Does Size Matter? Batting Cages and Baseball

moondog80 · Apr 7, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Couldnt-Other-Neurology-Sports/dp/0716730014

This is pretty good book. It states that besides being a basketball player Jordan was just too tall to hit. The book notes that there are a lot of good hitters at 6-3, including the best ever. There are fewer, but still some at 6-4. After 6-4 it is basically Dave Winflield and some power guys that struck out a ton. Basally above 6-4 guys can't hit. It is finy that there is not a single guy above 6-4 on that list, but it fits the trend.

And of course listed height of athletes is less reliable than milage on use car ad. But guys don't generally lie about being shorter.

I would imagine that guys who are tall and good enough to major league players are overwhelmingly drawn to basketball.

MentalDisabldLst · Apr 7, 2015

Completely different skillsets though. To have a shot in pro sports, you have to commit to something like baseball so early, and do it so immersively while growing up, that people usually just pick their passion and see how far they can get in it. By the time you reach an age where you know your adult height and weight and may realistically have a shot at going bigtime in basketball or football, your window to do something in baseball has likely already passed you by; people don't just pick up baseball in, say, high school and make the majors. Jeff Samardzija and Bo Jackson are the only exceptions I can think of, people who really had an option between high-level baseball and another sport.

Darnell's Son · Apr 7, 2015

mauf · Apr 7, 2015

MentalDisabldLst said:
Completely different skillsets though. To have a shot in pro sports, you have to commit to something like baseball so early, and do it so immersively while growing up, that people usually just pick their passion and see how far they can get in it. By the time you reach an age where you know your adult height and weight and may realistically have a shot at going bigtime in basketball or football, your window to do something in baseball has likely already passed you by; people don't just pick up baseball in, say, high school and make the majors. Jeff Samardzija and Bo Jackson are the only exceptions I can think of, people who really had an option between high-level baseball and another sport.

The list is longer than you think.

Notables include Ferguson Jenkins, Robin Roberts, Frank Thomas, Danny Ainge, Kenny Lofton, Steve Garvey, Darin Erstad, Mark DeRosa, and Brian Jordan.

The numbers may have dwindled in the past 15-20 years, but that's probably due to greater specialization among young athletes in general, as opposed to the peculiar demands of baseball.

snowmanny · Apr 7, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Couldnt-Other-Neurology-Sports/dp/0716730014

This is pretty good book. It states that besides being a basketball player Jordan was just too tall to hit. The book notes that there are a lot of good hitters at 6-3, including the best ever. There are fewer, but still some at 6-4. After 6-4 it is basically Dave Winflield and some power guys that struck out a ton. Basally above 6-4 guys can't hit. It is finy that there is not a single guy above 6-4 on that list, but it fits the trend.

And of course listed height of athletes is less reliable than milage on use car ad. But guys don't generally lie about being shorter.

Jeter?

maufman said:
The list is longer than you think.

Notables include Ferguson Jenkins, Robin Roberts, Frank Thomas, Danny Ainge, Kenny Lofton, Steve Garvey, Darin Erstad, Mark DeRosa, and Brian Jordan.

The numbers may have dwindled in the past 15-20 years, but that's probably due to greater specialization among young athletes in general, as opposed to the peculiar demands of baseball.

Dick Groat was NCAA POY in basketball in 1952 and NL MVP in 1960.

moondog80 · Apr 7, 2015

MentalDisabldLst said:
Completely different skillsets though. To have a shot in pro sports, you have to commit to something like baseball so early, and do it so immersively while growing up, that people usually just pick their passion and see how far they can get in it. By the time you reach an age where you know your adult height and weight and may realistically have a shot at going bigtime in basketball or football, your window to do something in baseball has likely already passed you by; people don't just pick up baseball in, say, high school and make the majors. Jeff Samardzija and Bo Jackson are the only exceptions I can think of, people who really had an option between high-level baseball and another sport.

But I'm not talking about ditching basketball for baseball, it's the other way around. Most people who are going to be 6'6" or higher are already the tallest kid in school or close to it by middle school, which is plenty of time to develop in basketball, and they will inevitably be steered that way. So very few tall people end up dedicating themselves to baseball.

Fred not Lynn · Apr 7, 2015

In defense of Jordan; He hit above the Mendoza line in a full season at AA, and over .250 in the AZ Fall League. That's not exactly "not hitting". That's mediocre or so hitting against legitimate professional pitching, and really, in baseball's big picture nothing to be ashamed of.

mt8thsw9th · Apr 7, 2015

Fred not Lynn said:
In defense of Jordan; He hit above the Mendoza line in a full season at AA, and over .250 in the AZ Fall League. That's not exactly "not hitting". That's mediocre or so hitting against legitimate professional pitching, and really, in baseball's big picture nothing to be ashamed of.

I'd imagine if you put the average American male (who played any level of organized sports) up to bat against a pitching machine throwing in the high 80s, with no breaking pitches or offspeed pitches, they'd struggle to even hit the Mendoza line. That is even if it was adjusted to measure balls just put into play as hits, never mind getting batted balls past defenders.

Ramon AC · Apr 7, 2015

mt8thsw9th said:
I'd imagine if you put the average American male (who played any level of organized sports) up to bat against a pitching machine throwing in the high 80s, with no breaking pitches or offspeed pitches, they'd struggle to even hit the Mendoza line. That is even if it was adjusted to measure balls just put into play as hits, never mind getting batted balls past defenders.

Were I to face a challenge like this I'd be so nervous I'd need an antacid to calm my stomach.

drbretto · Apr 8, 2015

mt8thsw9th said:
I'd imagine if you put the average American male (who played any level of organized sports) up to bat against a pitching machine throwing in the high 80s, with no breaking pitches or offspeed pitches, they'd struggle to even hit the Mendoza line. That is even if it was adjusted to measure balls just put into play as hits, never mind getting batted balls past defenders.

I know that's hyperbole, but you had me right up until the last line. I haven't played baseball since little league and I sucked then, too. Every once in a while I'll go to the batting cages to blow off a little steam. The fast ball cages are listed as 85 mph and I put at least 80% of them in fair territory. Now, ask me to run to first base before someone fields it and throws me out and you're totally right.

Devizier · Apr 8, 2015

I think the "average american male" in this scenario -- let's say an active beer league softballer -- might be lucky to hit .050 in low A ball.

Over Guapo Grande · Apr 8, 2015

This guy, who is slightly more athletic than the active beer league softballer, agrees.

moondog80 · Apr 8, 2015

drbretto said:
I know that's hyperbole, but you had me right up until the last line. I haven't played baseball since little league and I sucked then, too. Every once in a while I'll go to the batting cages to blow off a little steam. The fast ball cages are listed as 85 mph and I put at least 80% of them in fair territory. Now, ask me to run to first base before someone fields it and throws me out and you're totally right.

I'm a 40-something with average-at-best athleticism and I can hit the fast cages too. Takes about 10 swing and misses to find my groove but by the second run through I'm spraying them pretty well. Because I can do it, I assume it's not all that impressive, and adding curveballs and offspeeds to the equation makes all the difference. Plus I'll bet those batting cage speeds are exaggerated.

Morgan's Magic Snowplow · Apr 8, 2015

moondog80 said:
I'm a 40-something with average-at-best athleticism and I can hit the fast cages too. Takes about 10 swing and misses to find my groove but by the second run through I'm spraying them pretty well. Because I can do it, I assume it's not all that impressive, and adding curveballs and offspeeds to the equation makes all the difference. Plus I'll bet those batting cage speeds are exaggerated.

Yeah, this. Most cages have a fast setting from 70-80. Maybe drbretto's is a legit 85 but I wouldn't be surprised if its listed that way but actually somewhat slower.

czar · Apr 8, 2015

Last year I played last year in a competitive wood bat league (25-40 y/o) with a few ex-minor league/D-I guys who worked in the high-80's.

Even ignoring the fact that hitting in a game situation is world's different from spending 30 pitches in a row timing up a batting cage, there is also a huge difference between "making contact" and "making USABLE contact."

Pretty much every ball I put in play against someone working up near 90, my first instinct was "sweet, look at me make contact!" Then it was immediately followed with "hey, it's a slow roller that might not even reach the SS." And that was when I was pretty sure a fastball was coming -- it doesn't include the times where I thought fastball and corkscrewed myself into the ground on a good bender (but not in an endearing Dustin Pedroia way). Everyone says BABIP regresses, but I can guarantee that against big league fielders *maybe* 10% of the balls I put in play would go as hits. Maybe.

I think comparing the average male's ability to a professional (or even semi-professional) ballplayer is a fool's errand.

67WasBest · Apr 8, 2015

moondog80 said:
I would imagine that guys who are tall and good enough to major league players are overwhelmingly drawn to basketball.

Or become pitchers

joe dokes · Apr 8, 2015

czar said:
I think comparing the average male's ability to a professional (or even semi-professional) ballplayer is a fool's errand.

Most major league pitchers were really good hitters in high school. Some even in college. Most of them would slaughter most average males in a BP contest.

bakahump · Apr 8, 2015

Olerud was a 6'5" Pretty good hitter....

drbretto · Apr 8, 2015

Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
Yeah, this. Most cages have a fast setting from 70-80. Maybe drbretto's is a legit 85 but I wouldn't be surprised if its listed that way but actually somewhat slower.

Doubt it's any different. That's why i added the words "listed at". I suspect it's just a sign saying 85 MPH just to let people think they're hitting major league fastballs. Though, I did once try to reach out to catch their 55 MPH slow pitch and it sure felt like it was at least 55. It left a baseball shaped bruise on my hand for days.

But my point was that the pitching machine ball WANTS to be hit, while a ball pitched by a human person doesn't. It really wasn't meant to spark any kind of legitimate debate on the main board.

CSteinhardt · Apr 8, 2015

mt8thsw9th said:
I'd imagine if you put the average American male (who played any level of organized sports) up to bat against a pitching machine throwing in the high 80s, with no breaking pitches or offspeed pitches, they'd struggle to even hit the Mendoza line. That is even if it was adjusted to measure balls just put into play as hits, never mind getting batted balls past defenders.

There's a batting cage on top of Yodobashi in Akihabara that goes up to 160 km/h (99 mph), rubber ball rather than baseball, with a couple of options for movement. I didn't have that much trouble getting the timing down to hit hard line drives off a straight fastball. About 10% of the balls would hit something coming out of the chute and would be more like 90 mph with a bit of sink, and after being geared up to hit 99 mph, I wouldn't be anywhere close to touching them. They also had the option to throw sinkers, sliders and curves, and I found it almost impossible to hit 160 km/h with a fair bit of movement, even knowing what to expect, except for the sliders, where I'd often make weak contact but couldn't square them up.

ALiveH · Apr 8, 2015

I think the real test of the "tall guys can't hit" theory is to plot the height distribution of MLB players against the height distribution of American males.

Less than 1% of American males 20-40 is 6'5" or taller. Is there any reason to expect a higher percentage of tall guys among MLB hitters?
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0209.pdf

TigerBlood · Apr 9, 2015

ALiveH said:
I think the real test of the "tall guys can't hit" theory is to plot the height distribution of MLB players against the height distribution of American males.

Less than 1% of American males 20-40 is 6'5" or taller. Is there any reason to expect a higher percentage of tall guys among MLB hitters?
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0209.pdf

Athletics in general tend to attract larger people. Strength and size correlate pretty well, especially in teenagers when their interests are being directed towards or away from sports by their ability.

ALiveH · Apr 9, 2015

True, there are conflating factors. Among the most popular American sports, basketball & football (and baseball pitchers) might disproportionately attract bigger kids where it more directly correlates. Baseball hitting is more a hand-eye coordination & skill-based endeavor (like golf), so it might attract the athletically minded kids who don't have size or who have great hand-eye coordination. On my Little League team, we had one kid who was a shrimp but he had freakishly good hand-eye coordination so he was a star, spraying line drives everywhere, even against the huge 6-footer who could throw 85 mph as a 12 year old.

Lose Remerswaal · Apr 9, 2015

I don't see mention of 6' 7" Frank Howard in this thread. Sure, he struck out alot, but most power hitters strike out alot.

Joe Mauer is 6'5". Neither a strikeout guy nor a real power guy, but he sure can hit.

Matt Wieters is 6'5", and does K alot, but is a good hitter. Remember: Strikeouts are GOOD!

I'd take 6'6" Giancarlo Stanton on my team, even with all the K's

Wellesley's own Nate Freiman is 6'8" (but he might not be much of a hitter)

charlieoscar · Apr 9, 2015

Based on my forays to the Sox minor league spring training complex in Ft. Myers in the '90s, I developed my own rule-of-thumb on player heights...any player who is actually 5'11" will list himself as 6', which means that any 6-footer has to be taller, and so on. Anyone who lists himself as 5'9" is probably closer to 5'6"; 5'6" is probably closer to 5'3". I stood next to a player in spikes who was listed as 6'4" (my height) and my eyes were nearly level with the button on top of his cap.

Lose Remerswaal · Apr 11, 2015

It proves that there aren't many tall major leaguers, due to normal height distributions, so the number of good hitting tall guys is gonna be low. But that being talle <> can't hit.

Just check out Masterson's game on Thursday.

Edit: And I listed 4. Not three.

crystalline · Apr 11, 2015

Not just height matters, but the length of your limbs and other biomechanical details. I wouldn't be surprised if good contact hitters tend to have shorter, more muscular arms to generate high torque.

In the NFL this has been discussed in relation to Kaepernick, and how he's not an ideal scrambler because his legs are too long for his height and he's a "strider".

Same with swimming and Phelps - being tall is generally an advantage for swimmers but at a fixed height, it's better to have a long torso and short legs.
(Google "Kaepernick strider" and "Phelps torso" for discussion)

Infield Infidel · Apr 11, 2015

Richie Sexson, 6'6", career 120 OPS+. He had a pretty swing too

Monbo Jumbo · Apr 11, 2015

Dave Kingman 6'6" , 442 hrs in 16 seasons with a ton of strikeouts

Lose Remerswaal · Apr 11, 2015

I listed four guys, plus Freiman. Three contemporary and one from my youth. And other posters have contributed other names.

Why arent there more tall good hitters? Because there aren't that many tall people, and most tall kids go into basketball these days instead of baseball.

charlieoscar · Apr 11, 2015

Average height by debut year, 1901-2013 (from Lahman database)

SumnerH · Apr 11, 2015

There doesn't seem to be any particularly large dropoff at 6'5" other than the normal one from distribution.

Just for fun:

SumnerH · Apr 11, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
How many of those are pitchers?

How many were elite hitters?

None of that addresses what I said. There are fewer good hitters over 6-4 than normal distribution would dictate.

Here's the distribution for all MLB seasons since 1970 (good hitters = wOBA more than 1 standard deviation above average). Again, there's nothing jumping out that says there's any special good-hitter 6'4" cliff.

EDIT: The first graph is ALL hitters, the second graph is just those hitters who are 1 stddev above average or more. The third is the excellent hitters, who are 2 stddevs above average or more.

EDIT: Added the 2-standard-deviation graph as well ("excellent hitters"). Excellent hitters are a subset of good hitters--they're included in all 3 graphs.

EDIT: "Number of players" is misleading; it's the number of _seasons_ by players of a certain height. A player who played 10 years will show up in the graphs multiple times, depending on his wOBA for any given year.

Seasons with under 300 ABs are excluded.

SumnerH · Apr 12, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
Isn't there? I don't see how that graph alters what I said. The great hitters are clustered around 6-3. There are tiny stair steps between 6 feet and 6-4 looks like maybe less than 10, then a drop of about 50 to 6-5. That isn't significant?

No, there's nothing there that particularly indicates that being 6'5" is somehow bad at hitting, rather than just being generally rare. There's a little noise, but it's essentially the same curve as the general population of MLB, and essentially what you'd expect from a normal distribution.

SumnerH · Apr 12, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
I disagree. The normal distribution centers on 6 to 6-2. the 6-3, and 6-4 guys are over represented in great hitters, while the 6-6 guys and up are not. In just players the 6 foot guys are 4 times as many as 6-4 guys, but in the great hitters 6-4 is a bit ahead of 6 footers.
Obviously being bigger helps, but it diminishes rather quickly after 6-4.

I can't find any way to slice the numbers that supports you here.

To pull it out of graph form into simpler terms: 2.6% of the general MLB population's years are from players 6'5" or higher. 5.1% of the good hitters' years (1 std deviation above normal) and 7.0% of the excellent hitters' years (2 std deviations) are by players 6'5" or higher.

I used 6'5" and up because that's what we'd been talking about before, but 6'6" and up are likewise over-represented in the good-hitting groups: just 0.83% of the general MLB population's years are from 6'6" or taller players, but it's 1.6% among both the good and excellent hitters.

(In fact, the 6'2" to 6'4" range is only about 27% bigger in the good-hitting cohort than the total population, while the 6'5"+ and 6'6"+ ranges are 90%+ bigger in the good-hitting cohort. So statistically, being 6'5"+ is actually even more strongly linked to good/great hitters than being 6'2"-6'4" is--it's just that there aren't many 6'6" guys out there to begin with).

moondog80 · Apr 12, 2015

The person who would be a 6'5" major league hitter is likely both athletic and taller than most of his classmates at a young age. Basketball becomes his main sport. His athleticism is such that he's able to be the best kid on his high school baseball team while only playing the few months after his high school basketball ends and summer basketball begins, but with the other 9 months devoted to basketball where he never picks up a bat, he never gets to the next level in baseball.

charlieoscar · Apr 12, 2015

reggiecleveland said:
...
There is another article I can't find. It may be more popular with this group it was called something like "Why does Pedro Martinez Throw harder than Randy Johnson?" that article also discussed the diminishing returns on height.

For the sake of simplicity, let us say that Randy Johnson was one foot taller than Pedro Martinez and that they were equally proportioned in arm and leg length. This suggests that Johnson's lead foot and fingers are closer to the plate on the release of the pitch than Martinez's. And again for the sake of simplicity, we will say one foot closer. If they both throw 95-mph pitches, whose will get to the batter first? Indeed, it we could work out the exact difference in release points, we would find that Johnson could throw a slower pitch that would arrive at the same time as a faster one from Martinez.

Of course, if Johnson takes a shorter step and throws directly overhand or side arm rather than three-quarter arm, the calculations might change.

Fred not Lynn · Apr 12, 2015

Well, as much as Moneyball types talk the talk about skills and stats, they still run the 60 at every showcase and drool over the winners of that track meet.

And I think the crux of this thread is tall man Reggie explaining why he isn't a major league hitter...a few fewer inches, and he woulda been in the show for sure.

Does Size Matter? Batting Cages and Baseball

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