High School Baseball Prospects

[sunshine]

The top blazers in the class of 2005 are almost all black led by Justin Upton and his 6.2-6.3 speed. Cameron Maybin is the best five tool talent with 6.4 speed. Adrien Ortiz is said to have 6.2 speed and will play in college. No white guys amoung the top speedsters.As in basketball all of a sudden white speed is diappearing it seems--no official line here just an observation--and I am very disappointed to see no white top prospects in HS who are speedy. The class of 2004 also featured a plethora ofHS black blazers with no whites to be found. This is very ominous because baseball was the one sport where white speed could be found at the HS level.

I will keep my eyes open but so far i have found very little exciting HS white speed for class of 2005

 

[jaxvid]

Question. What is 6.2 speed measuring?

 

[sunshine]

60 yard dash. 6.2 is bursting blazing---longer run than 40 of course but anything in 6.5 range is about 4.4 or a touch better. Ortiz is in class of 2004 now a frosh at Pepperdine. Where are the fast white guys. It really irks me.

 

[jaxvid]

I'm a little skeptical of high school baseball scouting reports. Baseball players develop a little later then other athletes. I would imagine only some of the players are timed and those are probably guys that are also football speedsters that are being clocked for that also. Since that direction leans heavily black I'm not surprised there are no whites. Why bother with US born blacks anyway, there are so few of them playing. They should be timing guys in the Carribean that's where all the players are coming from.

 

[sunshine]

For sure baseball scouting is unusually tough. Still they do time most prospects.. Baseball speed is measured in two ways. The 60 yard dash and from home to first. I follow it closely and recently I have seen a decline in white speedsters, especially top prospects. Maybe it is just a down period but I fear we could be entering the CB syndrome where whites disappear from speed positions even more so than now. This is very disconcerting.


B.J. Upton ,the rising star for Devil Rays is proof that blacks are making a comeback in baseball and his brother is the fastest propect in 2005 draft. Almost all the speedsters out of HS for 2004 and upcoming 2005 draft are black or black Carribean. And they man the speed positions especially CF and some SS. Where are the white speedsters? Sommetimes I get the feeling white kids don't want to run fast. Where is the desire? Meanwhile blacks are hungrier than hell to prove their speed.

 

[bjan]

It is interesting to note that most high school baseball players are white,and college players also.Watching the college baseball world series tells us that if the system were run without "Caste" implications,many of these players would progress through the minor leagues and into the majors.Some where along the way,these players are replaced by Latin and black players.

When the Florida Marlins came into baseball,the owners felt that if they fielded a mostly Latin team,"to reflect the population base of the city" Latins would turn out in record numbers to see the team play. That has not happened.

We are watching the Washington Nationals being constructed in a similar fashion.

 

[sunshine]

One of the most disturbing trends I have seen the past couple of years with High School top prospects is the lack of white speedsters. For example for the 2005 draft 15 out of the top 25 OF/SS prospects are black. Out of those nearly all the speed belongs to the black propects. What happens is the following. It is true there are a ton of whites playing baseball which makes it even more humiliating when blacks take firm control of the speed positions--OF,middle infield and especially CF. No matter how many white players fill the rosters as pitchers, C !B etc.. they are swiftly-no pun intended overshadowed by the black speed/athletic player which doubly reinforces the idea that blacks are superior speed specimens. Heck if so few blacks play why are they the players who rise above the rest and man the speed positions in the bigs?This trend vividly reminds me of times I check HS football squads and see that the one and only black player on a squad is the star speed guy racking up tons of yardage running, receiving and returning kicks. And also manning the CB position and becoming a college prospect. Meanwhile the 80 white guys are left standing around like statues. This is what is happening in baseball. White pitchers by the truck load---like white kickers in football--but where are the speed guys?


In my mind the only way to reverse the prevalent stereotype that speed is a black thing is for white athletes to start moving thier legs and run like the wind. And also in important sports like baseball to use speed and athleticism and baseball skill so that they can make it to the bigs and disrupt the notion that whites are statues. The glaring absence of white speed baseball players at the HS level is a very bad trend that could easily resemble the CB/TB/WR situation in the NFL where skill/speed becomes a black only thing. It has already been in place in baseball but as I see it things could get much worse. Just another reality check post full of worrying news I'm afraid. The ratio of whites to blacks in baseball should dictate more white speed players than we currently seebut sadly that is not the case right now. The minority number of blacks and black Carribean have basically taken over the speed/skill part of baseball generally speaking and that trend will only worsen unless white speed emerges at a greater rate than I see at the moment.


Sorry for morbid post but we have to look this reality in the eye so that progress can be made and stereotypes wiped out.