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Last year, I showed that if you focused on the 50% hardest hit balls of batters, that it's those balls that tell you about the batter. The 50% weakest are really the same for everyone.
Inspired by a chart I saw from my colleague Graham... 1/4 https://twitter.com/tangotiger/status/1233129414587822084
Inspired by a chart I saw from my colleague Graham... 1/4 https://twitter.com/tangotiger/status/1233129414587822084
2/4 I put the 50% hardest hit balls in the "top" bucket and rest in the "bottom" bucket. I then took the average launch speed by batter in only the "top" bucket. Finally (and this is where Graham comes in), I created groups of players based on their average in the "top" bucket.
3/4 And we end up with this. So batters in the "104" bucket means that their average speed of the top 50% of their hardest hit was 104+. The wOBA on their hardhit balls is .841, while in the bottom 50%, it's .216.
4/4 This shows in pretty spectacular fashion bottom 50% really arent a distinguishing characteristic for a batter. The speed in bottom half is really useless.
This is why I argue against "average speed". You really care about Escape Velocity, speed above a certain threshold.
This is why I argue against "average speed". You really care about Escape Velocity, speed above a certain threshold.
Since Connor did the excellent work here:
https://twitter.com/ckurcon/status/1362028697860063232?s=19
As well my colleague Graham, I may as well throw my hat in the ring as well.
So continuing from my above thread, we can show the wOBA for the power hitters (red) and the non-power hitters (blue) by launch angle.
https://twitter.com/ckurcon/status/1362028697860063232?s=19
As well my colleague Graham, I may as well throw my hat in the ring as well.
So continuing from my above thread, we can show the wOBA for the power hitters (red) and the non-power hitters (blue) by launch angle.
We see that up until launch angle of 17 degrees, there is nothing to distinguish the performance of power and non-power hitters. In other words: the exit speed is inconsequential.
But after 17 degrees, that's where we separate the men from the boys. In order to launch at 18+
But after 17 degrees, that's where we separate the men from the boys. In order to launch at 18+
you need to be a power hitter. If you don't have the power, the higher the launch angle THE WORSE YOU HIT. A power hitter launching at 20-32 degrees is preferred than the same batter launching below that. But a non-power hitter launching 11-17 degrees is preferred to above that.
As for reason: distance. If we consider a ball hit 350+ feet as a "long distance", then we can see power hitters will do so more often than non-power hitters. And the critical point is that you need to be able to do that 50% of the time, if your launch angle is 21-34 degrees.
Since a non-power hitter is not able to reach the 350+ foot distance at least 50% of the time at the higher launch angle, then they simply need to focus on a lower launch angle. They can't hit over the outfielder, so they should instead hit over the infielder or between the OF.
