What is a good home-to-first time?

In the 2026 MLB season, the median qualifying player averaged 4.44 seconds from bat contact to first base on Statcast, and the fastest 10% averaged 4.24 seconds or better. Left-handed hitters stand closer to first, so their times run faster.

How do I get faster for baseball?

Sprint short distances at full effort with full rest, two or three days a week in the off-season, and practice your starts from the box and from a lead. Add jumps and lower-body strength work, and keep conditioning separate from speed days.

How can softball players get faster?

Softball bases are 60 feet apart, so the race to first is almost all acceleration. Train short sprints from the box, and get stronger: in elite softball players, relative strength correlated strongly with sprint times to first and second base.

Do weighted vests help with sprint speed for baseball?

In a randomized trial with 13-year-old baseball players, four weeks of sprint training improved 60-yard times, and wearing a vest of 10% body mass gave no extra benefit over unloaded sprinting.

Speed training for baseball and softball: the 60-yard dash, home to first and base running

Q: What is a good 60-yard dash time?

It depends on age and on how the run was timed. At the top end, the fastest 60 at Prep Baseball Report's 2025 Super 60 showcase was 6.29 seconds. Compare yourself with players in your own graduating class, timed electronically.

By the Sprint University coaching team

The 60-yard dash is baseball's standard showcase speed test, and the fastest high school prospects run it in the low 6-second range. To lower your 60 and your home-to-first time, sprint 10–40m at 98–100% effort with 2–4 minutes of rest, two or three days a week in the off-season, and add jumps and heavy-but-fast lifting.

In games, a run from one base to the next is 90 feet in baseball and 60 feet in softball. Your first steps out of the box or off a lead decide much of each run, so give acceleration the most practice.

What is a good 60-yard dash time?

The 60 covers 54.9 meters, longer than a football 40 by 20 yards. At the top of the high school game, the fastest 60 at Prep Baseball Report's 2025 Super 60 showcase was 6.29 seconds. Most players run well slower than that, so the fair comparison is with players in your own graduating class. If your showcase profile lists a class average or percentile, start there.

Check how the run was timed before you compare numbers. Hand times and electronic times for the same run differ, and our hand timing converter adjusts between them. To see how your speed stacks up across sports, convert it with the 40-yard dash to 100m tool or rate a 40-yard dash.

Home-to-first times and MLB sprint speed

Major League Baseball measures game speed with Statcast. Sprint speed is how many feet per second a player covers in his fastest one-second window on a competitive run. Home to first is the time from bat-on-ball contact until the batter reaches the base. The 2026 numbers for qualifying MLB players:

Statcast measure (2026 season)	Value
Sprint speed, MLB average on competitive plays	27 ft/s (18.4 mph)
Sprint speed, elite (a "Bolt")	30 ft/s or faster (20.5 mph)
Home to first, median player	4.44 s
Home to first, fastest 10% of players	4.24 s or faster
Home to first, fastest player	3.96 s

Left-handed hitters stand closer to first base, so they are well represented on home-to-first leaderboards. Compare your time with hitters on your side of the plate, and use the same timing method each time. Our 40-yard dash to mph page puts those top speeds in context.

Out of the box and off a lead

Your time to first is mostly an acceleration test. In 1,896 timed runs by 302 major leaguers, time to first base depended most on how fast players covered the first 13.7m (45 feet) of the 27.4m (90-foot) run, and left-handed batters were quicker over that first half. The second half showed no difference between lefties and righties.

Softball shortens the race. NCAA rules set the bases 60 feet apart, about 18.3m, only a little more than the 13.7m that decides most of a baseball runner's time to first. In 10 players from a state Australian Institute of Sport softball team, relative strength (the weight you can lift for your bodyweight) correlated strongly with sprint times to first and second base, and the relationship held across a full season.

For a steal, the start matters as much as the sprint. A biomechanics study comparing two steal starts found the jab step, a short step toward second with the near foot before the crossover, produced more forward force and speed than going straight into a crossover step. Practice both from your lead and time 10m to see which works for you.

Running the bases

On a ground ball, run through first base. When researchers timed college players arriving at a base, running through it was fastest, followed by a head-first slide, a feet-first slide and running to a stop. Diving into first showed only a small, non-significant gain in their model, and the authors judged it not worth the risk.

Extra-base hits add a curve. Rounding first means you hold speed through a turn and then reaccelerate toward second, so practice your turn at full speed and don't only run straight lines.

The Sprint University app

Speed work that adjusts to how you slept

Sprint University reads your HRV, resting heart rate and sleep from Apple Health each morning, plus a short check-in. On a low-readiness day it keeps the session but trims multi-set blocks to about 70% of their sets at the same intensity.

Get Sprint University

A sample off-season week

This week follows the high/low layout of Sprint University's base program, with the acceleration and top-speed sessions taken from it and one day given to game starts. The 60 is long enough that top speed counts too.

Day	Focus	Work
Day 1 (high)	Acceleration	4 × 20m, 2 × 30m, 1 × 40m @ 95–100%, rest 2–4 min. Light sled 4 × 10m. Lower-body lift.
Day 2 (low)	Jumps and throws	Bounds, broad jumps and med ball throws at full intent, full recovery.
Day 3 (high)	Game starts	3–4 × 10m from the box and 3–4 × 10m from a lead-off @ 98–100%, rest 2 min. Upper-body lift.
Day 4 (low)	Tempo or skill work	Easy tempo runs or throwing and fielding at low intensity.
Day 5 (high)	Top speed	Flying 20s, as in the session below. Lift after.
Days 6–7	Rest	Off, or easy movement.

Week 1, day 5 · Max velocity

Top Speed, Flying 20s

High day

Block	Prescription
Track warm-up	15 min: easy jog, dynamic drills, build-ups
10m sprints	3 × 10m @ 98–100%, rest 2 min
30m sprints	2 × 30m @ 98–100%, rest 3 min
Flying 20m	4 × flying 20m with a 20m run-in @ 100%, rest 5 min
Backward run	2 × 60m, walk-back rest
Barefoot cooldown walk	One easy lap of the track barefoot, unhurried

Film the flying 20s.

Jumps and lifting support the sprinting. Plyometric training improves sprint performance, with horizontal jumps carrying over best, and gains in squat strength carry over to faster sprinting. You don't need special gear: in a randomized trial with 13-year-old players, a four-week, 12-session sprint program cut 60-yard times by about 1%, and training in a vest of 10% body mass gave no extra benefit. Start every session with a full sprint warm-up.

In season

Keep one short speed session a week, a few 10–20m starts at full effort, on a day without a game. Keep lifting too. Over a 20-week pre-season and in-season period that included 14 weeks of periodized strength training, elite softball players got stronger and ran faster to second base.

Common mistakes

Jogging out ground balls: Every run to first is a sprint from contact. Practice running hard through the bag in batting practice.
Poles and long runs as speed work: Long, slow running builds fitness. Speed comes from short sprints at full effort with 2–4 minutes of rest.
Testing the 60 tired: Run your 60 at the start of a session after a full warm-up, and give it a fresh day before a showcase.
Never practicing the start: Time to first depends most on the first 45 feet. Rehearse your first steps from the box and from a lead every week.

Many of the same ideas apply in football. The how to get faster for football guide goes deeper on the first 10 yards, and plyometrics for sprinters lists the jumps with sets for each.