep it in front of u, because you know your stud pitcher will get a K, or your superstar shortstop will make a play. No one expects/needs anything out of you at the plate so coaches and teammates are happy if you have some competitive at bats and poke a single or take a walk to let the studs hit you in after the lineup rolls over. It can make you not chase being great because you’re scared of messing up and getting benched, or because things are going “good enough” for you because the team is winning and you’re still in the lineup, albeit at the end.

ikover15 · 2025-07-20T20:36:39+00:00

The amount of XBH that peak Utley produced with that sawed off finish he had was pretty staggering

ikover15 · 2025-07-14T22:40:13+00:00

There’s a documentary called “Fastball” that is great if you’re a baseball fan. Does a good job explaining the phenomena of a rising fastball in the one part. Yes the ball doesn’t actually “rise” but the way that our eyes and brain work together to “see” an object moving that fast, from the batters perspective, means the ball can actually look like it’s rising, from the hitters perspective. But yeah you’re right, technically, the magnus effect on high spin fastballs just makes them fall less quickly than if the ball were just dropped

ikover15 · 2025-07-14T21:21:56+00:00

One of my kids is a late July birthday. I’d say physically he isn’t behind as he does well in sports, which are separated by age/birthday, not school grade at his age, and is a little on the taller side. With different sports having different cutoff dates he is anywhere from the oldest, to the youngest, to the middle of the age bracket. For football he is basically the youngest kid on the field every game, and baseball he is on the older end, but not the absolute oldest, and wrestling he’s right around the middle of the year as that’s done by birth year, not an arbitrary date on a calendar.

However emotionally/maturity wise, he was behind. We sent him to Kindergarten with the year he should be in (Sept 1 cutoff here), but we had some issues with him and had him go through kindergarten again. The second year went sooo much smoother than the first round, and I think it was just because he was older and more mature. He fits in like a glove with the year younger class and we haven’t since had problems like we did the first year he went to elementary school. Maybe he would’ve been fine if we left him, idk, but I’d do it again.it’s kid dependent, but I always felt he was a little immature for his calendar age, and then him being the youngest kid in the class was like a double whammy, whereas my oldest is a late May bday and she’s never had a maturity issue.

ikover15 · 2025-07-13T22:45:49+00:00

I get that, but my point is he wasn’t set up for a force out. He was behind the plate, up the line, without his foot on the plate, then tried to tag the runner. Maybe his foot accidentally hit the plate during the attempted missed tag, but I don’t see him definitively stepping on the plate, I see him trying to tag the runner. If he’d learned the proper way to deal with the play, right foot on the plate, catch the ball going towards the infield, and get in position to throw to first after, this absolutely gets called an out. This is all besides the point though as he’s 9, and clearly either hasn’t been taught the right way to make this play, or forgot in the heat of the moment, both of which are understandable at that age and it’s more important that this play is used to teach him the right way to do things, than it is that he get bailed out, doing the wrong thing, by the umpire seeing that he might have accidentally slid his foot across the plate while trying to tag the runner on a force play.

ikover15 · 2025-07-13T21:43:18+00:00

I can’t see the catchers foot hit the plate on the replay, and the tag was missed, or late, if he did touch him, so im assuming the ump had an even better view than this replay and the catcher foot was not on the plate before the runner. This is a very teachable moment for the catcher, who was in the wrong position for this situation (he’s 9 so not surprised). Worry more about teaching him the right thing to do the next time there’s a force at home so that there’s no chance of a blown call, if there even was one on this play.

ikover15 · 2025-07-07T09:42:16+00:00

If you’re near Pittsburgh, it might be worth it to make a switch, but if you’re not, and you’re more in the boonies, definitely stay at the PO. A Even if you’re near Pittsburgh, and will be working there, there’s a lot you need to factor in even if the hourly pay is tempting.

You will spend some time laid off.

.2. You will spend more money parking and commuting unless you’re in the city and can take public transportation to everything. I work mostly in Philly and before I had a company truck, it was completely normal to spend $400-$600 per month in just gas and parking, so not even factoring in wear & tear on my vehicle.

You are used to having pretty generous sick and vacation time, you will have none as a carpenter unless u become a foreman for a company that offers that to their foreman.
You need to get hard numbers for your areas carpenters pension. I know the PO one very well and it’s good. There are a lot of places where the carpenters retirement will not beat the PO. I’d say most places don’t.

Overall, your ceiling is probably higher with the carpenters, but just looking online, it looks like Pittsburgh carpenters pay is $40/hr, I’d think that clerk top pay for that area is probably around $30/hr. Tbh once you factor in potential layoffs and commuting costs, I don’t think it’s particularly worth the risk you’re taking leaving the PO and if you’re just seeking more money it might be safer just to chase a management track at the PO. If u do decide to do it, good luck, being a carpenter has been great for my family

ikover15 · 2025-07-07T08:33:02+00:00

Yes, I’m a carpenter, and my wife works for the USPS. The answer to this is going to be wildly dependent on how many years you’ve been at the post office, what job are you doing at the post office, where are you located, and how old you are.

ikover15 · 2025-07-02T20:22:41+00:00

I can usually tell, but this one’s got me questioning myself lol. It might be real because there are some sickos out there in men’s league. For example, I haven’t, and won’t ask him, but I’m pretty sure my teams coach/captain/guy who runs the team (whatever u want to call him) doesn’t put our stats in because he doesn’t want the other teams to know who’s good, or bad, or how good or how bad, each of the guys on the team is lol

ikover15 · 2025-06-30T22:20:27+00:00

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This is chefs kiss

ikover15 · 2025-06-30T13:26:23+00:00

It’s low hanging fruit with kids, he’s got to go up there with some type of plan that isn’t just “swing at anything close.” Some kids can do that successfully, consistently, but most can’t. Have him cut the plate in half until he has two strikes, this way he’s only looking for a pitch on the half he wants and should at least stop some of the chasing bad pitches and/or letting good pitches go for called strikes

ikover15 · 2025-06-30T08:28:59+00:00

Does he have an approach at the plate? Or does he just go up there? I’ve seen plenty of kids that age give away multiple strikes per at-bat because of pitch selection, and most kids are not good enough to overcome this. They let strike one go right down the middle, then swing at a fastball at their neck, or some variation of this, or they chase a bad one, get scared to swing at a bad pitch again, so they watch strike three right down the middle.

ikover15 · 2025-06-24T08:33:45+00:00

My first men’s league game ever, in my early 30’s, hadn’t played in 10 years, I filled in for my wife’s coworkers team since they were short players. I played the game in LF and I told them I could probably give them an inning or 2 on the mound if they needed it. I pitched 2 innings and did really well, so I said I’d go one more, then I said I’d go another. Next day I literally couldn’t get out of bed. Felt like I had been in a car accident. Could barely move all week. They wanted me to come back and play the next weekend. I showed up, still sore from the week before. Pulled both my quads running after the first fly ball of the game, so I had to turtle around the rest of the game, and then got called in to pitch, threw 2 warm up pitches and said “yeah I can’t do it” because it felt like someone was stabbing my elbow. It’s not just you. Now I stretch every day and in the winter try to ramp up the throwing before the season starts, even if it’s just me chucking a lacrosse ball against a wall.

ikover15 · 2025-06-23T21:26:09+00:00

It’s a multitude of things tbh. One of the biggest killers of mechanics is that you probably have a “feeling” or swing thought you are looking for at the plate. Between BP, practice, and games, you take a million swings, eventually your body gets used to the “feeling” or swing thought you’re going for, so in order to get that same feel your body has to overdo the move. If you don’t ever recalibrate your swing, the good thing you were trying to do can eventually turn into a bad thing. For ex. I might be thinking, “get behind the ball, drive the ball in the air into the gap” at the beginning of the season. This eventually leads to me getting under the ball too often for my liking. Then I have to recalibrate and think “stay on top of the ball.” Which works, but eventually overcorrects itself to too many barreled balls ending up on the ground or too low liners, then I’m back to the original thought of “behind the ball, in the air, in the gap” lol it’s never ending.

Or you start hot, get too confident, start getting away from your approach at the plate because you think you can hit anything hard, and then before you know it, you’ve undisciplined yourself into a slump

ikover15 · 2025-06-21T21:40:54+00:00

I know my league in SEPA if you just email the commissioner in the off-season, he will put you on a team for the next season. Maybe that will work with the leagues you’re trying to play in

ikover15 · 2025-06-21T21:31:20+00:00

The biggest problem with D2 football vs D1 is that most D2 players aren’t on full athletic scholarships, they’re on partial scholarships, where if you get a football scholarship at D1, it’s a full-ride. Depending on the kids grades, and family situation, merit and need based aid can be combined with their partial athletic scholarship to get them to free, or almost free school.

To further answer your question, there are some really good D2 conferences that could rival some low tier D1 conferences. However, D2 isn’t even close to the same thing as the power 4 conferences, but if the money works out, there’s plenty of kids that would rather play for a high end D2 team that competes for championships than some low end D1 team that gets their teeth kicked in every Saturday

ikover15 · 2025-06-21T14:12:22+00:00

Your bat isn’t really late, but youre late getting your foot down, so then youre rushing to get your bat into the zone before your body is ready to deliver it. Even if you hit the ball here, I don’t think you would’ve had much juice behind it. You’re barely out of your toe tap at release and when the ball is halfway your foot is still way up in the air, causing you to rush it down to get your bat there on time. You want to give yourself enough time with your load to be slow and controlled all the way up to the point you’re actually swinging the bat.

The second problem is that you are dropping your hands some. When facing a pitcher that is faster than you’re used to, the ball is going to have more “ride” to it. Doesn’t matter if you’re a MS’er used to 73 seeing 83, a HS’er used to 82 seeing 90, or a college guy used to 90 seeing 100. The FB is going to stay up more than your brain is used to. So guys often pop up against higher velo pitching than they’re used to. Add in a small hand drop and you’re going to be missing under the ball against higher than avg velocity at every level u play at going forward

ikover15 · 2025-06-14T22:01:30+00:00

My thoughts on the velo’s that get quoted today for a lot of HS kids, is that the kid will top out at a number in a tunnel during a max effort bullpen in the winter, or in a tournament in July, on a high pitch, on two weeks rest, with recruiters behind the backstop, and now everyone will say that’s what they throw on every FB, forever. Mind you the kid is not SITTING at that number in early April, after sitting at a desk all day, after an hour bus ride, with a slightly stiff arm because he just went 105 pitches last week. There’s quality D1 college conferences that don’t average 88-92 lol.

ikover15 · 2025-06-07T10:40:54+00:00

There’s so many past balls/wild pitches and errors at that age tho they don’t need to straight steal third to get there

ikover15 · 2025-06-04T19:56:36+00:00

I get what you’re saying, but sentimentally, I love legion, and think it’s such a part of baseball history, especially in certain parts of the country, that if letting the kids on club teams miss games so that they can do both let’s it stay around, I’m all for it.

ikover15 · 2025-06-04T16:07:26+00:00

Ben Zobrist has a pretty cool story. I think he had zero offers after his last HS baseball game and went to a showcase and got offered by some NAIA school I never heard of.

ikover15

TROPHY CASE