Exit velocity vs distance

[Peter_Spaeth]

If these metrics sustain the interest of a newer generation of fans, I am all in favor.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If these metrics sustain the interest of a newer generation of fans, I am all in favor.

Is there any evidence that they do?

[BobC]

Seems to be going hand-in-hand with all the statistical metrics that teams, baseball, and everyone else now all seem to follow. With the weight of a major league baseball and gravity being somewhat fixed, coupled with the variances in launch angles, you could run some tests and probably create a pretty darn reliable chart that at a certain fixed launch angle, a ball will travel "X" number of feet at an exit velocity of "Y", and then proceed to show how many more feet the ball will travel for each MPH that exit velocity increases (or how many feet less for each MPH that exit velocity drops). And because MLB teams know that it will require a certain exit velocity to typically hit a home run in a ML park, they can now have scouts and people in their farm systems specifically measuring the exit velocity of prospects and minor leaguers when they bat, looking for those prospects/players that can consistently generate enough exit velocity to be able to hit homers at the ML level. That way they can more accurately target those prospects to go after and acquire, or better determine which minor leaguers to keep pushing farther up in their farm system, or on to the big league level.

[ClementeFanOh]

Anyone care to rewrite "Casey at the Bat" with an exit velocity stanza?
I'm sure that's exactly what Thayer would want. Ugh... Trent King

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Is there any evidence that they do?

Well, you see a lot of discussion about it on places like Blowout, which I think is mostly younger guys.