Engineering a Home Run

With just fractions of a second to answer a 90-mph fastball, a batter’s ability to anticipate and react is what stands between their trip down the baseline or a walk back to the dugout.

While some make it look effortless, former Aggie baseball student-athlete Matt Juengel ’12 knows mastering a swing is no easy feat. As lead hitting instructor at The Lab at Hustle3 in College Station, Juengel’s major league resume provides a wealth of batting knowledge, but he was still intrigued about the science behind a recurring question: “What’s the best way to hit a baseball?”

“From my experience, I believe a driving factor for hitting far distances is creating backspin on the ball with the angle of your swing,” he said. “But for coaching purposes, I was interested to know if the actual physics behind swinging would support my theory.”
 

As luck would have it, Juengel’s answer walked right through the front door. Frequenting the facility for his sons’ batting lessons, Texas A&M University associate professor of aerospace engineering Dr. Darren Hartl ’03 ’09 saw a unique opportunity for baseball and engineering to collide. “Projects like this are why I love my job,” he said. “The excitement of sports combined with the rigorous engineering we do at Texas A&M made for a perfect mix.”

Under Hartl’s mentorship, an eager group of Aggie engineering students used modeling and computational simulations to conduct a meticulous analysis of what constitutes an optimal swing, factoring material properties, bat-to-ball contact location, bat speed and swing angle. They found that swinging slightly upward while making contact just below the ball’s equator generated the farthest hit distance, proving Juengel’s instincts to be a data-backed home run.

“Engineering is a natural fit for something like baseball that’s complicated but still fundamentally driven by physical principles,” said Mason Ward ’22 ’23, a graduate assistant on the project. “Engineers may not have the experience of an athlete’s intuition, but it’s very gratifying when we can apply our tools and see the science match up to the same answer.”

Today, the maroon-and-white branded research is proudly displayed as a reference tool at The Lab, helping athletes conquer the batting learning curve through teachings grounded in both Aggie baseball and Aggie engineering.