Over thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan went to West Berlin and gave a very famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. It was about freedom and peace. The Soviet Union was in decline and President Reagan famously said, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall”. Continue reading “Is Your Baseball Coach Keeping up with the Times?”
Tomorrow’s elite pitchers have to learn and take advantage of the implications of data analysis. Advancements in technology have brought newly available data on baseball spin rate and pitch movement and other valuable information to the doorsteps of commercial baseball facilities and the future will be never be the same (what!?).
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Continue reading “Baseball Spin Rate Basics and Pitch Movement”
Today, we’re going to cover the topic of a baseball’s Total Spin rate vs. True Spin rate. We’ve previously reviewed how all spin is not alike, as some spin works for you to create movement and some spin doesn’t do anything at all. At any given moment, a baseball is likely spinning along all 3 axes at the same time. We’re talking a little bit of:
Continue reading “Baseball’s Total Spin Rate vs. True Spin Rate (simplified)”
In Part 1 of this series, we wrote about how data and analytics provided by new equipment is changing the way pitchers are getting evaluated and trained. Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper into the baseball spin rate and review several related topics:
As much as some people don’t want to admit it, baseball is turning even more into a numbers game run by machines such as Statcast, Rapsodo and Trackman, to name a few. The ordinary fan watching a game on TV is getting a glimpse of this when they see Aaron Judge’s exit velo, launch angle, projected distance and exit velocity pop on the screen, or, when they’re watching Aroldis Chapman and instantly see his velo, extension, spin rate, and horizontal and vertical movement. Whether we like or not, data is changing the landscape for baseball players. And I can speak to this first hand, from my own experience with the Indians over the past 7 years. Continue reading “Analytics is Changing Pitcher Evaluations… You Better Get Ready”
As we get closer to the end of another year here at RPP, it seems like a good time to reflect back on 2017, and provide you with a glimpse of where we might be headed in 2018. Continue reading “Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Headed”
There is no doubt that the pitching world is being taken over by new information. MLB’s Statcast system, Trackman radars and Rapsodo cameras and devices are showing up everywhere measuring velocity, baseball spin rates, spin axes, among other things. And pitchers and coaches are digging in to see how to include all this information in their preparation and training. Continue reading “Analyzing Baseball Spin Rate and Training Pitchers”
