I love batted ball distribution changes (hitting more fly balls or ground balls), because they are usually under the hood and require a review of the hitter’s statistical profile to uncover. Typically, when we see a home run breakout, it’s usually because of the obvious — the hitter has raised his HR/FB rate. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes he’s hitting home runs on his flies at the same rate, but simply hitting more fly balls. That’ll get you to the same destination, but following a different route. So in early/mid August, I identified and discussed the hitters that had increased their fly ball rates the most versus 2019. At that point, the sample size was still small, of course, so I was curious how these hitters performed the rest of the way. Did they maintain their FB% spikes or did those marks fall back to their 2019 levels over the rest of the season? Let’s find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I reviewed the list of early fly ball + line drive exit velocity (we’ll just call it EV here) surgers compared with 2019 and looked at their performance over the rest of the season to determine how sustainable the gains were. Today, I’ll review the decliners to see if they rebounded toward their 2019 marks. Was their early season EV declines just a small sample slow start or a sign of a seriously disappointing season?

Read the rest of this entry »

After only about a week and a half of the season, I decided to peruse the average fly ball + line drive exit velocity (let’s just call it EV in this article) leaderboard and compare the then-current marks to 2019. Even though the sample was tiny, perhaps we could get an early read on some breakout hitters by identifying the early surgers. So let’s review the original list of surgers and find out how these hitters performed the rest of the way. Did their EV remain at those elevated marks, rise even higher, or regress right back down to or toward their 2019 marks?

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I continue reviewing my early season velocity change articles to see how the starting pitchers with the biggest gains and losses versus 2019 ended up performing the rest of the year. I’ll move on to the velocity decliners I posted on July 30, which were velocities as of July 28. Did these pitchers regain their lost velocities over the rest of the season or not?

Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, I reviewed my first starting pitcher velocity surger post. However, since it was so early in the season, not every starter had actually pitched yet. So I posted another one two days later, which I’ll review now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I reviewed how the starting pitchers that increased their fastball velocities the most after their first start fared over the rest of the season. Today, let’s check in on the velocity decliners. Since the article was typed on July 27, that means it includes velocities through July 26. Did these pitchers rebound off their first start declines?

Read the rest of this entry »

Performing backward looking analysis with the intention of using it for forward looking actionable advice is only as good as the success of the advice. So I always make sure to look back on the season and review all the analysis I performed and the advice it drove. We know that fastball velocity is very important for pitchers and that it also stabilizes pretty quickly, meaning we don’t need many pitches to learn valuable information. So early on in the season, I posted several articles highlighting fastball velocity surgers and decliners. Let’s now review the first I posted on July 27, which was after just one start and through July 25. Did these pitchers sustain their newfound velocity levels or were they one game wonders, regressing right back to 2019 marks?

Read the rest of this entry »

For the shortened 60 game season, I wasn’t in the mood to post 10 bold predictions, so I settled with six. The upside of the fewer games is greater potential for the random and unexpected to occur, which means a higher rate of bold prediction hits…hopefully. Let’s see if that turned out to be true.

Read the rest of this entry »

With two ratio categories as opposed to one for hitters, a shortened season is an even better opportunity for me to get a bold pitcher league leader correct! Let’s see if I did.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year I take the bold and daring adventure known as bold league leaders. I rarely get any of these right, but it’s fun to decide on the names, and might give you the little nudge you need to roster a chosen player. In a shortened season, it’s a little easier to get one of these right since more luck is involved, which I need a lot of if I’m not picking the obvious choices. So let’s see how I did with my 2020 Bold Hitter League Leaders.

Read the rest of this entry »