A Major League Baseball Club Project 5

Faculty Advisor: Prof. Bhaven Mistry

Project Description:

The focus of the proposed project is evaluation of hitting ability of baseball players, and how spin affects batted ball characteristics. The client has identified exit speed, exit horizontal angle, and exit vertical angle as driving factors in determining how well a batted ball is struck (which we call “quality of contact”). A potential factor for quality of contact is the batted ball spin profile. Clearly the spin profile will affect the trajectory of the ball, but it is yet unknown how much of this is attributable to batter skill. The goal of this project is to use batted ball tracking data to better understand relationships between batted ball spin profiles and quality of contact.