Exit Velocity

[Edgy MD]

A crazy article on the economic philosophies that have allowed the Mets to remain bullish, even as they sit at the bottom of the league offensively, even as they send Eric Campbell up to pinch-hit in a game situation for a star pitcher who is out-performing him at the plate, at least by traditional measures.

Not everyone places value in these statistics, of course, but Long and the Mets do. He keeps his own internal log of hard-hit balls, deviating some from publicly accessible data. Exit velocity, a measure in which Campbell ranks seventh on the Mets this season for all batters who have had at least 75 at-bats, according to baseballsavant.com, is relevant. It allows the Mets to maintain some level of bullishness about this season. That even as their offense sputters and runs remain hard to attain, they are buoyed by a hard-hit rate that leads all of baseball and the idea that luck will eventually come around.

[Frayed Knot]

You're seeing 'Exit Velocity' quoted more and more lately although so far it's mainly been used for gawking purposes and for announcers to have data to back up their statements that he hit that ball REALLY hard - as if the fact that it landed in the 14th row of the second deck wasn't evidence enough.

That said, I think it does have a value beyond just that even if this article mostly picks and chooses its spots to prove that: '7th best on the Mets among 'X' ABs or more' (is that really a good thing?), or 'among the best over the last 18 days' (or however they put it). I think everyone appreciates the concept of hitting into bad luck and that bad outcomes aren't always evidence of bad ABs or a bad approach. Prior to seeing that piece I'd have probably said that Campbell's been somewhat unfortunate although probably not enough to change religions or anything. This data that the Mets have plus the fact that his K-rates are below league average probably says that better things are ahead for him even if we're not sure how much 'better' really is.

[MFS62]

It is a way to back up the old, "when he hits it, he hits it hard".
But, as Rob Deer (the first name that came to mind) showed us, the key word in that sentence is "when".
Its a new statistical toy to be used when convenient.

Later

[Ceetar]

It's because we're just getting this data from StatCast available publicly. (Along with things like launch angle)

No one's really sure how it correlates, but initial impressions seem to be "not as much as you'd think"

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: '7th best on the Mets among 'X' ABs or more' (is that really a good thing?), or 'among the best over the last 18 days'

Yeah, I was asking that same thing. Seventh best among Mets who get to the plate. Whoopdy doo.

But I don't think this is something that's used when convenient. The Mets have demonstrated an almost intractable willingness to stick to their guns and to their metrics in the face of ALL (at this point, anyhow) external evidence. Their data is the hill this leadership team has chosen to die on.

[Frayed Knot]

It is a way to back up the old, "when he hits it, he hits it hard". But, as Rob Deer (the first name that came to mind) showed us, the key word in that sentence is "when". Its a new statistical toy to be used when convenient.

Except that Campbell is K-ing at a below average rate (about half of what Deer was doing in a much less K-happy era) so it's not really the same thing here.

This is more in line with the oft sneered-at BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) which argues that on balls put into play that stay in the yard (IOW: take out all K's, BBs, and HRs) the success rate on those plays tends to be subject to a degree of good or bad fortune. The counter to that (which Gary Cohen brings up all the time) is that of course guys who hit the ball harder will have a better shot at a better BABiP so how can you say it's luck?. Factoring in 'Exit Velocity' sort of combines the two and says that if you're putting balls into play both often and hard and yet still have a poor BA to show for it then it really is closer to bad luck than bad skill.

Deer's problem wasn't that he was hitting 'At 'em' balls since most of the few balls he did hit wound up in places that were unaffected by fielders. Campbell's got the opposite problem.

[MFS62]

This is more in line with the oft sneered-at BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) which argues that on balls put into play that stay in the yard (IOW: take out all K's, BBs, and HRs) the success rate on those plays tends to be subject to a degree of good or bad fortune. The counter to that (which Gary Cohen brings up all the time) is that of course guys who hit the ball harder will have a better shot at a better BABiP so how can you say it's luck?. Factoring in 'Exit Velocity' sort of combines the two and says that if you're putting balls into play both often and hard and yet still have a poor BA to show for it then it really is closer to bad luck than bad skill.

I guess on the good luck side we had Jeter, who managed to hit seventeen hoppers that somehow found the spaces between the fielders. Every f'n time. *

Later
* = I just remembered that I hadn't taken the obligatory shot at Jeter for a while. Thanks for teeing that one up for me.

[nymr83]

I guess on the good luck side we had Jeter, who managed to hit seventeen hoppers that somehow found the spaces between the fielders. Every f'n time. * Later * = I just remembered that I hadn't taken the obligatory shot at Jeter for a while. Thanks for teeing that one up for me.

Coincidentally, 17-hoppers found their way past Jeter in the field at an equally remarkable rate!

[batmagadanleadoff]

This is a great stat. I always thought that these new hit rate/speed/velocity/trajectory secret proprietary under the hood hit location stats of batted balls are more telling then the conventional stuff we have access to. I'd bet anything --anything-- that meaningful sample sizes of this "exit velocity" stat correlate very positively to a batter's success about as well as any other stat under the sun. Obviously, you can't use the stat in a vacuum, so that someone with excellent exit velocity who strikes out half the time, has big problems. But you can say that about any stat. That someone might strike out a lot doesn't undermine the value of exit velocity stat. Hitting the ball hard is what baseball's all about because the faster the ball gets to where it's destined to go, the less chance the fielders have of getting to the ball. You have to consider the stat in combination with other stats, just like in everything else.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is a great stat. I always thought that these new hit rate/speed/velocity/trajectory secret proprietary under the hood hit location stats of batted balls are more telling then the conventional stuff we have access to. I'd bet anything --anything-- that meaningful sample sizes of this "exit velocity" stat correlate very positively to a batter's success about as well as any other stat under the sun. Obviously, you can't use the stat in a vacuum, so that someone with excellent exit velocity who strikes out half the time, has big problems. But you can say that about any stat. That someone might strike out a lot doesn't undermine the value of exit velocity stat. Hitting the ball hard is what baseball's all about because the faster the ball gets to where it's destined to go, the less chance the fielders have of getting to the ball. You have to consider the stat in combination with other stats, just like in everything else.

Yes, that. Not to mention they wouldn't bother investing in the technology and labor to measure that stuff if it didn't have some potential value.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is a great stat. I always thought that these new hit rate/speed/velocity/trajectory secret proprietary under the hood hit location stats of batted balls are more telling then the conventional stuff we have access to. I'd bet anything --anything-- that meaningful sample sizes of this "exit velocity" stat correlate very positively to a batter's success about as well as any other stat under the sun. Obviously, you can't use the stat in a vacuum, so that someone with excellent exit velocity who strikes out half the time, has big problems. But you can say that about any stat. That someone might strike out a lot doesn't undermine the value of exit velocity stat. Hitting the ball hard is what baseball's all about because the faster the ball gets to where it's destined to go, the less chance the fielders have of getting to the ball. You have to consider the stat in combination with other stats, just like in everything else. Yes, that. Not to mention they wouldn't bother investing in the technology and labor to measure that stuff if it didn't have some potential value.

It's hardly the specific reason they invested in the tech. I mean, they're getting like a terrabyte of data a day, this is merely a drop in the bucket. Some of the stuff they collect WILL turn out to be mostly useless if not totally useless.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is a great stat. I always thought that these new hit rate/speed/velocity/trajectory secret proprietary under the hood hit location stats of batted balls are more telling then the conventional stuff we have access to. I'd bet anything --anything-- that meaningful sample sizes of this "exit velocity" stat correlate very positively to a batter's success about as well as any other stat under the sun. Obviously, you can't use the stat in a vacuum, so that someone with excellent exit velocity who strikes out half the time, has big problems. But you can say that about any stat. That someone might strike out a lot doesn't undermine the value of exit velocity stat. Hitting the ball hard is what baseball's all about because the faster the ball gets to where it's destined to go, the less chance the fielders have of getting to the ball. You have to consider the stat in combination with other stats, just like in everything else. Yes, that. Not to mention they wouldn't bother investing in the technology and labor to measure that stuff if it didn't have some potential value.

If they didn't think it had some potential value, y'mean.

And, yeah, seventh on the Mets means that he's not top-5 in exit velocity on a team that regularly starts Ruben Tejada and about four different gap-power-MAXIMUM guys.

[Ceetar]

so Eric Campbell is 229 of 336 players with as many AB(with data) as him.

Tejada 326, which is an interesting case since Tejada's always had a high LD% which was usually the best proxy we had for this.

Duda's 61st. Cuddyer 15th. Lagares 47th. Plawecki 298. Granderson 144th. Murphy 272. Those are maximums.


Average?

25 Duda (92ph)
62 Lagares
92 Plawecki
108 Murphy
152 Granderson
172 Cuddyer
200 Campbell
317 Tejada (84mph)


Stanton averages 97.73, quite a bit ahead of #2 Cespedes at 93.66

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is a great stat. I always thought that these new hit rate/speed/velocity/trajectory secret proprietary under the hood hit location stats of batted balls are more telling then the conventional stuff we have access to. I'd bet anything --anything-- that meaningful sample sizes of this "exit velocity" stat correlate very positively to a batter's success about as well as any other stat under the sun. Obviously, you can't use the stat in a vacuum, so that someone with excellent exit velocity who strikes out half the time, has big problems. But you can say that about any stat. That someone might strike out a lot doesn't undermine the value of exit velocity stat. Hitting the ball hard is what baseball's all about because the faster the ball gets to where it's destined to go, the less chance the fielders have of getting to the ball. You have to consider the stat in combination with other stats, just like in everything else. Yes, that. Not to mention they wouldn't bother investing in the technology and labor to measure that stuff if it didn't have some potential value. If they didn't think it had some potential value, y'mean.

True. I was vouching for the stat, more than for Campbell. I'm not saying that the Mets data might support or not support findings that Campbell's a better hitter than his conventional stats indicate. I just don't know that and can only go by what the Mets say.