Wood v Metal
THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball —
So very cool:
The most obvious comparison method is average distance with wood vs. average distance with metal. The 30 wood bat homers averaged 373.1 feet, while the 230 metal bat homers that were measured averaged 408.1 feet (a few catwalk homers have not yet been analyzed). That’s a difference of 35 feet, or about 9.4 percent. A similar comparison of speed off the bat yields 100.6 mph for wood, and 108.9 mph for metal bats, a difference of 8.3 mph, or 8.3 percent.
The small sample size for wood bat homers means that there ...
Some weekend links
Friar Forecast —
... to the ball coming off the bat a certain way, and stuff like that. No doubt, overall he’s still probably a plus fielder in right, so it’s not really a major problem. I just think that it’s getting to a point where a move to left is necessary, or at least quite clearly beneficial to the team.
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Sticking with THT, here are a couple of other interesting pieces from last week:
Colin Wyers on total player value
Greg Rybarczyk applies Hit Tracker to high schoolers
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This discussion, which drifted ...
Revisiting Bryce Harper
Baseball Analysts —
... Derby at St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field. Although Harper didn't win the contest, according to Baseball America's Nathan Rode, the tenth grader "played the part of Josh Hamilton" while Christian Walker, a third baseman from Kennedy-Kenrick Catholic High in Norristown, Pennsylvania "served the role of Justin Morneau."
Greg Rybarczyk, who maintains the indispensable site Hit Tracker Online, which logs and calculates the trajectory of every major league home run, covered Harper's exploits at the Home Run Derby contest:
Over the next 60 ...
The 2009 High School Power Showcase
BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog —
The 2009 High School Power Showcase Didn’t see this posted; it’s an interesting read. Like a lot of hitters in the Showcase, Harper wasn’t able to hit any home runs with his wooden bat, but he showed a beautiful left-handed swing and hit several balls hard. My Hit Tracker assistant Brenton Blair and I agreed that he was a good candidate to get some out with the metal bat, but nevertheless we weren’t ready for what we were about to witness. Stepping back to the plate with his metal bat, Harper knocked his first homer 443 feet on a line to the back of the right field seats. ...
Baseball's LeBron or Baseball's Felipe Lopez?
NBC Washington - Sports —
... talent." That kind of talent obviously makes it hard for opposing high schoolers to offer much competition. Hunter's parents are exploring ways to get him into the 2010 draft, when he'd only be finishing his junior year, by getting him a GED and enrolling in junior college. Best of luck to Hunter, but we'd be remiss not to point out a few things. For one, during the home run hitting contest where he set the Trop's distance record Hunter couldn't hit a single home run with a wood bat . There's plenty of time to learn, obviously, but big jumps in opposing talent plus new ...
