Youth Phenoms

[Baseball gLove]

Bryan Lahair was the only player I ever saw that I knew would make it (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/play...hp?p=lahaibr01). There were a bunch that played college and Minors/Indy leagues that surprised me, but I never saw a player that made the MLB.

I know more than a few.

[Jake Patterson]

In New England, at least at that time, there were not that many. Bob Tewksbury went to my HS..my mother taught his younger brother in fourth grade. He subbed teaching sometimes and came back occasionally to our practices..you could hold out your glove and close your eyes and he would hit it.

In New England we have six (?) professional baseball teams (Portland, Providence, Boston, New Britain, Norwich, Worcester, New Haven) plus New York X2, plus the Cape Cod League, so we get to see a number of good ball players.

So the question needs refining... Is it how many you have seen as developing youngsters?

[Roothog66]

The truth is, I've probably seen dozens, if not hundreds, of players from 8yo to 18yo who eventually made the majors and I don't even know it. If they didn't order something from me that necessitated using their name, I usually wouldn't know unless they really stood out. A couple of years ago, though, I went over records from 1995 to present and found 15 mlb'ers that I recognized. I'm sure there were probably twice that many in my orders who have played ml baseball, but I don't yet recognize. Of those, I believe 7 played rec league baseball (mostly from the Houston area except for Cliff Lee and Travis Wood). They may also have played travel later on, though.

[raptor]

In New England we have six (?) professional baseball teams (Portland, Providence, Boston, New Britain, Norwich, Worcester, New Haven) plus New York X2, plus the Cape Cod League, so we get to see a number of good ball players.

So the question needs refining... Is it how many you have seen as developing youngsters?

Yes Jake, it is more about not seeing many here at that time whom you would just "know " they'd make it to the top. There's definitely high-quality ball all over New England. If you haven't read "The Last Best League", it's a great read about a season with Schiffner and the A's, profiling Tim Stauffer, Jamie D'Antona, and a few other players.

[Jake Patterson]

Yes Jake, it is more about not seeing many here at that time whom you would just "know " they'd make it to the top. There's definitely high-quality ball all over New England. If you haven't read "The Last Best League", it's a great read about a season with Schiffner and the A's, profiling Tim Stauffer, Jamie D'Antona, and a few other players.

Raptor, I coached against John Schiffner in HS and had him as a clinician at our coaches' clinics. Schiff was also a key character in the movie Summer Catch. He was played by Brian Denehy who lives in the next town over. Schiff is known as one of the best coaches in NE. He left HS ball last year, but I believe he is still coachig the A's.

[raptor]

Is Denehy a baseball guy? That movie is awful compared to the book..it is a very fun read...like "Stolen Season" from Lamb, with more intensity. The author intimated that JS is one of the better connected coaches around..look at the schools and conferences which his players attend year over year.

[Jake Patterson]

Is Denehy a baseball guy? That movie is awful compared to the book..it is a very fun read...like "Stolen Season" from Lamb, with more intensity.

I don't think so... I believe he played football at Columbia.

[Jake Patterson]

The truth is, I've probably seen dozens, if not hundreds, of players from 8yo to 18yo who eventually made the majors and I don't even know it.

If we assume that 1:15,000 12 year olds make it to the Majors then that would mean at 300 MLB'ers you would need to have seen 4.5M players (14,999 X 300).

1:15,000 was used years ago by the NCAA on HS baseball players making the pros.

[Jake Patterson]

Is Denehy a baseball guy?

I have one quick story about Brian Denehy....

In 2006 the son of an old Army buddy of mine, a young man I watched grow up, was killed in Mehtar Lam, Afghanistan, by an IED (SSGT Joseph Phaneuf). The line for the wake was literally a mile long. I got into line and quickly saw that standing next to me was Brian Denehy. We got to talk and I asked him how he knew Joey... He said "I don't. I just figured coming was the right thing to do." Regardless of any of his downside... The guy earned my everlasting respect that day.

[JJA]

I'm curious about those that you never would have guessed it from.

Milton Bradley. He was nothing special at 13. Good player, some good tools, but a lot of guys were better than he was.

[Roothog66]

If we assume that 1:15,000 12 year olds make it to the Majors then that would mean at 300 MLB'ers you would need to have seen 4.5M players (14,999 X 300).

1:15,000 was used years ago by the NCAA on HS baseball players making the pros.

First, statistics that are this general can be misleading. Having just checked the NCAA website, they estimate one of every 200 high school baseball players will eventually be drafted. Now, if 2% eventually play in a major league game, that's 1:10,000. Looking at all youth ball, most likely much less, so even if I question the stat for HS players, you probably aren't that far off for youth. However, I did this for some 20 years full-time. 12 months a year. When you consider that every weekend I'm shooting 30 teams and four every weekday February through October, that's a lot of teams. In July and August, I'm shooting 14-20 per day, six days a week. And almost all of this was done in Florida and Texas among upper level travel teams, American Legion State, regionals, and, four times, Legion World Series. I think it's safe to say that I'm shooting among select groups/regions that would significantly increase the rate of players who eventually make MLB. Also remember that, just for business sake, I'm not reshooting many teams, so I'm shooting at least 2,000 teams a year or about 24,000 players a year. If we say that the groups/regions I shoot get the number down to one in 5,000 I may shoot 5 a year. Of course, over the years, I reshoot kids as they get older. Like I said, I can only count 15-20 I know for sure, but I imagine many more have slipped by me unknown. Of course, many of these numbers are speculative and in many years I shot football on saturdays instead of baseball. It was a fun business, though.