Archive for Scouting

Yesterday, I finally followed up on a note written on my white board for months: “sd(LA) –> BABIP?” The results from my research: the tightness of a hitter’s launch angle is moderately positively correlated with his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). I measure “tightness” in terms of variance. The narrower the distribution of his launch angles, the tighter. The wider, the looser. There is also weak evidence to suggest a tighter launch angle correlates with more consistent exit velocity (EV).

random finding of the day:

r² = 0.24 between BABIP and stdev(LA)

that is, tighter avg launch angle ➡️ higher BABIP. bat control and all that.

also: tighter launch angle ➡️ more repeatable exit velo to a small extent (r² = 0.14)

— Alex "Oxlade" Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) December 5, 2019

(Turns out Brock Hammit, who is part of the Brewers’ player development team, investigated this very idea in June. Small world! Great minds! All that good stuff.)

As noted in my Tweet, the crux of the finding hints at something previously quantifiable only by the eye test: bat control. In effect, it’s a quantification of the hit tool — to me, the most interesting possible application. Would it surprise you to learn that Joey Votto has the tightest launch angle in the Statcast Era^TM? Followed by hitting savants both current and former, such as Freddie Freeman, Miguel Cabrera, Joe Mauer, Mike Trout, Michael Brantley — and maybe less-expected and arguably underrated names (underrated exclusively in the greater “hit tool” discussion) like Justin Turner, Daniel Murphy, J.D. Martinez, and DJ LeMahieu?

These hitters all have or had outstanding contact skills, superb batted ball efficacy, or both. If you click through to any of their player pages, you’ll encounter routinely elevated BABIPs.

Is there more to this than meets the eye? I’m not sure. Obviously all of this here is but a small part of a much bigger puzzle and should be used in conjunction with, and not in place of, our existing knowledge about player performance. I wouldn’t consider this the be-all, end-all of BABIP analysis by any means, although I do think it’s significant.

That said, here are three potentially pertinent applications of this knowledge:

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Recently I reviewed the results of the first few rounds of a new dynasty league prospect draft.  The review continues today with a quick look at some key selections in rounds 7 – 9.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6

This draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted.  You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

Many of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

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I’ve recently completed two deep Ottoneu minor league drafts and am reminded just how difficult successful “prospecting” can be.  Regardless of how informed you may feel heading into an MiLB draft, you’re often left selecting players based upon small sample sizes, second hand reports, maybe a few brief videos and, as much as we want to deny it, a bias towards “scouting the stat lines”.  At the end of the day you’re making a decision using limited information that could have serious long term consequences for your dynasty team.

Prospecting is actually a lot like another critical business skill: hiring good employees.  The inputs might be a little different (scouting reports might be job references, batting practice videos might be one hour interviews, and stats, however limited, might be the resume sitting on your desk), but the challenge is the same: make an important, timely decision based on limited information, first impressions, and gut feel.

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