Baseball Attack Angles and Pitch Descent Angles… Any Relation? YES!

baseball Attack Angle

The Blast Motion sensor provides for two different types of angles at contact. One is the attack angle (AA, side view) and the other is the vertical bat angle (VBA, front view). Both are extremely relevant to the swing as it moves through space, but with different attributes, characteristics and implications. This article is about the attack angle, a topic with a dearth of information out there. Continue reading “Baseball Attack Angles and Pitch Descent Angles… Any Relation? YES!”

A Review of Blast Motion Baseball and Its Swing Metrics

blast motion baseball

If you don’t own a Blast Motion baseball sensor, you should.  We’ve been using Blast sensors for quite some time now and we are very impressed.  Frankly they are very easy to use and they don’t require calibration prior to hitting.  The only shortfall we discovered early on was how all the metrics related to each other, which actually prompted this internal write-up.  Blast reports 3 swing quality scores, Plane, Connection and Rotation, which they also refer to as PCR.  Their scores (20-80) are based on relative measurements of similar age groups and skill levels.  The sensor provides 10 pre-contact metrics categorized as follows:

Continue reading “A Review of Blast Motion Baseball and Its Swing Metrics”

Attack Angle, Baseball’s Step-Child Metric

attack angle baseball

Today, we’re going to review the Attack Angle n baseball and the important role it plays in the swing path.  While everyone is focused on the Launch Angle, it often seems like Attack Angle is playing second fiddle.  Sometimes, the hardest part about Data Analytics is accepting what it tells you.  This article isn’t about what’s right or what’s wrong, or whether rotational is better than linear hitting (even though it is… Lol!).  Thanks to Rapsodo (post-contact) and Blast Motion (pre-contact) we can now sync up the results of a “hit” and reach some decent conclusions… Continue reading “Attack Angle, Baseball’s Step-Child Metric”

Physics of Baseball… Ball-Bat Collision

physics of baseball

With a Rapsodo Hitting camera finally here at RPP, it’s time to start talking physics of baseball on the hitting side.  We’re going to start this series of articles by going over the point of contact, where the bat meets the ball.  We all know that a baseball hit hard at the right place can do a lot of damage.  But the art and skill of doing so can be a difficult process.  So, let’s review what happens at the point of collision, where 90 mph pitches meet 90 mph bat speeds. Continue reading “Physics of Baseball… Ball-Bat Collision”