Sprint or speed tests can be performed over varying distances, depending on the factors being tested and the relevance to the sport. The 60 yard dash is commonly used in testing baseball players, with many Major League clubs making this test mandatory for prospective players. See also the 30 yard dash which is part of the SPARQ rating system for baseball, and the baseball specific Home to First Base sprint test. purpose: The aim of this test is to determine acceleration, and also a reliable indicator of speed, agility and quickness. equipment required: measuring tape or marked track, stopwatch or timing gates, cone markers, flat and unobstructed grass, track, or turf surface of at least 80 yards. pre-test: Explain the test procedures to the subject. Perform screening of health risks and obtain informed consent. Prepare forms and record basic information such as age, height, body weight, gender, test conditions. Measure and mark out the test area. Perform an appropriate warm up. See more details of pre-test procedures. sprint run testprocedure: The test involves running a single maximum sprint over 60 yards, with the time recorded. A thorough warm up should be given, including some practice starts and accelerations. Start from a comfortable stationary 3-point stance position, a position that is most familiar to you and that you think will yield the best time. The front foot must be on or behind the starting line. This starting position should be held for 3 seconds prior to starting, you may lean across the starting line, and no rocking movements are allowed. The tester should provide hints to maximizing speed and encouragement to continue running hard past the finish line. See video examples of the Sprint Tests. results: Two trials are allowed, and the best time is recorded to the nearest 2 decimal places. The timing starts from the first movement (if using a stopwatch) or when the timing system is triggered, and finishes when the chest crosses the finish line and/or the finishing timing gate is triggered. Most Major League baseball clubs look for times under 7.00. A 60-yard dash time of between 6.7 - 6.9 usually equate to an average runner on the playing field. target population: baseball, fastpitch and other sports in which speed over that distance is important reliability: Reliability is greatly improved if timing gates are used. Also weather conditions and the running surface can affect the results, and these conditions should be recorded with the results. If possible, set up the track with a crosswind to minimize the effect of wind. notes: 60 yards is 54.864 meters. Any comments, suggestions, or corrections? Please let us know.
There are dozens of threads here about 60 times but does anyone know an average or typical 60 yard time for players by age or grade? Take a look at this link and excerpt included below. Is this a reasonable expectation of improvement year over year as the player gets older and matures? I understand individual improvements will vary and will concede that anomilies exist but is this typical? I would expect there to be some improvement gains as one gets older (similar to strength or velocity) but how much is considered typical? https://www.infosports.com/baseball/arch/1166.Htm Except from the blog follows: 0.5 sec per year from age 11 until 15.Then, 0.2 sec thereafter. This means for the 60 yard dash: 9.5 sec age 119.0 sec age 128.5 sec age 138.0 sec age 147.5 sec age 157.3 sec age 167.1 sec age 17 6.9 sec age 18 Replies sorted oldest to newest
With a little training a kid can improve his sixty time beyond what comes naturally. After my son grew from 5'11" 135 to 6' 160 I got him 60 time specific training.
The link doesn't seem to be working - for me, anyway.
The link doesn't seem to be working - for me, anyway. Lol! Sorry about the link. For some reason, I can find it via Google but it doesn't work when I copy the link into the post. Anyway, there's not much more in the link than what I pasted in as the excerpt.
So, from a statistics standpoint (and PGStaff could confirm), I would assume that as the further the graduation date (i.e., younger player), the smaller you sample size in the numbers from PG. That is, there are far fewer players attending PG showcases and having a 60 time recorded at the younger age than the metrics reported in the older ages. My assumption is that there is a significant increase in participants within the same graduation class over time to their Jr year. This would certainly skew the numbers (and percentage gain) over time. My guess is that if you were to measure only the control group (only the players who posted the 7.85 average for the 2021 class) through each year, you may see numbers closer to the blog's.
RJ, Exact same scenario for mine. He hit 6'0" 160 & we had a showcase coming up in about 6 weeks. He was at 7.28 to start & with 6 weeks of 1X / week meeting with speed & conditioning coach & doing his "homework," he got to a 7.06. Most importantly, the mechanics of proper stride, arm swing, start position, body angle & several other factors have now been added to his run mechanics moving forward. I provide you these #s just as an illustration for what is possible in a short period of time. He always ran extremely well but his form now is greatly improved, I feel. I would encourage those out there who have a player willing to put in the work to get this training if you can afford it. We paired up with a buddy & had both of them train & it cut cost in a major way ($45 / 1 Hr. session per athlete). The run just seems to be so critical now for a position player & we do not think twice about paying for hitting or pitching instruction, but proper run mechanics & training can have a major positive impact here. If the player is not willing to put in time away from the instructor, you are mostly wasting your $$. I had to wait for mine to buy in before I was willing to spend the $$ ( he is 14).
My 2017 son's experience was probably a bit of an anomaly but going into this past summer his best "official" 60 was 7.0. He was busy and so were the coaches I tried to get him to, so before HF he was able to get in just one session with a speed coach, and then he worked on the stuff the coach gave him for a couple weeks. After that he ran a 6.59 at HF.
I doubt 0.4 improvement is the norm, but I've always thought a good sprint coach and an "untrained" athlete could drop at least 2 tenths.
JCG, that's a major jump. My guy's was more along the lines of Go44's thoughts. 7.0 before training, 6.81 after a month or so. Did your kid work out every day on technique? Mine was 3x week.
Smoke, he met with the coach once, then worked out maybe 4 times on his own. I think he was like the smart kid who does poorly in standardized tests until somebody gives him basic technique for time management, guessing strategy, etc. and then he kills it. You've seen video -- he's usually the fastest guy on the field, but he needed, and still could use, work on starting as well as basic work on form.
My understanding is that MLB average home to first is about 4.0. I also understand that the origin of the 60 is that it matches home to 2nd base. 180'=60 yds.
I've heard this a LOT. It is one of the reasons coaches caution showcasing early. Those stats get "stuck" on the players PG page and they won't go away until you replace them with another showcase. A local 2016 D1 recruit, whose parents apparently had money to burn, went to SIX showcases from 2012-2016. Each time he focused and trained for only one thing, for example he trained hard and only focused on his 60 time for one of the showcases, only focused on getting his pop time down for another showcase. While all measurables were taken at each showcase the home page of the player shows you the best times/speed in those categories. If you read the fine print on his PG page you would see that his best pop time was from 2013, his best 60 time was from 2015, best FB was from 2016....but when you pull up his page you see he had MANY great numbers, it was impressive, but wow that must have been expensive!
He was recruited for Catcher. He is at a local mid D1, no idea how it's going since he just got there in August.
I think it is very interesting to look at some of the top HS draft pick's PG profiles & pages when they have a deep history. You can scroll back & see what they did & how they measured sometimes from 13-14 yo to present. You get a feel for when they added velocity & how their physical growth tracked along with that. You may also have some early video & can look at progression through the years. You can then take these views & see how it translated to the pro game after they signed by looking at their stats.
That makes total sense. PG does post the best speed they have seen at their events, not just the best speed at a showcase. Local boy posted an 89 at a showcase, but 2 weeks before he posted a 90 at a PG game, the 90 is what is listed as his best.
Is there one of these for D1's...DII...?
I also hope you post that question to the board. I have a 14u 2020. His team still has that 4'11 and 80# kid, so your son is not miles behind. The biggest issue with the little kids has been the size of the field and swinging the BBCOR bat. The smaller kids have been relegated to MIF, their compact size still gives them an advantage there, because they just don't have the arm strength to throw it meaningfully the 200+ feet it takes to get the ball in from the outfield. I've seen teams full of the tiny fast kids and if a ball is hit to the fence it can sometimes take 3 kids to get the ball to home plate...that's just not going to cut it when there are 14u kids that are 6'0 and 160#'s that can strong arm it all the way to the plate. I would encourage you to have him not work with anything lighter than a drop 5, going from a drop 10 to a drop 3 has been really tough for many of the smaller kids. When you say the school has a poor program I assume you mean the coaching is not from a very experienced coach and the team is not very competitive. If that is the case I would still encourage you to stick with it. You can get better coaching at those private lessons you spoke about and your kid might get more playing time on a less competitive team than he would on a team loaded with 6ft+ kids. Keep in mind in high school your 9th grader could very easily be pitted against a 17 year old senior. If you don't see that going well then neither will the coach, and your boy won't make the team or he will be the bench warmer until that growth spurt hits. I live in the Atlanta area, and I can say with certainty that while some colleges are going to high school baseball games they are more likely to go to a showcase or to watch a travel team play. 99% of the recruitment stories I have heard were from the kids summer team/showcases, so where the kid plays HS baseball is not as important as it once was....in my opinion and experience.
Concur with above comments; spend time finding out about the local regional club teams. Go to the PG website and look up the teams attending past or upcoming tournaments, and find out which teams or programs are nearby. Who are the coaches? Go to some games? Contact their program and go watch their off season workouts. When you're at the games or practices, talk to the parents: tons of information about do's and don'ts, and who are good hitting and fielding instructors. Get focused on skill development. I've always hired previous D1 SS's to teach my boys the necessary position footwork and glove work. It's cheaper and more fun for the boys. These former college players I hired still love the game and they're normally very interested in helping young players with athleticism, desire, and a dream, like they once had. Repetition using the correct techniques at a young age really helps; building blocks. Develop, fun, develop, fun, age appropriate coaches, and programs that are focused on developing will help your son immensely. And find a way to keep your son in multiple sports through 9-10th grade, it helps with keeping it fun, developing an athlete, cross training, and being with their other friends etc.... We were 3 sports thru 9th, 2 thru 10th, then he knew he wanted to focus on baseball. Good luck
philly, Any udpates on your son's 60yd this year as a 17 year old? I think the later bloomers have bigger jumps at the HS ages. My son's times looked like this over the past couple years, so curious what to expect over the next 2: Summer before Freshman year: 9.5 Summer before Sophomore year: 8.25 This Summer getting ready to be a Junior: 7.4 I know the rate of decreasing times cant continue, but its interesting to see how they track. I would guess my son is a late bloomer by about 2.5 years, at 5'9, 130lb now.
Has nothing to do with youth times, but my son's teammate on his college summer team ran a 6.34 and 6.40 sixty at the league showcase on Tuesday. Here's the crazy thing. He had knee surgery the first week of June and was only cleared to run 100% the end of last week. He ran the 6.34 first....the scouts all thought they timed him wrong so they had him run again. CF with a big bat....certainly didn't hurt himself in front of the scouts with that performance
Good luck to you guys next week, hope he hit's it. It will probably be next summer before mine is in the high 6s where things will plane out from there.
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