quote:
How does a guy hit something like 19 HR's in high school then 0 in 4 yeaRs of college?
Great high school players who either can't or don't make adjustments necessary to be great in college, won't be.
The old saying goes, "Home runs are thrown, they aren't hit." is true. You hit mistakes for homeruns and there are many, many more mistakes made in the middle of the plate in high school (where the probability of facing a pitcher with D1 ability is rare) than there are in college. Have a friend who walked on a major D1 program (a righty who threw in the low 90s with a good breaking pitch) was relating how he made a mistake over the plate in batting practice...a mistake he could get away with 9 out of 10 times in high school...ended up over 350 feet away in a parking lot. He said the guy that hit it barely weighed 160 lbs.. He said he stared at the guy, a JUCO transfer, like he had two heads...and the guy yelled, "It ain't high school anymore." then laughed.
Similarly, things that worked at the plate in high school simply don't work or, for sure, don't work as well playing against top D1 talent on the mound. Contact boxes get smaller, pitch recognition times get shortened up...high school margins of error disappear.
Another thing that tends to disappear in college is the physical maturity advantage enjoyed by most D1 prospects in all sports. Part of what makes a "great prospect" in the eyes of scouts and other observers, is how they do in competition against guys who are generally their own chronological age. In general, the average Caucasian male matures physically after age 17...well after most players have been given the "prospect" tag. On the other hand the average D1 prospect physically matures 1-2 years prior his "peers". The physical maturity provides a huge advantage in high school that is lost as other players (the non-early matures) reach their 20s and fully mature.
6'0 and 175 lbs is on the large side of average in high school baseball and it isn't in college baseball. Though physicality isn't all that matters it can be separation factor, it can be the talent multiplier at the next level, it can be the difference between a double in the gap and a a home run.