Pelotero Unveils Hitter Potential Score, Industry’s First Comprehensive Swing Performance Benchmark

Those of you who have been around CI for a while now already know I have a passion for youth baseball and athletic development as a whole. In keeping with that, I will often break from Cubs-specific news to bring you information about new trends or ideas I come across. One of those is Pelotero, a player-development platform that allows parents and coaches to develop individualized hitting programs simply by submitting a swing video.

There’s much more to it than that and I laid out a great deal more in an earlier piece, but I wanted to dive back into the Hitter Potential Score Pelotero just unveiled. After hinting at it previously, they’ve now gone public with the details. In short, the platform integrates data from slow-motion video and bat sensors to calculate a score from 1-100 that represents an amalgamation of five key indicators.

What profiles look like on our end. The “Score Details” button reveals criteria scores and provides descriptions.

Programs are on the Programs tab.

Just getting started. 😀 pic.twitter.com/OW76zVdnoH

— Bobby Tewksbary (@TewksHitting) October 23, 2024

The Hitter Potential Score takes into account Bat Performance, Swing Plane, Depth and Length, Body Mechanics, and Swing direction. You can get a little more on each of those indicators in the press release below or by listening to the Pelotero Podcast, but I want to spend a little time on the first one here because I think it goes overlooked when we evaluate swings. The bat is typically viewed as superfluous in most breakdowns, but that’s a mistake because, well, size matters.

What I mean is that the same hitter is going to get different results from different bats. Aaron Judge and Luis Arraez are very different human beings, but they also use different implements and that should be accounted for. Judge moves his 35-inch, 33-ounce club at around 77 mph while Arraez swings roughly 63 mph (slowest in MLB among qualified hitters) with a 33/30.5 stick. When we’re talking about younger players who are going through several different bat sizes and classifications, this kind of thing matters.

The Hitter Potential Score leverages both age-based performance metrics and elite mechanical analysis to represent how high a hitter’s potential is to perform in games. Consider it like the expected stats you see at the big league level. And just like those expected stats, it’s important to understand the key word here is “potential” to perform. It’s really just a benchmark that allows hitters to identify strengths and weaknesses in their swing and get personalized developmental programming.

Okay, so where can hitters go to get scored? One option is to attend a Perfect Game Showcase or Prospect Gateway event, where scores are provided to every hitter. The other is to find a partner organization near you. There are only 17 such orgs as of right now, one of which is Medici Baseball Club in Central Indiana. I’m admittedly biased here because that’s where my son plays, but this club does things the right way and is truly focused on developing young players rather than just assembling a group of players to win right now.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m reasonably sure my son might not even be playing right now if MBC wasn’t around. He’s a little slow-footed, doesn’t have big velo, and lacks great coordination as a result of going from about 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds to 6-foot-2 and 170. Tryouts don’t care much about how a player projects 2-3 years out because they need to compete for plastic rings right away.

It can be really difficult for parents to know what’s best for their kids when it comes to athletic development, and the increasing focus on playing and winning games means less time and ability to work on weaknesses. Pelotero provides immediate, honest feedback that removes the mystery from the process and allows players to better direct their efforts. I’d say it’s also best to avoid organizations that are charging huge fees just to play tons of games every year, especially at younger ages.

I’ll gladly expand on my feelings about what travel baseball is getting wrong if there’s any interest in that topic, but for now I’ll just direct you to the press release for more info on Hitter Potential Score.

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Today Pelotero unveiled its new Hitter Potential Score as part of its Player Intelligence platform that delivers personalized development at the click of a button. The score seeks to help players quickly benchmark where they are today and what they need to work on to maximize their full hitting potential. The Pelotero platform is currently used by some of the nation’s largest and most respected organizations who are leveraging it to bring out the best in their players.

Today, players and their parents are struggling to understand how good they are and how good they could be. That pressure and uncertainty causes them to seek out new coaches, teams, showcases, and tournaments in what seems like a constant and never-ending search for validation. Pelotero’s new Hitter Potential Score will help unify the entire industry around what it means to be good so that all hitters can finally be compared on equal footing.

Pelotero’s new Hitter Potential Score is the brainchild of former professional hitting coach Bobby Tewksbary and former major leaguer Chris Colabello. It leverages readily available data from a slow-motion video and a bat sensor to instantly evaluate five major indicators of a hitter’s overall potential:

Bat Performance: This refers to the potential physical output of a player’s swing. It considers things like bat speed, impact momentum, acceleration and applied power to assess the level of energy a player is transferring to the ball. It also considers mechanical characteristics such as head and hip movement to understand how a player is creating this energy.

Swing Plane: With the majority of outs made in the infield, it’s critical for a player to be able to drive the ball in the air to the outfield. Analyzing attack angle in the swing, vertical movement of the hands, and several other mechanical checkpoints creates an accurate picture of how well a hitter will be able to create effective ball flight.

Depth & Length: The depth and length of a player’s swing tells us a lot about their margin for error. Being able to hit the ball deep in the zone gives a player more time to see and react to a pitch. Swing length provides the ability to get fooled by a pitch and still have a chance to be successful as the bat is on plane longer. Several mechanical traits such as lead arm vertical movement and head movement during the stride are assessed to create this evaluation.

Body Mechanics: This is an overall assessment of a hitter’s movements and whether they are putting themselves in the right positions to be successful. Swing characteristics like head movement, lead arm movement, shoulder slope, and more are crucial checkpoints that determine which zones a hitter may struggle with and whether or not they’ll have a high level of adjustability.

Swing Direction: Swing Direction refers to the direction of the force of the bat. Having good swing direction means that a player can hit the ball effectively in a wide variety of zones. It keys in on attributes such as shoulder tilt and slope at different points throughout the swing. Assessing these is paramount to evaluating a hitter’s ability to hit the ball to all fields and identifying potential holes in their swing.

All of these components combined create a comprehensive picture of who a hitter is. Pelotero’s Player Intelligence platform processes these instantly to create an overall score called the Hitter Potential Score. The platform then leverages this data and score to generate personalized programming at the click of a button.

“As part of our partnership, we are including Pelotero’s Hitter Potential Score in the player profiles for all hitters that come to our Showcase and Prospect Gateway events,” says Jered Goodwin, VP of Scouting Operations at Perfect Game. “This score will give coaches, players, and scouts a transparent and objective view into what the data is telling us and will augment the PG Grades we currently provide.”

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