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Speed/Athleticism > Power

Now that steroids are being filtered out of baseball, will chicks no longer dig the longball?  Highly doubtful.  But GMs and scouts are focusing a lot more on speed and overall athleticism.  Makes sense to me.  While I am not a loyal student of sabermetrics, I do value stats like OBP (on-base percentage) and OPS (on-base plus slugging).  On-base percentage, a factor in both stats, is highly affected by a player’s speed.  And defense is almost all athleticism and speed.  Will the future of baseball be composed of more Jacoby Ellsburys than David Ortizs?

As an agent, you must also be a good scout of talent, or at least employ a separate scout that will help judge who your agency should be recruiting.  You should always keep in mind what scouts and GMs are looking for.  If there is a trend away from the slower, bulkier power hitter toward a smaller, more agile player, your recruiting strategy may need to deviate from what it has been in the past.

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

One reply on “Speed/Athleticism > Power”

You bring up good points, but I don’t know if I agree that OBP is “highly” affected by speed. There may be a few guys in the league who are a legitimate threat to get an infield hit every time they’re up to bat, but even then, an infield hit is still a hit and so speed in this case is more directly correlated to BA and only partially correlated to OBP. It takes a special kind of talent to get an OBP up into the .380 to .420 range. Maybe, I’m missing something. Please enlighten me.

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