I proceed to search out Statcast’s bat monitoring knowledge fascinating. I additionally proceed to search out it overwhelming. Hitting is so advanced that I can’t fairly think about boiling it right down to only a few numbers. Even after I have a look at among the extra advanced displays of bat monitoring, like squared-up charge, I typically can’t fairly perceive what it means.
I’ll provide you with an instance: after I regarded into Manny Machado’s early-season struggles final week, I discovered that he was squaring the ball up extra incessantly when he hit grounders than when he put the ball within the air. That sounds unhealthy to me – onerous grounders don’t actually pay the payments. However I didn’t have a lot to check it to, other than league averages for these charges. And I didn’t have context for what shapes of squared-up charge work for varied completely different profitable batters.
What’s an analyst to do? Should you’re like me in 2024, there’s one most popular possibility: ask my pleasant neighborhood giant language mannequin to assist me create a visible. I had an thought of what I needed to do. Basically, I needed to create a chart that confirmed how a given hitter’s squared-up charge various by launch angle. There’s a distinction between squaring the ball up like Luis Arraez – line drives into the hole all day – and doing it like Machado. I hoped {that a} visible illustration would make that a bit of clearer.
First issues first: I downloaded each ball in play from this yr the place Statcast recorded a bat pace, pitch pace, launch angle, and exit velocity. Then I manually calculated whether or not every batted ball was squared up. As a refresher, a batted ball is squared up if the ball travels at 80% of its most theoretical velocity, as measured by a proxy system: 1.23 * bat pace + 0.23 * pitch pace at residence plate, which is roughly 92% of pitch pace at launch. Should you’re inquisitive about following together with me at residence, you will discover that knowledge right here. If not, bear with me, as a result of I’d like to indicate you some footage I made.
From there, Gemini (my LLM of alternative, although I’m positive others would find yourself in roughly the identical place) and I set to work. We calculated the squared-up charge of every hitter at every angle. I needed to make a couple of choices right here about methods to mixture knowledge. I made a decision to bulk up each angle by in search of balls hit inside 10 levels of it both method, then threw out each bucket that didn’t have a minimum of 20 knowledge factors after doing that bulking up. There’s some overlapping knowledge this fashion, however pattern sizes are sufficiently small, and I feel that hitter intent is broad sufficient, that in the event you’re questioning how incessantly somebody squares up a batted ball at 15 levels, 5 levels and 25 levels are each helpful inputs.
These are the elements that I got here up with, however I wasn’t fairly positive methods to flip that idea right into a program that would make graphs out of my thought. However that’s nothing I couldn’t resolve after a couple of hours of developing with concepts, translating them into Python code utilizing generative AI, discovering issues with the code, developing with new concepts to resolve these issues, translating these new concepts into new code, discovering new issues… you get the thought.
Basically, I needed a graph of how good Machado is at squaring up the ball relying on whether or not he’s hitting it down, flat, or up. Nice information. I bought precisely that graph:
He’s squaring up a ton of his contact on the bottom, similar to we knew. He’s getting probably the most out of his bat pace far much less incessantly on the juicy launch angles within the 20 diploma vary. That doesn’t sound very like Arraez, the bat management god, in any respect. However what does Arraez’s graph appear to be? It seems to be like what you’d anticipate:
As a facet observe, the scale of the circles is proportional to the proportion of contact in that bucket. Arraez’s greatest circles are line drives of varied sorts. He hardly has any excessive grounders or excessive popups. That’s what superb bat management seems to be like.
How does that evaluate to Machado? After a spherical or two of dancing with Gemini, the device I constructed will help with that too:
You might just about guess this even earlier than this graph, nevertheless it’s nonetheless good to see it in footage. Machado is squaring up grounders on the similar charge, however his swing simply isn’t getting it finished within the air proper now. We will throw in a 3rd hitter to indicate what it seems to be like if you’re the alternative of Machado. Right here’s Bryce Harper, whose uppercut swing is etched into pitchers’ nightmares in every single place:
Harper is the brand new collection, in Philly purple. When he hits the ball on the bottom, he’s hardly ever squaring it up. In different phrases, these are largely mishits; when he’s squaring the ball up, it’s usually within the air. He constantly beats Machado at squared-up charge within the air, and he hits extra fly balls as effectively. He may not sq. the ball up as incessantly as Arraez, however he swings a lot more durable and connects usually sufficient. Maybe unsurprisingly, he’s mashing to this point this yr.
For one more enjoyable comparability, let’s have a look at Aaron Decide and Juan Soto:
They’re each making pristine contact throughout the board. They’re at or above an 80% squared-up charge for just about every part within the air, and so they’re each swinging onerous too. That’s a lethal mixture. Decide is even avoiding grounders; he doesn’t actually have a left tail to talk of. His greatest cluster of launch angles is probably the most harmful one in baseball if you’re hitting the ball onerous. In different phrases, he’s swinging onerous, squaring the ball up incessantly, and doing it on residence run trajectories. No marvel he’s slugging .703.
These two elite hitters are getting it finished in nearly the identical method. Nevertheless it’s not the identical for everybody. The Dodgers’ three stars present some variation:
Mookie Betts has become an excessive fly ball hitter. Right here’s the graphical proof of why that’s working: He’s contacting the ball most squarely at round 30 levels of raise, and he’s hitting the ball within the air extremely incessantly. To the extent that he has mishits, he’s getting too far beneath the ball and popping it up, which is sensible given his total strategy. Shohei Ohtani, too, is squaring the ball up most incessantly within the air. He isn’t hitting a ton of grounders, although greater than Betts. He’s additionally completely rifling low line drives — have a look at all these excessive blue circles within the 10-20 diploma band.
Then there’s Freddie Freeman. He hits every part sq. at about the identical charge. His most frequent launch angles are mainly every part from 10-40 levels. There’s nearly no variation in his line; each Betts and Ohtani have larger highs and decrease lows. Freeman’s swing appears to be a chameleon; it simply modifications to suit the contact sort. In plenty of methods, he’s a burlier however much less exact Luis Arraez:
They each simply rake, plain and easy. Arraez hits it flush extra incessantly, in fact, however Freeman swings 7 mph quicker. Arraez focuses extra on the 5-15 diploma band; Freeman faucets into his energy by hitting extra balls within the 25-35 diploma vary. However they’re each completely peppering every part, whether or not within the air or on the bottom, and so they each hit a ton of line drives. These guys are unbelievable.
We will do extra. Wish to see some younger American League shortstop dynamos? Check out Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson:
Witt has a promising contact form, however not an ideal one. It’s like Freeman’s, solely shifted down a bit and with extra grounders. There are some purple flags, like his comparatively low squared-up charge when he’s placing the ball within the air. To be trustworthy with you, although, I’m unsure how vital squared-up charge is in these small and cut-up samples. I’m extra inquisitive about form for now, and I’ll have time to do extra testing of how a lot the degrees matter later. The important thing half, for me, is that Witt’s most frequent outcomes are fly balls and line drives, however his most frequent square-ups happen on grounders. Make that correction, and much more upside might be accessible.
Henderson, alternatively, looks like he was designed in a lab. He squares the ball up most incessantly on the launch angles the place onerous contact is most advantageous. He doesn’t have sufficient popups to get any dots up there. His grounders are all mishits. Certain, possibly he may focus much more batted balls round his greatest swings, however he’s doing precisely what I would like each hitter to do: hitting the ball flush when he elevates, and doing so with plus bat pace.
Right here’s a thriller that this knowledge can resolve: Why does Henderson have 20 homers to Witt’s 11? Witt hits the ball more durable, hits fewer grounders, and even has a better barrel charge. However Henderson’s swing is designed to sq. the ball up within the air extra incessantly, so he’s lined up high-value launch angles and high-value exit velocities higher than his Kansas Metropolis counterpart.
I feel this knowledge will get way more fascinating when we have now entry to a number of years of historical past. I’d like to know if Kyle Tucker’s swing form has modified together with his decrease groundball charge and otherworldly manufacturing. I’d be inquisitive about seeing how hitters who change their batted ball tendencies change their squared-up tendencies. I wish to see whether or not Nick Castellanos has all the time squared up the ball precisely like Bryce Harper, or whether or not he used to have a special form and the brand new one is correlated together with his downfall:
I haven’t fairly discovered what to do with all of this in the long term. I feel it’s extra of a storytelling device than one thing that may inform you who will likely be nice and who will wrestle. That mentioned, I like the tales! Arraez is sweet within the methods you’d anticipate. Betts maxes out on energy together with his swing. Harper’s uppercut is cool to see in knowledge. And the way about that uppercut towards Yandy Díaz’s ground-friendly methods:
Yandy is smashing these grounders. You and I already knew that, nevertheless it’s cool for this knowledge to confirm the attention check. That’s mainly what that is to me; a method of changing some dry knowledge factors right into a story.
The device I constructed isn’t reside on the pages of FanGraphs for a lot of causes. It’s hilariously rudimentary. It’s buggy. It’s programmed by me, a coding imbecile, reasonably than by our workforce of wonderful builders. It may not even be helpful in the long term.
So no, you possibly can’t simply click on on a single hyperlink and mess around with this to your coronary heart’s content material. However I’ve two issues to supply that can hopefully make it as much as you. First, that is an open supply undertaking. You’ll find the Python script that generates these graphs right here, together with the underlying knowledge. I’m actually not assured that that is probably the most environment friendly strategy to do issues – I used to be constructing from scratch with out plenty of expertise on this space. If in case you have some enhancements or whatnot, let me know!
Second, I occur to have the code and the power to put up footage to the web. So in the event you’re inquisitive about a specific comparability, ask me under within the feedback. I’ll get to as many as I can for the subsequent day or so, as a result of I perceive that “hey, simply discover ways to use this laptop programming language actual quick” isn’t precisely a strategy to assure broad entry.
So, yeah. That’s the top! No actual conclusion as we speak, other than a) I feel this device is cool and b) listed here are some footage of it. I hope you prefer it, and I hope there will likely be extra bells and whistles earlier than lengthy.