Our staff at Prep Baseball Nebraska is looking to provide an in deph analysis of pitcher aresnals and what makes them sucessful in the cornhusker state. Our goal of using Trackman Baseball is to look further beyond just velocity and spin rate alone, analyzing all of the data points for the way a pitcher can manipulate the baseball to get outs. This can be a big indicator of what can make a pitcher sucessful, not only at the prep level, but further on in their careers.

Jakob Ruhl had a standout performance at the Nebraska State Games. His ability to throw three pitches competitivly helps him achieve sucess at the high school level. He also understands what pitches will play up compared to the others that he throws. Here is a look at his aresnal with Trackman Data, bolded with outliar metrics. 
 
Jabok Ruhl Averages - Nebraska State Games, 5/19/2024

Pitch	Velo	Spin	IVB	HB	RH	VAA
Fastball	86.7	2,123	15.6	13.0	4'8"	-4.9
Slider	72.4	1,682	-3.3	-7.8	4'4"	-7.0
Changeup	76.7	1,384	5.0	10.8	4'4"	-7.3

Ruhl rightfully leans heavily on his 4-Seam fastaball, throwing it 61% of the time in his State Games outing. It tends to get him swing and miss up in the zone. Looking at the horizontal and vertical break alone, his fastball looks relativly flat. The metrics that allow him to allow his fastball to play up in the zone is the combination of Release Height, and Vertical Approach Angle (VAA).

Vertical Approach Angle (VAA) can be defined as "how steeply up or down the ball enters the zone" - Matt Hartshorn. Therefor a VAA that is closer to zero, will come into the zone flater, creating a rising effect from the baseball. Ruhl's 4'8" release height makes throwing fastballs in the upper 1/3 of the strike zone, makes it his bread and butter pitch, consistantly getting weak contact and whiffs when thrown.

Looking at Ruhl's 2 other offerings, he spun his slider as his primary offspeed. While it has average velocity for the pitches horizontal movement, tunneling it off of his high ride fastball makes it effective. Ruhl's fastball horizontal break has 13.0 inches of arm side run, while the slider sits at 7.8 inches of sweep. Making this combination have a total of 20.8 inches of horizontal differental in the two pitch mix. With added velocity to the slider, it could make it an even more devistating pitch than what he has already showcased. 

Rhul throws his changeup sparangly, however it has one metric that really can make it an outliar pitch. Having 5.0 inches of Induced Vertical Break (IVB), shows the depth he creates with the pitch. Creating a total of 10.6 inches of vertical differentail compared to his fastball, gives him another pitch to create weak contact with.

The uncommitted 2025 has been up to 90 MPH this spring at the Nebraska Prospects scout day, and will surely have many schools gunning for the projectable, hard throwing righty.