Sometimes you have to give something up to gain

Cam Lengyel has been coming to the K-Zone Academy for his training for a long time. He was around last summer when we were developing the concept of the Quality Hit Game. He’s played it many times. We are going to look at his data for the 70 games we have in the database for him dating back to October 2014.

In Cam’s first recorded game, he scored 280 points, 71 points on his best hit, maximum exit velocity (MEV) of 86.3mph, average exit velocity (AEV) of 70.6mph, maximum distance of 295 feet. His last game in the data set he numbers were 723 points, 114 points on best hit, MEV of 93.0mph, AEV of 80.4mph, maximum distance of 349.4 feet. This is quite an improvement. However, single game scores can often be misleading so we are going to look at Cam’s progression in 10 game sets; first 10 games, second 10 games, etc. Doing this we will highlight a few of the key points in Cam’s development.

The chart below shows the average of each 10 game set of Quality Hit Games played. Cam started out with an average of 514 in his first 10 games and increased that to an average of 659 in his last 10 games. Through his first 60 games, Cam shows little to no improvement with his 6th set of ten games yielding a very similar 514 average to his first set of 10 games. At first glance, it doesn’t look like Cam improved at all during that long stretch. Certainly, by this measure that would not be incorrect. However, there are other numbers we can look at to help “predict” the big jump that Cam has seen in his performance in the last 10 games. 

The key elements in scoring more points in the
Quality Hit Game are to hit the ball harder and farther without straying too far away from a line drive trajectory. Hard line drives that carry further score the best.

Let’s take a look at Cam’s best hits over his first 60 games. As we can see, Cam’s best hit in each set as well as the average of his best hit for the 10 games increased throughout the 6 weeks. This means that Cam’s capability is increasing even though he hasn’t increased his average game score. Let’s look at his MEV, AEV and Maximum Distance results.

These factors have all improved as well which fits with the improvement in his best hit measurements except for the AEV. 


These numbers are all visible to Cam during his training, so even though he isn’t making noticeable improvements in his best overall game average, he is improving his exit velocities, distances and hit quality. It keeps him motivated to keep putting in the hard work it takes to get to the next level. It’s a matter of time before he puts it all together.

That time has come in Cam’s last 10 games. One of the numbers that we haven’t shown yet that has contributed to Cam’s improvement is his reduction in strikeouts. During his plateau he increased his strikeouts by over one. This means that he’s taking a zero for that at bat. Makes it difficult to increase total game scores when you are adding in zeros. Notice the reduction in strikeouts in the last 10 games. Couple this with the increase in exit speed and distance and you have a recipe for success.

Sometimes you have to give something up to gain something. In this case, Cam had to be willing to strikeout more in order to increase his exit velocities and distances. Once he did this, he was able to bring his strikeouts down near previous levels while maintaining a higher level of output from his swing.

Another factor that was addressed with Cam, but not covered in this analysis is where he hit the ball. Some of his best hits used to be foul; this is no longer the case. Using K-Zone Academy proprietary training exercises, Cam has been able to redirect his power into the field of play. It’s not just a phenomenon for the cage as Cam lead his team to a state title this past weekend driving a baseball just left of center that carried the center fielder for a go-ahead RBI double in extra innings.

The plateau that Cam experienced lasted almost 5 months. This is where the real work is done. It’s also where most players give up. If you are dedicated and willing to put in the hard work, you too can have success like Cam!