Everything is so different

[BT_Blue]

Long time since I have been on here. (I think the last email I had was from August of 2009 or so). Have decided to see what is new.

And NEW it is. WOW

Looking forward to rejoining the community and keep up the good work Warren.

[BT_Blue]

However, I do find myself missing some of the old smilie avatars. I liked having the one with the bag over my head. :-)

[hckyosgood30]

Welcome back Arik, hope your not getting to wet up in the Pac North West. Best of luck this season.

[BT_Blue]

Its been dry the last week. Dont start the HS season until mid March. But hoping that the rain decides to stay away enough.

Is this Chris Hickman?

[Umpire in Chief]

Welcome back, has it been that long???

If you, or anybody ever want a smilie or avatar let me know I'll see what I can come up with .

[Kevin Finnerty]

What's going on, Arik? Good to see you back up!

And, that's not Chris Hickman. He uses the clever screen name, Chris Hickman.

P.S. Arik actually umpired a game in which my son was the DH. So, I've seen him work, but we never actually met.

[BT_Blue]

Welcome back, has it been that long???

If you, or anybody ever want a smilie or avatar let me know I'll see what I can come up with .

I think it has. I deleted all my old emails from the site but I think the last one was sometime in the end of 2009 if not the VERY beginning of 2010. But I would lead more towards the former.

What's going on, Arik? Good to see you back up!

And, that's not Chris Hickman. He uses the clever screen name, Chris Hickman.

P.S. Arik actually umpired a game in which my son was the DH. So, I've seen him work, but we never actually met.

Not much. Living in the Portland area (actually in Vancouver across the Columbia River). Working HS baseball and just got my first year of HS football under my belt this past fall. Starting work-work at a local mom-and-pop sporting goods store AD the end of this week. Really looking forward to that.

So I worked a game in which your son was playing? When and where? Had to have been prior to the end of August 2009 since that is when we hoped in the truck and moved north.

[Fittske24]

Nice avatar.... but what happend to my head? :)

[BT_Blue]

LOL ah right... no clue

[BT_Blue]

did some cropping and such.. hopefully it works.

[Kevin Finnerty]

What's going on, Arik? Good to see you back up!

And, that's not Chris Hickman. He uses the clever screen name, Chris Hickman.

P.S. Arik actually umpired a game in which my son was the DH. So, I've seen him work, but we never actually met.

So I worked a game in which your son was playing? When and where? Had to have been prior to the end of August 2009 since that is when we hoped in the truck and moved north.

You worked a Crespi game in 2007, and my son batted fifth behind Scioscia's son, and Bonds's son pinch-ran. (That should spur your memory.) And remember the lanky left-hander that wore his socks right? He won 33 games for Florida State and got drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Braves: Sean Gilmartin. That club was loaded. It was so loaded, Nikolai Bonds couldn't even start.

[BT_Blue]

What's going on, Arik? Good to see you back up!

And, that's not Chris Hickman. He uses the clever screen name, Chris Hickman.

P.S. Arik actually umpired a game in which my son was the DH. So, I've seen him work, but we never actually met.

So I worked a game in which your son was playing? When and where? Had to have been prior to the end of August 2009 since that is when we hoped in the truck and moved north.

You worked a Crespi game in 2007, and my son batted fifth behind Scioscia's son, and Bonds's son pinch-ran. (That should spur your memory.) And remember the lanky left-hander that wore his socks right? He won 33 games for Florida State and got drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Braves: Sean Gilmartin. That club was loaded. It was so loaded, Nikolai Bonds couldn't even start.

Of course I remember Scioscia's boy. And I remember Gilmartin some what. Bonds' kid, not so much.

Always nice to be remembered. I think you and I have had this conversation a while back. What level is Scioscia and Gilmartin at now? I love watching Mike Mustakas (sic?) play for the Royals. I sit there and tell people when we watch Royal games, since they play Seattle a couple times a year, that I worked games for him. Pretty nifty. Now looking forward to doing that with the kids in the area up here.

[Kevin Finnerty]

You would remember Bonds's kid if he started.

Gilly is going to double-A, and may make the bigs in 2013 or 2014. Moustakis and Domninguez---the left side of Chatsworth's infield---are both in the big leagues. When was the last time you saw the left side of a high school infield go to the bigs four years later?

Did you ever do an El Camino game with Ryan Lavarnway catching? He's on Boston now.

It's fun to watch all these kids make the climb like this. When I saw Moustakis as a 12-year-old, I thought I was watching a future big leaguer. Same with Lavarnway, until he broke his leg as a 14-year-old. But he came back and here he is.

It's very gratifying.

[BT_Blue]

knew Moustakis made it to the bigs last year. Thought I remember hearing that Dominguez did in Miami but wasnt sure. Dont remember the kid from El Camino. Honestly, know how there is one team or school from the area you dont like? El Camino was that team. Always saw them as cocky and over rated. Liked the guys from Chastworth and Kennedy much more that ECR.

Seriously though, its a whole lot of fun seeing these kids you knew from years ago make it to the show. You know you didnt have much to do with it but its still a minor source of pride.

[Kevin Finnerty]

Well, I had a little to do with some of them, having coached some of them in travel ball, but not Moustakis or Dominguez. I had Gilmartin, Braves; Rodriguez (the catcher you loved from Crespi), Padres; Lopez, Cal State Fullerton; Dykstra, Brewers; Eskelin, Cal State Northridge, Kolodny, Orioles, among others. Looking at my 16-year-old club's picture, all but two made it to D-I or the professional ranks, and one of the guys who didn't made it to D-II. Gilmartin should be the first big-leaguer I coached.

[BT_Blue]

thats got to be pretty darn cool!

[Kevin Finnerty]

And now I pretty much live at UCLA, doing most of their off-season games, and following the team throughout the regular season. So I am close to all the guys who got drafted from that College World Series team and last year's Pac 10 championship team, including Gerrit Cole, who went first overall in the draft, and Trevor Bauer, the Golden Spikes Award winner, who went third overall. I bragged for three years about those guys as being the two best pitchers I ever saw, outside of the big leagues, and I guess the nation's scouts agreed.

Trevor Bauer, Arizona Diamondbacks ... Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh Pirates

Those two guys threw the best stuff I have ever seen, or am likely to see (all intrasquad games and scrimmages).

Bauer has five pitches, including a 96 m.p.h. fastball and some of his pitches have different speeds and angles, so it's really more like nine pitches. He set every meaningful career pitching record at UCLA and most of the single-season marks. He led the nation in strikeouts two years in a row, he struck out 17 in one game twice as a junior, and finished his career with nine straight complete games. Oh, and he skipped his senior year in high school to go to UCLA, and went 8-0 in Pac 10 conference play when he should have been roaming around the San Fernando Valley mowing down a bunch of high schoolers.

Gerrit Cole throws 100-plus m.p.h., has a 92-m.p.h. running two-seamer, and a 90-m.p.h. slider. At his best, he lives at between 97 and 99 m.p.h. for nine innings. He had a dominant sophomore year, and pitched in hard luck as a senior, but his stuff and his toughness are off the charts, so he went No. 1 in the country.

[cuban]

I would love to hear 100 m.p.h.

[LMSANS]

A couple of years ago I got to work the plate with a kid that was in the TOP five in the country. He threw consistently in the mid to high 90s. This was fall ball, veru relaxed. The lead-off hitter (a good hs player and a good kid) steps in. The first pitch is a knee high fastball on the ouside third of the plate. The batter steps out looks at me, eyes wide open and says, "I didn't even see that!" :spit:

[kylejt]

I've seen 81mph from 46 feet, two different times. The reaction time to hit that is far beyond anything thrown by an adult. And yeah, the pitcher was 12.

Talk about crazy.

[Kevin Finnerty]

I've seen 81mph from 46 feet, two different times. The reaction time to hit that is far beyond anything thrown by an adult. And yeah, the pitcher was 12.

Talk about crazy.

I've caught quite a few bullpens for 81-from-48-feet guys in the old days---including my own son---and it is not the same (12-year-old PONY is 48). There may be some formula for figuring reaction time, but all that aside, a 100-m.p.h. fastball's number of revolutions makes it an altogether different animal. The explosion at the end of the flight of a 100-m.p.h. fastball is unique.

We had one 12-year-old All-Star team with five kids who threw 80 m.p.h. Of the low-80s-at-age-12-or-13 guys that I had on our clubs, the only guy who ever broke 90 in his life wound up being a catcher in college, and now catches in the minors. Robert Stock was the biggest star of all and threw the hardest. At 12, he threw 85 m.p.h. He was clocked in the low-90s at 14 and topped out at 95 in college.

My son topped out at 88 in college and lives at 82-84. Another kid got through two years of college and topped out at 89 on his best day. The two others were done at 16 and 17, respectively, because they threw curveballs. So, five kids threw 80-plus at 12, and one is still pitching. My son is the one still pitching at 22 because I didn't let him air it out very often, and I taught him a couple of change-ups and didn't allow him to throw a curveball.

Today's No. 1-ranked high school pitcher in the country, Lucas Giolito, throws 99, and didn't throw 81 at 12. Not even close. He developed late and is better off for it. He has probably thrown half as many pitches as some of his peers. The guys who throw too hard too early are often finished at this age, and this kid is throwing 99 m.p.h. as a senior (I have two of his games on my schedule!). And if he's willing to wait three years to be a multimillionaire, he's going to UCLA!

[Umpete]

Stock seems to have lost some steam since turning pro. I thought he moved off the mound in college to get more out of his bat. Is catching taking a toll on him, or does he just need more time to mature?

[Kevin Finnerty]

Robert was always mature; he's just a great kid. He definitely was a great lefty hitter early, but he had problems at the plate at USC, because he had to work so hard at learning catching. He pitched there too, but he was signed as a catcher.

He has to rediscover himself as a hitter if he's ever going to make the big leagues.

Robert was a high school and Team USA phenom, who would have gone in the first three picks in the country out of high school, but instead chose to go to college and get drafted again down the road. He went 67th in the country, instead. That decision cost him over $4 million.

[yawetag]

Robert was a high school and Team USA phenom, who would have gone in the first three picks in the country out of high school, but instead chose to go to college and get drafted again down the road. He went 67th in the country, instead. That decision cost him over $4 million.

Good to see he has priorities over money.

[Kevin Finnerty]

Priorities are housing, transportation, insurance, other forms of security, and of course, college tuition for the degree you can get anyway, but just a little later, like 25 or so.

Lucas Giolito is going to be drafted in the first couple of picks next June. He will be offered $10 million, give or take. If he turns that down to go to UCLA, then he's a fool---even more of a fool than Robert was. Robert passed up his senior year of high school to go to SC as a 17-year-old, knowing he could be drafted as a 20-year-old junior, and thinking the same opportunity awaited him. He gambled---foolishly---and lost. Now, he'll play a while, probably never making the bigs (and the big money), possibly complete his degree, and go on to coach at a college somewhere, hoping to someday make $100,000 a year.

Rushing to get a degree is a foolish ideal in the cases of a few select ballplayers. These are two of them.