It's hard to know who's going to make the best pick for your baseball or softball team. You'd think that grabbing the biggest, strongest players would be the best way to go, but a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research suggests focusing on jumping ability might be a good indicator of throwing velocity.
After calculating baseball throwing velocity for each individual, researchers had a group of volunteers take part in a battery of physical challenges that included squat throws, medicine ball throws, vertical jump height, single and triple board jumps along with hop and stop drills. It turns out that lateral and medial jumping ability was the best indicator of throwing velocity, because the jumping movements were similar to the throwing stride. Now the question becomes can your players hit?
