On Feb. 25, the PBR Illinois staff hosted the Preseason All-State: Underclass showcase at The MAX in McCook, Ill., featuring many of the state’s top players inside both the 2025 and 2026 classes. This event helped our staff gain a clearer picture of the on-the-rise underclassmen in Illinois, and we’ll begin to break down the excellent thoroughly today and throughout the week. Inside today’s Quick Hits post, we’re highlighting the best of the best – the talent that exited the event as with arrows pointed way up headed into the spring.

Last week, we took a closer look at some of the immediate standouts who caught our attention with our Quick Hits. Yesterday, we published our statistical analysis, where we broke down the stat leaders from the more traditional categories. Today, we will take a further in-depth look at the top pitchers with the help of our tech partnerships, broken down by the categories down below: 

TRACKMAN

FASTBALL

VELOCITY (MAX)

Rank	Name	State	School	Class	Pos	Velocity (max)
1	Jack Bauer	IL	Lincoln-Way East	2025	LHP	92.6 mph
2	Tucker King	IL	Lyons Township	2025	RHP	91.0 mph
3	Blaine Williams	IL	Tremont	2025	C	89.3 mph
4	Remo Indomenico	IL	St. Ignatius	2025	LHP	89.1 mph
5	Caden Earing	IL	Mundelein	2025	RHP	89.0 mph
6	Will Carter	IL	Whitney Young	2025	RHP	88.5 mph
7	Frank Costabile	IL	Stevenson	2026	OF	88.4 mph
8	Daniel Kane	IL	Oak Park River Forest	2025	RHP	88.2 mph
9	Conor Essenburg	IL	Lincoln-Way West	2025	1B	88.0 mph
10	Nathan O'Donnell	IL	Providence Catholic	2025	3B	87.9 mph

Max Fastball Velocity: This metric calculates the speed of the pitch as it’s released from the pitcher’s hand.

SPIN RATE (AVG.)

Rank	Name	State	School	Class	Pos	Spin Rate (avg)
1	Ethan Bass	IL	Glenbrook North	2026	SS	2530 rpm
2	Hayden Peterson	IL	Batavia	2026	LHP	2480 rpm
3	Jackson Natanek	IL	Brother Rice	2025	SS	2413 rpm
4	Hunter Baugh	IL	Edwardsville	2026	SS	2365 rpm
5	Lincoln Causero	IL	Hersey	2025	RHP	2341 rpm
6	Braden Deverman	IL	Normal University	2025	RHP	2314 rpm
7	Joe Olson	IL	St. Laurence	2025	LHP	2307 rpm
8	Tyler Townsend	IL	Sycamore	2026	RHP	2295 rpm
9	Chase Lockwood	IL	Libertyville	2026	RHP	2269 rpm
10	Jack Bauer	IL	Lincoln-Way East	2025	LHP	2265 rpm

Spin Rate: This metric calculates the rate of spin on the baseball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). Historical data shows that high-spin fastballs lessen the impact of gravity, allowing for more ‘rise’ (or less fall, in other words) as it carries through the zone. Low-spin fastballs typically indicate the pitch has greater horizontal action, often making it tougher to square up, but generally easier to make contact with, leading to more ground balls, while high-spin fastballs show a correlation with swings and misses.

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

Induced Vertical Break: Used in short form as "IVB," this metric is most important on fastballs for creating rise and on curveballs for creating depth – it can also have some use when measuring sliders and cutters as well. Sliders tend to be closer to zero inches while cutters are generally between 5 and 15 inches. Usually fastballs and curveballs with large IVB have higher spin efficiencies as well. Sliders generally have very little (closer to zero) IVB and very low spin efficiency. You could also categorize IVB into spin rate as this is part of the “useful movement” you’re looking for. IVB is also a huge part of the vertical approach angle.

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

Horizontal Break: Outlined on TrackMan’s own website: “... horizontal movement is measured in inches between where the pitch actually crosses the front of home plate side-wise, and where it would have crossed home plate side-wise if had it traveled in a perfectly straight line from release. A positive number means the break was to the right from the pitcher’s perspective, while a negative number means the break was to the left from the pitcher’s perspective.”

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

Average MLB pitchers throw 62% strikes, and better pitchers throw strikes 65% of the time, or roughly 2:1 strikes to balls.

 

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CURVEBALL

SPIN RATE (AVG.)

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

 

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SLIDER

SPIN RATE (AVG.)

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

 

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CHANGEUP

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

+ CLICK HERE for a look at the complete statistics from the event.

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