Rapsodo Training Software
How does the Rapsodo software help youth players?
At Lonestar Baseball, we use Rapsodo because it helps to assess & refine (with the help of a coach or instructor) technique of youth hitters and pitchers; it's often said that it's "better to assess than guess" and Rapsodo provides intuitive, real-time measurements to help build better technique. Rapsodo is used by all 30 MLB teams and found at more than 1,200 colleges and facilities across the United States and Lonestar Baseball is proud to be one of a handful of youth organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that offers this cutting edge technology to our players!
The Rapsodo Hit Tracking software (similar to a golf swing simulator) helps measure their swing outcomes & allows our instructors to fine tune their swing mechanics!
Hitting Metrics that we’ll focus on with the Rapsodo:
*Hard hit %-consistent contact
*Launch angle-measures line drives vs. hitting ground balls
*Direction-ideally you want to hit balls from gap to gap
*Volume of hits-you want them gap to gap
*Hit classifications-for fun
*Launch angle by exit direction-are they hitting line drives to both sides of the field?
Pitching Metrics that we’ll focus on with the Rapsodo:
*Location, location, location: Know exactly where each pitch lands in or out of the strike zone & how to hit your spots.
*Analyze your pitching mechanics rep after rep in slow motion with immediate video feedback and Rapsodo data overlay.
*Understand pitching movement (aka pitch tunneling): Get release point and ball flight comparisons for different pitches.
*Understand Pitch Design as it relates to certain pitch grips which makes the pitcher more confident in understanding how pitch grips affect movement and pitch outcomes.
Rapsodo Rapscore
RapScore is a quantifiable player development and evaluation tool that can be used to track player performance over time. It takes a player’s raw data and shows their strengths and weaknesses as well as how they rank against their peers.
RapScore uses Rapsodo’s existing HITTING and PITCHING technology to quantify a player’s personal metrics, and utilizes the principles of the 20-80 scale to rank players amongst their peers and evaluate performance. RapScore’s pitching algorithm compares an individual’s pitch metrics to the ideal form of that pitch type. At the end of the session, a player’s RapScore is calculated based on dynamic weighing of the pitches thrown. Hitting RapScore is determined using a player’s max and average exit velocity as well as launch angle throughout a certified session. These session metrics are compared by the athlete’s level and accurately placed on the 20-80 scale.
How does Rapsodo Hitting & Pitching software really work?
Measured Hitting Instruction
According to the publication Popular Science, "Hitting a baseball is the hardest skill to pull off in sports" as it is (scientifically speaking) "a unique blend of physics and neuroscience [which] makes the skill astronomically difficult." Now, take the hardest skill in sports and apply that with youth baseball players; it takes time, practice, and understanding of how to break down & teach to a young player what to do to be a good hitter.
At Lonestar Baseball, we use "old school" hitting fundamental techniques and combine them with "new school" optical technology including measuring Exit Speed, Total Spin, Spin Access, Launch Angle, and Exit Direction. One may say that gathering this intelligence is going "over the top," but what the data does show is what happens when a player makes contact with the ball (which is obviously the result of their bat path and overall hitting mechanics). More than anything, this helps pinpoint simple adjustments that can be made and then see results (when adjustments are made) of better back spin (which produces line drives as opposed to top spin which produces ground balls). This is just one application of using software to get feedback from this type of swing analysis. With all of this intelligence, we can track and make necessary adjustments, but again there's a balance of using the "new school" software with traditional (old school) hitting fundamentals.
From a development standpoint, the main question (as instructors) is "why would you guess when you can assess (with measurements)?" Lonestar Baseball will incorporate these measurements into hitting fundamentals and (by putting it all together) make every hitting session a learning session and overall produce greater results.