Posted by: () on Fri Aug 31 18:00:42 2001

is bat speed over rated????? but how long does it take to get that speed.what is important in baseball top end or quickness???? you can still have a very fast bat and be late on the ball, you could have average speed and jack balls. take for example: jeff bagwel not the fastest "bat speed". he considered a power hitter, and when compared to griffey, mac ,sosa, or even nomar his bat speed does not even compare. this would be speed accuracy trade off: the fact that performers must trade-off speed in order to increase accuracy or trade-off accuracy to increase speed. would hitting the ball off the sweet spot of the bat be as important as increasing ones bat speed.how come theres never any discussions about the importants of accuracy?????? which is truly important?????????


Hi

Both are "truly important." If a player has tremendous batspeed but does not make contact, what good is that batspeed? But in contrast, if a player has great "accuracy" yet does not have the batspeed to drive the ball, what good is that accuracy. But if a player has great batspeed and is not making contact, it is not necessarily the batspeed causing that inconsistency. Maybe they need to take more BP. They should work on eye-hand coordination, mechanics, and seeing the ball out of the pitchers hand. Batspeed does not necessarily = less bat control.

It is also NOT a "fact" that there is a DEFINITE speed-for-accuracy (and vice versa) "trade off." Take Mike Piazza, Todd Helton, or even Sammy Sosa (recently) as examples. They all make good, consistent contact and have tremendous batspeed (at least 90+ MPH each)

Batspeed in itself does not decrease accuracy. OVERSWINGING might and probably will. Batspeed could only help. It will allow a player to wait on pitches longer... they won't be fooled as much.

As for Jeff Bagwell being a power hitter and his batspeed being below expected for a power hitter, this is somewhat true