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Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

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Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#31

Post by repiret »

phamilton wrote: post #8
kodablah wrote: post #4

Regardless of analytics, baseball is a game of reactions. Pitchers who traditionally made pitches to induce popups will inevitably change to induce grounders (by pitch choice, location, and/or speed). The beauty of the sport is that the sample sizes can get large enough to make legitimate inferences from the data unlike many other sports. For those specifically curious about baseball and statistics, both http://www.f…

For those not too familiar with professional baseball, there are 162 games in a season. A player starting every game would likely see 600+ at bats. A starting pitcher pitches every 5-6 days and will face 600+ batters per season. League wide there are about 125k outs recorded per season on 700k pitches. That's a ton of data. It allows you to ask questions like "What is the likelihood that a curveball is thrown for a s…

That's 162 games per team - it's 2,430 games for all of MLB. Compare that with NFL's 16 games per team, or 256 games league wide.

(Edited to fix NFL games per team per season)

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#32

Post by John_Cena »

habosa wrote: post #22

As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense. It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A…

Baseball, like any other sport, has gone under many revisions to its rules throughout its history. The only statement you say has never changed that I can tell is the bases have been 90 feet apart since 1840. Pitchers have not always pitched from 60' 6" from the plate and home run distance, park size from plate, varies even today.

Interestingly the park sizes differ to try and keep the difficulty of a home run equal in lieu of differences in air pressure between locations. It is rumored the Red Sox added a bullpen to give their new recruit Ted Williams, who was a left handed batter, an advantage at home.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2011/09/13/q-why-are-majo... I hate to cite forbes but its hard to find source for something I've known by word of mouth.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet »

repiret wrote: post #31
phamilton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those not too familiar with professional baseball, there are 162 games in a season. A player starting every game would likely see 600+ at bats. A starting pitcher pitches every 5-6 days and will face 600+ batters per season. League wide there are about 125k outs recorded per season on 700k pitches. That's a ton of data. It allows you to ask questions like "What is the likelihood that a curveball is thrown for a s…

That's 162 games per team - it's 2,430 games for all of MLB. Compare that with NFL's 16 games per team, or 256 games league wide. (Edited to fix NFL games per team per season)

Er, that's 16 games per team for the NFL.

Your point is still valid, though.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#34

Post by mannykannot »

I wonder if it is just chance that the 2016 average launch angle appears as though it may have favorable outcomes over the broadest range of exit velocities, and just below the angle where the distribution begins to go bimodal? It would be interesting to see how the featured players' hitting is distributed over speed and elevation (and if I am really interested, I am sure I can find the data...)

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#35

Post by ghaff »

habosa wrote: post #22

As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense. It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A…

Around the beginning of Ken Burns' Baseball, Bob Costas made a similar point about distance. I suppose play could adapt to a certain degree but I have to believe that base paths that were 10%, much less 20%, longer or shorter would produce a radically different game.

As others have noted, there have been some adjustments. But I agree with your basic point.

(Not that I could ever get through that particular series. It was longer than the Civil War :-))

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#36

Post by apl002 »

John_Cena wrote: post #32
habosa wrote: post #22

As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense. It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A…

Baseball, like any other sport, has gone under many revisions to its rules throughout its history. The only statement you say has never changed that I can tell is the bases have been 90 feet apart since 1840. Pitchers have not always pitched from 60' 6" from the plate and home run distance, park size from plate, varies even today. Interestingly the park sizes differ to try and keep the difficulty of a home run equal…

I mean, it's been 60ft 6 inches since 1888. Thats a long time without a change. 1800's baseball was VERY different.

http://bosoxinjection.com/2013/05/02/origins-of-baseball-in-...

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#37

Post by barking »

radicalbyte wrote: post #30
barking wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there something about the infield fly rule? :) But the same goes for soccer which has altered very little since the rules were laid down in the 19th century.

The game changed completely after the (first) war when the offside rule was introduced. But that was almost 100 years ago. Since then the rule changes have essentially been tweaks.

The offside rule's been there since long before WW1. They did alter the number of defending players needed to put a player on-side down from 3 to 2 in the mid 1920's. I'd argue that was altering an existing rule rather than a fundamental rule change though.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#38

Post by barking »

Twirrim wrote: post #28
habosa wrote: post #22

As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense. It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A…

Rugby has remained Rugby, pretty much. There's been various changes over the years, juggling points for tries and penalties, introducing sin bins, and so on, but it isn't really anything fundamental. Where you do see changes has been in the physique of players, and to some extent it's cyclical. Teams adapt to circumstances, player sizes and types change, and then some outlier will come along and with a visionary coac…

The reason for advent of behemoths like Lomu was the allowing of wholesale substitutions. This meant that players no longer had to play the full 80 minutes and so endurance could be sacrificed for power. This in turn has likely contributed to the increase in serious injuries in the game, particularly concussions. Rugby has changed a hell of a lot since the advent of professionalism in 1995 and they probably need to row some of those changes back imo.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#40

Post by adventured »

pgodzin wrote: post #17
Lukeas14 wrote: post #7

>"The increase in frequency and efficiency of defensive shifts. According to FanGraphs, teams are shifting at a rate nearly 10 times greater than six years ago" This should be more prominent and is likely the root cause of guys swinging for homeruns more often. Every hitter will eventually fall into a pattern where they're hitting certain pitches to only a certain part of the field. With the increase in data it's muc…

I think speed will still be valuable as stolen bases continue to decrease across the league, as long as those hitters can still get on base at a .320+ clip. But speed is what makes players who can do it all, like Altuve, MVP candidates now.

I see no evidence that speed is meaningful re recent MVPs.

Harper, Trout, Stanton, Bryant, Donaldson, Cabrera, Posey, Josh Hamilton, Pujols, Votto, Pedroia, Ryan Howard, Morneau, Mauer - none of them are defined by speed. Trout has stolen a few bases, but he's not particularly fast.

The actual results indicate it's quite the opposite, MVP hitters have been on the slower side. Power very clearly matters more than speed. What nearly all the last 20 MVP hitters have in common is substantial power production, while being on the slow side.

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