Blast Motion Player of the Week: Niko Benestad (FL)

(link to orignal post here)

Benestad showed a tremendous ceiling when we took a look at some of his Blast Metrics, especially for his age. He recently attended the Rising Stars State Games, an awesome event operated by Doug Freeman and his crew of PBR-Florida.

What stood out the most when looking at Niko’s player reports on Blast Connect was his power profile. Now the first thing we usually look at when evaluating players based off their Blast Metrics is Bat Speed. But for the younger guys we tend to look at Rotational Acceleration first. Why? Because the younger guys will grow and get stronger. If trained correctly they will improve their bat speed (without sacrificing % of contact of course). We like to look at Bat Speed as a prerequisite to the next level, the younger guys…they have some time to get there.

But when it comes to the raw metric, Rotational Acceleration, you’re either sequencing your body into your bat speed well or you’re not…and Niko most definitely is. This dude averaged 25.6 g’s in Rotational Acceleration and even got up to 30 g’s! That shows us that Niko is able to accelerate into his bat speed quickly. What advantageous come with that? Well it shows that Niko is equipped to make later decisions on pitches, compared to his peers. It also equips him to be less vulnerable to curves, sliders, and fastballs with high spin.

Now remember when I said we don’t look at bat speed initially for the younger guys, well we went back and looked at it and it turns out Niko has bat speed. Niko averaged 74 mph in batting practice…74 mph. That’s man stuff right there. Congrats Niko, you’re equipped to hit the ball really hard.

In a nutshell:

Niko has what we call power efficiency. He has high bat speed and can accelerate into it quickly, which equips him to make later decisions against tougher pitching. Now there is some stuff to clean up with his early connection and connection at impact, it can get a little inconsistent…but that’s something that can be very easily cleaned up and monitored with a Blast Sensor. Niko is going to be a fun player to follow…oh he’s also uncommitted. Evaluators meet Niko, Niko meet evaluators.