Division I Hitting Results in 2024
uHIT Gameday Roll Out in Division I
Case Studies on Learning Oppo Pitcher Tendencies
August 13, 2024
Division I Hitting Results Case Study
Oppo Pitcher Tendency Learning with uHIT Gameday
Colorado State University (CSU) Softball is a three-year client of uHIT. In winter 2022, the program started using uHIT Custom ahead of the spring season. From that successful trial (see more here), CSU devoted more resources and practice time to uHIT Custom in 2023. The impressive results in hitting, tracked with OPS and other metrics, can be viewed here. In 2024, Colorado State Softball took the exclusive opportunity from being a deCervo client to try our new product for learning opposition pitcher tendencies. We examine the effects of this product in these Division I Hitting Results in 2024.
This new product, uHIT Gameday, offered an ‘active scouting report’ to hitters on the pitchers they would face. In collaboration with hitting coaches, uHIT Gameday would allow CSU hitters to hone their decisions to pitchers they would face in-season. In this study, we review the gains in OPS and other metrics made by the starters using this tool. We also will look at other hitters who maintained their skill development, despite not getting many live ABs.
Want to run the numbers yourself? Check out Colorado State’s 2023 and 2024 numbers on-field here.
Overall Team Usage & Effects
The starting point for these Division I Hitting Results in 2024 is to know how much our training was used. In 2024, the players trained on 21,603 pitches since mid-January (23,378 pitches since Fall 2023). Of 21,603 pitches, the new Gameday module accounting for 8,856 pitches. With the participation of the hitting coach, the hitters using Gameday could train against 18 opposing pitchers with their unique tendencies.
From a general overview, we see from available data that 2024 hitting was better than 2023. Specifically, the team OPS for 2023 was .833. In 2024, the team OPS was .934. This +101 point change in OPS is even more impressive than the +59 point change we had seen implementing uHIT Custom during 2023 (see 2022 data here).
uHIT Gameday Effect
Preliminary analysis suggests that this extra boost in year-over-year OPS is coming from uHIT Gameday. In the case of Colorado State Softball, it is more straightforward to intuit this fact. In 2023, CSU prioritized starters to use uHIT Custom and non-starters to use a more economical plan, uHIT Plus. But in 2024, 7 out of 8 starters used uHIT Gameday once the season began, while everyone else remained on Plus. Between 2023 and 2024 therefore, the only difference in training approach was uHIT Gameday.
To take a closer look, we examined players who had at least 30 at-bats last year and this year. We saw that within this group, there was an increase of 134 OPS points, 100 SLG points, and 25 OBP points. In this group, 7 of the 8 players were using Gameday. Recalling the team bump was 101 OPS points, the greater concentration of change in the Gameday group reenforces the likelihood that this module drove the most change. More analysis is needed to confirm the reason for this change and this is only a preliminary conclusion as of today.
Player Highlights
Maya
2023 to 2024
We first look at Maya because she used uHIT Gameday the most. She trained on 1,493 pitches in Gameday across all 18 pitchers. She did this work consistently over the 15 weeks of the season (Jan 15 to May 7), averaging ~100 Gameday pitches per week. Within Gameday, she had a high accuracy of 76%, showing that she was learning the opposing pitchers’ tendencies.
On-field, she increased her OPS to 1.148 from .787 and decreased her SO/BB ratio to 0.53 from 0.78. We can examine these changes in the context of how Maya approached each count in Gameday. You can see below her Pitch Count Breakdown and how well she performed based on each count.
Pitch Count Analysis with Gameday: Maya
Above, the circle size shows the number of pitches trained at the indicated count. The circle color indicates XP per pitch. Maya did extremely well in hitter-advantage counts and was solid in a 2-2 count. She struggled the most (as do all players) in the pitcher-advantage counts (seen as the blue circles on the left side).
We can see from the thickness of the bars connecting each circle how frequently Maya went from one count to the next too. For instance, the thicker bar from 0-0 to 1-0 compared to 0-0 to 0-1 indicates that Maya more often went to a hitter-advantage count than a pitcher-advantage count. Following the other pathways down, we generally see thicker bars on the right side of the graph, or thicker bars moving down and to the right on this graph. This indicates that, even when caught in a less favorable count, Maya made decisions to return her count to hitter-advantage.
In this way, we see not only a reason for her lower SO / BB ratio in 2024. We also see the overall reason for her higher OPS. She is executing on hitter-advantage counts and then returning to those situations when she hits a temporary pitcher-advantage. This deep-dive on Maya shows what lay at the foundation of these Division I Hitting Results in 2024.
Molly
2023 to 2024
We first look at Molly because she showed the best performance on uHIT Gameday across the team. She trained on 951 pitches (~63 pitches weekly) in Gameday across all 18 pitchers. Within Gameday, she had the team high accuracy of 91%.
The primary contributor to Molly’s exceptional performance on Gameday was her Swing Timing. In Gameday, uHIT for the first time evaluates a hitter’s timing in when they would swing, not just how quickly they recognize a pitch or a strike. The Swing Timing tells us how good Molly’s timing is, while using an approximate amount of time for her swing to occur. In Gameday, Molly showed an average Swing Timing of 5 milliseconds. To put this in reference, the team average Swing Timing was 7 times that number at 35 milliseconds. This is likely why Molly ended her career this year as the “one of the most consistent hitters” to ever play for CSU Softball.
On-field, the addition of Gameday gave a +19-point OPS boost to .965 from .946 and decreased her SO/BB ratio to 1.0 from 1.4. We can again examine these changes in the context of how Molly approached each count in Gameday. You can see below her Pitch Count Breakdown and how well she performed based on each count.
Pitch Count Analysis with Gameday: Molly
As before the circle size, color and bar thicknesses tell us about Molly’s decisions by count. Molly too did extremely well in hitter-advantage counts and was solid in even counts (1-1 and 2-2). She even showed high performance in 1-2 counts, traditionally a pitcher-advantage. She only struggled with 0-1 and 0-2 counts (as do all players) in the pitcher-advantage counts (seen as the blue circles on the left side).
We can see from the thickness of the bars again how often Molly went to hitter-advantage counts. For instance, the bar from 0-0 to 1-0 is even thicker than the one we examined earlier for Maya. Following the other pathways down, we again see generally thicker bars on the right side of the graph. We also see thicker bars moving down and to the right on this graph. As with Maya, this indicates that Molly made decisions to return her count to hitter-advantage consistently.
In this way, we see not only a reason for her lower SO / BB ratio in 2024. We also see the overall reason for her bump in OPS. She too is executing on hitter-advantage counts and then returning to those situations when she hits a temporary pitcher-advantage.
Next Season Starter Hopefuls
Here, we look at two hitters who worked on uHIT Plus during the 2024 season. First, Nadia completed 1,770 pitches across all four modules in uHIT. She bumped her Pitch Recognition Accuracy marginally from 45% to 50% this year. Her Zone Recognition Accuracy also jumped from 54% to 63%.
Next, we look at Kaylynn who completed 3,328 pitches, mainly focusing on Pitch Recognition and Reaction Time Enhancement. Kaylynn improved to 81% Accuracy on Pitch Recognition (45% at Assessment).
Cost-Effective uHIT Implementation
These hitters illustrate a cost-effective strategy deployed by CSU Softball in 2024 and 2023. In particular, the head coach prioritized the more rigorous (and expensive) training of uHIT Gameday for mostly starters. This choice made a direct impact on these Division I Hitting Results in 2024. But Coach Fisher did not leave developing players out of the training though. Instead, she introduced them to uHIT via the general training provided in uHIT Plus. So now hitters like Nadia and Kaylynn are well-primed for the bump to Gameday or Custom in the coming year. As we know from this study and previous years, that preps them well for being effective starting hitters for CSU Softball.
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