These high school, college and professional athletes are not on PEDs…. Not all of them & likely not the ones tossing 95+
What’s happening is professional college and high school level ball programs are starting to see a mass influx in tournament & travel team ball players. A lot of these kids started playing tournaments and travel ball when they started coaches pitch around six years old. They’re not playing recreational league baseball where you might practice once a week and you may play one or two games a week. At 6U they are starting to practice these kids two and three days a week for an hour and a half to two hours a day and on the weekend they go and play in a tournament around town or out of state typically the first day Saturday is Paul play and they’re playing 2 to 3 games on Saturday to determine their placement in the bracket for a single or double elimination tournament on Sunday.
A lot of these coaches came up through a top-notch SEC collegiate program, studied psychology, bio mechanics, kinesiology and have developed their own training protocols for high school, College and even professional baseball that are being used.
A lot of these coaches are not worried about winning a baseball tournament, are getting a ring or being the best team in the league. There are so many coaches out there that are more interested in developing kids and players to play at the next level. The level of play from a rec league ball team compared to a tournament our travel team is not even comparable and a traditional rec league baseball team will not ever be able to compete with a travel or tournaments team simply because the tournaments and travel team has played at least 40 more games per season in fall or summer and has likely had 40 to 50 more practices on top of that.
I’ve seen a handful of kids get burnt out playing travel and tournament ball including my son but the ones who don’t get burnt out and who love the game their level of playing is remarkable you can watch the Little League World Series and watch those 11 to 13 year old kids play and it’s amazing how good that they can sealed, how sharp they are, how their situational awareness is on point and how every single player on that team can make contact and crush the ball and hit the ball in whatever field they need to depending on where the pitch comes in.
I know three high school kids right now around my area that are in 10th and 11th grade and they are throwing 88+ It’s their craft and there’s parents spend a few thousand dollars at least twice a year to send them to a local pitching camp that’s put on by one of the very few pitching coaches in the United States that works office biomechanics. I’ve personally seen him take a kid on day one of the camp and he was throwing 81 mph in by the end of the first day by working with him and changing his delivery in Orem slot because of his bio mechanics and how he was built he added 8 miles to his fastball and was throwing 88 at the end of the first day.
You don’t have to be strong to pitch, it’s mostly levers & pivot points & weight transfer that generate velocity. You have to be able to recover so you can’t throw them too hard and they have to be built up to that. With that many kids that you see even adults throwing that hard there’s probably that many of them also sitting the bench due to torn rotator cuff‘s and other injuries that they didn’t take care of or their coach or their parent push them too far.
One of my kids just turned 11, going into the 6th grade and he is 5’9. 11 years old, still a baby and he got clocked throwing 68mph. That’s freaking fast from 46-50’ mound. No one can hit him with a good change up and a moving 2 seam. But when they do it’s got some exit speed.
But my point is we have a whole lot more coaches that are developing players at a younger age to move up to the next level and each coach is building off of that. I just spent 3500 for one of them to play spring league that starts in February and they start practicing at the end of September and these are top notch programs. 25 years ago when I was just starting to play baseball travel teams were unheard of they were around but the only time you got to play is if you were the best of the best and now everywhere you look they have travel teams and you don’t have to be good to be on one you just have to put up the money and they will develop your kid and make him good as long as he has the raw talent.
So kudos to the players for putting in the hard work and props to the coaches who have been studying bio mechanics and psychology to help develop players mentally also. I’m sure there are a handful of athletes that are using PEDs to try to help them but I don’t believe the PDs are going to get them to the next level hard work and dedication is going to get them to the next level maybe the PD‘s might help them last longer. But I know the kids that I’ve coached and I’ve been around and they’re probably clueless to the Darkside.
Sorry for the long message I’m on Night Shift lol