While the weather continues to push back against the boys of spring, baseball is inevitably around the corner. MLB spring training is underway and soon NESCAC baseballs will be popping against catchers’ gloves and flying over fences. Former Middlebury Baseball Head of Analytics, Dylan Mortimer, recently interviewed CF Sam Graf ’19 on his approach to hitting offseason throwing, and the impact of Midd’s new HitTrax technology on the program.
Dylan: So as a college baseball player, with what’s available to you, what kind of stats do you look at during the season to evaluate your performance?
Sam: Honestly, I try as hard as I can not to look at stats during the season, but I think in terms of performance, at the end of the season, OPS is one of the best ones. I always try to keep a running tally of how many times I’ve walked and struck out, because I always want more walks than strikeouts. Other than that, on a day to day basis, I’m mostly paying attention to how often I’m hitting the ball hard and having quality at bats.
Dylan: After an at bat, regardless of the outcome, do you ‘pat yourself on the back’ for having a productive at bat in terms of moving the runner or other team-oriented outcomes?
Sam: Yeah, a little bit. No matter what the situation is I’m trying to hit the ball hard. If there’s a runner on third with less than two outs I’m looking to drive the ball first and foremost and a lot of times that’ll lead to a sac fly anyways.
Dylan: How would you describe your general approach? Are you looking to just hit line drives, or pull the ball, or go opposite field? Are you ever looking to just crank one over the fence or do you try to let the power come naturally out of good contact?
Sam: When I get up to the plate I try and really limit the thinking as much as I can and focus more on the feel of things. I focus on the pitcher’s release point, I’ve been timing up the pitcher’s fastball in the on-deck circle and in the dugout. At the college level you’re going to see a lot of fastballs, especially early in the count. I’m also not really thinking about where I’m trying to hit the ball I’m really just thinking about driving it and my lower half and not about my hands at all. Sometimes I think about going to the right-center gap but my best hit balls are generally pulled, but having that mindset allows me to have a better path to the ball, even though I’m driving it pull side.
Dylan: Do you have a unique batting practice routine? I know the beginning of your guys’ routine is to lay some bunts down and do some situational hitting but after that what is your process? I ask because I read a Fangraphs article about Freddie Freeman trying to hit line drives at the shortstop’s head which would translate to driving the ball to center and pulled to right field. Do you do anything kind of unique like that?
Sam: My first round is always going to be an opposite field round where I’m trying to hit the ball the other way and let it get a little deeper to time it up. With that I feel it sort of helps eliminate the hands out of my swing like I was talking about earlier. And that’s just kind of my individual feel. We usually get two rounds and my last round is just a game mentality round. So I sort of pretend its an in game situation and I try to pick up the ball out of the pitchers release point and try and hit the ball hard to the right center gap, although it never really goes exactly in that direction.
Dylan: So you guys installed the HitTrax stuff last year. I was wondering how you’ve used that and if you’ve thought more about launch angle at all, which has been a huge trend in major league baseball.
Editor’s Note: HitTrax is a new hitting technology which measures exit velocity and launch angle of the ball off of the bat. It allows hitters to see how they can maximize the distance on balls they put in play and projects how far their batting practice ball travel in the air. It’s pretty neat and follows a Josh Donaldson and Justin Turner-type hitting philosophy.
Sam: Yeah, we do use HitTrax almost every practice and its really cool that it can measure the launch angle and exit velocity. What’s been important for me is knowing how hard I’m hitting the ball and also to see if I’m in the launch angle range between like 10 and 25 degrees which is kind of the ideal range. Even if you’re not barreling it up but you get that launch angle it’ll still probably drop beyond the infielders for a hit. Christian Yelich is a guy who hits the ball really hard but hasn’t had the success people think he will have because his launch angle hasn’t been great. I think Mike Moustakas is another guy like that. So a swing change to a more elevated path could really help those guys out.
Dylan: So have you done anything to change your swing since using HitTrax or has it more validated your current swing path?
Sam: Last year I will say that I didn’t make a whole lot of major changes but I tried to kind of feel a lot of different things and every day come in with the intention to hit the ball in the air and HitTrax helped me see where certain balls were going to land and helped me know which swing feels would lead to more hits. I think that really showed between freshman and sophomore years. I was a much better hitter sophomore year in terms of slugging and I was more patient also because you can see the zones on HitTrax. My flyball to groundball ratio was also totally different from freshman to sophomore year. Freshman year I wasn’t really trying to hit the ball in the air as much.
Dylan: What were the details on that one tank you hit in one of the preseason scrimmages?
Sam: Oh yeah! HitTrax said I hit it 96 mph off of the bat and it went over 400 feet because it was at the perfect angle of around 20 or 25 degrees.
Dylan: So talking more about your improvements from freshman to sophomore year, I was looking at your stats and you walked only 4 times freshman year and the next year you walked 17 times in a couple of less plate appearances than you had freshman year. So aside from being more patient in general did you change anything significant?
Sam: So I made a really conscious effort to say I wasn’t going to chase as many pitches. HitTrax helps with that goal because it shows me where pitches are in the strike zone and if I shouldn’t have swung at something. Other than that I think I improved just because I was determined to be more selective.
Dylan: So another thing I saw in your stats was that freshman year you had one outfield assist and last year you had five. I also remember that freshman year most people would agree you had the best arm in the outfield or maybe of position players on the team. Are people running on you more or are you just more relaxed when you’re making throws.
Sam: I think a lot of that, especially with a smaller sample size of games, probably came down to luck. Part of it is also probably because I played mostly left field last year.
Dylan: I remember freshman year, against Wesleyan I think, a guy hit single he was trying to stretch into a double and you caught it off of a bounce. He had no shot against you getting to second but you just wound up and threw the ball straight into the ground. Do you remember that?
Sam: *Laughing* Yes, I remember that. Yeah, that was not great. I forgot that you traveled with us freshman year so you saw that.
Dylan: That was awesome because everyone was so excited to see you hose that guy.
Sam: It was really cold that day.
Dylan: Can you talk about your offseason program for your arm care and what your goals are with it?
Sam: The number one goal, especially as I get older, is just to stay healthy. I’ve done a good job the last two years working with the driveline baseball protocols. I started doing that my junior year of high school I think and it’s been huge in keeping my arm healthy. I started doing bands before and after throwing and last year I started foam rolling a lot more and doing lots of soft tissue work. Coming back from studying abroad was interesting because at first I was throwing terribly but I knew that I had to listen to my arm and not push through and now I’m doing much better.
Dylan: Are you playing summer baseball this year or are you more looking for an internship?
Sam: Yeah, I’m more looking at an internship right now. My parents have supported me through quite a few summers of baseball and they’d like to see me do an internship. Playing summer ball also doesn’t really allow me to get as strong as I could be so that’s something I’m interested in exploring while doing an internship.
Dylan: Could you think of the best advice you’ve ever gotten from a coach?
Sam: Off the top of my head one of the things that had the biggest impact on me was in middle school my coach asked our team what we individually thought about at the plate. A lot of people said things like don’t strikeout, hit the ball on the ground, or move the runner. He told us the only thing we should be thinking about at the plate is hitting the ball hard and clearing your mind of everything else. Early on I used to always think too much. Now I even do meditation to practice clearing my mind for when I go up to the plate and only have to think about hitting the ball hard.
Dylan: What about the worst advice?
Sam: As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that not everyone knows what they’re talking about. So I’ve weeded through a lot of stuff like swinging down on the baseball and trying to hit groundballs. If you look at my high school stats it’s even funnier than the split between freshman and sophomore year. I hit .500 both years in high school but I think over that span I probably had only like five doubles, and no homeruns. Part of that was definitely coaches telling me to just get the ball on the ground.