Evaluation, evaluation, evaluation! A lot of facilities outright skip this process when bringing in new athletes. Many coaches will take their first session with an athlete and eye-ball them for an hour. This way of evaluating is remarkably ineffective and, most times leads to more questions than answers. Evaluations are for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of individual pitchers and creating a contingency plan for development. Unfortunately, this does not happen at most of the big box facilities in Colorado. This brings me to the evaluation process at FAST Performance, the best evaluation process in the state. The evaluation at FAST is the most comprehensive and gives you, the athlete, the most information possible to develop and enhance your performance on the field. In this article, I will take you through the evaluation process here at FAST and demonstrate why we have the best there is. I will take you through the movement screening through what the evaluation on the mound looks like and what we can learn from the process. Baseball is now a game of information, and the best in the game have access to the best information. Unlike most, if any other facilities in Colorado, we have access to the best information, and you will get to take advantage of that information at FAST.

Movement Screening:

All of our evaluations include mobility and strength assessments from our resident trainer Scott Long. We value these assessments highly, and you should, as well. The assessment provides vital information about how the pitcher moves and how well he moves. A pitcher must be a quality athlete if he has any desire to excel. Too many pitchers do not understand their bodies and limit their development. At FAST, our goal is to improve the lowest hanging fruit before anything else, and most often, quality movement is the lowest hanging fruit for the athletes we see. If you were to look at the most elite throwers in the game of baseball, you would notice that these players move exceptionally well.

How can I expect a player to improve their velocity if they cannot get into elite positions? Developing quality movers makes the process of developing quality pitchers so much easier. Knowing a player’s movement strengths and weaknesses create the biggest bang for your buck improvements, but sadly it is the most overlooked quality. Using this portion of the assessment, we can develop exercises to address every player’s weaknesses and make them a better overall athlete, leading to a better improvement.

Scott Long Evaluating an Athlete

Rapsodo:

The Rapsodo is my favorite piece of technology we offer at FAST. When we use the Rapsodo, we use it to understand a pitcher’s arsenal. By getting into the nitty-gritty of a pitcher’s offerings, we can see how they work and move. When I use the Rapsodo, I can identify a pitcher’s best offering, particularly when the athlete does not know himself. Many pitchers think they know what their best pitch is, but rarely are they right. Most pitchers believe they know the types of pitches they throw, but you would be surprised by how little they know about those pitches. From personal experience, I can tell you that when many pitchers believe they throw a Curveball, they throw a Slider.

Unlike many Colorado facilities who only use Rapsodo to put their kids in a “National Database,” we use the Rapsodo to improve the arsenals of our pitchers. “If can be measured, it can be improved” is a constant motto as FAST. Our goal is to develop the best pitchers in the state and give them the tools they need to succeed at whatever level they compete from high school to the professional level. By using the Rapsodo, we eliminate a lot of the guesswork in Pitch Design.

High-Speed Video:

To complement our Rapsodo, we also employ the Rapsodo Insight Camera. The Insight Camera is a high-speed video camera with Slow-Motion capabilities. Using this camera, we can film the ball from a pitcher’s hand at up to 850 frames per second. This piece of equipment has become a vital part of our evaluation process as it provides us with a clear picture of how the hand and fingers impart a force on the ball and make it spin the way it does. If we see that a Fastball does not move as efficiently as we would hope, we use the Insight to see why. Often the Insight will show us a poor hand position at ball release that contributes to this inefficiency. When using the Insight Camera, we can also track how this interaction improves as time progresses.

Not Ideal Fastball

Ideal Fastball

ProPlay PitchAI:

One of our newest pieces at FAST that we are very excited about is ProPlay PitchAI, developed by Dr. Mike Sonne. PitchAI is a technology that encapsulates all of the data of Biomechanics all in our cellphones. When an athlete comes in for an evaluation, our staff will take a video of the athlete’s mechanics and plug it into the PitchAI system. Within 30 minutes, our team will have access to a full biomechanics report covering 15 different metrics of the athlete’s pitching motion. Metrics such as Max Shoulder External Rotation, Pelvic and Trunk Twist, and Hip-Shoulder Separation. Using ProPlay PitchAI, the staff at FAST will be able to identify the athlete’s mechanical efficiencies and inefficiencies. Once we have identified these weaknesses, we can begin to address them quickly and make them strengths. PitchAI is one of the biggest game-changers in our evaluation process; no longer do we look at a video of an athlete’s mechanics and assume that we can now diagnose a pitcher based on our prior knowledge’s issues and begin addressing them.

ProPlay PitchAI

Pitch Comparison Tool:

The most recent technology that we have added to our evaluation process is our in-house Pitch Comparison Tool developed by our former intern Matt Boyd. We are the first and only facility in Colorado to have this tool at our disposal. Once the evaluation is complete, our staff will take the data from the Rapsodo and plugin that data into our Pitch Comparison. Using data such as Horizontal Movement, Vertical Movement, Bauer Units, and Spin Efficiency, we will create a chart of closet Major League Baseball equivalents to the athlete’s pitch. Through this database, we learned that one of our college pitcher’s Fastball closely resembles Corey Kluber’s (Texas Rangers) fastball, while his Slider closely resembles Gerrit Cole’s (New York Yankees) Sliders. Amazing Stuff!

Using this tool, we can identify a pitchers arsenal and give him MLB players to emulate to further their success. Our database also gives us charts about where those pitchers throw their pitches most often and where they get the most swings and misses.

Fastball Comparison

Change Up Comparison

Slider Comparison

How Often Should I Be Evaluated?

I would recommend evaluation once per year, kind of like sports physicals. The reason is our athletes will not be in the facilities all year round. We want them to play in the meaningful seasons, Spring and Summer. As I have written about before, Fall Ball is meaningless and a waste of to the vast majority of high school athletes. If a pitcher wants to do this correctly, they will play in the Spring and the Summer, get evaluated after the Summer is completed and then take 4-6 weeks away from Baseball to recoup from the stress of 6-7 months playing.

So Why Us?

FAST Performance is the preeminent baseball training facility in Colorado, and it all begins with the evaluation. We pride ourselves on have the most comprehensive evaluation in the state. We look for the small details that make the biggest difference, details like shoulder mobility and single-leg coordination, to ensure that the athlete is the best mover possible. We find the small details in how the ball interacts with the hand when throwing a Curveball. Putting this all together, we make the pitcher better than he has ever been. We take all of the guesswork out of your development and focus on the right things.