<<The estimated reading time : 5 mins>>

Let STRIKE tell you if you are ready to play!

Recently, more and more evidences show that many baseball pitchers though know that they are not in good physical condition for pitching, but they are not willing to tell the coach. When the coach and the trainer are neither aware of it, it would makes the players easy to get pain and injured.

STRIKE is committed to scientific training method. Not only STRIKE can output the objective metrics of every pitches, it can also be used to get a better understanding of player’s physical condition.

STRIKE provides a scientific method for arm pain prevention. 

Here're the steps:

1. Ask a pitcher throws 10 pitches with STRIKE.
2. Observe the STRIKE data trend and its stability.
3. If the trend reflects the ball speed and spin stability is poor (fluctuation is prominent), which means the pitcher can not control the ball well. Then, we may consider this pitcher’s physical condition is not well, and it should not be allowed to pitch.
4. If the trend shows the ball speed and spin stability is good (variant is within 5%), which means the pitcher is able to control pitch quality well. Then, we will consider this pitcher’s physical condition is OK to pitch a game.

To make it more clear, we perform an experiment for a detail comparison. We let the two pitchers (player A and player B) perform a 10-ball pitching training, and concurrently apply STRIKE to measure the ball speed and spin rate. The results are presented in Fig-1 and Fig-2. By observing the stability of ball speed and spin rate, we can see that the pitch stability of player A is better than that of player B.

Fig-1: Speed comparison of Player A and Player B

Fig-2: Spin rate comparison of Player A and Player B

Pitcher's pitching quality is evaluated by observing the STRIKE data trend.  

Therefore, as a coach and a trainer, you can conduct a physical assessment to Player B, and prevent Player B from continuing to pitch because of the poor pitching stability (Fig-3). In addition, such scientific results shows that Player A is more stable and is suitable for pitching. 

Fig-3: Player B should take a physical assessment because of his lack our stability

A pitcher with less stability will loss a key weapon when facing to the batter

As we mentioned in the previous article, a good pitcher should not only chase for the highest speed of the pitch, but how to take the advantages of the gap between speed and spin rate is also a key weapon when facing to the batter. Therefore, control the ball well is key to success. When the pitcher have a local swelling or extreme tension in the arm, the pitcher would feel a sharp pain in the pitching. Then, he/ she will lose the stretch and the smoothness of the flexion activity to pitch a strike. In this way, a pitcher with less stability will loss a key weapon when facing to the batter.