Backside Groundballs Media

A big one here! We were lucky enough to check out @HogsPlayerDev Pitching Lab, and talk to @Hobbs_38 about how they utilize their resources to build their pitching staff. This is a great look at what it takes to build one of the best pitching staffs in the country!

Barrel awareness is not luck. It is the most reliable signal that a hitter is consistently getting on plane and squaring the baseball. Brice Turang has the best of it in MLB ⬇️

Signal: Y Front 1.1, below peer. Insight: back-foot toe push closed off the stride. Application: middle-of-the-back-foot cue, water bag stability, lead leg deceleration. 91 in rehab to 97 in his debut. @FrontlineAM @CanesBaseball @nickrobertttt @DrLaz1 @32JonnyA

Why do so many hitters add bat speed and lose their swing? They skipped the foundation. Brice Turang built it in order: barrel awareness, then bat speed, then tilt. 349 → 511 SLG followed. The four-card breakdown. 🔑

Differentiating these feels between fastball shapes is a difficult task for athletes. That’s why we created the Spin Command Baseballs, to help create the feel of each pitch type so as an athlete you can understand how to throw it without guessing!

One elite fastball isn't enough anymore. Hitters caught up. Pitchers responded with three at the same velocity, three movement profiles. From a hitter's perspective the decision tree triples. The math hitters can't solve. 🔑

In collaboration with the great player-development staff and resources at @CanesBaseball , we identified three lead-leg metrics in @nickrobertttt Tommy John return. 91 mph to 97 mph in four weeks. Side struck out in his debut. Full breakdown out now. @FrontlineAM @DrLaz1 @32JonnyA

Brice Turang's bat speed is still 25th percentile. He has the best barrel awareness in baseball anyway. A 2% pop-up rate. Elite exit velocity. The blueprint for hitters who can't just swing harder. New film breakdown ⬇️

Bat path is a pendulum. The bat goes through a downswing and an upswing arc. Contact point is a merry-go-round. Where you make contact in the rotation decides where it goes. Out front = ascending bat + bat angle pull-side = ball in the air to pull Deep = descending bat + bat angle oppo = ground ball or oppo gap

Hitters got too prepared. The single-elite-pitch era is closing. Wheeler, Skenes, Schlittler, Davis Martin all winning with multiple fastballs at the same velocity. The new edge in modern pitching. New BDH podcast out now.

@anthony_ranaudo Great stuff. Definitely coming faster than people realize!

As college baseball continues to evolve, I wrote out my predictions for a few jobs that may be created in the next few years. Last week @RazorbackBSB announced a former player as their GM, MLB vet Johnny Giavotella is already the GM for UNO and I think it’s just the beginning. I wrote about three positions that mirror @MLB organizations, and I think we could see them sooner than later: 1. The development of the GM 2. Bullpen Coach and Advanced Scout 3. Special Assistant to the GM/ Bench Coach to the Head Coach. If/when the programs with the biggest budgets start implementing these roles, REAL player development really takes the next jump. businessofball.media/college-baseba…

One elite fastball isn't enough anymore. Soriano. Schlittler. Joe Ryan. Tolle. All running multi-fastball mixes. Same velo, different movement profiles. Hitters got too good at timing a single pitch. The mix is the new edge in modern pitching.

The newest version of Arsenal IQ is live! The app is fully functional, and complete for everyone’s use. You get unlimited access to our Stuff+ model, to compare yourself against the best of the best. DM for more information🤝 #Baseball #Pitching #Arsenal

When the body locks up at landing, the first thing to fly open is the front shoulder. If your hips can't free up, your upper half does the work. Tatis in 2025: shoulder slots behind the ball, stays in posture, drives it pull-side. Tatis in 2026: front shoulder pulls early, posture collapses, bullets up the chute or grounders to pull.

Tatis being upright + hips locked at landing is what's burying balls into the ground. The batted ball profile (ground ball %, oppo %) is downstream of that. Ground balls don't go for extra base hits. Ground balls don't lead to a 300 average in the big leagues. The fix is upstream of the spray chart.

A timing problem disguised as a power problem. Contact point inches in front of plate: 2023: 7.0 2026: 2.1 Attack direction: +5° to oppo. Bat is pointed at the right-center gap when he hits the ball. That's not a swing change — it's a timing change. He's letting it get too deep.

Fernando Tatis is leading the league in hard hit %. He has zero home runs. Pull air %: 5.5 (league worst) Pull %: −16 pts vs last year Oppo %: +10 pts Contact point: 2.1 in. (was 7 in. in 2023) Hips lock up at landing → front shoulder pulls early → out of posture → ground balls to pull, doubles to oppo. Hard hit is talent. Pull air is craft. He has one without the other. Full breakdown ↓

8 months. +3 mph. JUCO arm. Z Back Score: 1.16 → 1.34 Player Velo: 5.04 → 5.86 Z Front Score: 1.99 → 2.15 The lever was leg lift unload — he was unweighting ~50 lbs, target is 75–100. Once that came, peak back-leg Z climbed (225 → 273 lbs into the mound) and the rest of the delivery followed. One upstream input. Whole delivery moved with it. #BuiltInTheLab

Fernando Tatis: hard-hit leader, zero homers. Pull air %: 5.5 (league worst). Every park is shorter pull-side. He can't get the ball in the air to pull. The doubles are oppo. The ground balls are pull. The home runs aren't anywhere. Hips locked, contact too deep. Hard hit without craft. Full breakdown ↓

The Bregman effect. Pulling the ball in the air isn't about selling out. Head down. Shoulders to the big part. Just catch it a little bit earlier. That's it. That's the mechanic.

Pitchers who fight their command share a tell: they release the ball *before* peak Z on the front leg. That's force transfer leaking out instead of finishing into the baseball. Ground force data surfaces it. From there, the fix is sequencing. The NewtForce integrated pitching lab.