Diving
Deeper Into Spin Rate
By
now, most are aware of what spin rate is in its simplest form. Many are becoming aware of the impacts of
spin rate and many are seeking this information when evaluating players. Naturally, this leads into the question of
how spin rates can be improved. Thus
far, we know that certain substances being used on the ball or fingers can
affect spin drastically. Subtle changes
to positioning or grip can also have small impacts. The thought has been, for the most part, that
your spin is your spin and there’s not a lot you can do about it.
A few
months ago, I was given the opportunity to record and collect data using K
Motion technology. A 4 sensor set up
that records angular velocities on pelvis, torso, upper arm and hand speeds. It
also spits out charts on sequencing and plays the motion back in 3D. After the data was collected, it was time to
look through the data.
At
first glance, I was surprised at the results.
What I expected to see was not true in a general sense. This led to a lot of questions on my end. My biggest concern initially was pertaining to
velocity. I tried to find correlations with each of the peak speeds and
velocity, but nothing really existed when comparing athletes. Since nothing existed there, I started to
think that the differences between angular velocities may be more telling. That led me to thinking about Spin Rate.
I figured that since we don’t know much about what impacts spin, I’d start looking there because that could be highly beneficial if any correlations existed. Before I get into what I found, I want to point out that when looking at Spin Rate’s, it’s important to take velocity into consideration. To normalize Spin Rate, the use of Bauer Units are needed.
Before getting into what I found, I have to explain how I calculated Bauer Units. A big mistake on my part was not collecting spin data along with the angular velocities. To compensate for that, I took the peak fastball velocity and peak fastball spin rate recorded in the lab for each individual. So for this study, Bauer Units = Peak Fastball Spin Rate/ Peak Fastball Velocity.
For the study, 6 Collegiate or D1 High School commits were used. Each threw between 6-10 fastballs a piece. Average angular velocities were recorded for each. Correlations are calculated at the bottom. You can see the chart here (wouldn't copy right when I tried directly on here).
I included correlations for Bauer Units, Velocity and Total Spin Rate below each column. I did that to show that they can look very different and I think it may be more impactful for the correlations with Bauer Units. As you can see, there are some strong correlations here. More important is the right side, in my opinion. I’m going to leave this sort of open-ended so that you can draw your own conclusions from this. Keep in mind that this was a very limited test since there were only 6 pitchers tested. My hopes are that more testing like this will be done and we can see if these correlations hold up with more input. If so, we may be on the road to figuring out how spin rate is generated and maybe even ways to increase is. Of course, like everything else, nothing is exact when looking at these sorts of things.
*Per usual, I must make a side note that I’m home
with a 4 year old and 1 year old so writing can get tough going back and forth.
Please excuse any grammatical errors! If it seems like my mind was all over the
place and unorganized, you’re probably right.*
