How Professionals Evaluate Pitching:

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How Professionals Evaluate Pitching:

During my time in youth baseball, I would dream of the day I'd get to throw in front of tons of scouts. I always wanted to get in front of the people who make the real decisions and have my chance to perform.

Oftentimes, you think the scouts just want to see you play well. Which is almost true, but some scouts don't really care about the actual performance. Generally, professional scouts care way more about traits than they do your actual statline, while college scouts care much more about your performance (but also care about traits).

What do they look for? Do they have some special formula?

Kind of.

They look to take away all of the noise that comes along with evaluating youth athletes, and zoom in on what is actually taking place from an athletic output perspective. They try to take out all the external factors: quality of defense, if the catcher can catch your pitches, whether the umpire is calling a good zone, where the weak contact goes.

They don't care if your catcher drops a bunch of strikes or if you end up giving up 4 runs because your team is horrid, they want to look at how you handle adversity and how you throw the baseball. The job of the pitcher is to throw the baseball, everything that happens after that is out of the pitchers control.

Here is the framework for How pitchers are evaluated:

Mechanical Profile

• Where is your lower half at footplant

  • Is your back leg rotated before your front leg becomes weight bearing?

  • Is your front foot open? Closed?

  • Does your lower half open gradually? Is it a smooth opening or do you slam your lower half open?

• Where is your upper half at footplant?

  • Is your upper body still closed?

  • Do you fly open or dump your torso forward?

• How do you move through release?

  • How does energy transfer through the arm?

  • Do you finish rotation? Does your arm slam stopped?

• Is the delivery high effort? Does it all flow together or is it clunky?

  • Do you hold your mechanics through the entire outing?

  • Do you lose your repeatability after an inning or two?

  • Is your delivery athletic or robotic?

Scouts can and will look at everything, it is their job to choose the best players. Their job hinges on them properly choosing not only the best players, but the players that have the ability to perform and improve consistently over the next decade.

Sure, you might dominate your bad highschool competition, or maybe even dominate good High School competition, but it doesn't matter. That doesn’t predict the level of play at a high level. Even good HS games are bad competition comparatively.

Your mechanics play a huge role in your performance obviously, but they also play a huge role in how scouts project future performance, output and growth. PLayers that have super flawed mechanics but are elite at compensating will have a harder time consistently improving and getting better. While the player with smooth, well synced mechanics who moves athletically down the mound will almost automatically improve as they mature physically.

It is like comparing the engine of a Camry to that of a Ferrari. The camry will always get you from A to B, but if you are trying to race it won't get the job done.

College coaches and professional scouts are not looking for players who can merely get the job done, they are looking for the ferraris that can help them win games and championships.

Simply Put, every mechanic is a form of transferring energy from one piece of the delivery into the next. If you transfer energy efficiently, you will have the ability to transfer more energy into the next piece. When you stack more efficiency over 3-4 pieces in the delivery, we are talking about a lot of energy. Each piece becomes more and more important, as you realize that the minute improvements of hip rotation and pelvis rotation will cause exponential improvements in velocity.

The Lower Half:

Here is a comparison of 2 throws i made over the course of my career:

In this picture, I am 27 and 245 pounds. I am also roughly the strongest I have ever been at this point. This throw is 91.7 miles per hour. Not horrible, but anyone that knows anything about professional baseball knows it won't get the job done. You can notice that my upper half stays closed, however my hips are not fully rotated around. My back leg is still in the process of trying to open my pelvis and allow my front leg to block and start transferring energy.

Here is another throw. In this picture I am 19 years old. I am not that strong, I probably couldn't bench 225 at this point. However my hips are fully rotated at footplant and my body is able to efficiently transfer energy into my upper half. This throw is 95. 95 miles per hour at 19 plays, I posted a video of this on twitter and got 5 scholarship offers within a day, some of which were to power 5 programs and from coaches who would go on to win coach of the year honors. The point? I am throwing way harder, with less strength.

Being able to properly transfer energy is everything. Velocity is literally a cumulation of the energy that you are capable of transferring into the ball at release. If you are at a clunky place at footplant, it is going to be hard for you to throw hard. Everything that happens before footplant is merely you setting things up properly to be able to rip (transfer energy) when the time comes.

The Upper Half:

Here is a comparison of two throws made within 2 months of one another. One got me fired from my job in professional baseball and the other got me back on the radar for professional teams.

This is the throw that got me fired from pro baseball. You don't actually get fired based on one throw, but throwing like this was bad and made me lose my spot. This throw was 92.6. You can see the upper half leaning towards the hitter and the forearm being upright. This indicates early torso rotation.

This throw is 95.2. You can see I am still leaning forward slightly, however it is so much better than the picture above. My forearm is much flatter and these traits indicate that I have delayed rotation better than I did in the image above.

While we are looking at these traits from a velocity perspective, It is important to note that clean transfers of energy impact command as well. During the top image my command was fine, but the bottom image was an elite command day. When energy is transferred smoothly it doesn't jam or overflow, when it jams or overflows you lose balance, coordination and have a jerky delivery that makes pitching harder than it is already.

Transfer of Energy with The Upper Half:

This one is hard to show you with still pictures, however when you see it you know. This is better measured for me through testing in constraints. Over the years, I have had a very elastic upper half that transfers energy like a cannon, while also having a clunk upper half that leads to me throwing the baseball like it was a dart.

The one way I really knew how my upper half was transferring energy was by testing how far I could throw the ball out of a pivot pick setup. On my good days, I could throw the ball 100 yards without any steps, and when it was bad I had to struggle to do the same drill 75 yards.

I could do the “ten toes” drill about 81 mph with a baseball when it was locked in, and merely 77ish when it wasn't. Constraints are very important in this aspect, as it allows you to truly isolate the part of your mechanics in question and get a fair evaluation.

Athleticism in the throw:

This is hard to qualify and break down from pictures, but the fluidity and control that a pitcher throws with is apparent from the very first time you see them throw. While athleticism doesn't determine output, it is generally a reflection of how well you transfer energy and how controlled/consistent your movements will be.

You see it all the time, the smooth shortstop that gets on the mound with very little pitching experience yet fills up the zone with heaters and spins a good slider. They make it look easy and are able to accomplish a lot because they are good movers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding how professional scouts evaluate pitchers goes beyond simply looking at the final numbers on the scoreboard. While performance can indicate a player's potential, scouts are more interested in the traits that underlie consistent, high-level success. The focus is on the mechanical profile—the smooth, efficient transfer of energy from one part of the body to the next, culminating in maximum velocity and control. It's the difference between being a reliable player and being someone capable of extraordinary, sustained performance.

The importance of mechanical efficiency cannot be overstated. Whether it's the lower half's ability to transfer energy through the legs or the upper body's role in ensuring clean rotation, everything in the pitcher's delivery is interconnected. The better a pitcher can sync these elements, the more energy they can transfer into the ball, and the harder they can throw. This efficiency doesn't just lead to greater velocity; it also translates to improved command, stability, and long-term development.

Ultimately, scouts are seeking players who are not just good at their craft today but have the potential to grow and improve over time. Mechanics, energy transfer, and athleticism form the foundation for that growth, ensuring that pitchers who possess these traits will continue to evolve and thrive as they advance in their careers. So, when it comes to getting noticed, it’s not just about how hard you throw—it's about how well you move, how efficiently you transfer energy, and how much room for growth you show.