It’s been a enjoyable couple of weeks seeing all of the work that has been accomplished because of Statcast’s increasing into bat monitoring. The beauty of this recreation is that there’s at all times extra to be taught. With the addition of bat velocity and swing size, we now have a greater thought of telling the story of a participant’s swing, however there may be nonetheless a lot extra to faucet into.
Again after I was utilizing a Blast Motion bat sensor every day, I used to be uncovered to each element of the swing that you can consider. Bat velocity was one in all them, however that solely scratched the floor. There have been items explaining my path at totally different factors within the swing, how lengthy it took my barrel to fulfill the aircraft of the ball, the place in area that occurred, and a lot extra. For some time, the general public knowledge obtainable was centered on the result. What was the pitch? What was the end result? What was the exit velocity and/or launch angle? With this new replace, we’re progressing towards the how. How briskly did the participant swing? How lengthy was their swing? We will now tie that in with the end result, however there are further particulars wanted to grasp the complete scope of how outcomes occurred. That’ll be the main focus of this piece.
First, it’s necessary to focus on the nice work that has already been accomplished explaining the brand new knowledge we now have and what the knowledge tells (and doesn’t inform) us in regards to the swing. Ben Clemens explained some purposes of the brand new metrics and what their relationship with efficiency is on a macro scale. One factor Ben talked about that resonated with me is considering the brand new (and previous) info as inputs for us to make use of to grasp efficiency slightly than the solutions themselves. Every bit works collectively to inform a narrative, whether or not that be league extensive or participant particular. Mainly, these are items of data that want further context.
Relatedly, Patrick Dubuque and Stephen Sutton-Brown from Baseball Prospectus, offered an awesome analysis of how one can put bat velocity into the context of pitch counts, from the angle of each the hitter and pitcher. And there may be extra past simply these two, together with Noah Woodward’s Substack post about bat velocity, swing size, and understanding what they imply and the way they contribute to the swing.
Woodward touched on a couple of parts of the swing that I’ve talked about in earlier work that we nonetheless don’t have complete knowledge on from Statcast: contact level and assault angle. Swing variability, swing adjustability, having A and B swings, and so forth. are all extraordinarily necessary to being profitable on the huge league degree. In case you have a gap in your swing, typically talking, pitchers will expose you, so having a number of high-quality swings goes to set you as much as have constant success, simply ask Triston Casas. Swing-by-swing knowledge on assault angle, vertical and horizontal bat angle, and level of contact will all assist the general public understanding of swing variability, or when and the way the swing adjustments typically.
Let’s begin with assault angle. That is the angle of the bat path at contact, relative to the bottom. As your bat travels by the zone, it creates a trajectory. To optimize your probabilities of hitting the ball within the air, the bat must be on an upward trajectory at contact, which means it’s best to have a constructive assault angle. One element of swing variability is making a constructive assault angle at totally different heights, widths, and depths. You just about simply need to have the ability to manipulate your barrel to maneuver upward irrespective of the place the pitch is. To get a greater thought of what assault angle seems like, let’s have a look at a video from David Adler outlining a swing from Oneil Cruz:
Bat path monitoring — Oneil Cruz 120.4 mph single (hardest-hit ball in MLB this 12 months)
84.5 mph bat velocity (75+ mph is the “quick swing” threshold) pic.twitter.com/FO9gA6fqva
— David Adler (@_dadler) May 21, 2024
Whereas assault angle is formally measured because the angle of the trail at contact, seeing the trail main as much as contact can inform us what sort of depth the hitter creates. On this clip, the angle of the trail adjustments because it strikes from behind Cruz’s physique to in entrance of it. This illuminates how assault angle relies on level of contact. Normally, the farther in entrance of the plate your bat is, the simpler it’s to create a constructive assault angle. Nonetheless, this thread from Driveline’s Director of Hitting, Tanner Stokey, discusses the significance of making bat velocity deep within the zone. One of the best hitters create their peak speeds in tight home windows. Like all sides of baseball, swinging is about putting a steadiness of making excessive ranges of bat velocity and constructive assault angles. You don’t need to have a one dimensional swing that’s centered on excessive bat velocity whereas ignoring the necessity to create ultimate bat angles each deep within the zone and in entrance of the plate.
Relying on the way you begin your swing and enter the zone, it takes time to show your barrel over into an upward slope. For a lot of hitters, the bat must journey a higher distance to create the constructive assault angle that results in optimum contact. This, after all, takes extra time. However, as Robert Orr pointed out final week in his piece on the connection between pulled fly balls and swing size, a protracted swing isn’t essentially a nasty factor; it’s actually simply one other knowledge level. With entry to assault angle, we might higher inform the story of how a hitter like Isaac Paredes creates depth in his swing whereas usually making ultimate contact far out in entrance of the plate, versus a hitter who makes contact out in entrance with out creating the mandatory depth of their swing to keep away from main holes.
On the identical time, it’s nonetheless doable to create a constructive assault angle deeper within the hitting zone. To get there, it’s worthwhile to make actions that aren’t simple to do whereas producing bat velocity and controlling your physique. Some hitters with nice mobility use lateral torso bend — they lean towards their again leg proper earlier than contact — to get their barrel on an upward slope deep within the hitting zone. Consider Shohei Ohtani or Edouard Julien:
These two have unorthodox expertise that permit them to launch pitches excessive within the air to the other discipline. With level of contact and assault angle, we’d be capable to quantify how totally different they are surely from their friends on prime of the visible evaluation.
Then there are hitters who create flatter (however nonetheless constructive) assault angles with a path that stays on an analogous aircraft all through their swing. They get on aircraft with the ball early and don’t do a lot to vary their path all through the swing. It’s practically unattainable to do that with a steep swing. Juan Soto is a superb instance of this, even when he’s extra highly effective than the opposite hitters with this swing model. Right here is a superb angle that illustrates what I’m referencing:
Bat path monitoring — Juan Soto 112.0 mph line-drive single off Justin Verlander
Staying on prime of a dangling curveball on the prime of the zone pic.twitter.com/IRhdzHVMy8
— David Adler (@_dadler) May 8, 2024
Soto’s vertical entry angle (angle of the bat relative to the bottom in the beginning of the downswing) isn’t far off from his assault angle. You’ll be able to see how a lot this swing contrasts with that of Cruz, who’s a giant dude with a slender stance. Due to that, his bat path is vertically oriented, and his bat must journey a higher distance to get on aircraft with the ball. With extra detailed info of barrel angles at totally different factors within the swing, we’d know extra about how hitters like Soto and Cruz fluctuate from each other in terms of getting and staying on aircraft.
This has been a ton of data , so I’ll depart you with one final tidbit. Relying on the hitter, the angle of the trail at contact might be very totally different from the angle of the barrel at contact (relative to the bottom), referred to as vertical bat angle. Whereas I’ve cited common vertical bat angle from SwingGraphs on a number of events, I’ve at all times centered on placing the metric into context as a result of it varies primarily based on a number of elements. Luis Arraez and Aaron Judge can have comparable common vertical bat angles, however that doesn’t inform us something about how totally different their swings are. We all know the metric will depend on pitch peak, however even that alone isn’t sufficient to clarify why Decide is a launcher and Arraez is a sprayer. As we discovered earlier, every knowledge level is an enter and isn’t meant for use alone.
There isn’t a query groups have been utilizing, monitoring, and making use of these knowledge to scout and develop gamers for years now, however regardless of all of the metrics that we now have, the knowledge on the general public aspect remains to be lagging. Ideally, in future years, we’ll acquire entry to extra swing knowledge in order that we will higher perceive the sport we love.
