Paul Hembekides

Some of the hottest bats in the world.

I mean, I think if you've hit with a metal bat over the last three or four years, you realize that this is not the BB cores that guys were swinging six, seven, eight years ago.

They're much more springy than they've ever been before, maybe more so than even the drop five era that I was swinging back when I was in high school.

But I think you sort of evaluate pitching differently.

That...

The stuff matters, of course.

A lot of the underlying numbers don't necessarily matter as much as guys getting innings, guys having to work through pressure situations with, you know, a crowd that's actually into the game.

They're not there for, you know, the Paw Patrol promotion like they are in the minor leagues.

They're there because they're rabid LSU fans or they're rabid Arkansas fans.

And they're going to be screaming their lungs out and putting the pressure on you when you're on the mound.

And all those SEC games or ACC games or Big 12 games, et cetera, are a big deal, especially as you get later into the season.

So I think part of the evaluation with college pitching isn't just the stuff, isn't just the more mature body and refined sort of pitch ability.

It's also sort of the mental aspect of handling pressure situations, which is something that

When you're thrust into the major leagues and you're in stadiums with 30,000, 40,000 fans screaming, it's really important to already have sort of some of that in your back pocket.

And I think that's something that high school pitching prospects struggle with because it's something they have to adjust to.

The college hitting side is, you know, the way the bats are, the way some of these parks play.

you really have to dig in hard and kind of evaluate these guys and their swings and the type of pitches that they're hitting, the type of home runs they're hitting sometimes, or some of these like mishit oppo balls off these metal bats that are easy outs in pro ball.

So I think that's sort of what you see a little bit more and it becomes a little bit more obvious the more college games that you watch.

Yeah, and he's a guy that we've talked about on this show before.

There was an injury, missed all of 25, was hurt in 24.