This past Saturday, the Prep Baseball Utah staff hosted the Utah Tribe Scout Day, the first Fall event of the year. This event featured 21 prospects from the Utah Tribe Baseball program. All players ran through a full workout that included batting practice and bullpens captured on our TrackMan, as well as the 60-yard dash captured by VALD Performance and positional drills including velocities.

Over the next several days we'll be highlighting top performers from the event within our post-event analysis. Stay locked into our social media channels over the next several days as we continue to push out video, leaderboards and more.

Yesterday, we highlighted the top overall performers in our Stats Analysis article. Today, we shift the focus to the mound as we continue our post-event coverage with a deeper look into the Pitching Data Dive.

To register for the Salt Lake Fall ID, click here.
To register for the Northern Utah Fall ID, click here.
To register for the St. George Summer ID, click here.

To request an invite to the West Coast Super Sophomore Games, click here.
To request an invite to the 2025 West Coast Games, click here.
To request an invite to the Utah Fall Top Prospect Games, click here.

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FASTBALL

MAX VELOCITY

Max Fastball Velocity: This metric calculates the speed of the pitch as it’s released from the pitcher’s hand.

HIGHEST AVG. SPIN RATE

Spin Rate: This metric calculates the rate of spin on the baseball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). Historical data shows that high-spin fastballs lessen the impact of gravity, allowing for more ‘rise’ (or less fall, in other words) as it carries through the zone. Low-spin fastballs typically indicate the pitch has greater horizontal action, often making it tougher to square up, but generally easier to make contact with, leading to more ground balls, while high-spin fastballs show a correlation with swings and misses.

HIGHEST AVG. IVB

Induced Vertical Break: Used in short form as "IVB," this metric is most important on fastballs for creating rise and on curveballs for creating depth – it can also have some use when measuring sliders and cutters as well. Sliders tend to be closer to zero inches while cutters are generally between 5 and 15 inches. Usually fastballs and curveballs with large IVB have higher spin efficiencies as well. Sliders generally have very little (closer to zero) IVB and very low spin efficiency. You could also categorize IVB into spin rate as this is part of the “useful movement” you’re looking for, and it’s also important to consider the pitch’s velocity as well as its release height when evaluating IVB measurements against each other.

HIGHEST AVG. HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT

Horizontal Break: Outlined on TrackMan’s own website: “... horizontal movement is measured in inches between where the pitch actually crosses the front of home plate side-wise, and where it would have crossed home plate side-wise if had it traveled in a perfectly straight line from release. A positive number means the break was to the right from the pitcher’s perspective, while a negative number means the break was to the left from the pitcher’s perspective.”

HIGHEST STRIKE ZONE RATE%

For some context, in 2023 MLB pitchers averaged an In Zone% of around 49 percent in live game settings measured across all pitch types, according to Statcast.

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CURVEBALL

HIGHEST AVG. SPIN RATE

HIGHEST AVG. IVB

HIGHEST AVG. HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT

HIGHEST STRIKE ZONE RATE%

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SLIDER

HIGHEST AVG. SPIN RATE

HIGHEST AVG. IVB

HIGHEST AVG. HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT

HIGHEST STRIKE ZONE RATE%

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CHANGEUP

AVG CHANGEUP SPIN RATE (RPM)

HIGHEST AVG. IVB

HIGHEST AVG. HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT

HIGHEST STRIKE ZONE RATE%

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