#talentidentification

I’ve long been a proponent of raw athleticism in baseball and in the past year or so, I’ve come to the realization that it’s much bigger than that – it’s all sports. For the sake of this blog, I’ll do my best to stick to baseball.

Athletes with greater speed and power traits simply have higher ceilings. There are so many other factors to the success of the athlete and this starts with: do they have enough ability to play their sport?

What do I mean by ability?

For a pitcher: it is feel to pitch, feel to spin, ability to throw strikes, movement profiles, etc.

For a position player: it is largely, will they hit enough? Can they defend enough at a high-level?

These are all questions that are answered every year by a group of professionals that are very good at their jobs: scouts. The trickiest part of their job is putting an objective grade on a crucial part of the profile: athleticism. 

It is not easy to define.

Ask 10 different people the definition of athleticism and you’ll get 10 different answers. Some will go down the road of playing multiple sports and most will get muddy before they shoot it straight. Don’t get me wrong, I think playing multiple sports as a kid has tremendous value, but it’s also hard to quantify the impact. When it’s hard to quantify, it’s hard to apply in decision-making. Not that it doesn’t have a role in decision-making, but that’s not for this blog.

For me, there are certain athletic qualities that are clear-cut and objective that play a critical role in the future of what an athlete can be (speed and power). It’s what I call raw athleticism and it effectively translates to what’s under the hood. Some athletes are spectacular at their sport and are running a V6 and some athletes are average at their sport and are running a Hemi. The athlete with the Hemi has much more room for error as the game gets faster.

For more on the balance between raw athleticism and sport-specific skill, check out this piece I put together on Spencer Jones ahead of the 2022 MLB Draft and read the first section: “A Perspective on Athleticism”

Quantify what’s under the hood and peak into the future potential of an athlete.

Using the Loden Score

With Loden Sports, we developed the Loden Score to be an unbiased, objective way to quantify raw athleticism. 

It’s proven. 

Loden Scores are correlated to the physical half of a players profile: speed, power, and arm strength. Baseball has 5 tools and the potential for 60% of them can be validated by or answered using a Loden Score. 

It’s easy.

The higher the Loden Score the more you can expect out of the athlete in terms of speed, raw power, and throwing velocity – qualities that increase in importance at higher levels of baseball.

Athletes with higher Loden Scores have the ability to generate speed, power, and velocity with much less effort. Think about the kid that’s good at every sport without breaking a sweat. We all grew up with recess and gym class in elementary school, so you know exactly what I mean.

It alleviates concerns with hard evidence.

The Loden Score throws body-type biases out the window. It answers why Corbin Carroll can impact the baseball the way he does at his size. It answers why Spencer Jones is different from other position player prospects with extra-large frames. It doesn’t discriminate against baby fat and it certainly doesn’t reward bonus points for striations. 

The Loden Score separates quantifiable athletic qualities from subjective athletic qualities. You can like that an athlete plays three sports, that they move well, that they have great body awareness, and it doesn’t have to fall in the same bucket in the evaluation profile of what’s under the hood.

A human being can be a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T and not know how to keep it on the road.

Personal opinion: from an evaluation standpoint, give me the Charger that doesn’t know how to stay on the road over the Prius that you can drive with your knees.

Pause.

I understand that development environments and athlete motivations play a crucial role in ever getting that Charger to stay between the lines. Pull the right strings and that Charger will make adjustments and soar to heights that the Prius could never dream of.

Unpause.

A Sliding Scale

It is important to consider frame size when evaluating raw athleticism. When it comes to baseball, the physical tools are largely affected by what’s under the hood, but frame size also plays a role. For this reason, I’ve put together a bit of a sliding scale cheat-sheet of where to look for impact tools:

Use the following for frame size reference:

Small = ~5-10, 175 lbs.

Average = ~6-0, 190 lbs.

Large = ~6-3, 220 lbs.

Extra Large = ~6-5, 250 lbs.

Conveniently, the Loden Score System is on a 0-12 scale that perfectly parallels a 20-80 scale. So, to translate: 0 = 20, 1 = 25, 2 = 30 … 11 = 75, 12 = 80.

To oversimplify the above / provide an example: if you’re looking at a 5-11, 180 lb. player and they don’t look to be getting any bigger, don’t expect impact physical tools unless they’re at least a 65 raw athlete.

A lot of raw athleticism is genetic, but at the same time, a lot of the physical qualities to build a robust engine (raw athleticism) can be trained as the athlete physically matures. To paraphrase the AFC Ajax Youth Development Model: 

You can take a Fiat and turn it into an Audi, you can take an Audi and turn it into a Ferrari, but you can’t take a Fiat and turn it into a Ferrari. 

And you certainly can’t make any transformation at all if you aren’t dedicating time away from competing in your sport as you physically mature.

From what I’ve observed, the current amateur sports environment places a disproportionate amount of emphasis on competing. So, most kids are relying solely on their genetic lottery for what kind of motor they’re running under the hood. The few that swim against the current – by the direction of parents or coaches who aren’t afraid to be different – and make training a priority during their developmental window, have a chance to enhance their motor in a meaningful way.

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