There is Nothing Impressive About a JV Walk

    Here you are warming up for your Tuesday night JV game, but it might as well be for a state championship with how proud you are to have your high school's name finally written across your chest.  The eye black is applied, the compression sleeve is on, the pants are up and the stirrups out.  You have a guard for every part of your body for when you come up to bat and once that moment finally comes, there is a guy up on the mound lobbing a 70mph fastball, three of which went to the backstop during warm-ups.  Not surprisingly, you find yourself up 3-0 in the count when a 65mph rainbow comes floating in just below the belt about a full ball or so off the outside black.  "Strike one" yells the umpire as you have already chunked your bat halfway to the dugout and are in the process of taking off your many accessories.

     Is your initial reaction, "Ok good, I am actually going to get to swing the bat this game!" No, it probably falls more along the lines of a dumb founded look back at the umpire and a grudge that lasts the rest of the at bat.  Does the average hitter once stop to think about the opportunity now set in front of him?  One where he can now show the coaching staff that he is both strong and athletic enough to take a 65mph ball the other way for a single? No, he wants to instead show off his stellar eye to the coaching staff, as if the ability to identify a slow pitch, softball-style fastball as a ball off the plate is the skill set that his varsity coaches need to see from him to play at the next level. 

    Sounds pretty ridiculous when you put it that way, right?  Well, that is how the scouts from all of those schools you want to play for see you when you think that your JV eye is a desirable skill set.  The ability to hit a 90+ mph fastball over the outer half of the plate is a very hard thing to do, and that is why the umpires at that level know not to give a full ball off the plate, like they so casually do in JV games.  Given the reaction time difference between a 90-95mph fastball and a 65-70mph fastball, being able to take the slower pitch that is a full ball outside shows a somewhat comparable skillset to the ability to hit a strike over the outer half of the plate going 85mph or faster as you move forward in your development.  Drawing a walk in the same scenario shows the scouts nothing about your current skill set, how you swing the bat, or even your approach to the at bat.

    JV players, stop trying to show off your good eye against poor pitching. A seasoned hitting coach I used to work under shared some valuable insight with me: "I've never seen a player hit a ball hard twice a game and not move up to the next level", not get a hit, but make solid contact. You will set yourself apart and more easily impress coaches and scouts by going for it and squaring up a baseball regardless of the outcome.

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