Rapsodo

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Oct 1, 2014
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Nobody had one in my immediate area so I bit the bullet and purchased one. I will give you my $0.02...

1) We find the data helpful. At the time I bought it, we were not really focused on DD velocity, but really wanted feedback on her spin. We tried the pitch tracker ball, but didn't find that it worked that well. The app will give spin direction, spin efficient, total spin as well as vertical break and horizontal break. I am good enough to catch DD pitching (barely), but have no ability to give any meaningful real time feedback as to what adjustments to make. With this she can immediately see her spin rate, direction and efficiency and make some adjustments. It also gives a visual representation of what the pitch is doing between the rubber and the plate, which is nice. However, the data is most helpful when we meet with her coach and work a bull pen session. She throws a pitch, we see what it does, check Rapsodo, make adjustments, and see what is working/not working.

2) Data is easy to interpret. There are a lot of videos online. Admittedly I knew someone who had one and has used it for years. If I had questions, I would just call her.

3) Does it make sense...that's a harder question. It is expensive! And you have to buy a subscription on top of the unit. It is a little bit of a pain to set it up and take it down if you don't have dedicated space. Not that it's hard, but one more thing to do with limited time. We do not use it as often as I would like or as I thought we would. We would use it several times a week at first, but once HS ball started and travel for TB picked up, we rarely used it. We've used it for several of the girls on our TB team and some that we know on other teams. I would say that most of the girls could take it or leave it. Some coaches as well. I do think using it intermittently (random/when available) would be beneficial. We do the same with the hitting version (that someone else owns).

4) you didn't ask, but I'll ask...would I buy it again? Probably. I wish we had time to use it more, but we do not. But the feedback we get when we do is helpful. Some coaches may be good enough to see spin and make adjustments, I am not. They human eye is pretty easily fooled. I would often hear coaches say "good job" on a pitch that I thought was just okay and vice versa. Harder to ignore numbers. I rationalized the cost as follows: over 4 years it is less per month than I spend on any of the kid activities. Plus I assume I can sell it and get at least some of my money back. I also assume more and more colleges are going to use them both for their athletes and as part of the recruiting process (I have no direct knowledge if that is true or not).

Overall, it's been a fun tool to have, but certainly not something that is needed. And given the cost, it is probably a purchase that is best made by and for an organization like a team or facility. Feel free to send me a PM if you have any other questions or if something above is not clear.
Thank you for the detailed response, you filled in a lot of the blanks that I had about it. Do you know if each user has to have a subscription or if they are part of a team package do they simply get added on? I'm hoping my DD can get access to it for some experimentation and coaching. I won't be purchasing this or probably much of anything else softball related besides maybe some cleats and possibly another bat. Oh, and some travel related stuff to watch her and her sister play in college for a couple more years!
 
Aug 9, 2021
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Thank you for the detailed response, you filled in a lot of the blanks that I had about it. Do you know if each user has to have a subscription or if they are part of a team package do they simply get added on? I'm hoping my DD can get access to it for some experimentation and coaching. I won't be purchasing this or probably much of anything else softball related besides maybe some cleats and possibly another bat. Oh, and some travel related stuff to watch her and her sister play in college for a couple more years!
No problem. I couldn't really find anything when I was looking so I figured it might help someone else too. If I recall they want each user to set up an account, but they don't have to pay. I assume they like to track the data. We never did that, we just essentially used it in guest mode and screen shotted the numbers for anyone other than my DD.

It bums me out to think one day DD will not be playing softball, it's such a big part of our lives at the moment.
 

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