Exit velocity vs distance
 

We all agree that if the ball goes over the fence without bouncing it is a home run. The inside the park home run never goes over the fence. Now the question.

Regarding computer generated home run distance and measured exit velocity, does anyone really give a rat’s ass about either one or both? And if you do, I suspect that you are a fan of launch angles as well.

Do you really think that the distance for a home run that lands in San Francisco Bay is accurate?

If Boomer Wombat has a launch angle of 60 degrees and the ball goes over the fence in a hurricane, should he get a ticket to Cooperstown based on his launch angle?

And if Line Drive Larry has an exit velocity of 150mph and the ball breaks three fingers in the gloved hand of the reputed best fielding secondbaseman in the league, should an X-ray of the fingers and the glove become an exhibit enshrined in Cooperstown?

I’m not trying to influence your response to the first question with my examples.:D

exit velocity
 

Frankb- I think we are on the same team here. "He crushed it" is sufficient!

Trent King

I don’t think I understand what the objection really is.

Do people object to any new stat or data point because it is new?

Do they think velocities and angles are just irrelevant to outcomes and future probabilities and these particular figures are junk false data?

Do they think it may be mathematically valid but find these particular stats obnoxious to hear in a broadcast?

Is it something else?

For me, the issue is the overreliance on new data points during broadcasts. Was watching a Fox broadcast of the Mets vs. Padres (the Musgrove ear-check game) a week ago, and found it pretty unbearable. Every other word was about how many feet someone had covered to catch a ball, how many feet on average Brandon Nimmo has stood from home plate in the outfield, etc.

I usually like David Cone as a broadcaster, but it was tough to listen to his comments on spinrates. He was throwing out spinrate numbers without giving any context. If he had just said "Musgrove's spinrate is 20% higher today) that would have been fine. But saying his spinrate is 300 means nothing by itself.

However, in defense of the spinrate comments--it did prove influential, as that is probably why Buck Showalter had the umps check Joe Musgrove's ears. He couldn't believe the increased spinrate was natural.

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

I tend to agree with this. I think these metrics do actually matter and make a big difference in what we see on the field. But it’s also a little boring and doesn’t mesh with the pastoral mystique.

What I've always found interesting is that people often tout these exit velocities by some hitters, but they never seem to discuss them in conjunction with, nor really take it into consideration with, the type of pitch they hit and its velocity, as a significant contributing factor. One would think Newton's 3rd Law of Motion would be an integral part and factor into the determination of exit velocities, no?

Perhaps that will become a new metric called the redirection velocity: How much faster exit velocity is than the entrance velocity (pitch).

Hitting a 75 mph curveball 100 MPH may be more impressive than hitting a 100 MPH fastball 110 MPH.

Based on Newton's 3rd Law, that's apparently not even a question, but more of an absolute truth. Helps explain how smaller guys, like a Jose Ramirez, can hit out a fair amount of homers. But put someone Ramirez's size in a slo-pitch softball game, and home runs don't come so easy or often, if at all. Virtually all the force/energy has to be generated by the batter in softball. Not the case in baseball. LOL

Exit velocity just seems like a dumb stat because it’s only discussed when someone hits a home run. I’m sure there are balls hit into the ground at over a hundred miles an hour all the time. It just seems try hard to me and like the art of conversation is being lost. Analysts don’t know how to talk about power any other way anymore.

One thing I like about David Cone is his ability to use both metrics and his personality to talk about baseball. Too often it’s someone reading a string of numbers in place of any insight.

Is there any evidence that they do?

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.

exit velocity
 

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

I don’t know when they actually started talking about and highlighting the exit velocity or launch angle but every time I see it I say to myself “Why does this even matter? It’s a home run regardless.”


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

I've never understood the physics. It seems to me it would take more force to make an object coming at you change direction than to hit it from a stationary place where it has no momentum that has to be overcome. I know that's wrong but not sure why.

Can't explain it either, but it is part of physics.

If you think about it, if you threw a ball against a stationary bat the ball would bounce back at you, which is inconsistent with the way I am conceptualizing it.

Next they’ll be talking about swing velocity on strike outs and mocking up theoretical trajectories for IF the batter had hit the ball at different angles. All of which the commentators find more interesting than the actual game.

Interesting Newtonian fact . . . the exit velocity of the apple from the tree was zero, and yet it travelled all the way to the ground! :D

That's gravity! LOL

Soto just missed a home run by one degree of launch angle!!

For the exact same reason they do things like clock a pitcher to see how fast he throws...........to be better able to find, sign, and develop the talent that will hopefully lead to them becoming a great MLB player.

Scouts hear about two supposedly great high school pitching prospects and run out to see them. They clock them both and find one of them has a fastball that tops out at 82 MPH, while the other's tops out at 90 MPH. Guess which prospect they are more likely to continue looking at and pursue. Now switch out "pitching prospects" and substitute in "hitting prospects", for whom they'll clock the exit velocities on balls they hit.

And then combine that with the naturally competitive and inquisitive nature of most people who not only want their team to be the best, but they also want their pitcher to be the one to throw the fastest, or their clean-up slugger to be the one to hit the hardest. These are simply more measures that people have developed to be able to compare one player against another, and allow them to supposedly determine who is better then.

Think of it like this. When collecting pioneers like Burdick and Carter were in their heyday, they were more concerned with identifying and acquiring examples of every card, and completing every set, they could. Nowadays that isn't always enough for many people. They need to have their cards/sets measured (grading) and compared (Registry) so they can say my card/set is better than yours, and be able to brag about it. Not necessarily the case, or need, for everyone, but certainly for enough people where it becomes "a thing".

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Don't go giving them any more ideas. :D

If the right foot velocity is greater than the left foot velocity, it is easy to run the bases with three left turns.

I like it better than the articles I've seen more of recently.

player x does something never seen in baseball!

And what they reveal is something like player x hit 3-2 pitches foul on four consecutive at bats on a Thursday after 6PM.

My thread title may be misinterpreted. I’m not trying to relate exit velocity to the distance of a home run. If I was omitting the launch angle, bat speed and pitch type would be factors.

The calculated (not measured) distance of a home run is generally irrelevant to me. If the ball literally goes out of park (San Francisco Bay for example), the number is likely inaccurate. If the ball lands in the first row above a 382 ft sign on the wall, the accuracy is enhanced. Does the average fan give a hoot if a home run is 385 ft or 402 ft. I think not.

These so-called advanced stats are also tracked, so that if Ohtani hits a home run that exceeds his previous highest exit velocity of the season, the commentators are sure to let us know, almost immediately.

I’ve always been a number’s guy. The stats are what attracted me to the game as a kid. However the BABIP, RISP, FIP, etc are not my cup of tea. I guess I’m just too old to appreciate games with 20+ strikeouts and an occasional home run with batting averages below .250. Somebody agrees with me because making the shift illegal next year should increase the BABIP.

The calculated *can* be more accurate, but it depends on the method. I have seen balls hit 20 ft up the batters eye, still not on the downward arc, be called 420ft. My common sense theory in that case is, being that the fence itself is 408, that the ball would definitely have travelled more than 12 freaking feet before landing.

Another thing: I think stolen bases and pickoffs are going to skyrocket with the new throw-over rules.

I'm with you Frank, I really don't care much about exit velocity or launch angles either. If the ball goes out, it goes out. Now there is additional fascination when you see someone hit a simply towering blast, or sending one literally out of the park. In such cases I don't need to know, or much care, what the exit velocity was. You can see for yourself they got all of that pitch, and appreciate it just for that visual.

Like I said earlier, I feel exit velocities and launch angles are statistics and metrics they've now come up with to better measure and assess baseball hitter's abilities and potential for success. And with the widespread acceptance and use of these and all the other advanced metrics they now use and follow in today's game, you know it was only going to be a matter of time before such talk and numbers finally found their way into broadcast booths.

I'm most interested in statistics such as "Bat Flip Velocity" and "Scowl Factor" (the intensity of the look the pitcher gives the bat flipper as he slowly peacocks his way around the bases)

See also: "Chatter Index" - the number of "Imma gonna get youse", the field mic's pick up from the dugout opposite the previously mentioned bat flipper.

Would also like to see a BFSM "Bullpen Fight Swarm Meter" instituted in regular broadcasts. That way we can see which teams bullpen is most eager to engage in slap throwing (not connecting), scowling at each other, pretending to break up/start fights, and just plain milling about...whenever a melee breaks out on the field between two teams, based on how quickly their bullpen empties out and makes it's way towards the action.





Each relief pitcher, bullpen catcher and pitching coach can then be assigned a PMR "Planetary Mob Rating", based on how central to the main action each character is in relation to the rest of the crowd.


For example, if Al Hrabosky is towards the center of the action, pretending to pull George Brett off of Reggie Jackson, we can assign him a "Mercury Rating" - He's not going to pull a ligament in his throwing arm, but damn, he's flying close to the sun.


If Jeff Reardon is milling about by the dugout, icing his elbow, having a chat with the batboy and smoking a ciggy while chaos reigns on the rest of the field...well then he's assigned a "Pluto Rating" - Is he a planet? Is he another celestial body? Nobody seems to know for sure. His team-mates are confidant he can get 3 outs in the 9th if they need him to, but he's not driving anybody to the airport, and he for damn sure isn't going to help you move your new armoire, up to your 5th floor walk-up, or get into an unnecessary fight because someone broke some unspoken rule that nobody's spoken about in several decades or so.


Most bullpen guys will fall somewhere between The Asteroid Belt and Saturn.





:D:D