re: New LSU Pitching Coach, Jason Kelley interview w/ T-Bob

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It was just the WinReality stuff they couldn't use. The reason was something about cleaning it between uses to prevent COVID. Something dumb that seemed like a piss poor excuse.

I don't know what Kelly specifically mentioned in the interview, but Motus, Edgertronic, Pocket Radar, and some other things I can't remember right now are all more easily used and pretty portable.

Motus sleeves measure elbow stress, among other .things The pitching lab probably has mo-cap stuff and force plates to measure things as well.

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im sure they will be using that along with rapsodo, the insight cameras and playerAI to develop pitching. Hopefully they are able to use some of Drivelines pitch design philosphy and their an approach to weighted balls to get our pitchers to throw harder and develop pitches that work with their spin rate and release points.

I would imagine JJ will be using rapsodo, k-vest, a swingtracker and traqs system to develop a hitting approach.

I would image flightscope or hittraqs too, especially since flightscope came out with the new portable strike system with much smaller price tag. But no reason a school like LSU cant get a donor to write a check for hittraqs

This one thing that annoyed the frick out of me with PM, was the lack of imbracing the data and specficially Drivelines approach. The data is there, proves that hard hit balls in the 12-20 range for your non HR hitter is where we need to be. There was no focus on exit velocity training, angles etc. Instead we up there taking with a fricking 3-0 count.

thank god JJ lives by "it's a ball or it's a line drive"


No excuse for us not to 100% embrace every form of tech and use our stats guys to chart launch angles (specifically for hard hit balls, spray angles, exit velocity, swing plane consistancy, hard hit average, barrel speed, barrel acceleration, and peak barrel speed location. All those things are used to develop a philosphy for each hitter, where their hot cold zones are etc.

and for the love of fricking god....stop bunting unlss they shift!!!

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frick your feelings

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You don’t like gut feelings that lead to playing a guy batting .094 during a regional ?

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You don’t like gut feelings that lead to playing a guy batting .094 during a regional ?

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like it about the same as i like the idea of a take Crews during a 3-0 count

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Said he can't teach velocity but they recruit guys who have it and can teach them new pitches and clean up the mechanics.

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Not exactly what he said. He said he’s looking forward to not having to teach stuff like velocity. Now he’s able to get kids who already have it and just need to be taught how to harness it.

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less about ignoring it, but more along the lines of not fully understanding how use it.

But much of their coaching was about old school feel of the game, which is fricking stupid.

We have the analytics to know exactly what we should be doing. We know average vs every count, we know which launch angles work best with each players exit velocity, we know % of every situation offensively, were a player should wait for his pitch at etc....but we didnt really used and were coached by feel.

frick your feelings, show me the data!!!

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I'm not about "gut" feelings, either, but screw all that launch angle non sense. You see ball, hit ball. When you start thinking about what exact angle you want to hit the ball at, you become a terrible hitter. Every great hitter, who also happens to hit home runs, will tell you "I'm a line drive hitter. Home runs are just a bonus".

Launch angle was Eddie Smith's "philosophy". We hit home runs, but we didn't hit for much average, didn't take that many walks, and struggled mightily when we faced any kind of above average pitcher. Jay Johnson is going to teach these guys about plate discipline, pitch recognition, and proper swing mechanics to barrel the baseball. Not how high to hit it. If a guy is comfortable with a level swing that produces more gap balls, you don't tell him to change his angle of attack.

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but screw all that launch angle non sense. You see ball, hit ball. When you start thinking about what exact angle you want to hit the ball at, you become a terrible hitter. Every great hitter, who also happens to hit home runs, will tell you "I'm a line drive hitter. Home runs are just a bonus".

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I don’t think you really understand what “teaching launch angle” entails. It’s not about thinking about the exact angle you want to hit the ball. It’s about tailoring your swing to ensure it stays in the zone for as long as possible and to maximize hard contact. It has much more to do with swing plane than it does contact point.

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There should be a good balance of analytics and baseball knowledge. Foolish to ignore either side.

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Right.

The data analytics and tech is there to help measure and quantify the old school baseball knowledge because once you figure out how something works and how measure the components, you can figure out how to improve it.

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It's both, Project.

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No. It's not. Launch angle is a measurement. It is one of the outputs of a batted ball. Every batted ball has a launch angle and some are more optimal than others.

You're trying to shorthand it into being something that it isn't which means you likely don't understand it.

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What people to not realize is that if you go up the the plate thinking about anything but recognizing the spin and location of the ball and getting the bat hat on it, then you're overthinking.

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Thats not what launch angle teaches you though. It teaches you the ideal swing plane to give you a higher percentage chance of hitting for power.

You’re confusing 3 true outcomes with launch angle/swing plane. They’re not the same. Every single major league hitter is studying their swing plane in order to get better launch angles and they’re not all Joey Gallo