I Googled and couldn’t find a decent answer. Does the college baseball with its lower stitching make it harder for pro scouts to determine how much power a college hitter has?
Before the stitches were lowered Kyle Schwarber hit forty homers in three years. He never hit twenty. It seemed in the CWS every team had three or four players with 20+ homers.
Do pro scouts use exit velocity and swing angle to determine potential pro power? How much does the low stitch ball affect exit velocity?
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They will scout the College Summer Leagues with wood bats and then "listen" for the sound.
With metal bats the pro scouts will reduce the distance of a HR by 40 feet. Expression is "Warning" track power.
Bob
It’s not about the bat. I’m asking about the ball. College summer leagues use the NCAA ball.
The scouts only care if the ball is white and red seams. BArry Bonds looked for the red seams.
During the 17 years of the Area Code games and tryouts, I had the opportunity to join with the scouts to evaluate the hitters. We never discussed the the type of the baseball seams.
Bob
Several years ago there was a concern about the limited power in college ball after implementing BBCOR. One CWS barely had any homers. The NCAA moved to a lower seam ball. Lower seams means pitchers get less spin on the ball affecting movement Lower seams means less wind resistance upon exit increasing exit velocity and carry.
Considering MLB Rawlings baseballs have lower seams than both college Flat seam balls and HS Wilson A1010 baseballs, and MLB baseballs are hotter than both, I don't think scouts are concerned with the balls. It is truly about the bats. And the major difference with the bats is that a good MLB maple bat can produce similar exit velos, but you have about a 2 inch sweet spot vs a 6'-8" sweet spot on a good bbcor.
Simple test to check bat sweet spot is to hold it by the barrel between your pointer and thumb and tap the bat, starting at the end and work your way towards the label, where the bat doesn't vibrate is the sweet spot. You'll see how much bigger it is on a bbcor bat.
@HSDad22 posted:Considering MLB Rawlings baseballs have lower seams than both college Flat seam balls and HS Wilson A1010 baseballs, and MLB baseballs are hotter than both, I don't think scouts are concerned with the balls. It is truly about the bats. And the major difference with the bats is that a good MLB maple bat can produce similar exit velos, but you have about a 2 inch sweet spot vs a 6'-8" sweet spot on a good bbcor.
Simple test to check bat sweet spot is to hold it by the barrel between your pointer and thumb and tap the bat, starting at the end and work your way towards the label, where the bat doesn't vibrate is the sweet spot. You'll see how much bigger it is on a bbcor bat.
Thank you. Your response was what I was looking for and couldn’t find. I knew the seams had been flattened. I didn’t realize they were different from MLB balls in the first place. When I asked the question differently AI came up with this response ….
The flatter-seamed ball has a seam height of . 031 inches compared to . 048 inches for a raised-seam ball. This flatter seam height is consistent with the balls used in minor league baseball, yet still higher than what is used in major league baseball.
@RJM posted:I Googled and couldn’t find a decent answer. Does the college baseball with its lower stitching make it harder for pro scouts to determine how much power a college hitter has?
Before the stitches were lowered Kyle Schwarber hit forty homers in three years. He never hit twenty. It seemed in the CWS every team had three or four players with 20+ homers.
Do pro scouts use exit velocity and swing angle to determine potential pro power? How much does the low stitch ball affect exit velocity?
They definitely look at exit velo. If someone Hits 20 homers with a 106 max EV in college he won't be projected for 30 homers in mlb.
There also was talk about the ball being especially hot this year.
@Dominik85 posted:They definitely look at exit velo. If someone Hits 20 homers with a 106 max EV in college he won't be projected for 30 homers in mlb.
There also was talk about the ball being especially hot this year.
I don’t understand this, ev isn’t high enough?
Please consider the size of the Minor League ballparks; the elevation [Albuquerque vs Miami] and the Pro Scout who signed the player.
Bob
I think he was talking about college. I just assumed college fields were the same size as mlb…. Our hs field is 320 on the sides graduating to a 400’ center
@Dadof3 posted:I don’t understand this, ev isn’t high enough?
I was talking about in game EVs. Guys who hit 30 bombs in mlb typically have an in game max EV of 110+.
Max EV is not everything and there are plenty of bad hitters with high max EVs but if it is under a certain threshold power might not be "real".
Last year in mlb 26 guys hit 30 or more homers, 25 of them maxed at 110+ (and 22 of them 112+). So typically a guy who can hit 30 bombs can hit a max ev of 112+.
This is of course in Game EV, not those Tee EVs that is done in showcases.
@Dominik85 posted:They definitely look at exit velo. If someone Hits 20 homers with a 106 max EV in college he won't be projected for 30 homers in mlb.
There also was talk about the ball being especially hot this year.
There are college players who become bigger, stronger and more powerful as professionals.
@Dadof3 posted:I think he was talking about college. I just assumed college fields were the same size as mlb…. Our hs field is 320 on the sides graduating to a 400’ center
Until Kentucky build a new facility it was 350 to the power alley in right. The first time my son played there he told me, “Damn, I picked the wrong school.”
I believe the major programs have new enough facilities that their dimensions are major league.
The Pro Scouts know who in advance of signing . We call it “non verbal communication “
Bob
@Dominik85 posted:I was talking about in game EVs. Guys who hit 30 bombs in mlb typically have an in game max EV of 110+.
Max EV is not everything and there are plenty of bad hitters with high max EVs but if it is under a certain threshold power might not be "real".
Last year in mlb 26 guys hit 30 or more homers, 25 of them maxed at 110+ (and 22 of them 112+). So typically a guy who can hit 30 bombs can hit a max ev of 112+.
This is of course in Game EV, not those Tee EVs that is done in showcases.
HR in the MLB go out of the park with all kinds of Exit Velo numbers, from 85 to 115mph, If you get backspin you can get carry and don't need so much exit velo. Today's hitters need huge exit velos because of their emphasis on launch angle and a swing that produces it. It's why you see so many hits that are hit hard enough to go out but dive down due to the top spin line drives and fly balls more often produced.
Guys are really big and really strong and if they hit the ball right, it goes fast and far, but there were a lot of guys who hit 25-30 hr in years past who were not so big or strong and with a ball that is not so juiced. But they got carry. (pre steroid years)
It's just easier to project that a guy could hit a lot of home-runs if they hit the ball really hard. But I'm sure scouts are smart enough to know what translates from college to pros. Case in point...
Take the first pick in the draft, he spent all year at Driveline working on getting the ball in the air, and he got the #1 pick, but the scouts also noted he has a hole in his swing middle away because he's looking to kill the ball all the time and a pull swing gets tons of bat speed and exit velo but it's in and out of the zone so you need to always look middle in, (you can read his scouting report on the draft tracker). If he doesn't fix that, he will need to be a mistake hitter. Pro's can spend all day on the outside, they'll make a mistake here and there, especially when the emphasis is on 100% effort, but they'll stay away from him until he learns to adjust. The point is, the scouts know, but they also know it can be worked on.
DAD22;
Question: How would you develop "backspin"?
Bob
@Consultant posted:DAD22;
Question: How would you develop "backspin"?
Bob
An on-plane swing (which means more flat than up), and good extension through the ball with a dominant top hand producing good direction. Hitting with leverage and your body vs swinging your arms. It's not something that is 100% of course as you miss by fraction of inches it produces other spin, but it's more likely to produce backspin than swinging up or down or pulling front side, which hurts extension through the ball as you slice across it if not perfectly timed. Part of the goal is to avoid topspin which kills carry.
I never thought producing spin on purpose was possible, and even scoffed at those who tried to teach it in the past, always believed it was just a result of where you hit the ball, and there was very little control of that. Until my son met a very good hitting coach who taught him how to produce backspin line drives, while also increasing more barrels, and I have seen it for myself.
He also says there is a time for that full effort pull swing, you get a cookie inside that you are expecting because you paid attention during your at bats, then hammer away, but until then prove you can drive the ball where it's pitched and get your 2-3 hits a game. You go up and a pitcher has been spending all day getting people out on the outer corner, but you come up and drive them to right field for gappers, and you probably will get that cookie inside.
A former ML player with the Pirates, Mike Diaz [called Rambo] and I, conducted baseball clinics in Northern California.
Mike introduced the "high tee" drill to develop "backspin". When I coached the hitters at SSU, the "high tee drill was used daily.
Bob
@Consultant posted:A former ML player with the Pirates, Mike Diaz [called Rambo] and I, conducted baseball clinics in Northern California.
Mike introduced the "high tee" drill to develop "backspin". When I coached the hitters at SSU, the "high tee drill was used daily.
Bob
We constantly use high tee, I see it as a way for us to develop several things that all need to happen to produce a good swing. The less you have to tilt to a ball on a tee, the easier it is to work on all the other elements of the swing, including backspin produced by good extension and hands through the ball, so it works well to isolate them or get them to work in sequence. Adding the tilt on the turn is the last part of the plan to developing the total swing (in my opinion). And being able to take it mostly out of the equation with the high tee helps work on everything else first.
@HSDad22 posted:We constantly use high tee, I see it as a way for us to develop several things that all need to happen to produce a good swing. The less you have to tilt to a ball on a tee, the easier it is to work on all the other elements of the swing, including backspin produced by good extension and hands through the ball, so it works well to isolate them or get them to work in sequence. Adding the tilt on the turn is the last part of the plan to developing the total swing (in my opinion). And being able to take it mostly out of the equation with the high tee helps work on everything else first.
I'm doing that too now. First I'm doing a lot of high tee work to create a level swing, then I'm adding some movement drills for "side bend" and then finally hit low pitches with the side bend but the same level swing.
You don't want a loop in the swing, it should be direct and level, the angles in the swing should be created by the body angles and the natural arc of the bat around the hands and not the arms and hands.
@Dominik85 posted:You don't want a loop in the swing, it should be direct and level, the angles in the swing should be created by the body angles and the natural arc of the bat around the hands and not the arms and hands.
Yes, if you have good mechanics, the bat works on plane really on it's own, whether you think down to or level or slightly up, reality, all these guys fighting over down, up, level, really they are all right, it's just different parts of the same swing and what you use for keys or feel. you really need it to plane for about 2 to 2.5 feet (any more and you are too long). It gets on plane by the combination of being connected, your tilt (side-bend) and your release of the barrel. When players start to "TRY" and create planing , etc that's when they start manipulating their body with things like collapsing (leaning back or when that side bend happens before the turn) or manipulating their hands and that causes them to get loopy. It's when people, coach or not, don't know what keys or cue like staying back, take knob to the ball, take hands to the ball, really mean, is when they screw kids up. Rarely does it mean literally do those things or over do them.
I am a big believer in striding to balance, so yes you move forward till foot plant, taking bat directly to ball, but it does plane with tilt, and using leverage by hitting the ball with your back hip (top hand and back side dominant) . I could care less about bat speed and care much more about catching barrels.
