Question to the baseball knowledgeable

[coastratdog]

How do you measure bat speed? What would be a good number from this measurement?

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

There are a few. Raw speed in a long swing (Judge, Stanton) and a quick bat that gets into the zone quickly. The long swing is for raw power. The quick allows more pitch recognition. I think that 75mph+ is fast in MLB.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Exit velocity is what they measured when my son went to MSU camp last year....

 

[coastratdog]

Exit velocity is what they measured when my son went to MSU camp last year....

How did they measure it and what were some of the results?

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

As a baseball geek, I will tell you that you can ask a million questions about this stuff and not get the answers you want with the vagueness in this thread. What age batter? What experience level? What kind of bat?

Bat speed would be considered swing analysis. This is where you get mph of the bat head, time to impact, etc. This is about swing mechanics. Check out Zepp. They have a lot of software and devices in this world. I am sure you can read up on it or watch videos of their systems to learn more.

Exit velocity is an after contact measurement. It's a radar based tracking of the ball with the same system usually that tracks the pitch. Exit velocity is not just a measurement of swing speed, but also the quality of contact or hitting the sweet spot. Trackman makes the systems used in MLB. They can also measure launch angle and spin rate which will provide data about swing path. Check Trackman out as well.

In summary, exit velocity is a measurement of results based on everything leading up to contact. Swing analysis is going to allow you to break it all down prior to contact. If the end goal is game improvement, swing analysis is going to help figure more stuff out that can help.

Exit velocity is just going to put data on what you can see with your eyes. How high, hard, and far will the ball travel. Scouts want the Trackman data. Coaches want the Zepp analysis.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

His was low 80's....but he was a 5'6'140 lb 15 year old... they used a radar gun and were using a pitching machine... Demarini has a chart out there on Internet... that has age, speed ranking etc

 

[BlueRidgeMtns]

I'm sure it's different now, but the hitting camp we went to through high school (14 years ago... good Lord) had a little widget that was about a foot long, you would swing your bat right over it tripping the first then second sensor to get your bat speed.

 

[CochiseCowbell]

Exit velocity is what they measured when my son went to MSU camp last year....

State's Baseball Camps have sure changed in ... 25 years. Whippersnappers with their fancy doodads these days.**

Slight hijack, but those few weeks during those few summers living in the dorms and eating, sleeping, breathing baseball are some of the best memories I have.