Friday, March 18, 2016
Cole Figueroa now in my Top 5
Joey Votto, John Jaso, Max Scherzer, Brian Bannister and Zach Greinke are my top 5. Given what Figueroa has said, I may need to make that a Top 10:
Figueroa said this idea of backspin was a myth, the swing plane he was using was not optimal. He explained what he really wanted to do is hit the ball as squarely as possible with a slight upper cut. He explained how upon contact with the bat, the ball briefly condenses like flattening a ball of pizza dough. He had the science to prove it: a Dec. 2014 study by University of Illinois professor, Dr. Alan Nathan, showed spin has little effect on batted ball distance.
“It's an arc and upper (cut swing) that creates the home run power and trajectory you need to hit the ball out. ... As a power hitter, it is proven that's the plane you want to swing on,” Figueroa said. “When you hear ‘level,' you think the bat is level to the ground when really that is not the case, the bat is actually level to the direction of the ball.”
..
But he's also perhaps the most mathematically gifted player in the Grapefruit League. In clubhouses that still have varying degrees of resistance to new-age thought, Figueroa is using analytics, coding skills — yes, he writes his own computer code — and physics to give him an edge.
Figueroa long has been interested in mathematical principles.
He found calculus and physics fascinating in high school and at the University of Florida. Earlier this spring, he recited Pi out to fifty digits to a reporter. His Twitter bio declares he is “Specializing in the process of decision making in .400 milliseconds,” or the amount of time in which a hitter has to decide whether to swing at a pitch.
...
Seeing the vast amount of data pouring into the game, and thinking about how to take advantage of it, he began to teach himself code, ‘R,' or programming language.
He spent hours at Coursera.org — the Web site reassures a new visitor one can “Code Yourself!” — where there are step-by-step instructions in learning how to code and program.
With his nascent coding skills, he began to research and refine data given to him by the Rays, though the Rays kept much of their data off limits from their proprietary database.
He created models to understand how a player with his skills would age. He studied players with similar physical and statistical profiles. He studied what skills would age well, which would age poorly. In three consecutive seasons in Triple-A, he improved his on-base percentage.
...
What does his dad think about coding and physics?
“My dad thinks I should just see the baseball and hit it, he's more old school,” Figueroa said. “But he understands you need to evolve.”
Figueroa believes there is a divide between many players and new-age information because so much of the data isn't “tangible.” He thinks swing- and mechanics-mapping technology, including some produced by Pittsburgh tech startup, Diamond Kinetics, can help change that. But there also is a divide, Figueroa believes, because the new-school perhaps hasn't communicated its ideas well enough.
“People in general, it's easy for them to say ‘I'm not good at math,' ” Figueroa said. “And if someone tries to feed you something you don't understand, you put up that wall. ... Tampa does a good job of ... giving players (manageable data) to consume.”
...
Figueroa understands what pioneering coder Grace Hopper once said: “It was no use trying to learn math unless they could communicate it.”
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