Why in baseball the optimal angle for a home run is a lot less than 45 degrees?
In high school physics (okay, this is no longer 5 year old level) to throw something to the most distant, you throw it at 45 degrees.
But why in baseball the optimal angle for hitting a home run is a lot less than what is taught in physics?
I kind of understand it has to do with air resistance, but why does air resistance change the angle by that much?
In: Physics
45 is the optimal angle for range without air resistance, but it’s different in real life.
It’s easier to get maximum exit velocity with a more level or slight uppercut swing. With all the Statcast and other swing analytics they have now, they track everyone’s exit velo and launch angle on every swing. If you check out the data yourself on baseball savant, you can see that there haven’t been many high velocity, high launch angle balls hit this season. It’s just mechanically hard to do, and it’s hard to square the ball up well enough to get the most out of the swing.
Plus, with air resistance, a ball hit at 45⁰ will have less horizontal velocity (70.7%), and due to extra time in the air, has more time to decelerate further.
A ball hit harder at 30⁰ launch angle will spend less time in the air, but will have a greater horizontal velocity *component* (86.6%) and is more likely to have a higher total exit velocity to start with. Sure the air resistance will be higher, due to the extra exit velo, but it will maintain better horizontal exit velocity which can help it get far enough to clear the fence.
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