Last season, his first as the head coach at Clever HS, Justin Snider made a name for himself as one of the top young high school coaches in the state. His Clever team posted a 27-4 record last spring, with a third place finish in the state championship, followed by a perfect 18-0 record this fall. Snider was named the 2011-2012 SWCL Conference and District Coach of the Year, and has coaches thirty-two players who have moved on to college baseball during stops at Hillcrest, Marionville, and Strafford.

Clever is a school who will most likely make the jump from Class 2 to Class 3, a big challenge being a smaller school in a new conference, but if the past has any indication of what the future holds, Snider will have Clever ready to compete right off the bat.

What are your thoughts on how the new five class system will effect schools that will be moving to a different class? Those who will remain in the same class?

Snider: I think it is good, but we probably should have completely evened it out and went to a 6 or 7 class system like Oklahoma or Arkansas, where the top 32 schools based on enrollment are in class 7, the next 32 in class 6 and so on until you get to class 1 and 2 and evenly divide those.  We will be a school being moved to class 3 but if you really look at the teams it will stay about the same as to who we already have been playing. 

 

Do you think it will increase competitiveness or hurt some schools?

Snider: I feel it just depends on how you have been scheduling.  If you have been scheduling weak and you are moved up then obviously it will hurt you.  But if you have been scheduling up and you moved up, then you shouldn’t be affected too much.  Honestly though I don’t think it will change much as far as competitiveness.  Coaches will continue to schedule as to how good their team will be. 

 

What trends in ability have you noticed the past few years?

Snider: The major trend that I see is a lack of arm strength from our athletes coming into high school.  More and more sports are taking over and time from the summers that used to be used for baseball.  Baseball in most areas now is considered the 3^rd summer sport and I think players skill sets have diminished.  We always advocate kids playing multiple sports, but the coaches in all the sports need to work better to allow kids to work on all sports.  Hitting is however the one trend I see that has improved, especially in our area.   

 

Do you think the new BBCOR bats have anything to do with the trends?

Snider: Our team average has climbed every season since they started using them.  I don’t feel like they have affected the high school game as much as the college.  It has put a new emphasis on the basic fundamentals of the game: bunting, hitting and running, and those types of phases that maybe were ignored if you had a team that could hit for power. 

 

Looking into crystal ball, what do you think the future of Missouri baseball holds? Does it seem like the talent pool is increasing, decreasing, staying the same? Why do you think this way (private training, better coaching, etc?)

Snider: I feel that the upper level of talent in MO is increasing, and I truly believe it is based on the level of competition the kids are playing in the summer (aka: Travel Teams).  The travel team aspect of summer ball has allowed the kids to play the best talent from all over the Midwest, where as 10 yrs ago they were just playing teams in their area 90% of the time.  What I do believe this has done is created a bigger upper level talent pool, but decreased the mid-level talent pool.  Baseball has become a very expensive game to play and compete at the highest level, therefore this has weeded out a lot of talent too.