Speed in baseball will always be an important measurement. It can determine how high your ceiling can be when grading a youth player.

For example, faster players can get away with making baserunning mistakes and still recover. Faster players can get bad jumps and still recover and makeup time with speed. Faster players can have bad breaks on balls in the outfield and can still recover with speed.

The Game Is Shaped By Speed

Speed is something we shape the game around. It can never slump – what you see is what you get. Players that are fast (or faster than most) that take the time to become savvy baseball players, tend to play at a much higher level.

In simple terms, if you are not fast you’ll have to do something spectacular to make up that blemish.

What If Speed Isn’t In Your Toolbox?

The beautiful thing about baseball is there is room for all shapes and sizes of players with different skill sets. If you can hit for power, speed is generally overlooked but hitting, in general, can slump. It’s the hardest thing to do in all of sports. If you have exceptional glove and arm strength, speed can be largely absent and players still tend to find the starting lineup.

Defining Speed For Baseball

Speed doesn’t have to be thought of in the sense of top speed or top-end speed. Running on a baseball field requires curved linear runs when running on the base paths, so that is a skill that has to be obtained through practice.

Infield Speed

Most players in the infield have to have first-step quickness, not necessarily top-end speed for defense. There isn’t enough space required on most plays to reach top running velocity.

Speed on a baseball field can also be reactive. How quick you can get your body to start and move is probably the most important as an infielder.

Outfield Speed

As an outfielder, there is much more room to cover so having a good top-end speed will help in covering the most ground to make plays.

Speed Is A Tool In Baseball

Speed will always be the most exciting tool to watch on a baseball field, sure we like to see the long ball. It’s always jaw-dropping, especially those moon shots. But, watching players accelerate on a baseball field legging out a triple or running a ball down nobody thought you could get to will always be the most exciting plays to watch.

The athleticism it takes to move fast and throw on the run on a slow roller play for infielders is always jaw-dropping.

Speed is and will always be how we shape a lineup – unless players possess another skill, like arm strength or power to supersede their lack of running ability.

5 tool players aren’t common in baseball, which is a way of saying they have speed, power, and arm strength all rolled into one.

Speed, agility, & quickness is the easiest to measure on a player because it only takes a stopwatch. It will always be at the forefront of importance for baseball players the faster the easier the game can seem.