2014 just completed HS tryouts and one of the areas of evaluation was running from first to third.
Can anyone provide what is considered average and above average times?
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quote:Originally posted by Proud Dad 24:
2014 just completed HS tryouts and one of the areas of evaluation was running from first to third.
Can anyone provide what is considered average and above average times?
Maybe there is such a number, but I don’t think its relevant at all. The players aren’t going to be measured against some mythical national average, they’ll be measured against only the players who are trying out to see if they can be put in some kind of ranked order.
You don't have to be a speed burner to get from first to third. A lot of it has to do with jump and instincts. Reading if the ball is going to drop in or not is part of the baseball instincts required.
too many are hung up on numbers--- speed means nothing if you do not know how to run the bases
There are numbers out there - I do not know what they are. I can tell you that I agree with earlier posters tnat in reality pure speed is not as important as you might think. My son is a perfect example. He is NOT a speed deamon and yet on a nationally recognized travel team this summer he pinch ran multiple times because the coach trusted his instincts and baserunning acumen. Don't get me wrong - faster is better - but there are other factors.
quote:Originally posted by Proud Dad 24:
2014 just completed HS tryouts and one of the areas of evaluation was running from first to third.
Can anyone provide what is considered average and above average times?
These are top times at a showcase, all between 6.50-6.62
http://azfallclassic.com/senio...ARQ_Results_2010.pdf
The numbers vary depending on how the times were taken. Purely hand timed from a gun start tends to be about .24 seconds faster than fully automatically timed (FAT) with experienced timers and even more with inexperienced timers. I don't know how they do it now but the PG times from the last showcase my son did were about .14 to .15 or more faster than FAT depending on how much momentum the player has before breaking the initial laser beam. If you get into a situation where the player can anticipate the start relative to the person with the stopwatch then the times can be even faster compared to FAT. FAT is when the timer is connected to the gun and the finish is electronic. The PG method is pretty good because there's no bias introduced and they are closer to FAT than a lot of other methods. You just have to remember that they are going to be about .1 seconds slower than purely hand timed for comparison to older times that were taken.
If a HS coach is doing the timing with a stopwatch it tends to vary pretty significantly based on who the coach likes or doesn't like regardless of how impartial the coach is trying to be. I've seen POP times off by more than a quarter second between a timer who liked a player and a group of impartial college coaches. The same person was pretty close to the college coaches with players he didn't know. Some of the known studs probably also got a little better times than deserved at showcases in the "old days" with hand timing as a result.
I believe the NFL combine does some sort of hand start with an electronic finish for the 40yd dash. They do have FAT times but my understanding is that they won't give those out.
How did SPARQ time those 60yd dashes? Those look like hand times.
The 1st to 3rd times are also going to be very dependent on how they are taken. Standing start with a lead off first? Standing start from first base? Starting from home plate and starting the timing when the player crosses first? There can be around a 1s variation in those times. Even though the distance is the same you can't really compare 60yd dash times to 1st to 3rd times.
If a HS coach is doing the timing with a stopwatch it tends to vary pretty significantly based on who the coach likes or doesn't like regardless of how impartial the coach is trying to be. I've seen POP times off by more than a quarter second between a timer who liked a player and a group of impartial college coaches. The same person was pretty close to the college coaches with players he didn't know. Some of the known studs probably also got a little better times than deserved at showcases in the "old days" with hand timing as a result.
I believe the NFL combine does some sort of hand start with an electronic finish for the 40yd dash. They do have FAT times but my understanding is that they won't give those out.
How did SPARQ time those 60yd dashes? Those look like hand times.
The 1st to 3rd times are also going to be very dependent on how they are taken. Standing start with a lead off first? Standing start from first base? Starting from home plate and starting the timing when the player crosses first? There can be around a 1s variation in those times. Even though the distance is the same you can't really compare 60yd dash times to 1st to 3rd times.
silly nonsense---was the runner safe ?
TR,
Bull, especially in HS. A kid with real wheels doesn't have to know how the run the bases to run wild on most HS catchers/pitchers. You give me a kid who can run a 6.5 60yd dash and he's got a green light no matter how poor his lead or his jump against all but the very best HS pitcher/catcher combination. Even against a HS LHP with a good move the kid is going to be successful going on first movement more often than not.
Knowing how to run the bases is important and it enhances the ability of any runner, but pure speed is still the most important ingredient. I'll take Peter Bourjos who really isn't that good of a baserunner yet and you can have whoever is the best baserunner of the Molina brothers.
I guess anything that you don't understand or aren't willing to take the effort to understand is silly nonsense. Your one line pontificating gets old.
Bull, especially in HS. A kid with real wheels doesn't have to know how the run the bases to run wild on most HS catchers/pitchers. You give me a kid who can run a 6.5 60yd dash and he's got a green light no matter how poor his lead or his jump against all but the very best HS pitcher/catcher combination. Even against a HS LHP with a good move the kid is going to be successful going on first movement more often than not.
Knowing how to run the bases is important and it enhances the ability of any runner, but pure speed is still the most important ingredient. I'll take Peter Bourjos who really isn't that good of a baserunner yet and you can have whoever is the best baserunner of the Molina brothers.
I guess anything that you don't understand or aren't willing to take the effort to understand is silly nonsense. Your one line pontificating gets old.
Any kind of measured times, whether it be pitch velocity, contact to contact time for a hitter home to 1st, running times between 2 bases or 3, times between pitches, or anything else, when done in any kind of controlled environment will always give a very skewed picture of what’s being measured. The only way to do it to get a “TRUE” time, is in game situations, and that’s because there are few ways to anticipate anything. There’s no “READY, SET, GO!” in a game. 
A couple years back, I had a thought that it would be interesting to compare times from contact to contact for hitters. So I armed myself with a stopwatch, and dutifully marked down every C2C time I could get. It didn’t take very long to see that it was a fruitless effort, because so much depended on how a ball was put into play.
Ideally, every coach wants a Pete Rose type who runs to 1st on walks or infield pops, just as hard as he does when he’s trying to beat out an infield hit to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th in the World Series, but that’s just a dream. As much as they try not to, players anticipate a play, and adjust the amount of effort they expend accordingly.
What I found out in just a few games, was hitters “normally” jog to 1st on a GB through the IF, or a line drive single to the OF pretty much right at a fielder. They “normally” jog at a slightly slower pace for any ball in the air pretty much right at a fielder. They “normally” give up about halfway to 1st on any decently hit ground ball pretty much right at a fielder. That leaves balls hit to the OF that look as though they have a chance to fall in for Xtra bases. Runners will flat out fly on them, as well as any ball on the ground an IF has to charge very hard for, or move a long way laterally for.
So what ended up happening was, I’d get 4 different times for every hitter. I’d get a home to 1st time the coaches would get in tryouts or practices. Then I’d get a time when the batter was trying to beat something out or trying to get into position to take an Xtra base, a time when he was just going through the motions to keep the coach off his a$$, and a give up time where for all intents and purposes, he was dead already.
I would have liked to have gotten a time for every BIP for an entire season, but to be honest, trying to keep score and trying to remember to hit the stopwatch when I should, proved to be too difficult for me to do by myself, so I quit doing it.
A couple years back, I had a thought that it would be interesting to compare times from contact to contact for hitters. So I armed myself with a stopwatch, and dutifully marked down every C2C time I could get. It didn’t take very long to see that it was a fruitless effort, because so much depended on how a ball was put into play.
Ideally, every coach wants a Pete Rose type who runs to 1st on walks or infield pops, just as hard as he does when he’s trying to beat out an infield hit to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th in the World Series, but that’s just a dream. As much as they try not to, players anticipate a play, and adjust the amount of effort they expend accordingly.
What I found out in just a few games, was hitters “normally” jog to 1st on a GB through the IF, or a line drive single to the OF pretty much right at a fielder. They “normally” jog at a slightly slower pace for any ball in the air pretty much right at a fielder. They “normally” give up about halfway to 1st on any decently hit ground ball pretty much right at a fielder. That leaves balls hit to the OF that look as though they have a chance to fall in for Xtra bases. Runners will flat out fly on them, as well as any ball on the ground an IF has to charge very hard for, or move a long way laterally for.
So what ended up happening was, I’d get 4 different times for every hitter. I’d get a home to 1st time the coaches would get in tryouts or practices. Then I’d get a time when the batter was trying to beat something out or trying to get into position to take an Xtra base, a time when he was just going through the motions to keep the coach off his a$$, and a give up time where for all intents and purposes, he was dead already.
I would have liked to have gotten a time for every BIP for an entire season, but to be honest, trying to keep score and trying to remember to hit the stopwatch when I should, proved to be too difficult for me to do by myself, so I quit doing it.
Stats,
You stated your hypothesis -that the only true way to get a time is in a game- You then proved it not possible to measure effectively.
That only leaves us with measuring pure speed. We all know it isn't perfect but we all know that it does makes a difference. Bourjos or Molina, who do you want on base?
You stated your hypothesis -that the only true way to get a time is in a game- You then proved it not possible to measure effectively.
That only leaves us with measuring pure speed. We all know it isn't perfect but we all know that it does makes a difference. Bourjos or Molina, who do you want on base?
quote:Originally posted by CADad:
Stats,
You stated your hypothesis -that the only true way to get a time is in a game- You then proved it not possible to measure effectively.
Quite the contrary. I only proved it wasn’t possible for ME to do the measuring while trying to also keep score. If all I had to do was get the times for the batters, it would be quite simple. The best person to do it would be the 1st base coach, or any fan in the stands with a good view of 1st base. My problem was I was often having to look at other things like runners prior the ball being hit, or following the ball to see if there were some kind of error or play. Kinda difficult to do that and still hack the stopwatch correctly. I was only able to get about a third of the BIPs in every game, and some of them weren’t done very accurately.
quote:That only leaves us with measuring pure speed. We all know it isn't perfect but we all know that it does makes a difference. Bourjos or Molina, who do you want on base?
Well, you’re correct if you’re too lazy to make it someone’s job to get the times during a game.
Having a pure speed measurement isn’t at all bad. In fact I found it to be quite useful. When I’d see a player with a good time to 1st in a controlled situation and trying to beat out a hit, but a poor one on routine plays, to be honest, in my mind I labeled him as needing an attitude adjustment.
I dug out those numbers and ran them for you to get a look at. I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.
http://www.infosports.com/scor...er/images/watch2.pdf
I’m certainly not saying to use data like that to beat up or punish anyone! At the HS level, all it should take is making those numbers available to the players to let them all know they’re being watched. The ones who care will probably make the necessary adjustments on their own, and if they don’t, a little 1 on 1, HC to player, should take care of it.
quote:Originally posted by CADad:
I believe the NFL combine does some sort of hand start with an electronic finish for the 40yd dash. They do have FAT times but my understanding is that they won't give those out.
How did SPARQ time those 60yd dashes? Those look like hand times.
Not sure how SPARQ does it. I recall seeing a few 'false starts' at the NFL combine. I don't know why a human timer would call one.
Bo Jackson has the questionable 4.12 I also read Deion Sanders ran a 4.56 backwards.
If you look at the fastest football times, you'll see many of those guys didn't have superstar careers. Baseball is probably the same. Speed is something everyone likes, but one has to 'bring more to the plate', so to speak.
This is why baseball players are timed in the sixty. It's the same distance as two bases. However, speed is not the only requirement. I've seen poor baserunners with great speed. Instinct on whether the hit is going to drop, jump, proper rounding of the base and timing on the slide are important.quote:Originally posted by Proud Dad 24:
2014 just completed HS tryouts and one of the areas of evaluation was running from first to third.
Can anyone provide what is considered average and above average times?
quote:Originally posted by RJM:This is why baseball players are timed in the sixty. It's the same distance as two bases. However, speed is not the only requirement. I've seen poor baserunners with great speed. Instinct on whether the hit is going to drop, jump, proper rounding of the base and timing on the slide are important.quote:Originally posted by Proud Dad 24:
2014 just completed HS tryouts and one of the areas of evaluation was running from first to third.
Can anyone provide what is considered average and above average times?
Great points. We all know you can't teach speed but can you teach a kid with speed to run the bases?
http://www.williewilsonbasebal...Barrington/1068.aspx
Willie Wilson may have been the fastest from 1b to 3B.
It is the efficiency of running the bases, always cutting the inside of the 2B base. Joe Morgan during a baseball clinic was ask about base running and base stealing. He said" I can talk for ten minutes or 10 hours.
Bob
Willie Wilson may have been the fastest from 1b to 3B.
It is the efficiency of running the bases, always cutting the inside of the 2B base. Joe Morgan during a baseball clinic was ask about base running and base stealing. He said" I can talk for ten minutes or 10 hours.
Bob
quote:Originally posted by AntzDad:
…Speed is something everyone likes, but one has to 'bring more to the plate', so to speak.
That’s very true, but there’s a mindset that’s very difficult to overcome. There’s a deep rooted belief that baseball instructors are so great, all one needs is to possess something considered “God given”, and the coaches will turn that into ML credentials.
That’s the way it works with players who can turn in world class sprint times, pitchers who can hit some magic number on a radar gun, or batters who can pummel baseballs prodigious distances. But what’s funny is, there’s no “world class” number for fielders. I wonder why that is.
What I find “funny”, not ha ha funny, but strange funny, is for all of the players who could be considered “freaky” good at something, its very seldom the freakiest who have the most success, and for all of those who are “freaky” good at something, why is it that the average standard at the ML level isn’t at least at the bottom of that “freaky” standard?
FI, why doesn’t every ML pitcher throw at least 96, every regular ML batter hit at least 40 HRs every season, and every regular ML runner swipe at least 50 bases every year? It seems that somehow all those coaches who can’t teach velocity, power, or foot speed but can teach technique, aren’t doing a very good job at it.
I think it's important that coaches get an actual dash time on players as perception can be misleading. Players with shorter legs have a higher cadence and appear to be quicker than the long-legged runners. My son's JV coach never timed anyone but had a kid playing CF who would be hard pressed to break 7.5 in the 60. He looked really fast because he was working so hard.
In an interview, Eric Dickerson mentioned how the head coach his rookie year kept telling him to run faster. He was a trained sprinter with very long legs for a RB and finally had to get the coach to time him running the 40.
In an interview, Eric Dickerson mentioned how the head coach his rookie year kept telling him to run faster. He was a trained sprinter with very long legs for a RB and finally had to get the coach to time him running the 40.
Interesting thread with many good points in the replies.
I think all these have to be taken with a grain of salt, but I can tell you what our team's best times were (with caveats: timed with cell phone stopwatches that are notoriously hard to start/stop, with three such times averaged; on wet field turf in the rain and cold with several kids slipping). The best kids were in the low 7's. the average was probably 8-ish to 8.2. This, for a young-ish (mostly sophs and juniors) team, that I would say is NOT a speed demon type team....
I think all these have to be taken with a grain of salt, but I can tell you what our team's best times were (with caveats: timed with cell phone stopwatches that are notoriously hard to start/stop, with three such times averaged; on wet field turf in the rain and cold with several kids slipping). The best kids were in the low 7's. the average was probably 8-ish to 8.2. This, for a young-ish (mostly sophs and juniors) team, that I would say is NOT a speed demon type team....
My initial reason to ask for first to third speed was to get a better idea of if it was timed and how 2014's speed was versus average HS sophomores. I know kids are timed in a straight line 60 yard dash all the time but hadn't seen any information on running from first base to third which would in mind be run in a slower time because taking the correct angle, cutting the corner of the second base bag etc.
I saw 2014's time on the evaluation form and was surprised and was trying to figure if running first to third would be slower (say by 1/10th or 2/10th of a second)and if anyone had feedback. At somepoint, 2014 will run a straight line 60 yard dash but until then was wondering if first to third times were available.
Thanks for the feedback.
I saw 2014's time on the evaluation form and was surprised and was trying to figure if running first to third would be slower (say by 1/10th or 2/10th of a second)and if anyone had feedback. At somepoint, 2014 will run a straight line 60 yard dash but until then was wondering if first to third times were available.
Thanks for the feedback.
I went back through some old coaching notes for that age group and found our times, hand timed starting with a foot on first base. Times ranged from 7.6 to 9.1 seconds. Anyone under 8 was pretty fast, over 8.5 were noticeably slow runners. It was wet so a few kids really slowed down rounding 2nd.
Thanks Primary. I am just trying to get an idea of what other kids are doing and use 2014's time as a baseline as he strives to improve his first to third speed.
I don't believe there's a sixty time a player should set as a goal. Why be complacent? Work on getting faster every year regardless of the time.
I agree with you and disagree with you. The goal is to develop and improve on field baseball speed every day, which to me is more important than a 60 yard time. My son is very competitive and what drives him is achieving specific numbers. When he hits that number, the bar is raised. I'm simply using a first to third time he received last week and asking him how much faster he can run through hard work.
Kind of like the pitcher who throws 78 MPH as a freshman whose goal is to throw 90 MPH by senior year. The pitcher needs to work hard if there is even a chance to achieve that goal but seeing measured increases of 4-5 MPH per year helps the kid realize that maybe the hard work is paying off.
Kind of like the pitcher who throws 78 MPH as a freshman whose goal is to throw 90 MPH by senior year. The pitcher needs to work hard if there is even a chance to achieve that goal but seeing measured increases of 4-5 MPH per year helps the kid realize that maybe the hard work is paying off.