Blast Motion Partners with EXOS Baseball Academy

 

Blast Motion and EXOS have partnered to provide the EXOS Baseball Academy with real-time swing analytics as part of EXOS’ in-house sports performance lab.

The Blast Baseball sensor will get integrated into the EXOS training experience to help athletes visualize their baseball swing and learn how to improve at a faster rate. The Baseball Nation event Sept. 23-24 at the EXOS performance training center at Fieldhouse USA near Dallas will highlight the partnership.

“We’re excited to combine Blast Motion metrics as another feature to our in-house training services, allowing Baseball Nation instructors and attending athletes with an objective, metrics-powered analysis of their swing,” says Chris Dubek, EXOS vice president of amateur sports. “Through this partnership we’re helping advance the nation’s most highly touted prospects and the best undiscovered talent in the country.”

With a .3-ounce sensor attached to the end of a bat, Blast Motion Baseball’s 360 “hitting solution” uses an algorithm to track swing data from youth baseball to the major leagues and displays the results. As the official bat sensor of MLB, the system has been specially designed to combine video with metrics to enhance swing analysis, allowing coaches to replay and review swing mechanics.

The most recent release of the Blast product has expanded its baseline metrics beyond swing speed, time to contact, swing direction and power to include vertical bat angle, body rotation scores and swing plane data, a new metric for the industry that Blast Baseball manager Justin Goltz says came from dissecting information from top-level players.

“It stuck out after collecting data and understanding the swing more and more to see what data is important and what is not,” he says. “Top-level players maintain their swing plane 69 to 97 percent of the time.”

The Blast sensor, on the market for roughly two years with products for baseball, softball and golf, has taken its latest iteration after mining data from the company’s close relationship with professional teams, coaches and players, especially in the minor leagues. But the sensor has seen use everywhere from MLB—the Astros have come on board in a big way—down through college and high school teams to the growing youth demographic.

Tim Newcomb covers gear and business for Baseball America. Follow him on Twitter at @tdnewcomb.