The Paperfungo was part of the University of Nebraska 1965 team which still holds the team E.R. record. Later, he went on to Team Canada. This post is about an anylysis of a player. The dad who received it said that it contained more baseball knowledge and more specifics of how his kid could reach his potential than in all the camps and coaches' comments he experienced all put together. You be the judge.

Hi Ken, I went to Kevin's game yesterday and it was great weather. I was really impressed with the talent he has and the game was closer than the 0-4 score suggests. While everything is fresh in my mind I will pass on to you the jist of what I told Kevin after the game down in the bullpen by ourselves. You never know sometimes what people get from what is said. But here's my take on the conversation. First off, I told him that he had a great deal of talent. He has an outstanding curve ball, change up and slider and good movment on the fastball. In my view he is kind of sneaky fast right now and got going to blow this level away with his heater; but still throws fast enough. In a couple of years as he gets even stronger he may be able to just blow guys away but not at the moment. I told him I charted his pitches and showed him a graph of where the balls ended up. I know in the stands they were keeping a pitch count and what was thrown but my chart showed where, up or down, inside or outside the ball actually ended up. In his six innings he only threw one fastball inside and it was about 6 inches off the plate about ball high and the cleanup hitter about crapped. Even the two guys behind me commented on nice pitch. And I was thinking this is great because I would have showed something in the first inning inside, just to establish this. The opposing pitcher who only walked one guy and had good control hit the first hitter in the butt. Even though no doubt by accident it had a good overall effect. In fact I told Kevin this, but added that you don't have to hit the guy but put one pitch inside at least once an inning. With some lefties I wouldn't even suggest this but Kevin has very good control. He is never unnerved by getting behind in the count, this usually happens when he is being squeezed by a pitch or two. For the most part he was ahead in the count all night long. Anyway, I want to impress upon him to establish an inside presence so the hitters are not leaning and his meat and potatoes with his fast ball is low and outside. So, up and in with the fast ball and he can at times pitch low and outside for a strike out pitch. I might add that he has a very nice tail on one of his fastballs that tails away from a right handed hitter. That's the one I think is his best fastball. Almost every time he got two strikes and no balls on a hitter he tries to overthrow for velocity on his fast ball and it goes way high and outside to a right handed hitter. I told him that to me this does nothing. This is a great time to use that pitch inside; especially if he wants to hump up on the speed and then get it up head high and inside and scare the hell out of the hitter. Cause he doesn't know where it's going either! I told him that both he and his brother are very nice guys but at 6' 4" he can be meaner out there and very intimidating.

Now to the next point. In warm ups I was really impressed as everything he threw was knee high. I was expecting a lefty to be up and a bit wild. Man he can trhow strikes with all the off speed stuff till the cows come home and pretty good with the fastball too. However, once the game started his pitches with the fast ball were up like thigh to belt and too fat. And worse he  threw this when he was up in the count. Not like they tagged him alot as they only hit one ball hard way deep to centerfield and was caught. The rest of about 5 or 6 singles were dinks and dunks with him up in the count giving them too good a pitch. I can't emphasize this enough. And mostly the too good a pitch was the fastball. From what I could pick up from watching the pattern of pitches the catcher was calling. He did a very good job of mixing up the pitches which is what I infer the coach wants. But he doesn't have a clue about setting up a hitter or establishing anything. If you get my meaning. Kevin may have to shake him off alot and learn to take control of the clutch situations himself. If I was a hitter off Kevin I would just go up there and look for one good fastball every at bat and lay off all the off speed stuff and guaranteed I will get a pitch to hammer. And a nice strike pitch too and about thigh to belt high. You know me, I am one of the best guess hitters, and extremely accurate. I always guess unless I have two strikes on me and then I sit fast ball land adjust from there. Back to setting up a hitter. Kevin didn't establish anything. I told Kevin if I was catching the other team would not have scored tonight. Here's how I view his pitches. He has a great curveball. Lots of break at a good speed and lots of late break. Nobody touched his curve ball. It breaks down and away every time except when he starts it way outside to a righty and it comes back and hits the outside corner. Usually they give up on this pitch as the break is so much and every hitter that swung on it was out in front. So it is just slow enough to mess them up. My curve ball was much slower. Anyway, I would use this as my main strike out pitch if I was Kevin. With 1-2, 2-2 or 3-2 counts until somebody shows me they can hit it. HIs catcher might have called this a coupple of times by accident but mainly it was sliders over curve balls 3-1. It is way easier to hit a slider sitting fast ball than a curve. Then on occasion to keep them guessing I would use the fastball low, knee high and outside corner or up and in for the strike out pitch. His fast ball would look like it was shot out of a cannon. The way that game was called last night pretty much all of his pitches are what I call up tempo. He threw three sliders for every curve and probably as much fastballs as sliders with the odd change up thown in. To me he should get ahead with the slider or low fast ball and use the curve as the strike out if they have seen the fastball and us the fastball if they have seen the curve. (or curve and more curve if ahead in the count.) What I like about his change-up is that it darts down and is rarely a strike but looks like a strike which makes it another good strikeout pitch. In fact as a general rule I would use the law fast ball and slider and the odd change to get ahead in the count and the curve ball as the strike out pitch with the fastball and even mix the change as the strikeout pitch with the fastball up around the ears. I told Kevin that when I played semi-pro a catcher named Ron Blessie would put his glove behind the hitters head on 0-2 and I would throw it there. This was also the lesson I got from Bob Gibson at a baseball camp in Omaha as a kid. The pitcher owns the outside corner and don't be afraid to pitch inside to keep the hitters honest. I explained to Kevin that baseball is about getting ahead in the count and making the hitter hit your pitch and the batter wants to be ahead in the count and make you throw what he wants to hit. Barring large discrepensies in talent the side that does this one thing the best wins. What he is doing is getting ahead in the count and then giving the hitter a strike to hit instead of a pitch that looks like a strike but isn't. That curve ball is fantastic for this; as if anthing it goes down below the knees sometimes but always down. I can only imagine how tough he is on lefties; as the team he played last night had only one lefty in the lineup. To me Kevin at this point is a curve ball pitcher who lhas a great change and slider and is sneaky fast. I would guess mid eighties based on the guy that cam in after him who was not nearly as quick and they said low eighties on him. To me this means at the high school level you can blow guys away but at the college level the fast ball is not a strikeout pitch in the strike zone unless it is low and on the corner or up and in or afterlots of offspeed stuff and is most effective off the plate inside as he has the stuff to be outstanding at the college level using that curve ball. And to me it is rarely called by the current catcher and should be thrown way more as it is his best pitch and should be used in the clutch counts and when in trouble. Plus, it creates a bigger difference in speed or in other words contrast between his slowest and fastest. To me once your slowest is in mind then your 85 mile an hour fastball looks like 90. Als, I was noticing where the guys in the batters box are with reference to up or back in the box. None of them were up in the box. Which to me means that they respect his speed and this makes that great curve ball even meaner by the time it hits a later break pont when they can make contact with it. Then in time when he is a bit stronger he might be 90 with lthe fastball without overthrowing. Then we can adjust the percentage of fastballs thrown and the location. It would give even more choices to us in developing a strategy. I think the odd pitch when he humps up on it around 90 now. Now that I have seen him pitch I don't think he needs to drop down every from the side as he already has plenty of break on the curve to establish the very same thing. What I wouldn't mind seeing him try would be to come straight over the top with the curve ball like 12-6. In fact I think he did this once. From what I could tell he is up top like betwee 1 &2. It would not be a get ahead pitch but another strike out pitch for right handed hitters as the break would be more up and down and then he could use that tailing fast ball too. That's a combination I used aginset lefties as a right handed pitcher and he would be just the opposite.

Kevin is calm and cool but pitches too quick with runners on base. Some of the time I felt he was n a groove and every so often I felt he threw too quick and then I put a watch on him and between the time the catcher caught the last pitch and he threw the next was about 1--12 seconds. I started timing the other pitcher too and he was nearly as quick as Kevn but slowed down when runners were on and coincidence or not he got a double play ball when he took 16 seconds between pitches. It was a blast for me to see him pitch and I hope my comments will serve well in the future.

P.S. Kevin's next start was a complete game shutout and he used the information.