The Overshooters

Last week I touched on a few misconceptions about launch angles and exit velocity. This article is a Part II, so you may be interested in going back and reading Part I if you haven’t already. Otherwise, allow me to summarize:

The value of batted balls drops rapidly with higher launch angles. In a sense this goes without saying, everyone knows pop ups are bad.  However, the ideal launch angle may be lower than you might expect. You’ll hear many people claim 25-30 degrees is the best range to shoot for, but even this is too high. The best angles are hit between 19 and 26 degrees. These batted balls can be referred to as fliners, somewhere between a line drive and a fly ball.

This week, I want to address the concept of the “Flyball Revolution”, why I think this is a misnomer, and which players may be suffering from this mindset.

The “Flyball Revolution”

When reading about the uptick in home runs I have seen many references to flyball rate. Meaning, you have groundballs (GB%) hit on the ground and Flyballs (FB%) hit in the air.  Pop ups and line drives may or may not be included, depending on the source. This is a pretty simple system, and we’re all well accustomed to looking at the game through this lens.  So what is the problem? 

Allow me to explain using a few examples. In scenario A, the batter has hit 15.9% of his balls between 19 and 26 degrees, 4.5% between 26 and 39 degrees, and 13.6% above 39 degrees. In scenario B, the batter has 9.4% between 19 and 26 degrees, 8.2% between 26 and 39 degrees, and 18.8% above 39 degrees.  You can see the breakdown in the table below.  Important to note, in both scenarios the batter has about 52% ground balls and 48% fly balls, in the traditional sense.

(Read my article about the DB, GB, LD, HD, FB, and PU categories)

In scenario A, the batter has a .390 wOBAcon (weighted on base average on contact).  In scenario B, the batter has a .332 wOBAcon.  A gigantic difference.

Alright, but that’s a big difference in pop ups, right?  So let’s control for that, too.  In scenario C and D, the batters have the same number of DB+GB (the traditional ground balls) and pop ups.

In this case, C has a wOBAcon of .389 and D .332.  Again, a gigantic difference, even when you control for ground balls and pop ups. Furthermore, both have an average launch angle of 12.4 degrees.

The flyball rate, groundball rate, and infield flyball rate are insufficient for understanding the type of contact a batter is creating. All three of these numbers, even when combined, fail to give you a full picture of what the batter is doing on the field.

When we refer to this as a flyball revolution, and use traditional definitions of flyballs to describe it, we lose sight of what players are (or at least should be) attempting to accomplish:  Fliners. High Drives. Whatever you want to call them. Balls hit on a moderately high angle, but not too high. Not quite high enough to optimize home runs, but still high enough to hit a few. You want batters who hit plenty of doubles in addition to their home runs, and you accomplish this by hitting the ball between 10 and 26 degrees.  Preferably between 19 and 26.

Players Who May Have Taken “Flyball” Too Literally

I don’t know why the following players have increased their (bad versions) of flyballs this season.  Some may be attempting to join the “flyball revolution”.  Others may have introduced unrelated mechanical problems to their swing.  Still others may be facing different sorts of pitching, or fighting through injury.  I don’t have an explanation for why these particular batters have increased their rates this season, but it is interesting to see which players have, and to what extent.

The Worst Offenders   

These batters have increased their high flyballs (39+ degrees) at the expense of their lower angle flyballs. This is a very bad group to find yourself in, as your batted ball quality is suffering greatly from last season.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it does grab a certain cross section of batters.

There are obvious offenders like Trevor Story, who has very dramatically increased his number of high fly balls at the expense of just about everything.  He has fewer ground balls, fewer line drives and fliners, and significantly more fly balls and pop ups.  This is just about worst case scenario, and he had a rough patch this season prior to going down with a shoulder injury.

Christian Yelich made this list due to an across the board decrease in low angle fly balls along with a large increase in high flyballs and pop ups. He finished last season with one of the highest rates of what I label GB%. You might call these glinders? A bit like line drives, but mixed with ground balls. We don’t have a true category for these, but they have a pretty good .476 batting average. However, this season Yelich is hitting fewer of them as well. 

Swapping Weaker Grounders For Pop Ups

This group may not have the same impact to overall offensive production as the prior group, but it is still quite bad. These guys have traded their weak ground balls, which I call DB% or dribble balls, for pop ups. These two types of batted ball carry little value, but Dribble Balls are roughly 3-4 times as valuable as Pop Ups.

It is especially bad that Rougned Odor has landed on each of the two lists thus far. His batted balls have decreased in value significantly from last season, which you can see in his stats.

His xStats are suggesting he may have gotten a little lucky last year and a little unlucky this year. But no matter how you cut it, he has been struggling due to his dramatic increase in high fly balls.

Granted, you didn’t need these stats to identify the problem with Odor, due to his large increase in infield fly balls. Lorenzo Cain is a different story. His groundball, flyball, and infield fly ball rates are within normal bounds from last season. He hasn’t had a significant drop in his batting average, either. In fact, looking at his stats, you may not see much of a change at all.  But, alas, there is a change lurking beneath the surface.

Lorenzo Cain has traded his weak ground balls for glinders (half ground ball, half line drives). He’s also traded line drives and fliners for high fly balls. In the long run, if he continues to hit the ball in this manner, his batting average may stay roughly the same, but his slugging percentage will drop precipitously. Right now his slugging is sitting around .396, which, while below his career average is still somewhat respectable. If this trend continues, expect his slugging to drop towards .360 or .370.

Conclusion

There is a great need for more research into the changes we have seen in baseball over the past two or three seasons. Calling this an increase in flyballs, I think, obscures what is actually going on. It allows you to lean too heavily on the traditional flyball and infield flyball rates, which are insufficient and deceptive. The new statcast technology is fueling the changes we see in the game, and as a result you will need this technology to fully understand the ramifications. Statcast has created an arms race in baseball.