Sports Highlights

MSU has wealth of pitchers with high-octane fastballs

This season MSU boasts an unprecedented number of pitchers -- five -- whose fastballs can top 90 mph.

2006-04-09
By Brian Ojanpa, Free Press Staff Writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 5/5/2005]

MANKATO — Heat. Gas. Smoke. Call it what you will.

But by any name, the fastball is to pitching what footings are to new construction - the fundamental building block for all that comes after.

This season, the Minnesota State baseball team's pitching corps is flush with high-velocity hurlers. In fact, their numbers are unprecedented at the school.

"The scouts tell us that we have the best arms in the Midwest, including Division I teams," MSU coach Dean Bowyer says. "We've never had this many hard-throwers. Usually, you're lucky to have one guy that can throw 90 (mph)."

This year, the Mavericks have five pitchers whose fastballs can top 90. Contrast that with 2002, when only two of the four MSU pitchers signing pro contracts could hit 90, and the special nature of this season's pitching staff becomes clear.

Actually, the Mavericks' heat wave is the product of prudent recruiting and happenstance.

The staff's hardest thrower, senior Andy Kreidermacher (95 mph), transferred to MSU from Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis.

"Kreidermacher's probably been the biggest surprise because we didn't know that much about him," MSU pitching coach Matt Magers says. "We took a chance on him, and he's done the job. He's throwing a lot harder now than he was at the start of the year because his mechanics have gotten better."

The other four hard-throwers are all MSU recruits, and all have upped their pitch velocities significantly since high school.

Sophomore reliever Kevin Dixon, the school's top pro prospect, has gone from "touching" 90 at Burnsville High to consistently registering 94 now.

Junior Jon Jarchow from Luverne boasts the largest increase, going from 84 mph in high school to his current 91.

"They didn't throw that hard when they came here, but we project whether they're going to be hard throwers," Bowyer says of the school's recruitment process.

When Magers scouts a high school pitcher, he looks for not only raw velocity but for more telling predictors of success, such as a pitcher's overall mechanics, a loose and easy arm action, a fastball's movement (arrow-straight is undesirable), and complementary pitches.

The latter is especially important because fastballs alone won't get a pitcher by in college ball, let alone the pros.

"That's why Dixon is so successful," Magers says. "He doesn't always throw at 94. He throws at lesser speeds too to keep hitters off-balance."

Dixon also employs a change-up and slider he can consistently throw for strikes.

Evaluators also project a pitcher's velocity upside based upon physical size.

"Six-foot-2 and 6-foot-3 guys draw more interest than 5-foot-10 guys," Bowyer says.

MSU's five hard throwers range from the 6-foot-1, 170-pound Huber to the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Dixon.

Dolenc, a sophomore from Eagan, threw in the mid-80s in high school, and can hit 91 on the radar gun now. He attributes the velocity gain to weight-room work - with concentration on midsection, back and legs - that has added 20 pounds to his 6-foot-2 frame. He now weighs 205.

"But a lot of it just has to do with getting older and more mature," Dolenc says. "There's a big difference between an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old."

But Dolenc and his coaches stress that a showcase fastball can be fool's gold. Junior Matt McMurtry isn't a member of the 90 mph club, yet he's been MSU's most consistently successful pitcher the past two seasons.

"A lot of people put too much emphasis on how hard you throw," Dolenc says. "It's not about throwing 90 mph every pitch; it's about throwing 88 with good location."

Though a pitcher needs command of more than one pitch to be successful, a good, moving fastball is of paramount importance.

"Hitting is timing," Magers says. "And the harder you throw it, the less time a batter has to react to it."

Conventional wisdom in recent years has held that young pitchers' collective arm strengths aren't what they once were. But MSU's wealth of strong arms would seem to contradict that.

"It seems that the bar has been moved up (regarding velocity), and I think it's because kids are just bigger these days," Magers says.

Kreidermacher is 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds - only slightly heavier that he was in high school at Altura.

Even so, he's bumped his velocity to 95 from the 89 he topped out at in high school. He, too, credits weight work, but says he achieved most of his arm-strength gain the old-fashioned way - by playing a lot of catch, long-toss in particular.

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