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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

#41

Post by adventured »

bryanbuckley wrote: post #12
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…

Does it suggest that leadoff guys will be cheaper in the future? The next moneyball trend will be fast guys who can accurately place hits?

Fast guys that can place hits have always been extremely rare (and will always be), even when they were considered a lot more valuable. There may be ten guys in the last 50 years that could do that at a high level, consistently, for a career.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#42

Post by pgodzin »

adventured wrote: post #40
pgodzin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spee…

Sorry, didn't mean it was necessarily reflected in MVP voting from the old guard of writers, more in modern sabermetrics. Trout for example, a perennial 30/30+ candidate, his speed, baserunning and defensive play are a big part of what makes him such a generational player.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#43

Post by jimbokun »

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…

Soccer's changes have revolved mostly around the offside rule and introduction of yellow and red cards, I think.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#44

Post by pgodzin »

bryanbuckley wrote: post #12
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…

Does it suggest that leadoff guys will be cheaper in the future? The next moneyball trend will be fast guys who can accurately place hits?

There's been a trend recently to put high OBP bats at leadoff regardless of their speed (see Kyle Schwarber)

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#45

Post by rpeden »

saghm wrote: post #26
Lukeas14 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly. My guess is that only the exceptionally good leadoff guys will make it to a team, making them more expensive. Other teams might rather have a slugger hitting first than an average fast guy. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

> Other teams might rather have a slugger hitting first than an average fast guy. I remember seeing a Red Sox-Blue Jays game at Fenway Park last year where the Blue Jays had Jose Bautista hitting first, which definitely fits this description.

If I remember correctly, that was actually Bautista's idea when the team was in a slump. The manager decided to give it a try, and the team started winning so Bautista saw quite a few games batting leadoff.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#47

Post by jimbokun »

barking wrote: post #37
radicalbyte wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then the other massive change was "no one can be offside when the ball is played" to "no one in an offside position can attempt to play the ball". Totally changed the way the offside trap was practiced, I believe.

EDIT: This is what I was thinking of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offside_(association_football)...

Doesn't say when the change in interpretation was made.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#48

Post by ubernostrum »

bluGill wrote: post #16
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…

> It allows you to ask questions like "What is the likelihood that a curveball is thrown for a strike on a 3-0 count in the 8th inning?" and get statistically significant results. Does it though? medicine is learning that when you do data mining the bar for statistical significance needs to be much higher. When you do the traditional hypothesis/experiment loop and a result hits 95% likely that is good enough. However…

It's not just this season, though. For many types of baseball statistics, full records are available going back decades, and for some statistics there's literally a century's worth of information. Which allows us to ask questions about trends over time and be pretty confident that the answers are the answers, and not just misinterpreted noise.

People tend to underestimate just how much information there is on baseball, and how well-kept it has been.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#49

Post by ubernostrum »

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.

The other way to beat the shift -- which few teams/players have adopted -- is to bunt more. Which doesn't require speed, but is more effective with speed.

I've noticed it's a thing the Cubs seem to be doing a bit of; Anthony Rizzo (who maybe isn't a great example given he's not a speedy base-stealer) gets shifted on a lot, and has laid down a few bunt hits this year as a way to beat it.

Re: Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles

#50

Post by pgodzin »

ubernostrum wrote: post #49
pgodzin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The other way to beat the shift -- which few teams/players have adopted -- is to bunt more. Which doesn't require speed, but is more effective with speed. I've noticed it's a thing the Cubs seem to be doing a bit of; Anthony Rizzo (who maybe isn't a great example given he's not a speedy base-stealer) gets shifted on a lot, and has laid down a few bunt hits this year as a way to beat it.

You really need to pick your spots as a hitter there. For power hitters like Rizzo, opposing teams would LOVE if he bunted against the shift instead of swung for the fences. If he does it even more often, you put your 3B on the grass. Getting in their heads and making sluggers change their approach at the plate is already a win for opposing managers.
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