Over the past few days something very odd has happened in baseball. Somehow, some way, Zack Cozart has become the active fWAR leader. Okay, this may not be as big a surprise this afternoon as it may have been when you first heard about this, but it is still pretty crazy, right? Or maybe you saw him sneaking up the leaderboards over the past few days or weeks. Either way, it has happened. He’s now number one amongst the active players, and perhaps he’ll soon overtake Trout for first amongst all players.
In terms of fantasy, WAR doesn’t carry much weight, of course. Especially for a guy like Cozart who generates a solid chunk of his value through defensive excellence. Even still, Cozart is posting numbers at a rate that far exceeds his career numbers. He currently stands with a .351 batting average and a 1.059 OPS, up from his career .254 average and .704 OPS.
Zack Cozart has below average exit velocity, only 84 mph. We’re not talking a touch below average, either, he’s more than a full standard deviation below with a z-score of -1.37. All this made me curious about where exactly he sat on the exit velocity spectrum, whether there are other similar outliers, and if there is anything we can learn from them. Read the rest of this entry »
