Baseball Prospectus: Scouting Bat Speed

[weams]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/a/28423

There are several ways a hitter can make an adjustment. He can shorten his stride, tweak his position in the box, alter his bat path, shift the plane of his swing, or tamper with his mechanics. In rarer cases, a hitter can even change his mental approach, improving his plate discipline or enhancing his pitch recognition skills. But of all the attributes a hitter brings to the dish, bat speed is the most innate. To an extent, what you see is what you get.

Players generate bat speed from their wrists and forearms, and the hitters with above-average and plus bat speed are usually athletic, with lean forearms and fast-twitch muscles. Among hitters with quick bats, there?s something of a physical prototype, and it isn?t just having big wrists. "The strength of your wrists plays into it," explains Minasian, "but I think more what you tend to see is the elasticity of someone"s body, the quick-twitch muscles that create explosive actions." Not every player is blessed with the athleticism to swing a quick bat, and frustratingly for slow-twitch dominant players, there's only so much they can do to improve their bat speed. As Buckley puts it, "we can make you faster, but we can't make you fast."

[DrungoHazewood]

I still wonder if players with poor bat speed went extinct because they couldn't hit in a modern MLB environment, or because scouting turned more professional and the draft institutionalized some ideas that were more opinions beforehand. Bat speed went from an attribute to a requirement. Prior to the draft era there were a lot of good MLB players who had poor bat speed but thrived on swinging a big bat relatively slowly, fouling off pitches, drawing walks and hitting a lot of Texas League singles.

[Hallas]

I still wonder if players with poor bat speed went extinct because they couldn't hit in a modern MLB environment, or because scouting turned more professional and the draft institutionalized some ideas that were more opinions beforehand. Bat speed went from an attribute to a requirement. Prior to the draft era there were a lot of good MLB players who had poor bat speed but thrived on swinging a big bat relatively slowly, fouling off pitches, drawing walks and hitting a lot of Texas League singles.

I think there's been a noticeable increase in velocity just in the past 20 years; in the 80s, a pitcher that could throw in the low-90s was considered a hard thrower. If you think that trend is longer-running than just the past 20-30 years, then you have to assume that pitchers that could throw faster than mid-high 80s in the mid-century were fireballers. That gives you a lot more leeway to carry a heavy bat. Today, Bryce Harper would strike out 300 times a season if he used a 40 oz bat. Furthermore, I think that hitters have adjusted to the fact that they only really have to swing at (and make contact with) pitches in the zone. Carrying a 38 inch long bat doesn't really add to your ability to hit balls in the zone, so what's the point?

edit to add: Additionally, with strikeouts steadily increasing, it seems that smaller lighter bats have been the hitter's way of counteracting the strikeout tendencies of pitchers.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think there's been a noticeable increase in velocity just in the past 20 years; in the 80s, a pitcher that could throw in the low-90s was considered a hard thrower. If you think that trend is longer-running than just the past 20-30 years, then you have to assume that pitchers that could throw faster than mid-high 80s in the mid-century were fireballers. That gives you a lot more leeway to carry a heavy bat. Today, Bryce Harper would strike out 300 times a season if he used a 40 oz bat. Furthermore, I think that hitters have adjusted to the fact that they only really have to swing at (and make contact with) pitches in the zone. Carrying a 38 inch long bat doesn't really add to your ability to hit balls in the zone, so what's the point?

edit to add: Additionally, with strikeouts steadily increasing, it seems that smaller lighter bats have been the hitter's way of counteracting the strikeout tendencies of pitchers.

I think the pitchers' velocity does have a lot to do with this. But I don't think Bryce Harper would strike out 300 times with a 40 oz bat, because he couldn't hit using the same strategy he does today. He'd have to change - he'd have to just drop the head of the bat into the zone and not worry about driving the ball most of the time. I think a significant number of hitters prior to about 1960 hit something like Ichiro. Or maybe Juan Pierre. They simply didn't try to swing like a modern player most of the time.

[Hallas]

I think the pitchers' velocity does have a lot to do with this. But I don't think Bryce Harper would strike out 300 times with a 40 oz bat, because he couldn't hit using the same strategy he does today. He'd have to change - he'd have to just drop the head of the bat into the zone and not worry about driving the ball most of the time. I think a significant number of hitters prior to about 1960 hit something like Ichiro. Or maybe Juan Pierre. They simply didn't try to swing like a modern player most of the time.

I disagree. Even just dropping the bat on on the ball is harder now than it was. A 95 MPH fastball gets to the plate in what, .4 seconds? An 85 MPH fastball would get to the plate in like .45-.48 seconds. According to this article, a batter only has 50-100 milliseconds to check swing as it is. With a heavier bat, that would be even shorter.

Plus, modern hitters have to deal with a wider array of offspeed and breaking pitches.

[Tryptamine]

Scouting wicked bat speed is hard. Over the last few years I've had a couple guys I absolutely loved in the draft based on crazy bat speed. One was Javier Baez, one was Clint Frazier and the other was Jacob Gatewood. Now Baez was a top 10 prospect and Frazier seems poised to make a run at top 25 this year, but Gatewood is on the verge of washing out. The bat speed guys seem to come with a lot of swing and miss. It's a very boom or bust trait unless the player also comes with high contact skills, but then you're talking about monster prospects.

[Hallas]

Scouting wicked bat speed is hard. Over the last few years I've had a couple guys I absolutely loved in the draft based on crazy bat speed. One was Javier Baez, one was Clint Frazier and the other was Jacob Gatewood. Now Baez was a top 10 prospect and Frazier seems poised to make a run at top 25 this year, but Gatewood is on the verge of washing out. The bat speed guys seem to come with a lot of swing and miss. It's a very boom or bust trait unless the player also comes with high contact skills, but then you're talking about monster prospects.

It's hard to scout, I think. I've read analysis that said that raw speed isn't quite so important as acceleration. Pujols doesn't have the greatest bat speed, but he gets his bat into position as fast as anyone, and keeps it in the hitting zone for a long time.

[Can_of_corn]

Scouting wicked bat speed is hard. Over the last few years I've had a couple guys I absolutely loved in the draft based on crazy bat speed. One was Javier Baez, one was Clint Frazier and the other was Jacob Gatewood. Now Baez was a top 10 prospect and Frazier seems poised to make a run at top 25 this year, but Gatewood is on the verge of washing out. The bat speed guys seem to come with a lot of swing and miss. It's a very boom or bust trait unless the player also comes with high contact skills, but then you're talking about monster prospects.

Which seems counter intuitive to me. I would think that someone with superior bat speed could wait longer on pitches, let them get deeper, and that would allow them more information before starting the swing.

[Stotle]

Which seems counter intuitive to me. I would think that someone with superior bat speed could wait longer on pitches, let them get deeper, and that would allow them more information before starting the swing.

Kids who can crush the ball like to crush the ball. The good ones adjust. Gatewood hasn't adjusted in 2.5 years.

[DrungoHazewood]

I disagree. Even just dropping the bat on on the ball is harder now than it was. A 95 MPH fastball gets to the plate in what, .4 seconds? An 85 MPH fastball would get to the plate in like .45-.48 seconds. According to this article, a batter only has 50-100 milliseconds to check swing as it is. With a heavier bat, that would be even shorter.

Plus, modern hitters have to deal with a wider array of offspeed and breaking pitches.

I think it's possible or probable that it's just not possible to do what used to be common. It may be that Ichiro and Pierre are the top of the heap, that the vast majority of slow bat/heavy bat/contact guys just can't make it against modern pitching.

Also defenses. They're much, much better. If you know a guy is going to loop one over the second baseman 80% of the time, everyone knows this and the third baseman will play rover and you're done. Or the outfield will just play shallow and you're done.