Posted by: John E. Rickel (rickj@dakotacom.net) on Fri Apr 2 12:56:19 2004

In discussing pitchers, we commonly refer to, judge, and rank their fastball speed in terms of MPH. Although bat speed is important (per forum discussions, name of this web site, products sold to capture bat speed, products and exercises promoted to increase bat speed, etc.), I can't seem to find specific mention of specific speeds of swings in terms of MPH.
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> Yet, one college recruiting site argues that college coaches don't look at batting stats as much as they look at athleticism, especially a potential recruit's hand and bat speed. Even if that's a bit overstated, clearly bat speed is critical to good baseball. In golf that is true...
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> I know that when I was being fitted for custom clubs, my average swing speed was THE most significant determining factor on my club shafts, particularly the drivers. So...
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> Say I have SwingMate in place. How do I know whether or not my two high school boys are swinging too slow, about right, or too fast? Have studies been conducted on this? Is there a bad-good-better-best bat speed scale for batters? Or is this too relative to other factor making it impossible to standardize?
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> One reason I'm interested in this is because with regard to one of my boys, I think he is actually swinging too fast. When he slows his bat speed slightly, he stays more balanced thoughout the entire swing and as a result he makes much better contact.
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> On the driving range, when the speed of my driver tops 110MPH, I rarely hit the ball solid. If I drop club speed down between 90 and 95MPH, my play improves significantly. Sure, on the rare occasion when I hit a ball solid swinging at 110MPH, it goes a mile. But, that is rare, perhaps occuring no more than 1 or 2 times out of 10 swings.
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> Assuming this is the same with batters, what is a good MPH for a high schooler's bat speed?

There is no such thing as too much bat speed in my opinion. There may be bad mechanics. If good mechanics are maintained at high bat speeds then that's great. Now if you are doing something to generate more bat speed that would compromise the ability to hit the ball then that wouldn't be good. For example, I have a 10 year old son that can swing a 30" 19.5 oz bat at about 60 mph. He can increase that speed to about 70 mph by taking a huge inward turn. The only problem is that by taking that huge inward turn he would have to take his eye off the incoming pitch so he would have a very difficult time hitting the ball. In that case increasing his bat speed would be counterproductive. But in general the higher the bat speed the better.