It’s been less than a month of Major League action, so we need to be cautious in believing that there’s a breakout coming because a guy has had a few strong weeks, or that a player is doomed to mediocrity based on a sluggish start to the campaign. One way we can attempt to work around the white noise a bit is to look at the batted ball data that we now have at our disposal thanks to MLB. However, I would caution that just cause a guy has great exit velocity, an example I see all the time to support why Player A or B is gonna break out, doesn’t mean said player is going to be a star. Hitting the ball hard is great, and obviously needed, but sometimes we all have to take a breath, realize that Christian Yelich isn’t hitting 85 homers nor will Joc Pederson hit 65, nor will Christian Walker go .245-45-100 this year merely because they hit the ball hard and are off to starts that pro-rate to those levels. We’ll try to ferry out some useful data in what follows.
HITTING THE BALL HARD
Let’s look at the average exit velocity for a few guys and see what it might mean (minimum 40 batted ball events – of which there were 227 qualifiers).
No one is hitting the ball harder than Joey Gallo at 98.8 mph. His career mark is 93.7 mph. His hard-hit ball rate is stratospheric at 65 percent (51 percent the last two years). His 16 percent walk rate is nearly three percent above his career mark and his 33.8 percent K-rate would be a five-year low. If the walks stick, and if he cuts just a wee bit off the strikeout rate, well, then his performance last season would be the floor with plenty of room to grow in ‘19.
Christian Walker is third in baseball at 95.9 mph. He’s hitting everything hard it seems with an elite, off the charts, he’s reinventing baseball, 61.2 percent mark (if it wasn’t for Gallo…). He’s had trouble making contact in his young career with a K-rate well above 30 percent, and the mark is even 36.4 percent this season on fastballs which is terrible. No player in baseball who qualified for the batting title hit .240 if they had a 30 percent K-rate last season. The strikeouts will need to go way down or the batting average could go into a free fall, but this has been an impressive start.
Yoan Moncada is fifth in baseball at 95.2 mph which is about 4.5 mph above his career mark. His launch angle is down one percent, but hitting the ball on a line and into the ground is working for him as that 47.6 percent hard hit rate is five percentage points up.
Josh Bell is 12th in baseball at 94.2 mph. That’s five mph above his career number, so I need to see a bit more before I buy this hot start as it could be sample size driven. Ditto with the 51.7 hard-hit rate that is light years above his career 37.4 percent mark.
Josh Donaldson is 13th in baseball at 94.1 mph. He started slowly, but his game has taken off. The OPS is up to .900, his 54.0 percent hard-hit ball rate is elite, and ditto the 94.1 mph exit velocity. All he needs is to get the launch angle up (12.3 the last four years but just 7.6 percent this year).
Miguel Cabrera is 19th in baseball at 93.4 mph. He’s been under expectations. Totally agree. He’s also top-20 in exit velocity and the mark is almost a direct match for his mark from 2015-18 (93.1). Miggy also has a large 50.9 percent hard-hit ball rate that is one tenth above the mark from 2015-18. Gotta keep an eye on the contact rate, but when he’s hitting the ball, he’s hitting it hard (albeit into the ground with a mere 8.4 percent launch angle that doesn’t bode well for the homer total).
Byron Buxton is 20th in baseball at 93.2 mph. He hasn’t homered. Who cares? He’s got a solid .281/.333/.500 slash line, and he’s hitting the ball awfully hard leading to 12 doubles and a homer leading to that .500 SLG. We should be exited that his 13 percent launch angle is up to 23.5 percent this season, this his exit velocity is up eight mph, and that his hard-hit rate is absurdly high, albeit at an unsustainable 52.1 percent. This is a very encouraging start.
NOT HITTING THE BALL HARD
Billy Hamilton is last in baseball with a 78.2 average exit velocity (minimum 40 batted ball events). He isn’t expected to hit the ball hard and his velocity mark is just one mph below his career rate.
Victor Robles is 6th worst at 81.1 mph. This one is a bit concerning. There has been a lot of talk about his diminished velocity off the bat going back to his minor league days. I’m still a big believer in his overall game, but the early returns (career 81.9 mph) are hardly encouraging.
Jose Peraza is 8th worst at 81.8 mph. He isn’t paid to hit the ball hard. Still, he’s down two mph from last season and his expected batting average is .087 points lower than it was last season. He’s been bad to this point, but his overall game suggest he need more patience than bailing after 65 at-bats.
Adam Jones is 16th worst at 84.0 mph. He’s hitting .304 with a .543 SLG at the moment. He’s never hit .290 and his last season of a .500 SLG was in 2012, and it was his only season at that level. Jones is also 3.6 mph below his career rate, and his 19.5 percent line drive rate is miles away from his mark of 24.4 percent since 2015. His hot start is a mirage.
Kolten Wong is 22nd worst at 84.7 mph. He’s been one of the breakout stars of the early season. Is it who he is? History says, no. As for Statcast, it too is unconvinced. In fact, his current mph mark is only three tenths ahead of last season and it’s a direct match for his mark in 2016-17 when he was a nobody in the fantasy game. Note that his expected batting average this season is .252 which is actually five points below his career rate.
Charlie Blackmon is 26th worst at 85.0 mph. That’s only 1.5 below his career mark, so it’s not that crazy at all. His hard-hit ball rate is 34.6 percent which is actually above his career mark of 33.3, even if the mark has been between 34.6 and 35.8 mph the last three weeks.
Jurickson Profar is 29th at 85.2 mph. He’s been disappointing to date with a .167-2-10-8-3 line. OK, when a guy has a .497 OPS it’s not disappointing, it’s shockingly bad. What about the batted ball data? As noted on the surface his average exit velocity is poor, but how does it stack up to the norm for Profar? Last season he had an 87.3 mph exit mark, and his hard-hit ball rate was 31.8 percent (currently 27.1). He’s just not put the barrel on the ball well at all in the year going while his walk rate this season is half of what is was last year as well.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
