Speed or power, what gets noticed?

If a player hits for power consistently, you can forget the four other tools.

Speed is nice, but if a player can't get on base, he can't steal or take an extra base.

On defense speed will be overlooked just after a weak throwing arm to get that power bat in the line up.

If a player can hit, especially for power, they will find a spot for him.

Great question and a great topic. My post doesn't speak directly to your post, but I hope that you will concurrently post this in the strength and conditioning thread. I trained a lot of athletes in a previous life and I have kept a hand in it (mostly because my sons are baseball players).

The best advice I ever recieved when it came to training athletes is simply "power is nice, but speed kills." In short, make them faster.

I do think that there is some bias there, though (I mean, 400 feet is still 400 feet). The belief, however, is that the athlete as he or she matures, will always get stronger. Maybe not faster.

Anyway, I would suggest this for any athlete: (s)he needs to be stronger, true, but more than that (s)he needs to be faster, which would mean that (s)he would need to get stronger to allow that to happen.

OBC

I've heard if a kid has blazing speed there are many coaches willing to develop the other skills assuming there's some baseball ability.

All tools and combination of tools are very important.

The ability to hit the ball "consistently" with power might be number one! However, that really involves two tools (Hit and Power)

We have seen many very fast runners go undrafted. Then we see kids like Prince Fielder go early in the first round!

From a professional standpoint... Usually the top power hitters can be worth a lot of money even if they lack a high grade in running, fielding, throwing. The top runners, still need to hit in order to be an early draft pick.

That said, all young players should do everything possible to become a better runner. No matter what the other tools are, if you can improve as a runner, you will be a better and more valuable player.

I just don't get posters who don't understand that you can't pigeon-hole player's skills such as "speed" or "power". There is an infinite mix of different speeds or amounts of power that will help a player make it. Nothing is set in stone whether you run a 6.25 sixty or can blast the the ball 500 feet on rare occasions. A team full of guys who run 7.5+ 60's probably won't do any better than a team full of 6.5's who have no power or spotty hitting ability. Personally I would rather watch the team full of 6.5's but that's just a personal thing. You need a mix of talents on every high school, college, and professional team. Scouts aren't such creatures of habit that they stop watching after the 60's. Baseball is a sport of many talents and mixes of skills.

The key is the players package--what tools does he have than can help us!!!

Peninsula

At many showcases and tryout camps the initual buzz is about the true speedsters at first simply because the 60 is the first event and speed is showcased first. Soon after, the cannon arms and pop times catch everyone's eyes. An couple of hours into the event, anyone who can drive a ball 400+ feet multiple times will get a vast amount of attention. The scouts still have to have noted the guys who were not the best in any one catagory but were well rounded or showed great instincts as well as one or more tools.

One thing I would like to point out is that an Astro scout told us it's not so much about if a guy is lofting 360-400 foot flies as it is that when he hits a long one, it is a liner that gets to where its going in a hurry. Now if the ki8d is hitting them 500 feet plus they might make an exception.

Speed is not important if you can not play. Power is not important if you can not hit.

Baseball is a game where you do not have to have all the tools in order to stand out. In fact sometimes you only need one tool. Sometimes you need more than one tool. For instance a pitcher with a power arm who can pitch. Or a hitter who has tremendous power who can also hit.

But the fact is the more tools you have and the more they stand out the more valuable you are. So of course you want to be as good as possible at every aspect of the game.

Posistions can dictate the importance of tools. Coaching can dictate the importance put on specific tools. Style of play etc etc. There is a place for every kid that can bring something to the table that can help a program win games. Some programs you will have to bring more things to the table. Some you will only need a couple of things to bring to the table. There are so many varibles and scenarios.

If your son is a power player with lack of speed what kind of baseball player is he? How good is his arm? How good defensively is he? What posistions can he play? What kind of baseball instincts does he have? How good of a hitter is he? So many variables there is no way anyone can answer that question on a message board.

Speed is important. But less important for a 1B who is athletic , can field his posistion and can rake and hit for power. Much more important for a small kid who lacks power and needs speed to allow him to reach on balls that bigger more powerful player may not reach on. Speed that will allow him to play a posistion that demands speed to excell.

There are players that bring speed , power , arm strength etc to the table. And they are highly sought after. Blazing speed is great to have. It is worthless if you can not play at least in the game of baseball. It is a serious tool if you can.

Ginger or Mary Ann

Definitely, it's the power that'll turn heads, not speed. I'm going on the assumption that those who are showcasing can play this game and can hit.

The ones who can't play, can't hit or don't have an aptitude for baseball not worth mentioning.

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Originally posted by zombywoof:
Definitely, it's the power that'll turn heads, not speed.

woof, You can teach hitting, you can't teach speed. There's something special about a good athlete who runs like the wind that many times will show more project-ability than a guy who strokes it. A good teacher will put that "non-hitter" on the left side and all of a sudden he becomes as feared as the guy with the stick. JMO

quote:

Originally posted by rz1:

quote:

Originally posted by zombywoof:
Definitely, it's the power that'll turn heads, not speed.

woof, You can teach hitting, you can't teach speed. There's something special about a good athlete who runs like the wind that many times will show more project-ability than a guy who strokes it. A good teacher will put that "non-hitter" on the left side and all of a sudden he becomes as feared as the guy with the stick. JMO

Gotta agree with this. I have seen too many college level players simply get overlooked because their run times were average. A good friend of mine was a journeyman in the Tigers organization (got to AA ball before he hung 'em up, and he RAKED), and he said that the faster prospects ALWAYS got a longer look. He also said that if he could go back and do it over again, he would run with the track team whenever he could...

quote:

woof, You can teach hitting, you can't teach speed. There's something special about a good athlete who runs like the wind that many times will show more project-ability than a guy who strokes it. A good teacher will put that "non-hitter" on the left side and all of a sudden he becomes as feared as the guy with the stick. JMO

While all that may be true, say you got two players you know little or nothing about so you don't even know for sure what they'll project into, one with great speed, great contact but little power, then you got the other player who has average speed, great contact with great power to all fields who can hit tape measure bombs....Who would turn heads, or who makes that first impression?

Me, it's the player hitting tape measure shots.

Now that's not saying I'd rather have a team of average hitting sluggers. You'll never win with those type of teams. Speed causes defenses to go into chaos and takes pitchers focus off the hitter and onto the baserunners resulting in making more mistakes to hitters. Then the sluggers come in and drive the final nail in the coffin

quote:

and he said that the faster prospects ALWAYS got a longer look. He also said that if he could go back and do it over again, he would run with the track team whenever he could...

I don't disagree with any of this but the OP asked who turns heads? I'm going under the assumption that these are first impressions.

Sure, give a player a long look and you will learn something about them.

My son was one of those types of players where when you actually watched him play, you could appreciate what he did on the field because there were bigger, stronger and faster players who were ahead of him on the depth chart but once coaches gave him a chance and a longer look, they got to see what he brought to the table as a player and win a starting job on the varsity. He worked very hard, busted it on every play and had to prove himself because he wasn't one of those players who turned heads on first impression. I used to get a lot of comments like "I didn't realize how well your son does this or that. The one thing that made him a solid player was he was well coached and learned the game and had great baseball instincts who made very few mental errors, was even tempered and able to handle playing in pressure filled games. These are things you don't see until you get to know a player.

Both

Hit and Power are the two tools that will draw the most MLB draft interest. Running, fielding, throwing will never get a player drafted in the first round unless they can hit!

We can come up with many different opinions, but this debate is easy to research every year. In fact, we can research it this coming week. Nearly all the first round picks will have been to last years PG National in Minneapolis. It's easy to find out who the fastest players were at that event and then see who the top draft picks are.

I think speed is extremely important if you have hitting ability.

Let's say you had two hundred talented players at an event.

Player A - Fastest player there by far. He also had a strong arm and showed fielding ability. He was even an average hitter at that event with a little power projection. The number one runner there!

Player B - Best hitter there with obvious power potential. Below average runner and average fielder with average arm. The number one hitter there!

Player A - Potential Draft Pick
Player B - Potential First Round Pick

Obviously all the tools are important, but if we talk about the draft... Hitting is #1 add speed and the hitter gets even more interest. The tools and instincts dictate the postion played or profiled to play. Power is important at all positions, even those positions where speed is critical. It could be said that speed is important at all positions also.

Bottom Line... An 80 grade for power (by itself) projects to be a Major League All Star. An 80 grade for running (by itself) doesn't even project to play in the Major Leagues.

Note: Sometimes people confuse raw power with power frequency. The ability to hit the longest homerun might grade out 80 for raw power, but not neccesarily an 80 for power. Ryan Howard would be an example of an 80 power hitter.

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Note: Sometimes people confuse raw power with power frequency. The ability to hit the longest homerun might grade out 80 for raw power, but not neccesarily an 80 for power. Ryan Howard would be an example of an 80 power hitter.

Interesting. Josh Hamilton put on one of the most impressive raw power displays I have seen in the home run derby a year or so back at Yankee Stadium. He hits a very nice amount of homeruns each year but not quite Ryan Howard type numbers. Does Howard grade higher than Hamilton or are they both 80's?

Well, grading is an individual thing, but I would guess that most scouts would grade Josh Hamilton at least 70 or higher. For many reasons production doesn't always equal the grade. Josh Hamilton has 80 "raw" power IMO.

BTW, he's not even close to Ryan Howard type numbers. Then again he has had many obsticles along the way.

Based on 162 game average, Josh Hamilton averages 30 HRs and a .511 SLG%. The 162 game average for Ryan Howard is 48 HRs and a .576 SLG%.

So, their grade or potential might be close, but the production has separated them so far. IMO, if Hamilton is an 80, Howard would have to go way above the scale.