Some Recent Observations

Well first off I apologize for being absent this past week. Mike Mercurio was hit in the face with a bad hop ground ball on Sunday afternoon and broke his jaw in two places. As you can imagine, there was a lot to do travel wise and patient care wise over the past week. 1 lesson learned > parents, trust your intuitions and don't let anyone change your mind.

Having seen my share of college games this year and another half dozen high school games, the change in bats has definitely had implications. At yesterdays Brewster vs Carmel game there were 3 home runs hit and all traveled over the 350 sign in right center. With the BBCOR bats that will be used next year, home runs will be few and far between unless of course you play your games at JJCR. The days of Alex Martinez and a few of the other sluggers who had hit 10 or more home runs as high school players will be long gone. I spent a good part of the morning looking at college websites and just the lack of extra base hits is interesting. I can only imagine how the bats along with the lack of pitchers velocity and hitters physical strength will impact the high school game.

Our summer program and most of the others in the area, play the season in wood bat leagues and tournaments. The results will be comparable. A player with a sweet swing like Scott Hagan will still have success just as Colin Moran has had at the college level. Just do some research and take a look at the guys from Section 1 who were the big home run guys the last 3 or 4 years and see what they are doing now. What you'll see is some of the guys still have pretty good averages (they were and are still good hitters) but the number of extra base hits and home runs are either non-existent or diminished. It will definitely be interesting.

With that being said, hopefully I can get back on track next week.