On Saturday, February 24th the Prep Baseball Alberta staff hosted it's first showcase of the season with the Red Deer Preseason ID at The Red Deer Dome in Red Deer, Alberta. This event featured over 17 players from the across the province in the 2024 - 2028 classes and allowed our staff an opportunity to get an in-depth look at the players, as well as collect updated metrics via our tech partner TrackMan.

The event also serves as an identifier and qualifier for our Select Series Events such as Future Games (2026), Jr. Future Games (2028/2029), Senior Future Games (2025), West Coast Games (2025/2026) and Best of the West (18U & 15U).

Earlier this week we began our post-event coverage within our Statistical Analysis article. Today we'll take a deeper dive into all of the data we collected from the event within this article as we provide leaderboards on each metric collected on TrackMan during bullpens at the event.

For complete event results, click here.
To view upcoming events, click here.

FASTBALL

MAX VELOCITY (MPH)

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

SPIN RATE (AVG)

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.

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

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. IVB is also a huge part of the vertical approach angle.

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

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.”

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

CURVEBALL

SPIN RATE (AVG.)

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

SLIDER

SPIN RATE (AVG.)

INDUCED VERTICAL BREAK (AVG.)

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE %

CHANGEUP

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT (AVG.)

STRIKE ZONE RATE%

UPCOMING EVENTS

SHOWCASE	STATE	DATE	LOCATION
2024 Okotoks Dawgs Scout Day	AB	03/06	Dunvernay Fieldhouse
2024 St. Josephs Academy Scout Day	AB	03/08	St. Joseph's High School
2024 Edmonton Spring Future Games Trials	AB	03/09	The Shop by SPMBA
2024 AHP Renegades Scout Day	AB	03/29	Absolute Human Performance
2024 Medicine Hat Preseason ID	AB	04/14	Mavericks Athletic Park
2024 Calgary Future Games Trials	AB	04/17	Tourmaline Field
2024 Parkland Academy Scout Day	AB	04/18	Tri Leisure Centre
2024 18U Best of the West	AB	05/01	Norbrock Stadium (Kamloops, BC)
2024 15U Best of the West	AB	05/01	Norbrock Stadium (Kamloops, BC)
2024 Calgary Blues Scout Day	AB	05/10	Optimist Athletic Park
2024 Calgary Summer Open	AB	06/26	Webber Academy Athletic Park

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