Early 2019 Hitting Trends
It’s been fascinating to watch baseball evolve and how various metrics have trended over the years. While it’s still a tiny sample size for players, it’s definitely not for the entire league as a whole. So let’s observe and discuss the major hitting trends several weeks into the season and how it impacts fantasy valuations and your teams.
| Season | BB% | K% | BABIP | ISO | AB/HR | HR/FB | PA/SBA | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 7.7% | 20.4% | 0.299 | 0.150 | 33.7 | 11.4% | 51.5 | 20.9% | 45.3% | 33.8% | 9.5% |
| 2016 | 8.2% | 21.1% | 0.300 | 0.162 | 29.5 | 12.8% | 52.2 | 20.7% | 44.7% | 34.6% | 9.7% |
| 2017 | 8.5% | 21.6% | 0.300 | 0.171 | 27.1 | 13.7% | 53.5 | 20.3% | 44.2% | 35.5% | 9.6% |
| 2018 | 8.5% | 22.3% | 0.296 | 0.161 | 29.6 | 12.7% | 53.9 | 21.5% | 43.2% | 35.4% | 10.3% |
| 2019 | 9.3% | 23.2% | 0.291 | 0.177 | 25.6 | 14.4% | 54.1 | 20.8% | 42.4% | 36.8% | 9.5% |
Walk rates are up, as are strikeout rates. This has been an uninterrupted trend since 2015, but if you go back to 2000, you’ll see that walk rates had been this high, but then steadily declined until bottoming in 2014, and then rebounding. On the other hand, strikeouts have been consistently rising since 2006. Unfortunately, the walk rate rebound hasn’t been nearly enough to offset the strikeout rate jump, which has hampered both batting averages and on base percentages. That means that consistent high batting average and OBP guys are worth even more, making Mike Trout even more monstrous in OBP leagues than he already is.
BABIP has taken another dive and this is its lowest mark going back to 2000. It hasn’t been a lack of line drives or too many pop-ups. Instead, it’s been a rising fly ball rate, proof positive of the fly ball revolution slowly pulling in new members. Fly balls have lower BABIP marks that liners and grounders, so more flies means fewer balls falling in for a hit.
However, more flies are good for homers, so that helps explain the pop in ISO and improvement in AB/HR. Furthering those marks is a surge in HR/FB rate. You thought 2017 was peak with the so-called juice ball, eh? Maybe not! All these homers make the low power guys even less valuable as your alternative is likely a 15-20 homer bat in a 12-team mixed league.
Since every hitter seems too busy running around the bases to steal one, you’ll notice that hitters are attempting a steal even less frequently than last year, also continuing a trend. That helps the Billy Hamiltons of the world to regain the lost value from the lack of homers, but boosts the guys who aren’t hurt by the increase in homers, yet still steal bases, like Mookie Betts.
| Season | Pull% | Cent% | Oppo% | Soft% | Med% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 39.1% | 35.2% | 25.7% | 18.6% | 52.5% | 28.8% |
| 2016 | 39.7% | 34.7% | 25.6% | 18.8% | 49.9% | 31.4% |
| 2017 | 39.8% | 34.9% | 25.3% | 18.9% | 49.3% | 31.8% |
| 2018 | 40.3% | 34.5% | 25.1% | 18.1% | 46.7% | 35.3% |
| 2019 | 42.0% | 33.3% | 24.7% | 17.5% | 45.5% | 37.0% |
New plate approach — loft the ball, hit the ball to the pull side, hit it HARD! Batters have been pulling the ball more and more (remember these rates include all batted ball types, not just fly balls), which likely mean more pulled grounders into the shift, pushing down BABIP. The spike in Hard% is just crazy, as it’s so significant that it’s hard to explain. Have hitters across the league all hit the weight room like mad and gained that much power the last two years? Or has it been learning how to best access that power at the plate?
| Season | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 30.6% | 66.9% | 46.9% | 64.9% | 86.7% | 78.8% | 44.8% | 60.9% | 9.9% |
| 2016 | 30.3% | 66.7% | 46.5% | 63.9% | 86.3% | 78.2% | 44.6% | 60.3% | 10.1% |
| 2017 | 29.9% | 66.7% | 46.5% | 62.9% | 85.5% | 77.5% | 45.0% | 60.3% | 10.5% |
| 2018 | 30.9% | 67.3% | 46.6% | 62.8% | 85.5% | 76.9% | 43.0% | 60.6% | 10.7% |
| 2019 | 29.2% | 66.7% | 45.5% | 60.4% | 84.3% | 75.6% | 43.4% | 60.2% | 11.1% |
Batters are swinging at the lowest rate of pitches outside the strike zone, which matches with the increase in walk rate. Because swings at pitches inside the zone has been stable, aside from a random increase last season, Swing% is down thanks to the drop in O-Swing%. Although batters are swinging less, they are having more trouble actually making contact. Contact on pitches both outside and inside the zone are in a consistent slide, which is further validated by the consistently rising SwStk%.
Pitchers threw pitches inside the strike zone at a much lower rate in 2018, but that mark has rebounded marginally this year. Yet, it still remains well below previous seasons. Oddly, pitchers are still throwing first pitch strikes, albeit at a very slightly lower rate, so it must be after that first pitch that they are going outside the zone.
All these trends have been pretty consistent, which begs the question…when do we hit peak/bottom and the trends stabilize?!
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Thanks! These trend analyses are very interesting, and not just for the fantasy crowd (of which I am one). Hopefully some of the non fantasy folks look this article up as well.
I’ve always wondered how many fangraphs readers love statistics and baseball, have the time and comprehension to digest articles like this, and then don’t bother to play fantasy.
I actually think the lower BABIP may have something to do with the even greater increase in shifts. There was a piece in The Athletic that discussed the O’s, Cardinals, Marlins shifting a preposterously high rates compared with last season – with great success.
Even more shifts?! Ha, I figured shifting had peaked. We could look it up using the splits leaderboard.
Perhaps more effective shifting, whether or not it’s happening more often?
I definitely think that the Hard Hit % is because guys are just swinging harder now than they used to. Gone are the defensive, 2-strike swings, and replacing them are more giant hacks designed to hit for power.
Hence, more swings and misses, but more hard contact when it’s made.
I think it is because they realized that a defensive 2-strike swing with crappy contact is barely better than a strikeout and also has no upside (like swinging hard would).
I agree. I wasn’t implying anyone should return to those type of defensive swings, but rather presenting an argument as to why hard hit % has gone up so much.
It’s pretty clear that MLB has no idea what people want or how to get there. There’s too much offense (which makes games longer), but they are likely juicing the ball, and are tinkering with ideas like lowering the mound or moving it back.
They are infatuated with monstrous home runs, but seem unhappy to live with its consequences (hitters optimizing their swings/approach for the longball, longer games, fewer balls in play, less basestealing due to the run environment).
You have to pick one or the other, you can’t have it both ways.
i’ve never understood why they don’t just enforce the rulebook as it’s written. The Umpire is free to call a ball (or strike) on a pitcher (or hitter) who isn’t ready to go after a reasonable amount of time.
How many times have we seen a pitcher standing and waiting to deliver as the batter takes a stroll around home plate? Call a strike on that dude and see how quickly he gets back in the box.
You’d have to call it like for like one week, and then it’d never be a problem again. Game times would go down so fast!
More walks, more strikeouts, more homeruns. This is just what Manfred had in mind.
Is there another metric we can use for an examination of how hard the league is hitting the ball besides the black box BIS Hard% stat? I remember articles talking about the inexplicable jumps in league wide Hard% last year and it seems to have continued this year. However we don’t know what the root cause of the problem is (maybe the formula got changed or something without our knowing). A stat like league wide exit velo would be much less ambiguous
We could certainly use Statcast EV, barrels, etc, but unfortunately, I don’t know if there show league metrics. All I can find our individual players. I’ll ask Mike Petriello.
Thank you for this! I apparently need to adjust my Hard Hit % filter when evaluating pitchers. I have been using 30-32% as a league average . . . whoops!
Great read, great layout, and great timing. Thanks Mike! To quote Enirque Hernandez: “that ball is flying off the bat!” Juicy fruit ripe for the picking.