It’s time to look at some numbers. Ray Flowers will look at both sides of the baseball, hitters and pitchers, and dig up some interesting data that fellas are tossing out there at the moment. On the hitting side, Ray breaks down barrel rates, exit velocity and 95-mph batted balls. There’s also a section talking about the approach of batters, specifically how some batters are performing in the BB/K column. On the hill, expected Batting Average and expected Slugging Percentage are discussed. There’s also a breakdown of left on base percentage. Who has been out of this world good to this point, and who is hoping that the regression monster shows up soon to turn around a slow start in the category to date?
HITTING – BATTERS
Here is batted ball data from MLB.com.
*MINIMUM 50 BATTED BALL EVENTS
Let’s just randomly blast threw some offensive data.
BARRELS
Jose Abreu leads baseball with 20 barrels, one more than Freddie Freeman and two more than Joey Gallo and Luke Voit.
Here are the leaders in barrel percentage: Gary Sanchez (30.9), Joey Gallo (30.0), Christian Walker (21.0), Anthony Rendon (20.3) and Jose Abreu (20.2).
Here are some guys who are really struggling to put any barrels on their batted balls.
Dee Gordon and Billy Hamilton don’t have one. Jose Peraza, Mallex Smith, Dexter Fowler, Ben Zobrist, Danny Jansen all have one barrel.
95-MPH
Tommy Pham leads baseball with 59 batted balls at 95 mph. That’s three more than Jose Abreu and Andrelton Simmons, and four more than J.D. Martinez and Cody Bellinger.
Pham is fourth in baseball in percentage of batted balls that have traveled 95-mph at 56.7 percent. Here are the men ahead of him on the list: Anthony Rendon (64.4), Joey Gallo (58.3) and Christian Walker (56.8).
AVERAGE EXIT VELOCITY
Joey Gallo leads baseball with a mark of 96.9 mph. Just behind him are the following: Carlos Santana (95.2), Nelson Cruz (95.0), Gary Sanchez (95.0) and Christian Walker (94.7).
At the other end of the spectrum, Victor Robles is third from the bottom with a mark of just 79.8 mph. Really, amongst all players under 85.0 mph, there are 23 qualifiers, his total is the most disturbing (names like Billy Hamilton, Dee Gordon and Jose Peraza are also on the list).
BB/K RATIOS
David Fletcher has an amazing 2.25 mark.
It might be more amazing that Mike Trout is at 1.94 given the massive power that emanates from his body.
Some others of note: Nick Markakis (1.29), Jason Heyward (1.19), Alex Bregman (1.10), Brett Gardner (1.07), Tommy Pham (1.00), Kolten Wong (1.00) and Maikel Franco (1.00).
The following men have a terrible situation brewing. Guys can, and do, have success with terrible marks here. Just know that any number appreciably off the league average of about 0.39 is less than ideal, and that these guys are always going to be open to slumps.
Brandon Drury (0.11), Victor Robles (0.12), Jose Peraza (0.13), Freddy Galvis (0.14), Kevin Pillar (0.15), Tim Anderson (0.16), Starling Marte (0.17), Jorge Soler (0.18), Jonathan Schoop (0.18), Renato Nunez (0.18) and Ramon Laureano (0.18).
PITCHING – TOSSERS
EXPECTED BATTING AVERAGE
Jose Leclerc has allowed a .298 batting average, though his expected batting average is just .187. That difference of .111 points is the largest in baseball. Here are some others that, according to expected batting average, have been very unfortunate: Ian Kennedy (.089), Archie Bradley (.076), Taylor Rogers (.076), Freddy Peralta (.059).
Here are men who are performing well on the surface, but their expected AVG suggests that they have been very fortunate: Alex Colome (-.111), Jon Lester (-.090), Junior Guerra (-.080), Domingo German (-.066), Shane Bieber (-.058).
EXPECTED SLUGGING
Wei-Yin Chen has the largest difference between his actual SLG (.760) and the expected SLG (.498). Again, that difference is the largest in baseball at .262. Some others who have performed better than their actual SLG suggests: Jose Leclerc (.205), Josh James (.159), Corbin Burnes (.128), Lou Trivino (.105), Noah Syndergaard (.097), Carlos Carrasco (.091) and Masahiro Tanaka (.081).
Here are men who are performing well on the surface, but their expected SLG suggests that they have been very fortunate: Alex Colome (-.159), Aaron Sanchez (-.116), Shane Bieber (-.106), Jon Lester (-.099), Ryan Brasier (-.065), Chris Paddack (-.049) and Jake Odorizzi (-.033).
LEFT ON BASE PERCENTAGE
No one ever posts a 90 percent mark, and we rarely have more than a handful of players over 80 percent in the left on base category. Keep that in mind as you read the following numbers. Let me just say it. EVERY player listed above 85 percent is nearly certain to see their rate fall as the innings pile up, and likely by a significant amount. Let me be clearer. Every fella on this list is virtually certain to see their ERA go up.
Justin Verlander (93.9), Tyler Glasnow (91.5) and Caleb Smith (90.2).
Zach Davies (87.6), Max Fried (86.8), Jose Berrios (86.0), Jordan Lyles (85.8), Luis Castillo (85.8) and Mike Minor (85.4).
These pitchers have LOB marks that are extremely low. As this article points out, “Not all pitchers will regress toward league-average, though: high strikeout pitchers have been shown to have some control over their LOB%. Pitchers that record a high numbers of strikeouts can pitch their way out of jams more easily than pitchers that rely upon their team’s defense, so they are able to maintain LOB%s higher than league average. Also, if a pitcher isn’t a major-league caliber starter — or if they’re a borderline case — it’s likely that their true-talent LOB% is below league average.”
Still, most hurlers are usually plus or minus a couple of percentage points from the league average of about 72 percent. These men are likely to see their LOB number go up, substantially.
Madison Bumgarner (60.5), Noah Syndergaard (61.2), Gerrit Cole (61.3), Joe Musgrove (61.6), Kyle Hendricks (62.5), Yusei Kikuchi (62.5), Collin McHugh (63.3), Eduardo Rodriguez (63.5) and Max Scherzer (66.2).
