PG Tech Clicks with National Participants

Blake Dowson

Photo: RJ Austin (Perfect Game)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- At the recent Perfect Game National Showcase, each invitee, all top Class of 2022 prospects, got to step into the new PG Tech Cage.

During their Cage experience, the players closely resembled sponges with the amount of knowledge they absorbed. The PG Tech Cage tells you what you are doing to create your swing: it’s the cause and effect, the how, the what and the why of your swing, and that data-based knowledge enables a new understanding of the player’s swing.

“PG Tech helps me with my swing because as soon as you swing, the different body parts that you're swinging with, it shows the results and what you need to work on,” Roman Anthony, the No. 7 outfield prospect in the 2022 class and newly-minted PG All-American, said. “It shows the consistency of your body and how your body works when you're swinging.”

To capture those data points, the PG Tech Cage uses K-Baseball 3D motion capture sensors placed on the player’s body, four in total; one on the lead hand, one on the upper arm, one around the torso, and one around the pelvis.

From his experience, Anthony learned that he has elite peak speeds throughout his swing, and you can see this when you look at his PG Tech data by scrolling down on his Perfect Game profile. Average peak speeds for a fully mature, elite player look like this: 600+ degrees per second at the pelvis, 850+ deg/s at the torso, 1100+ deg/s with the arm, and 1800+ deg/s with the lead hand.

Anthony’s numbers show us that at just 17 years old and a year away from the 2022 MLB Draft still, he has elite peak speeds: 662.5 deg/s with the pelvis, 965.5 deg/s with his torso, 1452.0 deg/s with his arm, and 1862.0 with his lead hand.

While the players hardly notice they are there, the sensors are taking a complete motion capture of the player and every one of their movements with a level of accuracy usually only available in an advanced biomechanics lab. After the capture, a player can watch the computer screen to see how he loads, plants, rotates, and extends through his swing and see exactly how the different parts of his body work together to produce his peak speed sequence.

“[PG Tech] shows your body system and swing path and stuff that you need to develop in the future and work on,” Luke Heyman, a PG All-American and No. 3 catching prospect in the 2022 class, said. “The instant feedback off the high-speed cameras and iPads that you use with the motion sensors is really good, you can see your swing pattern and what you need to develop in the future.”

You can find Heyman’s peak speed sequence – Pelvis first, followed by his Torso, then Lead Arm, and lastly the Hand – on his PG profile. That order is the optimal sequence for peak bat speed. And he is able to see this in his Edgertronic high-speed video on his profile page, it’s side by side with his K-Motion data to help him understand how he is creating his sequencing.

Heyman shows elite speed gains throughout his swing as well, efficiently transferring energy, a measurement of a segment lower in the body chain and its effect on the segment higher up in the chain.

Elite ranges for speed gains for Heyman’s optimal Pelvis, Torso, Arm, Hand sequence look like this: 250 degrees/second from pelvis to torso, 250 deg/s from torso to arm, and 500 deg/s from arm to hand. Heyman’s numbers are as follows: 277.0 deg/s from pelvis to torso, 323.0 deg/s from torso to arm, and 867 deg/s from arm to hand.

For both Anthony and his elite peak speeds and Heyman and his elite speed gains, getting up to their peak speeds faster means they can commit to a pitch later. Committing to a pitch later means giving yourself more time to identify pitches, lowering your chase and swing-and-miss rates.

Knowing what causes inefficiencies in their swings allows these players to eliminate guesswork from their training regimen. There used to be trial-and-error involved when working on your swing. That no longer has to happen.

“It’s great to know what the differences are in your swing, sometimes you don’t feel everything that PG Tech gets,” Andruw Jones, the No. 4 overall prospect in the 2022 class and son of the former Major Leaguer of the same name, said. “Most of the time you don’t see the differences in your swing, but with PG Tech you can tell and it helps you know what swing plan you are on and what you need to stop doing…It helps you be able to become a better hitter overall.”

Jones’ sentiment was echoed throughout PG National, as players familiarized themselves with the PG Tech Cage. For many players, they know of technology like K-Baseball motion capture, Edgertronic cameras and Trackman launch monitors, but this was their first opportunity for them to use them to work on their swing. With all the tech running together and the numbers being linked for each swing, they were able to see the true cause and effect of each swing they took. The what, the why, and the how showed them a complete picture of their swing.

Yoel Tejeda Jr, the No. 4 first base prospect in the 2022 class, knows the importance of getting his body in the correct sequence during his swing, and at 6-foot-7 with long limbs, that can be difficult. Tejeda said PG Tech has shown him the right way to go about doing that, and it makes him a more dangerous hitter than he already was.

“PG Tech helps me at the plate because I’m 6-foot-7 and I [get] instant biomechanics, so it helps me use an advantage, all the leverage that I have, and it helps me learn how to use it and keep coordinating myself for it,” Tejeda said.

In other words, as we learned from speaking with these elite players at the PG National Showcase, the PG Tech Cage helps each player reach their goals by giving them access to data and tools that develop a deeper, more accurate understanding of that player than we have ever been able to see before. PG Tech looks at each player through the lens of their swing, what makes them special and unique.

The PG Tech Cage now allows players to benefit from data, technology and knowledge that helps them reach their potential and get discovered. It can now be found at many Perfect Game showcases throughout the year, at no extra charge.

PG Tech is a new company that was formed by Perfect Game and K-Motion to help players reach their goals by providing unique data-based scouting and player development insights with the most-advanced technologies in baseball.

For more information on PG Tech, including which showcases you can find the PG Tech Cage, visit the PG Tech website.

PERFECTGAME.TV