By Dr. John Bagonzi (edited for WebBall by Richard Todd)

Don't plan to set a table on your baseball future unless you can answer at least three of these four questions yes. And don't plan on a long future unless you can say yes to all four.

Look at the act of pitching like a table with power, control, toughness and intelligence as its four legs. Take away one of those legs and the table might remain standing but take away two or more of those legs and you won't be a winning pitcher at any level, let alone get a date to the show.
1 Are you fast enough? 
Power. of course. is the Holy Grail of baseball. And power is important. If you're not a flame thrower, you better at least have a respectable enough fastball that people don't say nice change-up when you throw it. But power by itself isn't enough. Randy Johnson always threw hard and was always tough, but until he got a couple more legs under his table (control and smarts) he was just a fearsome pitcher with a mediocre record.

The reason why scouts are most apt to fall in love with a flame thrower, has to do with their belief that all the rest of it can be taught; that over time the kid who has a gift for throwing bullets is apt to develop a few more legs to stand on. The statistic laureate of baseball, Bill James has shown there is some truth to this: those pitchers with the highest K-to-win ratios one year are the ones most likely to improve the following year.

The ability to throw a ball hard and fast has a genetic quality but the truth of the matter is, we all have a fastball hidden within us. It just takes the right mechanics to find it.
2 Are you in control of the ball enough? 
If you can't get the ball over the plate, you won't succeed at any level. But then there's control and there's control. Can you paint the outside corner? Can you keep it down and out of the hitter's happy zone? If you've got good stuff, you may be able to get away with mediocre control. But it's not Pedro Martinez's fastball that makes him so lethal; it's his ability to put it wherever the heck he pleases whenever he pleases.

Good control is something any pitcher can develop. You don't hear many stories of control pitchers suddenly developing power at age 30. But it's not that unusual for the power pitcher in the autumn of his career to finally discover control and with it a new capacity for winning.

Control requires absolutely sound mechanics: doing things in an exact way every single time, and if you think a little laxity is okay when it comes to mechanics you better check out Coach's Rule Of Seven*.
3 Are you tough enough? 
Scouts deciding between a warrior with little talent and a clueless kid who can throw bullets, will pick the bullet-thrower most every time. Yet, there are a certain group of pitchers who seem to spend most of their careers on the happy side of luck. But chances are, what they have is pluck rather than luck.

Some kids want to disappear into the grain of the bench during the last inning of a tight game, others beg to come into the game, saying "let me at 'em coach, let me at 'em." And while toughness is something a player seems to either come pre-packaged with or not, it is something that can be learned. Although it's probably a heck of a lot easier to teach it in Little League than at any other time. The older we get the more used to our limitations we become.

Being tough is about finding out what motivates you. It's about knowing what you have to work with and what the other guy can beat you with, and then not giving in. The toughest pitchers are those who know just who they are when they get to the mound and they've discovered that nobody is more worthy of winning than they are. And being tough isn't just about scowling and looking mean. Are you tough enough to stick to your game when providence seems to be abandoning you? Are you tough enough to keep practicing your mechanics day after day after day, forever?
4 Are you smart enough? 
Ted Williams calls it baseballic intelligence. It's about knowing the game, knowing the batter, knowing the field, knowing the umpire, knowing the situation, knowing yourself. Are you foolish enough to challenge the Paul Bunyan of your league with a thigh high fastball with runners on second and third? Are you foolish enough to walk the ninth batter on breaking balls when he hasn't even shown he can hit your fastball? Are you smart enough to keep yourself in shape all winter, listen to the advice of those who know more than you, take care of an irritated arm before it becomes a sore one?

Nobody plays into their late thirties without this leg on their table. Are you smart enough to know that mechanics is your lifeblood, that without mechanics you're just a fast ball waiting for a blown-out arm, a journeyman who at his best is just good enough to lose? Are you smart enough to know that the truth of any pitch lies in its spin?

* Coach Bagonzi's Rule of Seven is explained in his book The Act of Pitching