Posted by: Melvin () on Wed Apr 12 11:56:20 2006

In the last post it was written: "I have wondered why in a place with a year around baseball weather, large amounts local little league and club ball teams, and large indoor hitting facilities with professional hitting trainers do not have a lot of high round draft picks. Does this have to do with the hitting techniques they are taught?"

To respond to that: Coaching, facilities, weather and other evironmental factors have almost nothing to do with the selection of professional prospects in the MLB draft. Professional teams - with a few exceptions these days - draft players based upon highly subjective criteria. Their success rate - the ratio of high draft picks to low draft picks that make the majors - is horrid. In other words, they are very bad at it, and smart teams are firing scouts en masse and using more verifiable methods akin to what Wall Street trading and arbitrage desks use.

Also, I am of the opinion that coaching means very little. I think Jack's techniques are great, they are lots of fun and can help many, many hitters. Good hitters clearly use these methods in the big leagues. I just don't think they were coached into them, nor do I think that any amount of coaching will produce any amount of pro players. The game, the business, life itself at that level of competition, is just more complicated than that.

Melvin