Slow and steady wins in baseball?

“Slow and steady wins the race.” I’m sure you’ve heard that, and you’ve probably told that to people. But slow and steady only wins the race in childrens’ books, or if you’re competing in your life against a rabbit who is lazy and shortsighted. Probably won’t find any lazy rabbits playing ball on the fields where your players compete.

The fact of the matter is fast and steady wins in baseball. The slow and steady runner will not get an impressive time in the 60 yard dash, and will be thrown out on the base paths. Slow and steady will not help you hit the ball on a line drive into the outfield. And slow and steady will not control the opponents bats by promoting poorly timed and non-squared up barrel contact.

Of course, the coach and parents and the player wants to win today. Slow and steady might help you get a few more pitches over today, or hit a ground ball to the right side today. But to keep getting more opportunities, you need to be explosive and consistent. Develop them both.

As you climb the pyramid of baseball (youth league, middle school, high school, college, professional), there are fewer spots for players to earn. Coaches at those levels decide on whom they want to spend a roster spot (or scholarship money), and they will count things like your bat swing speed and the speed at which you throw a baseball, for both pitchers and position players.

The fact of the matter is that everyone is judged and rated their whole life. Tell your ballplayers that they are more than the sum of their numbers, but they will surely be given better opportunities to succeed if they measurably perform better than their peers.

Slow and steady wins the race in fables, but not on a ball field.

So how do you know if you’re getting faster and more consistent? Measure! We’ve tested many devices in our training at Ballplayers Academy to help us measure speed and performance. The Glove Radar gave us very accurate readings for measuring the speed of a thrown ball. It sits on the back of a baseball glove and uses very low power doppler radar. It’s well-built and assembled in the USA. And its less than 10% of the cost of professional radar guns. There’s a quick video below. And you can buy it here.

One more thought. Most winning pitchers do two things very well. They change speeds, and spot their fastball. With the swing Speed Radar, you can see just how much difference there is between the speeds of your pitches.