What a D1 pitcher looks like...

Hey, team Alex here. Thanks for joining me. And today we are talking about what a Division 1 pitcher looks like in high school. So you could also reframe it as What a Division 1 commit in high school looks like and around junior year into senior year. And why am I doing this? To help give you a visual of what you want to shoot for and areas to work on what these college scouts are looking for. So we're going to talk about that. We're also going to take a look at a picture that is committed to a Division 1 school that's in high school right now, so you can get a visual there. But before we get into that, if you're new to my channel or podcast, we'll talk about that here in a second. My name is Alex Swinson. I'm A former Division 1 college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes go through this college recruiting process. So I have a podcast. You guys have been asking about this because I realize not everybody's on YouTube and people want to just listen to it. So you can listen to it in the car on the way to a game or at a practice. If you're a parent watching a game or leaving a game or practice or going on a walk or working out, you can listen to this to get better. So check that out. I'm going to pull up my podcast right here. You can go to Apple Podcast or Spotify. It's on there and it's going to kind of work together with my YouTube channel. So I'll have this and I'll have my podcast as well. So definitely check that out and go on and subscribe to my podcast if you would like, if you like this content here. But if you get anything from this video, like, and subscribe down below on YouTube or on the podcast and you will get a video from me each week or a podcast with me each week. So let's dive into what a Division 1 pitcher looks like in high school. Let's get to it. Alright, let's get right into it and we will talk about Velocity. I'm sure you're thinking about it and want to know about it. So I will get to that. We're going to talk about what these guys are topping out at, what these guys are sitting at on average. And we're also going to be talking about D2 and D3. Now, is velocity important? Yes, it's a piece of the puzzle, but it's just that it's a piece of the puzzle. There's a lot of other important things that we're going to get into right now. That is for Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3, what these pitchers look like that are committed or will commit to the next level. So we're going to talk about that first before we get into velocity and let's talk about that right now. One of the first things that these college coaches are going to look at and What a Division 1 commit has is a good quick arm action. Or you could think of it as loose and whippy. It's one of the first things that these college coaches and at least I did as well. And when I watch a picture, I'm like, how does this arm action work? From leaving the glove to, hey, here at release point and all the way through. So good loose, quick arm action is something that you want to have as a pitcher. Repeatable mechanics. So there's not a lot going on. You're going to see this with the video that's coming up here. That is simple. There's not a lot going on. When usually there's a lot going on. It's really hard for guys to command their strikes, okay? And you can have a lot of velocity. There's guys that throw 90 plus, but man, they stink as a pitcher because they don't throw strikes, all right? And they're not repeatable with their mechanics. They're not repeatable with their release, and they're not repeatable with. With their arm slots. So good repeatable mechanics is what a Division 1 pitcher looks like and what they look for as far as College scouts. Strike thrower, 65% plus. That's what we want to aim for at the high school level. That's key there. We got to be a strike thrower. Sharp breaking ball and a developing change up is always nice. Again, we're going to see a guy that is coming up here that has pretty much all of these things. And what I kind of pulled together of your kind of average Division 1 commit, what he looks like, and I say average, this guy's really, really good. But that's what he looks like. All right. Good physical frame. That's athletic. That's always appealing as one of the first things that they're going to see of you, okay, is your physicality. It's just your body type. How physical are you? Have you been in the weight room? That's really, really important. Strong mentality on the mount, aggressive. You want the ball, you want to attack the strike zone. And. And again, that mentality of give Me, the ball, I'm coming right at you. Pitching coaches, college coaches love that aspect of it. Coachable is trying to improve, want to learn, doesn't think you know it all. There's always areas to improve and cares about winning. That's a, that's big things. Before we talk about velocity which we're going to get into right here, we're also going to talk about kind of the average size. So before I get into these numbers here, these are averages, okay? They're not perfect but they're pretty close. They're really, really close. And I'll explain to you how I got the velocities for division ones. But when I say averages, so you got to think about this. There's guys below this, alright? And there's guys above this. So if it's height, there's guys that are shorter that have made it. Right. And there's guys that are taller. So think of me, man, I'm an undersized player. I was below the height of players but the average was higher than me. But I was able to make it. So just if you're, I'm saying this is, if you're not at these numbers right here doesn't mean you can't play at the next level, right? These are averages. Now of course we want to strive to get better but again remember these are averages. There's guys that have committed that are below this and of course there's guys above these. So let's get into it. So Division 1 average pitcher type is usually around 6:1 to 6:2 right in that range average. Again there's taller guys and, and they're shorter guys. Round 190 is a weight. And these are still guys in high school. Remember this, okay? These are not actually in college. These are commits. Division one commits average velocity for division one schools that guys are topping out of. So I put together the top 500 right handed pitchers and the top 500 left handed pitchers. And I averaged out their top velocity that they've gotten verified whether it's at PBR or perfect game. And their average top for right handed pitchers around junior year going into senior year is 90.2 miles per hour. Left handed pitchers is 88.4. This is where they're topping out. This is not where they're sitting. Okay? Typically players are sitting three miles an hour to four miles an hour underneath their top. So 90.2 for righty. They're usually sitting around 86, give or take one or two miles an hour there sitting there. Okay? And then topping out. For left handed pitchers at Division 1 commit, they're sitting around 85 to 84 and topping out at 88.4. And then for Division 2s and Division Threes, these are rough averages here. It's about two miles an hour below these division ones on average. There's guys definitely below this and there's guys definitely above this. There's plenty of D2 guys that throw 90 plus miles an hour, there's no doubt about it, and even some Division 3 guys. But again, these are just numbers to kind of shoot for as we're, as we're going from a velocity standpoint. And remember, velocity is just one piece of the pie. Do not forget about these things that we talked about originally over here. Now let's talk about. Let's take a look rather at a picture so you can see it visually. If you're listening to this on the podcast, come over to my YouTube channel and you can watch this. Watch this. This kid because he is like your man. He's just like your embodiment of What a Division 1 right hander commit looks like. So let's dive in. This is Ian White, he's committed to East Carolina, a powerhouse mid major program in North Carolina. And this guy, let's take a look at him and we're going to talk a little bit of what I see from a scouter's view. So if I'm watching this player and I've actually seen him live and I'm going to talk you kind of through this. So first things first. I see a body and I see physical. He's physical, he's strong legs, upper body's kind of filling out right here. And now we're going to take a look at his mechanics and his arm pass. Let's go on and get into this. So he's warming up. Simple mechanics, good arm action, quick kind of low 3/4 arm slot. I like that because typically a guy with low 3/4, they're going to have some movement, not just velocity. Another fastball again. Good strike right there. Middle down with a little arm, side run. Good whip to his arm again. It's quick. We got a change up right here. So good. He's got some feel for that changeup. And that three quarter slide could be just ruthless to left handed hitters and right handed hitters. Here's a slider. Not bad. That one backed up on him a little bit. See if he does it again. Good. He's doing again. Yeah, he didn't quite get the feel of it. So he's gonna throw it again. Oh, really good one right there. So getting to our last pitch here. He's going to go out of the stretch, which is good. I want to see this from the stretch, see what's going on here. See his leg kick. Good and simple. Pretty quick to the plates. Very nice. So again, all around, got to see that. And of course, this is in between innings. We would want to see in game how he competes in the game. I've seen Ian compete in the game. Very, very good. Again, mindset attacks the hitters, goes after them. And really good kind of outlook of a Division 1 pitcher that's in high school, that's committed. So hopefully you got something from this video. If you did, please smash that, like, button and subscribe to my channel. And I look forward to seeing you in our next video. Take care.