Bat Size and Time to Contact?

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Jun 17, 2009
15,105
0
Portland, OR
I agree. Some count the better pros at 4.5-frames ... which works out to 0.15-secs ... so a 9yo at 0.14-secs has it down to 4.2-frames ... which is fairly impressive :rolleyes:.
 
Apr 30, 2018
349
43
Blast motion I believe works off of a three axis accelerometer. It is looking for the sudden acceleration from the contact with the ball as the trigger event to decide that a swing has occurred. It then looks back for what it believes is the start of the swing. What that acceleration threshold is for the start of the swing I haven't been able to find. They may disclose it if asked. Looking at her swing data from this year (567 swings) there is a trend that the swings with low time to contact 0.14 generally have slower bat speed (31-35 mph). That could mean that she also had a slower start to the swing and didn't trip the threshold till a bit into the swing. She does have some swings that are in the 38 mph with contact times of 0.16 to 0.18s. Looking at one particular video the sensor data pops onto the screen with the bat speed showing 6 mph. This is about the time the lead foot has made contact with the ground with her stride and her hands have dropped from about even with the ear hole to about even with the bottom of the helmet. The time to contact on this particular swing was 0.17s, 37.5 mph bat speed, 14.2 mph hand speed. Unfortunately I can't break it down and count the frames as the Blast Motion app automatically separates out the swing portion of the video, turns it into slow motion, and then saves the video file.

My DD swings a Louisville LXT 28in 17 oz. She is 4'2" last time we measured her, but not sure what she weighs maybe 50-60 lbs. She swung at two pitches against the 4th season A pitcher we faced this weekend. She missed on both swings, but from my eyes it seemed like her timing was ok. I didn't film it though so I could be off. We play again in two weeks so I will film some of the at bats.

What is your basis for swinging a -10 instead of a -11? Is it better to swing an inch shorter bat that is an oz heavier rather than an inch longer bat that is 1 oz lighter?
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Blast motion I believe works off of a three axis accelerometer. It is looking for the sudden acceleration from the contact with the ball as the trigger event to decide that a swing has occurred. It then looks back for what it believes is the start of the swing. What that acceleration threshold is for the start of the swing I haven't been able to find. They may disclose it if asked.
Something seems off with their "advanced algorithm" (quoted from the subheading of the video referenced in previous post :cool:) for determining the start of the swing..I would probably just use their bat speed at impact metric for your comparisons as it is just raw data.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
You went from rec-ball right to Travel A ball? Did I read that wrong?

At that young age that would mean (in my world) going from a 20 mph coach pitch to a 45 mph girl pitch. Everyone on my team would have serious timing issues with that.
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
"What is your basis for swinging a -10 instead of a -11? Is it better to swing an inch shorter bat that is an oz heavier rather than an inch longer bat that is 1 oz lighter?"

FFS, I am interested in your answer too.
 
Apr 30, 2018
349
43
You went from rec-ball right to Travel A ball? Did I read that wrong?

At that young age that would mean (in my world) going from a 20 mph coach pitch to a 45 mph girl pitch. Everyone on my team would have serious timing issues with that.
We were going to play a small town local tournament, but not enough 10u teams registered so the coach had to find another one. This was a larger open tournament in Houston that had a mix of A, B, and C teams. It definitely wasn't what she wanted for our first tournament. We also ended up with a bad draw. First team we faced in bracket play was better than us with a mix of ages, but we put up a bit of a fight. Our 2nd game had us facing what I was told was probably the 2nd best team in the tournament with a 4th season pitcher. Score was 14-0 in the top of the 2nd inning. Other coach had mercy on us and had his girls step off the bag and get called out to give us one final at bat before time expired.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
We were going to play a small town local tournament, but not enough 10u teams registered so the coach had to find another one. This was a larger open tournament in Houston that had a mix of A, B, and C teams. It definitely wasn't what she wanted for our first tournament. We also ended up with a bad draw. First team we faced in bracket play was better than us with a mix of ages, but we put up a bit of a fight. Our 2nd game had us facing what I was told was probably the 2nd best team in the tournament with a 4th season pitcher. Score was 14-0 in the top of the 2nd inning. Other coach had mercy on us and had his girls step off the bag and get called out to give us one final at bat before time expired.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

9U teams playing decent to good 10U teams is typically pretty rough in the fall/spring. Puberty often hits for the older 10Us (e.g. those who turn 11 early in the spring) and they have an extra 60+ games of live pitching under their belts. We faced a couple of pitchers last summer who were at least 5'6". They threw pretty hard for 10U but I think just the shear size of the girls was part of the issue.

If you continue to play 10u tournaments (and not just 9u), as you should imo, it will get better as the year goes on.
 
Last edited:
Jun 17, 2009
15,105
0
Portland, OR
"What is your basis for swinging a -10 instead of a -11? Is it better to swing an inch shorter bat that is an oz heavier rather than an inch longer bat that is 1 oz lighter?"

FFS, I am interested in your answer too.

From an instruction vantage point I find it easier to use '-10', or heavier bats. Light bats subsidize young hitters to make heavy use of their arms. Heavier bats require paying better attention to what I am instructing :).
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
We were going to play a small town local tournament, but not enough 10u teams registered so the coach had to find another one. This was a larger open tournament in Houston that had a mix of A, B, and C teams. It definitely wasn't what she wanted for our first tournament. We also ended up with a bad draw. First team we faced in bracket play was better than us with a mix of ages, but we put up a bit of a fight. Our 2nd game had us facing what I was told was probably the 2nd best team in the tournament with a 4th season pitcher. Score was 14-0 in the top of the 2nd inning. Other coach had mercy on us and had his girls step off the bag and get called out to give us one final at bat before time expired.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

I think we've all been there (or somewhere similar). We once made it into the championship game just to face a team where we couldn't even get a foul ball off their pitcher. The director of the tourney apologized profusely about letting that other team in. They didn't even break a sweat winning the thing.
 

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