More bragging...

[davbrucas]

So Colby turned 13 a couple months ago and is now as tall as me (6'1) and 15lbs heavier (I'm 205). He seems to grow an inch every time I see him! My little buddy is turning into a young man.
Colby took most of the fall off from baseball to play football and basketball. It seems that the break did him some good. His fastball is now in the 83-85mph range! Sick. His pitching coach has taken him on as s project and charges us nothing for his twice weekly lessons. He said that Colby is throwing harder and better than most of his 17yr old students.
He has been progressing in this sport every year. Pedro Borbon (his pitching coach) isn't one to give compliments but he was thoroughly impressed with Colby's pitching and velocity. Colby has always thrown hard, but hitting 85mph at 13yrs old is nuts. He has a bright future in this sport.
We played 2 tourneys so far this spring. We won the first one 2wks ago. This past weekend we played some stronger competition. We went 0-2 in pool play on Sat so we had last seed. We win the first 2 games on Sunday but Colby had to come in and pitch 2innings of relief in the 3rd game to get us the win. This meant he could only pitch 5innings in the semifinal game. He pitched a 1 hit shut out over the 5 innings. The hit was a weak hit off end of bat to 2nd base that should have been an out but the 2nd baseman didn't charge the ball and runner beat throw. He had 8 Ks. Reliever came in and loaded bases and gave up walk off hit that lost us the game. He had 1 HR as well. Here he is the at bat where he hit a 330ft bomb.

[davbrucas]

Next tourney in Richardson March 6-8th. I will be there.

[Sean88gt]

Helluva big kid, Dave.

[juiceweezl]

Next tourney in Richardson March 6-8th. I will be there.

Dave, that's awesome and no surprise to me. He is a stud. Hit me up when you guys come to Richardson to play. Jordan's team is in the tournament, but he's still on the shelf. Apparently he had been dealing with a stress fracture for quite a while and he broke his left foot on 12/18. It wasn't healing fast enough, so the doc put a screw in his foot on 12/31. He finally got to ditch the crutches just shy of 2 weeks ago but is still in a boot. We started one knee throwing a week ago, and he's throwing 50 with virtually no effort from pitching distance on one knee. We suspect he'll be throwing 70+ by late April, early May which is not bad for 11. He's having a hard time not being able to practice or play, so this past week was good for him to get some work in. He's even bunting now from live arm.

Everyone else, get your autographs now. Dave's kid is the real deal. See you next weekend, Dave. My 7's are playing in McKinney, but we'll hook up and watch some ball.

[orphan Shelby]

13, 6'1, 205! Holy cow thats a big kid. Keep him motivated man. And fed lol

[Chili]

Sounds like a big boy! Congrats!

I once heard that kids who pitch at young ages do not typically become pitchers at the college, then professional level. Any truth to that? Seems like I remember hearing that most pro pitchers don't start as pitchers until college or something?

I have no clue at all, just wondering if there is any truth to that.

[quikag]

13, 6'1, 205! Holy cow thats a big kid. Keep him motivated man. And fed lol

No, Dave said he was 15lbs heavier and Dave is 205. So, the kid is 6'1" 220lbs at 13. Damn.

Very cool, Dave, hope your son continues to progress!

[juiceweezl]

Sounds like a big boy! Congrats!

I once heard that kids who pitch at young ages do not typically become pitchers at the college, then professional level. Any truth to that? Seems like I remember hearing that most pro pitchers don't start as pitchers until college or something?

I have no clue at all, just wondering if there is any truth to that.

Not really. Most young pitchers throw too much, too often, and throw breaking pitches too early. To make it worse, they don't know how to care for their arm afterwards. Throwing a baseball as a pitcher (basically 95% as hard as you can) is one of the hardest things on your body in all of sports. It's an unnatural motion that puts a ton of strain on the arm. Poor mechanics, which most pitchers have, make it even worse.

Youth baseball is often dominated by the pitcher. He's often a kid who develops physically faster (bigger, stronger, throws harder) and then levels off down the road (others catch up). If a kid who throws hard at a young age can throw the ball over the plate, the coach is going to use him a ton.

Whether arm fatigue or the fact that other kids catch up physically eliminates many kids from pitching as they get older is the debate to have. Either way, a lot of the kids that pitch in youth baseball never make it down the road as a pitcher. That's why you'll see some kids that start late make it.

Colby has great mechanics and great supervision. That will allow him to throw a long, long time. The fact that he has a big, strong body helps him even more. He doesn't have to use a lot of effort to throw hard. My 11 year old is approaching 5'10" and was throwing upper 60's last fall before he shut down. He's on pace to be 6'5" or taller. It barely looks like he's throwing, and he's 8-10 mph harder than most other kids around. The problem he faces now (and why he doesn't pitch a ton) is that other teams/hitters are afraid and can't hit the velocity. As a result, they won't swing the bat. He pitched to 8 batters over a 2 inning stretch last fall in a select tournament and had 6 strikeouts. Not 1 of the 8 batters took a single swing, not even with 2 strikes. That's not fun baseball for anyone.

Meanwhile, a kid he knows that was the dominant pitcher at 8 years old because he threw harder than most kids and could throw the ball over the plate can't even make a decent AA team now (slightly better than rec ball). Why? That kid is the same size at 11 basically as he was at 8. He also throws with about the same velocity while most kids have added 15-20+ mph to their fast ball.

Sorry for the long post. I got rolling along...

[Chili]

Not really. Most young pitchers throw too much, too often, and throw breaking pitches too early. To make it worse, they don't know how to care for their arm afterwards. Throwing a baseball as a pitcher (basically 95% as hard as you can) is one of the hardest things on your body in all of sports. It's an unnatural motion that puts a ton of strain on the arm. Poor mechanics, which most pitchers have, make it even worse.

Youth baseball is often dominated by the pitcher. He's often a kid who develops physically faster (bigger, stronger, throws harder) and then levels off down the road (others catch up). If a kid who throws hard at a young age can throw the ball over the plate, the coach is going to use him a ton.

Whether arm fatigue or the fact that other kids catch up physically eliminates many kids from pitching as they get older is the debate to have. Either way, a lot of the kids that pitch in youth baseball never make it down the road as a pitcher. That's why you'll see some kids that start late make it.

Colby has great mechanics and great supervision. That will allow him to throw a long, long time. The fact that he has a big, strong body helps him even more. He doesn't have to use a lot of effort to throw hard. My 11 year old is approaching 5'10" and was throwing upper 60's last fall before he shut down. He's on pace to be 6'5" or taller. It barely looks like he's throwing, and he's 8-10 mph harder than most other kids around. The problem he faces now (and why he doesn't pitch a ton) is that other teams/hitters are afraid and can't hit the velocity. As a result, they won't swing the bat. He pitched to 8 batters over a 2 inning stretch last fall in a select tournament and had 6 strikeouts. Not 1 of the 8 batters took a single swing, not even with 2 strikes. That's not fun baseball for anyone.

Meanwhile, a kid he knows that was the dominant pitcher at 8 years old because he threw harder than most kids and could throw the ball over the plate can't even make a decent AA team now (slightly better than rec ball). Why? That kid is the same size at 11 basically as he was at 8. He also throws with about the same velocity while most kids have added 15-20+ mph to their fast ball.

Sorry for the long post. I got rolling along...

Interesting info, thanks for sharing. All of that makes sense and I hadn't really thought about it that way.

[davbrucas]

Thanks for the props...

Colby has been progressing in this sport each year. This past weekend I watched him throw a pitch during warm up that was the fastest I had ever seen him throw! Unknown to Colby another team's coach was sitting behind the catcher with his radar gun. I noticed that several people were gathering around him so I walked over and he showed me the 85mph on the gun. Was a holy shit moment for sure. In the game he dropped it down quite a bit to make sure he was throwing strikes but it was still enough to shut the hitters down. He loves the sport and loves to pitch and happens to be pretty good at it and I will do everything I can to help him reach his goals of playing this game in college.

And I agree with Billy's assessment of youth pitching...