Butch Thompson Camp

[messageboardsuperhero]

I'm sorry for the baseball topic on gameday, but Butch Thompson has announced he's doing a pitching camp exclusively for drop-down pitchers. Chad Girodo, Colter Bean, Chad Bradford, and Jeff Innis will be there too.

This is absolutely brilliant. What a great idea, especially for recruiting those kinds of pitchers. This is just another good example of Butch's creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking. We could become Sidearmer U.

[ShotgunDawg]

I'm personally not a fan of it. Dropping down in something you do with a pitcher as a last resort to save his career. Young kids shouldn't be dropping down until it is needed to extend their baseball career. IMO, teaching young kids to drop down is not a good thing because it is counter productive to them learning to throw hard and be a starting pitcher, which as a junior high or high school kid, is all you should be worried about.

Being a Sidearmer U isn't a positive thing and will cost us recruits. Pitchers pick colleges due to the schools ability to develop them into a higher draft pick. I am all for dropping college players down once it is determined that they will have to pitch that way to be a productive SEC or Pro player, but dropping them down before that limits their potential and will ultimately works against the goal of developing pitchers for the draft and next level.

I would not send my kid to this camp unless I or the coaches have determined that he has no shot to advance his high school career without dropping down.

[MsStateBaseball]

CT's dad is Mike. It's not a bad idea. Some guys can't effectively throw over hand. I hope we get several recruits from this.

[State82]

That's a cool idea. Just another example of how well the overall program is being managed. It's not just recruiting, gameday management and player development. It is the entire body of work that is impressive. BTW, not sure who Chad Bradford is, but C.T.'s dad is Mike Bradford.

[MsStateBaseball]

Chad was in Money Ball. Went to USM from Brandon. Coaches in Jackson I think now.

[messageboardsuperhero]

CT's dad is Mike. It's not a bad idea. Some guys can't effectively throw over hand. I hope we get several recruits from this.

Shit, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking.

[messageboardsuperhero]

I'm personally not a fan of it. Dropping down in something you do with a pitcher as a last resort to save his career. Young kids shouldn't be dropping down until it is needed to extend their baseball career. IMO, teaching young kids to drop down is not a good thing because it is counter productive to them learning to throw hard and be a starting pitcher, which as a junior high or high school kid, is all you should be worried about.

Being a Sidearmer U isn't a positive thing and will cost us recruits. Pitchers pick colleges due to the schools ability to develop them into a higher draft pick. I am all for dropping college players down once it is determined that they will have to pitch that way to be a productive SEC or Pro player, but dropping them down before that limits their potential and will ultimately works against the goal of developing pitchers for the draft and next level.

I would not send my kid to this camp unless I or the coaches have determined that he has no shot to advance his high school career without dropping down.

I see your point, but sometimes the only way for a pitcher to be SEC caliber is to drop them down. For example, you don't see Butch trying to drop down Woodruff or Lindgren, but Ross Mitchell probably isn't even an SEC caliber pitcher unless he has that low arm slot, funky delivery, and all the extra movement he gets from pitching that way.

[ShotgunDawg]

I see your point, but sometimes the only way for a pitcher to be SEC caliber is to drop them down. For example, you don't see Butch trying to drop down Woodruff or Lindgren, but Ross Mitchell probably isn't even an SEC caliber pitcher unless he has that low arm slot, funky delivery, and all the extra movement he gets from pitching that way.

You are correct, but instead of having a camp to do this, you just take the pitchers that are currently on the roster, that aren't producing, to drop them down. Just seems like an odd thing to have a camp for. Is bunting camp next?

[slickdawg]

Chad Bradford is from Byram/Terry, played two years at Hinds, wanted to come to State, Polk basically said walk on, USM offered a 100% ride, he went to USM. His dad went to State. I've known him since he was 10-ish, but haven't talked to him in forever.

[Todd4State]

This is a great idea for us. The reason is because a LOT of coaches don't know how to handle them as far as mechanics and things like that. Even at the MLB level. A camp like this could potentially provide MSU baseball even more exposure to a lot of prominent baseball people- again, think MLB level.

Some people like sidearmers, and some don't with very few people in the middle. I personally like them a lot, and if I was a coach, I would have at least one on the team. There are pros and cons. The people that don't like them, it's usually because sidearmers are usually exclusively relief pitchers and submarine pitchers are usually hit pretty well by left handed hitters. Some of it is because we are American and we all want pitchers that throw 100+- and I like that too.

But the people that like them- they typically are very durable, and they usually have really good control and they can get you through the order and save other guys and minimize damage if a starter struggles.

I do agree with shotgun that you always want a pitcher to learn how to throw overhand first. You want to teach kids how to pitch, and also the thing about submarine pitchers- their mechanics are actually the same as an overhand pitcher, but upside down. But the reality is not everyone can throw in the high 80's-90's that the SEC and MLB is looking for. And as everyone knows, we have a LOT of kids that want to play for MSU baseball that are good people and thus good teammates, and for some of them the best way that we can get them on the team and be productive is to drop them down. Caleb Reed and Myles Gentry are two great examples. And because of that, I disagree that it would hurt recruiting- in fact it will actually help us. We're not going to drop down a guy like a Stratton, a Holder, a Woodruff, Lindgren, etc.

With baseball recruiting, yes most of the players are hoping to go on to pro baseball careers. However, some players just want to play college baseball- and you see that probably more here in Mississippi than other places. And the ones that fall into that second category, again are the ones that we are going to be dropping down.

That said, there are plenty of guys in MLB even that are submarine/sidearm guys. Most every MLB team has one. In fact, Cy Young started to throw sidearm late in his career and Walter Johnson was a sidearmer. Dan Quisenberry was one of the greatest closers of all time. The guys running this camp- Chad Bradford pitched for Hinds, USM and then went on to Moneyball Fame after pitching with Oakland, Boston, and Baltimore. Jeff Innis pitched for the New York Mets. The guys that make it to MLB usually have an emergency pitch to get left hand hitters out- or a certain thing that they do. One thing that Butch does is have guys like Reed throw submarine and overhand. Obviously, you do that and a sidearm guy goes from a sinker/slider guy to know where the curveball and an overhand fastball comes into play. Plus, hitters don't know where to look to try to pick the ball up, which messes them up. But yes, it is very much a niche thing.

[maroonmania]

I'm personally not a fan of it. Dropping down in something you do with a pitcher as a last resort to save his career. Young kids shouldn't be dropping down until it is needed to extend their baseball career. IMO, teaching young kids to drop down is not a good thing because it is counter productive to them learning to throw hard and be a starting pitcher, which as a junior high or high school kid, is all you should be worried about.

Being a Sidearmer U isn't a positive thing and will cost us recruits. Pitchers pick colleges due to the schools ability to develop them into a higher draft pick. I am all for dropping college players down once it is determined that they will have to pitch that way to be a productive SEC or Pro player, but dropping them down before that limits their potential and will ultimately works against the goal of developing pitchers for the draft and next level.

I would not send my kid to this camp unless I or the coaches have determined that he has no shot to advance his high school career without dropping down.

Certainly have to pick and choose the pitchers you take in that direction but for a guy like Chad Girodo it literally turned him from being a college pitching disaster to an MSU legend and a Top 20 round MLB draft pick.

[MaroonState]

Wasn't the ucla reliever a sidearmer?

[Todd4State]

Wasn't the ucla reliever a sidearmer?

He was more of a submarine guy. I would say Girodo is more of a sidearm guy.