Why Infielders should be taught Batted Ball spin

Learning Objective:

Infielder to predict accurately to ground balls or a throw with low or high spin rate(S/R) as efficient as common ones.

Skill Deficiency:

Lack of ability to read and make a the right adjustment to a ground ball or throw with High S/R or Low S/R.

Introduction

At all levels, Infielders are taught to “Go get it” or “Pick it”, referring to attacking a ball. Why is this? At what point should a 1st Baseman be credited the error and not the fielder on an abnormal throw landing in a high % picking zone?

Any position on the field, you should be know the ‘Why’ behind actions you take and as a coach it is equally as important to preface a drills with the answer.

Personal Ideology

I strongly believe that there needs to be some type of force to redirect the ball path from its original course in any ground ball.

“A body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force” — Law of Inertia

In the video below the 1st Baseman had a tough time reading the spin from the throw and failed to act on the right type of fielding action to field the ball.

Lack of fielding action — 1st Base

I believe you at minimum have to do one of two things while fielding a ground ball with high or low S/R. A — Move your body or B — Move your glove against the balls spin direction. In either scenario, you are suppressing the spin of the ground ball. Watch the lack of glove movement allowing the spin to overrun infielder because of no ball redirection followed by a video of infielders changing the path of the ground ball.

Ground balls with no redirection

Ground Balls with redirection

Addressing this Skill Gap

There isn’t publicly available data or a tool on the market yet to accurately match game ground ball spin yet- the closest thing replicate this in my opinion is Launch Angle and batted ball velocity which can be accomplished by the Hack Attack.

While using the Hack Attack, adjusting the top wheels to spin faster then the single bottom wheel will add top spin to the ball which is most seen in ground balls hit. Finding these videos posted above were gathered by searching significant negative launch angle and high exit velocity so adjust the machine accordingly. Due to the uncertainty of ground ball spin, I suggest adding over and under exaggerations to your workouts.

As far as game like spin on throws, that could be fulfilled by genuine throws from infielders who can add tail and cut to their throws or you can use our friendly Hack Attack if its individual training or excessively roll over while hitting fungos to create top spin to simulate as close as possible a live groundball.

Setting up a single Hack Attack with different 1B receiving angles

Conclusion

Muscle memory is a dependable trait in baseball and being able to repeat successful muscle movements can take a ball player far. With the Eye being a muscle in the body, it is important for all infielders to be able to read ball spin to recollect how that ball moved the last time they saw a ground ball moving similar. Just like recognizing a Curveball’s spin while batting, spin on a ground ball is equally as important.