Jamestown senior pitcher Corey Williams has given a verbal commitment to play baseball for Christopher Newport University.
Williams did not have the prettiest of stat lines during his junior campaign — a 3-4 record over 33 innings pitched, with 27 strikeouts and era of 4.03. But his coach, Michael Kuebler, thinks the stats don’t tell the whole story.
“He did face some of the best teams in district,” Kuebler said of Williams. “He is a pitcher that continues to improve and his stats do not tell the entire story.”
Jamestown pitching coach and former Major League pitcher Bill Bray also de-emphasized Williams’ stat line, stressing that high school pitchers are subjected to small sample size. Bray said one sub-par game against Grafton early in the season skewed his numbers for the whole season.
Williams was third in Jamestown’s pitching rotation last season behind Sean Hughes, a Boston College commit, and Kent Klyman, who has offered a verbal commitment to play at NC State. Bray is currently unsure what the pitching rotation will look like with three college pitchers at his disposal.
Williams had been receiving interest from Christopher Newport and Virginia Military Institute, but ultimately decided to pull the trigger and commit after Christopher Newport coach John Cole came to watch a fall workout in October.
Kuebler said that while Williams still has some developing to do, his desire to improve has taken his game to new, unexpected heights.
“In the past six months, his velocity has jumped and his command has developed beyond what we expected,” Kuebler said. “With all the time he’s spent in the weight room this off season — and with our throwing program beginning to gear up — I’m excited to see what he can do this spring that will translate to college next fall.”
Bray saw the same work ethic out of Williams that impressed Kuebler so much.
“Corey is the kind of kid that if you ask him to do something 100 times a day for the next six months, he’ll go out and do it,” Bray said. “He’s such a hard worker and great young man. I have really high hopes for him.”
Bray has been working with Williams over the offseason to improve his change-up in an attempt to remove his reliance on the fastball, a trend for high school pitchers. Bray complimented Williams’ command and change-up, saying he possesses skills that typically don’t develop until later in a player’s development cycle.
Bray said Williams has been working to improve his change-up velocity to match his fastball. Williams has been working to keep his arm speed the same when throwing the change-up, making his secondary pitch just as deadly as his fastball because batters are less likely to see it coming.
When asked about how Williams projects as a pitching prospect at the next level, Bray responded simply, “I think CNU is very lucky to have him.”
