Abstract
Baseball players must be able to see and react in an instant, yet it is hotly debated whether superior performance is associated with superior sensorimotor abilities. In this study, we compare sensorimotor abilities, measured through 8 psychomotor tasks comprising the Nike Sensory Station assessment battery, and game statistics in a sample of 252 professional baseball players to evaluate the links between sensorimotor skills and on-field performance. For this purpose, we develop a series of Bayesian hierarchical latent variable models enabling us to compare statistics across professional baseball leagues. Within this framework, we find that sensorimotor abilities are significant predictors of on-base percentage, walk rate and strikeout rate, accounting for age, position, and league. We find no such relationship for either slugging percentage or fielder-independent pitching. The pattern of results suggests performance contributions from both visual-sensory and visual-motor abilities and indicates that sensorimotor screenings may be useful for player scouting.
Highlights
Ted Williams, one of the most legendary baseball players of all time, once said, “I think without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball”
While these studies indicate that superior batters possess superior visual system physiology, the preponderance of evidence in the literature concludes that, in the absence of hardware differences, expert performance is subserved by superior abilities to process and act upon visual information
Sensory Station assessments from 252 professional baseball players collected in 2012 and 2013 were compared to game statistics to evaluate the relationship between sensorimotor skills and baseball production
Summary
Ted Williams, one of the most legendary baseball players of all time, once said, “I think without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball”. A more common approach for inferring the sensorimotor abilities important for baseball performance involves studying the difference between professionals, amateurs, and non-athletes This literature, and the larger debate across all sports, centers on the question of whether athletes possess inherently better visual-system physiology (so-called “visual hardware” that allows for the reception of visual information), or if differences are restricted to enhanced perceptual-cognitive abilities that can be shaped through practice (so-called “visual software” involved in processing of visual information)[9]. Abilities[13] than non-athlete controls While these studies indicate that superior batters possess superior visual system physiology, the preponderance of evidence in the literature concludes that, in the absence of hardware differences, expert performance is subserved by superior abilities to process and act upon visual information. Given the challenges inherent in doing research with high-level athlete populations, the contribution of hardware and software to expert performance remains an open question
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