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Trackman Traits: State Games

November 19, 2021
Mason McRae
PBR Virginia/DC

The expanded usage of data, and the importance of it in regards to player development and player assessment is a legitimate, undeniable tool used by high school, college, and professional teams across the country. Today we break down some of the data from our recent State Games event. See which players stood out in regards to Trackman data. 

Glossary Terms Intro & Links:

Induced Vertical Break: VB or IVB
Vertical Approach Angle: VAA 
Horizontal Break: HB
Release Speed: RS or Velo
Release Height: RH or RelHei




Fastball: Had the second-hardest FB velo at the State Games, and touched 89.2 mph, sitting from 85.8 to 88.1. Threw from a vertical axis and gets slight cut, but still gets above average IVB (18.6” on average, 20.8” max) and is able to create ride. Has a somewhat high release, but throws hard enough and gets enough IVB to create a flat approach angle.

 

Slider: Heavy sweep, slight depth/drop. Max HB of 16.8”, averaged out at 16”; the second-most at State Games. And he threw it hard at 70.7 mph on average. He does a good job creating sidespin and throwing it at/around 8:30 consistently. Has low-spin, but high spin efficiency, so it still moves a lot.



Fastball: Extreme outlier in the sense he can throw a FB at 12:15 while also keeping his release height under 5.0. Consistent shape on FB, and he created 20+ inches of IVB on nearly half of his fastballs. He averaged 17.7”, and had as much as 24.4”. He even managed to throw a FB in the zone with a VAA above -4.0 degrees. He has plus spin (2,346 rpm on average) and also creates some gyro spin on the pitch at times.

 

Curveball: Natural supination profile, and so he’s able to get to the side of the pitch and over-pronounce the supination. Had 18.8” of HB on the pitch, and 20+ inches of HB on 5 of his curveballs. It’s thrown hard given the amount of movement and can hit 72.3, ranging from 70.3 to 71.6 mph.



Fastball: Had the highest average FB at the State Games as well as the highest max FB. The former was 87.6 mph, the latter was 89.6 mph. He had one of the tighter movement plots and consistently threw it at/around his averages (17.1 IVB, 6.3 HB). Has high release, but his vertical slot allows him to create VB naturally. He was up to 19.4” IVB and located the pitch up in the zone a few times, including one that had a -4.6 degree VAA.

 

Curveball: It’s a high efficiency pitch with both heavy sweep and heavy drop. He threw it at 7:45, but he threw it mostly at 8:00 and was able to throw one of the better breaking balls all day; it was one that had 22.6 inches of HB and -13.8 inches of IVB at 73.1 mph. He showed feel for the pitch and threw it in the zone 46% of the time. His 73.5 mph average was the second-highest of any curveballs, but his 76.9 max was the highest.