2024 Case Study

On MLB Hitter Development

Part II

 Jan 2, 2025

How uHIT Works in Minor League Baseball After 5 Years

In this Part 2 of 2024 Case Study on MLB Hitter Development, we examine 2 hitters training with uHIT Custom from one pro organization.

What you need to know from Part 2:

uHIT Custom increased OPS by 420+ points, but SO / BB warning signs are present

We Track with OPS and XP

As a top-line summary, all players who regularly used uHIT Custom showed substantial gains in on-field hitting. In this Part 2 of 2024 Case Study on MLB Hitter Development, we will use OPS (and its components, OBP and SLG) from publicly available sources. We tie growths in uHIT performance to on-field via this metric and uHIT’s XP / Pitch (see more here about XP / Pitch). The uHIT XP / Pitch is a measure of how accurately and quickly hitters are learning to recognize pitches and strikes/balls.

Part I: Two Hitters Valued at $3.2M and $1.9M and What We Did

2024 proved to be a more targeted approach to our training and service. In Part 1, we highlight the two high-value hitters we worked with on zone and pitch recognition skills. We will note changes in OPS, as well as other hitting metrics on-field, like SO/BB. Hitter #1 saw a ~200-point OPS increase year-over-year. Hitter #2 dropped his SO / BB ratio while advancing to a higher level of play. Most importantly, each player preserved his value in terms of the large signing bonuses our organization client signed them with.

Part II: Two Early-Stage Hitters Accelerated Development

In 2024, we continued our work with new draft picks and early-stage pro hitters. In Part 2, we highlight two Latin hitters who developed pitch and zone skills with us. As a result, they translated these gains to ~140+ and ~280+ OPS points year-over-year, respectively. Most importantly, both hitters advanced to higher levels of play (DSL to ACL, or to AA). These are important value-adds for our organization client and for the hitters themselves.

A Note on Hitter’s Names

For all pro clients, we refer to hitters anonymously (see other MLB studies here). The hitters are identified as:

  • Hitter #1 (Part 1)
  • Hitter #2 (Part 1)
  • Hitter #3 (Part 2)
  • Hitter #4 (Part 2)

With that in mind, it’s time to analyze how these hitters’ performance evolved in uHIT and on-field this year. We welcome your feedback and analysis on these players in the comments below. You can also ask questions on our social media (here or here).

Hitter #3

Consistent Hitting, Regular Advancement

Hitter #3 trained on over 660 pitches this season across pitch and zone skills in uHIT. That’s about 1.3 hours of uHIT training this season, most of which happened in the spring.

uHIT Performance Overview

In zone recognition, he ended 2024 with 82% Accuracy, having started at 52%. 94 XP / Pitch is where he ended the season, having initially assessed in fall 2023 at 44 XP / Pitch. This shows us he’s gotten faster and better at pitches in/out of the zone too.

In pitch recognition, he ended 2024 with 70% Accuracy, having started at 55% in fall 2023. 62 XP / Pitch is where he ended 2024, having initially assessed at 47 XP / Pitch. This shows us he’s gotten faster and better at pitches in/out of the zone too.

On-field Performance Overview

On-field, he jumped from DSL (Red) to ACL pretty well. As many know, the jump from the Dominican Republic to the US can be a factor for these moves too and he seems to have made it well, in terms of his hitting.

Last year, he hit a.583 OPS with .250 SLG at DSL (Red) in 60 ABs. This year, at higher ACL, he hit .725 OPS with .380 SLG. These are signs of a pretty good adjustment to the bump up in pitching competition. Again, we see his SO / BB ratio dropped year-over-year along with this change in level (1.60 in 2023 to 1.39 in 2024).

Going back to his uHIT stats, the XP / Pitch are higher since beginning training. This change is keeping him consistent in his hitting decisions also, despite the change in level. With some more dedicated work in 2025, we anticipate continuing that trend to keep his development moving, possibly up to A+.

You can see a screenshot of Hitter #3’s data from milb.com below (for a more detailed look, please schedule a time here):

MiLB hitter SO / BB drops and OPS increases as he advances levels with uHIT
Staging Huge Value Returns

This player was a $173K signing when our org client drafted him. But because he’s consistently advancing levels, he could be a high-value player for a trade or even for our org’s Major League team someday. The key is to keep this hitting progress. With only 1+ hour of uHIT training this season, he jumped to ACL and showed power with an ability to get on base. Like earlier cases (see here and here), Hitter #3 could be a huge value gain for our org client because of the hitting work he’s done in 2024 with uHIT.

Hitter #4

Dropped SO / BB Ratio & Jumped to Higher Level of Play
Hitter #4 was the 2nd most active user of uHIT in 2024. Cumulatively, since Oct 2022, he trained on over 4000+ pitches across pitch and zone skills in uHIT. That’s almost 10 hours of uHIT training in a period of 12 active months.
uHIT Performance Overview

In pitch recognition, he ended 2024 at 67% Accuracy, having started at 48% back in fall 2022. 65 XP / Pitch is where he finished 2024, having initially assessed at 35 XP / Pitch in 2022. This shows us he’s gotten faster and better at pitches in/out of the zone too.

In zone recognition, he has not done enough pitches to measure changes.
On-field Performance Overview

On-field, Hitter #4 jumped from ACL all the way to AA this season. Here, we’ll focus on his ACL year-over-year changes, and note what performance was up a level at A.

In 2023, he hit a.655 OPS with .339 SLG in 121 ABs at ACL. In 2024, he hit .942 OPS with .525 SLG at that same level. At A, he seemed to adjust pretty well, hitting .614 OPS with .313 SLG (comparable to his ACL numbers in 2023). But there are some warning signs. Like Hitter #1 in 2023 (see here), he played at this level with a high SO / BB ratio and is being pushed to higher levels pretty quickly. It was 3.25 in 2024 at A (compared to 2.19 at ACL). He might be at risk of breaking his confidence if he stays at this level without adjusting. We provided this recommendation directly to our org client for 2025.

Going back to his uHIT stats, the XP / Pitch are higher since beginning training. But we see a lot of places we can fill holes in this hitter’s zone / pitch skills. Also, reading opposition pitcher tendencies is something we can work with him on in-season (see how with uHIT Gameday here).

The jump in OPS at ACL was impressive year-over-year. But as we did with Hitter #1, we’d like to get him adjusted to seeing better first so he can make those level jumps next year as smoothly as Hitter #1 did from 2023 to 2024.

You can see Hitter #4’s on-field hitting performance excerpted from baseball-reference.com here (for a more detailed look, please schedule time with us here):

Hitter #4 MiLB OPS gains and advances through levels
OPS Gains, with Caveats in SO / BB ratio

Hitter #4 is also not a high signing bonus player. He signed only for $73K. But he’s advancing through levels quickly and showing he can compete. The gains in OPS at ACL demonstrate his learning and his ability to compete one level higher at A does too. However, the SO / BB ratio at A is a warning sign (16 / 7 at A vs. 16 / 11 at ACL). Just like Hitter #1 in 2024’s study, this is the same warning sign we noted last season for under-performers on uHIT (see here).

Two Low-Value Signings Realize Increasing Potential

Hitters #3 and #4 are the last two hitters from one of our MLB org clients we share from our 2024 season. This concludes Part 2 of 2024 Case Study on MLB Hitter Development. Across both parts of this study, we sampled early-stage hitters who both did and did not get large signing bonuses. In both groups, dedicated training with uHIT led to advancement of skills, tracked with OPS, SO / BB and other metrics. In all cases, we kept hitters advancing for our org client. Looking ahead to 2025, we are expanding buy-in from players to the point that they themselves are working directly with us. To inquire about doing this, please schedule a time to meet with a Specialist.