Welcome back to Finding the Edge Podcast.
I'm Garrett Boyam, joined with Robert Frey.
And today we're going to talk about some of the anomalies with
projections and some guys who outperformed them this past
season. And you know, just seeing like
what kind of what can we deduct or deduce, I should say, what
can we deduce from those guys and how they were able to
outperform those projections? And one of the guys that I
wanted to really look at or I think we're going to start the
conversation with is Cody Bellinger.
Because I've it's just been fun for me to watch him this year
because I've seen more adjustability from him that's
functional. And so that's that's kind of, I
guess where at least for me, he started my following him and
then it turns out he had a really great year.
I just remember seeing a couple of swings and I'm like, oh,
that's that kind of fits the Caleb Abney model of breaking
the rules, doing things. And so I guess today I wanted to
kind of look at some of that because I wanted to see you know
looking at stat cast what his, what some of his expected stats
were. You know, and it was kind of
interesting to me just looking at some of this stuff like
expected weighted on base, generally speaking, not for
everybody, but for a lot of guys it ended up matching pretty
close to like their batting average in some ways.
I they they must be fairly correlated.
Yeah, to the, for the most part, they seem correlated and then
obviously there's some things. So like in recent years as of
2019, Statcast decided to change its ex global formula.
So from 2015 to 2018, it was just essentially exit velocity
and logical, those two variables.
However, from 2019 to present they also incorporated a bad or
seasonal Sprint speed, so that way they can adjust for
different speeds. Because if a topped or a weekly
hit ground ball is hit, you know a runner like Corbin Carroll and
a rookie of the year is more likely to get a hit on those
plays, whereas a bigger player like say Pablo Sandoval is not.
It might be where in a situation where or we can think of a more
recent player because I'm not sure if Sandoval played this
past season. But we can think of a guy like
Franco Reyes somewhere along those lines are like a Miguel
Sano since we're, you know on that time like he's a bigger guy
so he's comparing like Sano to Corbin Carroll.
You know, Sano is probably more likely to hit the ball harder,
but for those weekly hit balls or topped balls, per Statcas's
kind of barrel classification, Corbin Carroll's more likely to
beat those out. So they felt like that should
have been factored as well. So that's why I think in recent
years it's starting to get more and more detailed towards, you
know, a runner's speed rather than just hitting the ball hard.
Well, and then for me, you know, going back to Bellinger, that
was something that clearly came up when I was looking at the
dexterity of his hitting ability.
There were some balls that became hits because simply
because of his speed. For other guys, those would have
been outs. The other element of it too, not
that Bellinger is slow, but he's also left-handed, right?
So the speed that he has gets a a little boost just to the sheer
fact that he he's left-handed. So then again somebody a
right-hander with the same speed might not end up being able to
be safe on some of those. There's other things that too
though, like because Luisa Rise is not that fast and there are a
couple of hits that they gave him at least early in the
season, that there's a hard ground ball to 2nd or whatever.
Guy bobbled it, threw it, and he was safe.
Oh, he threw it, it bounced and then the first baseman didn't
field it or catch it and he was safe, but it wasn't because the
ball had bounced and he caught it.
He would have been out. So to me that's an error.
And I don't know why they classified it as a hit because
he was going to be out if if the if the first baseman have had
actually caught the ball instead of missing it.
So there's small things like that, but there are other little
things like Luisa rise again not being.
I don't know where he ranks in the Sprint speed, but it's not
it's not elite by any means. As far as I can tell, he's not
known as being. Extremely fast baseball, so
Bonds leader sprints free leaderboard of of players
without at least 100 competitive runs.
IE you know whether or not jogging things like that.
Competitive runs. Cody Bellinger is 72nd, Luisa
Rias is 200 and 35th. The average Sprint speed in the
MLB is 27 feet per second. Luis Soraas was slightly below
average at 26.1 feet per second and Cody Bellinger was above
average at 28.3 feet per second and.
That's, that's where I think it's kind of interesting to me
that A Rise is still able to beat out some of those, some of
those infield hits. But I think that like I remember
reading a long time ago, I think in one of the strength and
conditioning books that I found for baseball, that everybody is
fast. Like there's a minimum speed
that a guy needs to be able to play at in professional baseball
in order to get enough hits, even the big guys.
So even the big guys are relatively fast because if not,
they would not be able to hit at a high or get on base enough if
they were too slow. And so even the the slow guys
can get down the line fast enough to beat out certain
infield singles. And so I think that to me is how
I explain well Luis Arise isn't that fast yet he hit some balls
in the infield that goes straight to fielders and then
he's somehow able to be safe. So to me that says he's not that
slow. But I think that's just a A
we're talking about a relative right, when we're trying to
compare players, right. That's where this factors in.
But at the same point, I think we all have to recognize that,
you know every guy who plays in the in MLB baseball, like unless
you're probably at the bottom of the barrel, like you're probably
you're probably fast enough. But to your point, because X
welba for Luisa, Luisa Rise is what came in at 5 or 353 and his
batting average was 354. So I thought that was pretty,
pretty cool to see like how close those two things got to
each other. I mean his expecting batting
average, he outperformed his expecting batting average.
You know, going back to, you know, the expected stats.
I thought that was kind of interesting like I don't know
how accurate expected batting average actually is relative to
what guys usually end up at. And so I don't see this is kind
of the thing with like the expected stats like how much,
how much, how much do you sit there and go Oh well he actually
he over performed and it's like well, I don't, I don't really
think so. Like if you look at if we're
just talking about a rise in what I watched, if you look at
the launch angle that he created, it gave him the
greatest opportunity to get a lot of those hits.
And then you know I was watching too the IT said when they were
playing the twins, they tried to pitch him up and in.
But you could see that this year he, he hit a lot of those balls
that were up well, well enough for hits.
Like I want to say I saw multiple and I didn't get to
watch all of his hits, but I saw, you know, at least 5-5
balls up in the zone that he hit.
Well, fastballs too. So I mean nothing that was like
super high velocity, high spin. But still, the fact that he's
able to get to those pitches tells me that this dude is super
hard to to pitch to because especially early in the year, I
didn't get to watch them later in the year, but early in the
year they were hitting him with a lot of fastballs.
Yeah. So anyways, I'm gonna repeat
that just for the 'cause I got a stupid noise that popped up in
there early in the year. Luis Arise got a lot of
fastballs. He was hitting a lot of
fastballs. He did start to see more
breaking balls, I think later in the year, but early in the year
he was seeing a lot of fastballs and and hitting the fastballs.
So I thought that was kind of interesting to note when it came
to to like how what what is he getting his hits on.
And I think that's another question to ask too.
If we're, especially if we're trying to look at, OK, how from,
from an ecological perspective, how dexterous is a player How
how, how much. Yeah, I think dexterity is
probably how masterful. I'm trying to figure out another
word for for people who aren't as familiar with like, what's
dexterity right. The ability to display.
I'm going to say it this way. The ability to display
functional solutions under a myriad of different conditions
so he's able to have success under a wide range of
conditions. Meaning, OK, so we can hit
handle the fastball, but OK, what type of fastball?
Right? Is it middle?
Middle. Is it away?
Is it up? Like, is there certain areas
that he struggles with? Arise seems to display that he
can handle a large range of fastballs, but not only
fastballs but breaking balls. This is the same thing too too
with with Bellinger. I saw it more with Bellinger
because he had he got more breaking balls a lot.
There were of the video clip that I put up.
I think it was about fourteen of those or of like showing his
adjustability in his swing. He got fourteen hits and two K
counts and two straight counts and a lot of those were breaking
balls. Not all of them, but a lot of
them were breaking balls and that to me says quite a bit as
far as your ability and what you can do on the field.
And that makes you a a dangerous and a potent hitter.
And then I think that's part of what allowed him to to be the
comeback player of the year. Absolutely.
And I mean another way to look at it too is like you said, you
know, 14 hits with two chart counts like and we go back to
like X Lobo versus Lobo. So, like, according to Baseball
Savon, his XO was 327, his Lobo was 370.
So like, he significantly outperformed his expected Wilba.
And a lot of that was, you know, middle pitches.
So again on Baseball Savant, his ex Wilba on pitches middle,
away, 412 middle, middle, 379 middle and 3:41.
However, he performed 475 middle away, 520 middle, middle, 445
middle end. And a lot of that too is like
you said like he had so many two strike hits.
I think part of it, like you said with with his dexterity for
Rias but similar with Cody Bellinger is being able to be
you know adaptable and attuned to the specifying information of
OK, I'm likely getting a breaking ball here.
I don't have to put a an aggressive swing.
I need I need to put a swing that is likely to result in a
hit, or a swing that allows me just to put the ball in play.
I think for me, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bristle a
little bit at the whole anticipation.
Not that I think guys don't anticipate, but I think it's
hard unless, I mean there is enough at the professional level
to to know guys tendencies to to have a good idea what's going to
be thrown here. But I think a lot of it can be
handled by simply changing your approach.
So you know if you shift your intention and you have an
approach of OK I'm in a two strike you know I'm going to
take a two strike approach meaning OK I'm not going to try
swing out of my shoes. I for me the way that I think of
a two strike of approach is I liken it to a hit and run.
But a hit and run where where you don't have to swing but the
intention is is I'm going to try stay on this ball and like
because to me that's what it looks like is he's staying on
the ball and he's being smooth and he's not trying to hit it as
hard as he can. He's just trying to go bat or
bat the ball and just be really smooth and and move however he
has to to be able to hit the baseball.
And so that's where for me when I'm looking at it and just even
to this is where I like Luis, arise and I wanted to look and I
haven't gotten there yet but at some point I want to get through
you know all of Acunia and like all the guys that hit really
well this year at the top and just watch you know how they
went about it, 'cause I think every guy is different.
But anyways the conclusion that I've come to based upon these
two guys, Bellinger and Arise is that and This is why I liked.
I really like Bellinger is that if you can hit a rising line
drive with it with within a good within a good launch angle the
IT doesn't. And by a rising line drive I
mean one that clears the the infielders.
Like if they jump it's either really hard for them to catch it
or they can't catch it at all. And so if you can do that then
you're going to give yourself a really good chance to get on
base as far as like hitting the ball and it.
And when I when I think about it and as far as what was popular
and I don't, I don't know if it's still popular.
I think it's still there but it's not as popular of the whole
notion of try to hit the ball in the air and as far as you can
And and then we're kind of at at one point.
Right. Because MLB is trying to change
this and not have the game be just three true outcomes of you
know hit the ball out of the park strikeout or I don't know
walk. I can't remember.
Is that what was the third one or the three true outcomes?
Is it basically like home run, strikeout or what was the what
was the 3rd? One slash hit by pitch.
Yeah, right. And so this is where, you know
and I've also heard this too of listening to some other guys
talk about like, OK, if we strike out at too high of a
clip, even though we're hitting a bunch of runs, we start to
hurt our run value, you know, and and so there is there's a
level of like there's value and This is why it was cool.
Arise was was very interesting because if you start looking at
his stat line now, I don't think this year his yeah his runs were
down relative to with the twins no it doesn't have RB is on here
the one that I'm looking at do you have RB is on your your your
expenses Yeah for what? He had 69 RB IS.
Nice. How much do you have for 2022?
He had 49. OK, so he had more RB is this
year than he did last year. OK.
Cuz to me part of the value of a player now, yes, it all, it all
depends upon where you are in the lineup and who's on base.
But it's a question of during your the given the number of
opportunities that you have, how, how well are you able to
capitalize on those opportunities?
I don't know if there's a stat for that.
I mean, there's probably runners in batting average and running
runners in scoring position, right, Because that would kind
of probably capture that. But, like to me, these are the
ways that matter. I want to say another way you
could capture is when probability added.
OK, because that's that's where it's like, you know, a guy like
Luis arise, I think would people sleep on because of the fact
that he doesn't hit for for power, he doesn't really slug,
you know, And they're like, you know, singles aren't really that
worth it. But it's like depends.
It depends, right. You know, everybody's big on
like on base. Well you know singles are the
like, yeah they're not that much different than a walk but you
know on a walk is a sure thing but still at the same point
you're still on base. And if you got a guy in scoring
position and a base open at first, a walk ain't going to
score you that run, you know, or even 2 bases open like you need,
you need three walks in a row to get you to get you a run.
So like a hit being able to put the ball in play and score the
run is is huge because I mean so that's that's where I I look at.
For me when I look at a guy like arise who hits for average.
I want to look at his runs and his RB is because to me those
two things combined together tell me how much offensive
production like is it just you know he hits really well when
nobody's on base and you know like it's just you're not really
contributing that much you only you only hit when there's no
pressure. But if you're if you're scoring,
if you're scoring enough runs for the team then I think it's
it washes that whole you know I guess you know at one point the
the the new school analytics way of looking at it of you know
average is kind of not not really that valuable and I just
I I think I think there's some level of truth to it to it but I
don't I I don't I don't think you can completely dismiss
looking at batting average. Yeah.
But there's also that that side of, OK, if you want to look at
production in terms of runs and RBIs, those are both context
dependent because for you to score runs, you need that are
not home run related, right? You need guys behind you to be
able to put the ball in play and move you around.
And then for you to have RBIs on the same breath, you need the
guys in front of you to get on base.
So that's why there's kind of this this disconnect because it
is dependent whereas you know some analytics just say like we
can't rely on that dependency. Well, here's, here's, here's my
thought on how you kind of you do the analysis because I look
at the Twins, OK. And so the Twins last year,
their offense probably wasn't the highest scoring in baseball,
right. But you look at it relative.
OK, so you. So when I looked at the team
last year, I looked at, OK, where were all our runs coming
from, right? Even though Luis arises numbers
and runs well, actually a little bit higher in 2022.
And then his RBIs were a little bit lower, right?
So that says that when Arise was hitting, there weren't as many
opportunities for him to hit hit guys in, but he was, if he was
getting on base, he was scoring at a decent clip, higher at a
higher clip than he was in 2023. You know.
And so this is where I I look at it in the sense of relative he
was, he was the top, he was either the he was the one that
was scoring the most runs for the team and Korea was second or
Korea was first and then Arise was right behind him.
So when you look at it relative to just your team because that's
the context that matters and you begin to see for that team are
you, who is the one for your team that's scoring all your
runs? Who's the one who's driving them
all in? And that you can.
That to me is a fair enough analysis of it's you can't start
comparing across the league or whatever because to your point,
it's context dependent. So therefore you have to look at
it within the context that these numbers actually occur and then
I think you can get a better sense of how much value can a
player provide in a team setting.
And so there's there's other stats we can look at too.
So like runs create is a good one that you mentioned.
So like and that does include, you know, scoring runs as well,
Not just creating runs by hitting, but scoring.
You want to you want to flesh that out a little bit more of
like what What goes into runs created what?
What makes up? How?
How do we come up with that number?
Yeah. So like, we can do it.
There's actually like a few different ways to calculate it.
And this was from Bill James. It's like the most simplest way
is hits plus walks multiplied by total basis divided by at bats
plus walks. And that is the most simplest
way of calculating. Now if you want to get into more
advanced stuff. So like there's a stolen base
version of it where it multiplies by a stolen base
factor, and then the technical one is multiplying by a factor
of walks plus hit by pitches plus the times you have SAC
buns, sacrifice flies, stolen bases, and then it also
negatively waits you for hitting into double plays as well,
because you're. And it's like somebody like
Correa, because I felt like he hit into it a decent number of.
Yeah, so like that would negatively affect him on that on
that version. Another way to look at it, and
you're going to like this because the two people were
talking about Araya's 14th in the MLB last year amongst
qualified hitters, Ballinger 15th in the MLB last year
amongst qualified hitters and weighted runs above average.
And that is based on woba. So it's taking that player's
individual woba subtracting from the league woba.
So Bellinger's was around 370, the league woba's around 3:20,
so he gets 50 points boost. And then the woba scale, which
just essentially is putting it on the same scale as OBP, so it
could be red like OBP and multiplying by the number of
PA's. And so it just basically just
measures the amount of offensive runs a player contributes to
their team compared to the average player.
And with that being said, so Arias 25.9 weighted runs above
average. Cody Bellinger 23.9 weighted
Runs above average again 14th and 15th and.
OK, who is above them? Do you do you have, do you have
Can you shoot me a a thing a thing that has this list or just
share it share screen it, 'cause I I don't like part of me.
I'm curious who's who's up there higher than that.
I mean. I mean, look, Ronald Lacuna
Junior. Like almost 100 and. 50 runs,
almost 150 runs all on his own. Oh my gosh, that's a lot.
Damn Zacunia. 'S number one.
OK. As he should be at 66.7, Otani
is #2 at 57.3. And I I shared this with you.
That's his third Mookie. That's his 3rd 56.5.
But another way to think about this, too, that the top two
players in the, OR I should say the top players in their
respective leagues and WRAA, One MVP, Acunia and the National
League of Tiny and the American League.
Mookie Betts was 56.5. Matt Olson 56.4.
Freddie Freeman, Juan Soto, Corey Seeger, Yandi Diaz,
Marcelo Zuno, Kyle Tucker, Bryce Harper, Corbin Carroll and
Austin Riley are the 13 names above both Aryas and Ballinger.
I think what's? That's not a light list.
No. OK.
So let's let's talk about Juan Soto, I think yeah, Juan Soto
and I guess 2 Ozuna could be one, although the slug there
makes sense for because I'm one Yep slug there is decent.
So I'm trying to figure out where where is all this this run
production coming from is some. OK.
So his OPS is 9/9/30, so that's part of it, right.
Getting on base, his OPS is 900 or nine O 5.
So this is where I'm I'm trying to understand, OK, where, how
are they creating, how are they creating this, this, this run
value? Because to me, what's
interesting is that there's multiple different ways.
You see a lot of guys with higher averages, but you know
Azuna and Soto, they kind of are on the lower end of the average
side, you know, because it it felt like Soto kind of struggled
this year, like swinging the bat, you know, his walks were
always there, but swinging the bat, making contact was it was a
down year for him or doing something hitting it well enough
to get hits. And so I guess what, what is
your assessment as far as like OK, how are they still, despite
the fact of not doing as much with the BAT as in other years,
how are they still creating run value?
So in Soto's case, I feel like like you said, the walks are
always there, so he's still getting on base via walks and
also the. Speed ain't it Ain't super,
super crazy either. Yeah, so terribly slow, but so.
Like having guys like Machado and Kronenworth, I think behind
him, you know that helped with you know the the run production
for him. Just getting solely on base.
Ozuna in his case, I think he had and this is where like we
can maybe build on this stat and say like how many opportunities
did Ozuna have compared to the average player of runners on
base. Because Ozuna was very likely to
have guys like Acuna, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, guys in the
top 13 of this list on base ahead of him to be able to drive
in these runs. So now that to me it plays into
OK, if we're we're talking about OK, all right.
Do I want a guy like Ozuna. You know how valuable will he be
to this ballclub if I don't have guys who can get on base in
front of him? Like, it's not that he won't be
valuable, but you're not going to see he's not going to create
as many runs for us because he's there's not going to be as many
opportunities because I almost feel like and some of these
things, whereas like a guy like arise, he can create
opportunities because he's going to get on base enough, right,
for for people to drive him in. Whereas you know, like you're
talking about like, I wonder if there's a way to parse through
the numbers of like, OK, this guy really his his big upside is
if we have guys on, he's really good at driving them in.
But on the flip side, if he's not getting on base enough and
there's not enough people to get on in front of him, his
offensive value isn't as strong for our team.
Like our team needs other pieces in order to support what this
hitter actually brings to the table.
Right. And so another way to look at.
I know I was trying to pull it out, but like, I remember going
back to 2013 when the Cardinals made the World Series, someone
who wasn't really known as a great hitter on his own, Alan
Craig. That year he had.
I don't know the exact number, but I remember at some point in
the season he was hitting over 400 with runners in scoring
position and it's like that. That alone can make him
valuable. But then again like OK after
after the season he was traded, went to Boston and like he
didn't have as many opportunities and that kind of
like led to his downfall so to speak.
But he, you know, took advantage of opportunities when there were
runners on and they specifically in scoring position.
So he liked those affordances because there are different
affordances with runners on, on, on base than when there aren't.
And maybe like, you know, the thought process could change.
It's like, hey, you know, like it's common, common knowledge.
I wouldn't say common knowledge, but for the most part the
pitchers are less likely to throw breaking balls in the dirt
with a runner on third base. So maybe in Craig's mind, you
know, with a runner on 30, he's like, I know I'm not getting a
breaking ball. What, are you going to hang it?
He's going to hang it. I'm getting better than breaking
balls to hit. Hanging, yeah, Or better break
balls hit. And as like a Major League
player, like you know you're going to hit that and hit that
well. I mean two, there's some of it
too of like and this is where I think it's you can, you can kind
of still find it in the analysis, right, just without
seeing video. But there are some guys, right,
that they just hit certain balls better and it has to be in terms
of location, right. Some guys the swings naturally
work better with breaking balls like it just the ball just seems
to go right into their swing. And so usually though from my
experience of seeing those like that's those are balls that are
just like kind of in the middle of the zone you know and and so
whether it's like middle away or whatever it's it's still those
balls just kind of fall right into their swing path.
And so to your point I think it there is something to be said
about it like if you got a guy on 3rd less than two outs or
whatever even with two outs like getting a a breaking ball that's
up is a is a much more hitable pitch that guys can do something
with. So yeah.
Anyways, I think I think that's a good, good observation.
Yeah, I mean it just depends on how many opportunities to get
like with Craig, he had, especially in 2000, you know,
say 2011, he had the affordance of having a guy like Albert
Poulos ahead of him and a guy who would frequently be on base
or he would, you know, hit for extra bases quite a bit, not
including home runs obviously, but having guys like that.
And then you add in another guy like Matt Holiday, you know,
patching those together. So like in in Ozuna's case, you
know this is where we can kind of look at go dig deeper in the
day and say like OK, he might be up here a lot, but how many
opportunities do you have where various runners on base slash in
scoring position? Because again, he had guys like
Austin Riley and Cooney and Matt Olson all in front of them, and
they all were wildly successful this season with the bat.
The other thing too. I'm just looking at some of the
other numbers here. What's interesting to me?
OK. Corbin Carroll, you know he he
was hitting over 300 at some points I think, but his walk
right, BB percentage, that's walk right.
Yeah. OK.
So his walk rate is is kind of on the lower end of of guys and
I think that's kind of interesting that he was still be
able to create the run value that he was even though like he
seemed more like a a contact guy like kind of like a, a, a Quan
and I don't know if I'm pronouncing his.
Name from Cleveland. Yeah, and but I mean, Quan did
not have the same year this year that he didn't.
You know, the other year, I don't.
I don't know if it's because guys started figuring out how to
pitch to him or there's something else going on, maybe
an injury or something like that.
But it's kind of interesting to me.
I think maybe he slugged at a decent percentage, so maybe he
actually has more pop than Quan, you know, 'cause that was kind
of. The other thing that was kind of
interesting to watch with with Carol is despite the kind of
interesting nature to his swing, like there, it seemed a little
like the ball would kind of come off his bat a little bit more
I'd have to look at. Like, I wonder if you have
another hard hit percentages in here.
I wonder what his average exit below was, 'cause it's got to be
more than a rise, which is interesting to watch.
A lot of a rise's hits, though, are like in the 92 to 96 range.
So it's not like he's hitting it super soft.
I mean, but at the same point you're not seeing as many 100
balls over a hit over 100 from a rise.
And we we talked about in the past like if you go on Savant
and find like exit be the launch angles, hit probabilities, a lot
of them are in that kind of like middle to hard range with that
launch angle that's slightly above the infield because you
hit it hard enough to hit over the infield at a high enough
angle, but not hard enough that it stays up long enough for the
outfield to come and catch it. But the other thing's that big
difference for Araya's compared to yes, compared to others.
The one thing to note on that that I've started to think about
is that it's different at the young, at the lower levels, OK,
'cause the outfielders don't play at the same depth, even in
college, you know, if like, 'cause I think sometimes you
know as guys from, you know, being at a junior college, it
depends what the the opposing team thinks you know or like the
types of players that they play against.
Cause like, obviously if we're playing a a team that has more
powerful bats, we're going to play deeper.
But like when I was at the D1 level, like a lot of us, a lot
of our guys, especially down the in the corners, left field
especially, but I even think too probably a little bit in right
field, like they're pretty standing pretty darn close to
the warning track, you know what I mean?
And so if you're standing pretty close to the warning track,
there's a lot more of like that low line drive even if you hit
hard, that's going to tend to fall in front of the the
outfielders. But if they're playing in more
at like a standard high school depth, like those are going to
get caught, you know. So that's where I think it's
really interesting that to me the ones are more like you, you
would say the flare burners, those ones tend to always be
safe. And that to me is where I think
it's actually interesting to start looking at launch angle
and exit Velo of like, OK, what do you got to get to 'cause I I
mean, I don't, I have to go back and look for sure.
But I mean off of rap soda, it'll give you some interesting
numbers sometimes of like, hey, we think this is a hit, you
know, a ball hit at 66 with a launch angle of 36, like, OK,
that's not great. That's not a great exit feel and
that's not a great launch angle, but it somehow combines to drop
in there. And other times you're like,
man, how did that, that only went to to, I don't know, 56 or
274. And those are outs.
And that's where I think it's very interesting to start like
our ability to gauge distance. This is why, again, going back
to like the ecological approach, the thing that I draw away from
that, that I think is really important that a lot of us
forget when we start talking about analytics is that the game
is not played. The individual person does not
see the world in numbers. You know we're not walking
around with Google Glass on our eyes and like the you know with
with like the numbers always like on our eyes and we can see
them and like gauge this. You know it's not the the the
human we understand things in terms of how it relates to us in
terms of distances. Right.
This whole the whole like you know why we're not on like the
the the imperial numbers right are are in feet right.
We understand things in terms of how they relate to our body.
They're in feet and so like that that that to me is like the.
I think we have to remember because that's for me, like you
know, I haven't. I haven't.
You can dial in to begin to understand, you know numbers,
but you know, this is where I think it'd be fun to begin to
dial in. OK OK.
How far is this distance? You know, when I see a ball hit
in the air, how far about did that actually go just by looking
because most dimensions on the field are pretty consistent.
You know even if we're talking about the output like This is
why you know for example rhapsodo the average you know
they'll give you a home run if you hit it over 330 feet to to
to any of the corners because most of the corners on most
fields are about 330 feet, right.
And center field they have it. I think rhapsoda has it maybe no
they have it further than that. But like you know 400 feet is
pretty standard to center field. So if you hit it over 400 feet
to center, like you know so there's all this all this stuff
is fairly standardize and then you can begin to start judging
OK, how far is too far? You know like do I need to at
like change my launch angle? Do I need increase or decrease
my exit below. These things to me are more of
the this is the thing too. Hopefully at some point I can re
talk to Bobby Tewksbury, 'cause this is the thing that I think
he, he really cares a lot about is like the strategy.
Like a lot of times we're going with this whole thing of like,
let's just take one element and like or one strategy.
Let's let's just go all in on this strategy.
You know like let's hit home runs all in on this strategy,
you know Whereas it's like yeah but this is, this is like this
is a game where why can't it be as intricate as far as strategy
goes as some of the other sports.
You know, which I think it is and it can be.
And we we have in some ways sold some of the players short at
times. And maybe it's because like our
lack of coaching ability to be able to get more out of players
of like we we end up going for the simpler approaches and maybe
they worked at one time. You know when the with the fly
ball revolution, you know I think that worked that was
really good for that moment in time.
And the way that I'm going to analogize it is to strength and
conditioning, right. If I want to help somebody like
peak in terms of speed, I can do that really easily If they have,
if they have been like their programming has been really
strength heavy focused and then if I switch it to more speed
strength, they're going to get a really great response and feel
super fast and and like powerful and quick.
But it's all because of the setup And I think that's kind of
the same thing with like the Fly Ball Revolution.
Was everybody was focused on hitting like ground balls to the
backside and low line drives and had really pushy swings and the
fly ball was demonized. And then the way that pitchers
you know, attacked hitters was a lot simpler too.
And so all these things allowed for that to like that to be a
really great strategy for that period of time and like its
effectiveness. I think because it's older now
people are developing counter strategies to that you know and
some of it is just also the advancements in pitching too and
pitching development, you know, velocity and now pitch design,
all these things have come about during that period of time.
And so I think I think we need to be looking for you know
trying to find that edge, you know, so to speak.
And I think that's that's where I don't know this is this is
just my rant right of like why I going to encourage people like
Eco D and now hopefully this this helps for the transition
for what you're about to say too.
And this came up in the Sport movement skill conference,
listening to some of the talks and and whatnot is how do we
combine the analytics with like these ideas and so like that.
Hopefully that gives you a a good door to add what you're
going to say I. Mean, I think now we can just
say like I think it's a lot of conversation of OK, you know
when we take a look at this movement solution or this type
of style like what are the results.
So you asked earlier about Araya's and Corbin Peril's
average launching or average exit velocity and then I also
look at average launching. So, Carol, this policy was 90
miles an hour. Araya's 88 miles an hour.
But what stood out for them compared to most everyone else
is they had a slightly higher launch angle at 11°.
And so now. Who's everybody else?
Like who are you classifying? Just the the rest of the league
average. Like, what's?
Yeah, the rest of the league average.
So what's the league average launch angle?
It's right around 7:00. OK, OK.
So that's that's that's fairly significant, it's like what 4
four points higher. Yeah, 4° higher.
Now the difference between that is OK, if you just took, let's
say Araya's hit the ball every single time 88° with a or 88
exit. Yeah, 11.
Degree line of shamble. He is ex.
His Wobe is expected to be 612. Oh, wow.
Yeah, so with a same thing with a 7° launch angle, it's 522, so
it's a hundred point difference. Now we boosted up to 90 what
Corbin Carroll's at 11 degrees 641, so slightly better, but
then if you drop it down to 7° it's five O 3.
So they're they're still relatively good, but having that
slightly higher launch angle and being able to hit in those exit
V low ranges because then once you get to the harder ones like
we'll look at 100 hundred is 881, but it's still the average
being 7630 at 100°. So it's a lot.
You know, it's one thing to be able to hit the ball hard, but
it's another thing to be able to hit it in a I guess I should
say, range that allows you to enhance your opportunities of a
hit. Well, and this is, this is kind
of the thing that I want to kind of ask you about is like this is
to me is this is the part of like OK, expected stats versus
reality, OK. So the expected stat for Corbin
Carroll is better on on the launch angle, the average launch
angle and exit velocity than a rise.
But they're averages. The reality is vastly different.
You have a guy where where? Why don't I see a rise here?
Oh, there he is at 14. OK, you have a rise hitting 354,
right? So because you're talking about
expected batting average, well, his rise is expecting batting
average. Not batting average.
Oh, wobba wobba. OK.
Now woba that's weighted on base, right?
So. Yes.
So that would include walks. Well, it would technically be.
Technically it would be woba on contact.
So that's that's like we're talking like double S triples.
So you're looking at something that looks like the stat is more
of a like a slugging like OPS type slat stat.
So I should analogize this closer to OPS than I should like
what? What is this comparing to like
like give me a real stat, you know what I'm saying, like like
actual production, real production Like what?
What do you, what do you compare woba against like expected woba
versus actual woba? Is there a woba stat?
Yeah, I guess, yeah, it's, it's next to Wade runs above average,
but. Oh, there we go.
OK. So you had because this is to me
the the OK 370 and I mean they're basically the same 369.
Yeah. And so like looking at it that
way, but you you start to see that they kind of got their in
different ways. And this is like the important
what the importance of standard deviation because Corbin Carroll
is more likely to hit balls harder and further therefore
improving his well. But by hitting, you know
especially in that ballpark in in Phoenix, hitting triples
round runs, especially when you hit it to right center or even
left center there like you are very likely to be able and with
his speed hit get the third. Whereas Araya's, I guess Miami
is a pretty good ballpark too but he doesn't quite have the
speed that Carroll does. But is still able to get more
frequent hits with that more lower I guess with that launch
angle and that exit velocity because he's more.
I guess another way to look at this is accuracy versus
precision, right? A rise is more precise with that
average exit velocity and average launch angle.
Whereas Corbin Carroll, he might be more accurate in the sense
that he's hit basically. Like he might have some that are
weakly hit. He might some have some that are
harder hit. Well, I almost wonder too.
I just think about it in terms of launch angle.
Like I want to say that, OK, just from watching a rise, he's
so consistent in his in his launch angle, whereas I think
like the the standard deviation or the the maybe that's not the
right word, but like the the deviate or the variability,
there's the word I'm looking for the variability within Corbin
Carroll's launch angle is greater than the variability
within arise. Arise is fairly consistent in
his launch angle, whereas I think Carol is either way, up is
more up here and like, you know what I mean, Cause an average,
right? Carol might have a ton of ground
balls that that bring his average down, and his launch
angle might actually be higher, you know, balls in the air,
'cause that might be also what you.
I don't know, because part of it too of like a rise hits enough
ground balls where they're not. I think that's the other
important thing too, 'cause even looking at Bellinger, some of
his ground balls would have been where a typical second baseman
or shortstop would be playing. But because they still, this is
where I like it. I like it a lot.
The guys still shift. They still shift in the infield.
They just can't have it as extreme shifts.
And those shifts open up holes that create, because this is the
thing I think, you know, I didn't like banning the the idea
of banning the shift, but they didn't completely ban the shift.
And I think that's it's it's about modifying the shift to
create the most opportunities for hitters to hit.
And I think what they did and how it's played out, I would say
they did it correctly. They didn't over constrain it.
They constrained it enough to afford more hits.
And so that I think is a is a positive there.
And so anyways the so we're kind of where I'm going with that is
that sometimes some of these these balls on the ground, when
they're they're they're hitting it where they're not and that is
somewhat a skill and that is somewhat a byproduct of how the
opposing team is shifting. And so anyways the to me that's
where I think it's it's interesting to look at some of
the ground balls because some of them are hit hard enough that
affords them to be hits. And I've always wondered kind of
about that like what's the minimum right.
If I want to, if I want to shoot a ball through the the four hole
or into the four hole, how hard do I have to hit it for the
second baseman or the first baseman not to be able to go get
that ball? And from what I've seen if you
really, truly get it in that hole correctly, I think you can
get it as low you can hit it as low as like in the 60s like
6465. But I think on average, to be
safe, 75 miles an hour is about minimum.
Now this is, this is on an MLB field with short grass.
I think that's the caveat, you know if you you're hitting a low
EV ground ball to the four hole and you got longer grass, that
means that the the fielders have more time to get to that ball
because it's moving slower, right.
So I don't I don't know that this transfers to a high school
player or like a college player that is playing on a field with
longer grass in the in the early spring like I.
And so like I want to put that caveat in there of like you know
it it exa veal still matters and probably matters a little bit
more at the lower ages because of the fact that the the grass,
the grass or your surface type is going to be more variable
than it is in a professional. Like, I think you have to put
that caveat like there's so much more consistency in a playing
surface at the pro level. Right.
And if you, you know, you have a greater affordance of lower exit
velocities. If you play on a turf field, say
yeah, Toronto, yeah, Toronto, you can basically bury the ball
on the ground with a very soft hit.
And you are having a greater likelihood of getting a hit, you
know, based on the parameters that you have stated because of
that fast turf infield. And so that's where at least you
know, I I'm not like somewhere. I think ground balls are evil.
I think they are. They're they're part of the
repertoire, but you can't rely on them enough because the
probabilities of them turning into hits, I think are lower
than than, say, for example, a rising line drive that the
infielders can't catch. I mean, it just makes sense to
me, you know, unless the outfielders are playing super
shallow. But that's kind of the thing of
like it was super cool. I thought that which made also
no sense. But at one point they tried to
play the odds with a rise and shifted either brought guys
brought a guy into the infielder.
Shifted the outfielders all to one side and left right field
open. You know when when they had like
the winning run on, I don't know second or third and arise just
slaps, just hits his typical prototypical line drive that
probably would have went right to the right fielder and boom,
game over, you know. So I think it's it's kind of one
of those things though too like to go back to you know so
everybody knows I'm not anti hit the ball hard because if you
look at Arise a lot of his ground balls are like 90 plus
and those are hard for infielders to handle even though
it's not like the the top end you know of Velo.
It's still they're firm and those firm ones, like, there's
something about it just even in my head of like, from a
psychological standpoint, being on the receiving end of a ball
that looks like it's coming at you hard makes it hard.
Like you're just your motor skills tend to freeze up a
little bit more. Your degrees of freedom tend to
freeze a little bit more as a result.
So even though you dove for it and you probably could have
actually have got it, often times you don't get it because
you're you're not as fluid enough to be able to actually
move the glove where it should be.
You're just moving because you're like, oh gosh.
And so anyways, that's why I think hard hit balls in general
are are always still going to be, you know, relatively good.
Not to say that I I don't think there's sometimes it makes sense
to hit weakly to an infielder because that is also a hard
play. But the infielders also at times
tend to also be fluid enough to make make up for those.
Or that's a different element of of that problem.
But anyways, I digress. All right, Robert, is there
anything else in particular that you want to cover that I haven't
haven't thrown out or fed to you?
You know, as a create an affordance for you?
There's a better, better way of saying, is there any affordance
I haven't created for you for something?
That you wanted to talk about E ecological dynamics?
No, I think we we covered a lot of kind of blending.
You know, how can we have analytics help explain kind of
some of the approaches within ecological dynamics and ask
those kinds of questions? Because yeah, like not all
hitters are created equal here. And like Arias consistently is
that that type of person where he's kind of the outlier if you
will, where like based on he doesn't hit the ball that hard
compared to the other people and you know within 5 or 10 spots of
him, but he's still up here and and in successful you know type
of hitters. And so being able to discuss
this and say like you know you can have different blends of
hitters and still be successful And I think the the most
successful teams have that they have guys who can do both.
You know the guys who can hit for, who are mostly hitting for
power. You know mostly the three true
outcome guys. They have some guys in the
Araya's category. They have some guys who are a
little bit above, but you know, you should have like you
shouldn't be a one trick pony, if you will, on that and so.
I think, you know, to kind of talk about, OK, how does
ecological dynamics to be, be very specific and explicit here
of my thoughts on how to utilize analytics from an ecological
approach or how to bring those two together is it's all about
context. OK, so you want to be asking the
questions of, OK, use analytics to dig into.
I mean, obviously this is what people already do, but I think
we have to remember this of, OK, let's find out what this guy
does. Well, let's see if we can dig
through the numbers to find out like, OK, how are they doing
this 'cause they 'cause I think a lot of times we try to use
these analytical models of a certain type of player.
We try to shove everybody else into that model and compare them
to this model. Whereas I think there's we need
to also and if not more so you're looking at and asking the
questions especially of the anomalies like arise and I'm
sure there's other ones that we can point to but like
understanding of these other anomalies of like hey, this
person also who breaks the model can still have success and how
can we find out can they have success.
Because to me that's where I'm like, you know I want to know
different things of like OK with the rise and these other guys,
OK, what pitches are they hitting?
Well where where are they hitting them?
Right. These are all ecological
questions in a way of like the context, you know if you want to
begin to understand a player's skill because to me that's what
ecological dynamics is all about.
Is understanding skilled behavior.
OK. How do we begin to utilize the
analytics to understand the skill of a player and not in
terms of like how do they do on this model of like swing
decisions or you know, like I don't know, like you know what's
their OPS, whatever the whatever sort of model, you know that I
think some, some a lot of people sometimes will have and then
certain guys get left out. Because I mean I think right.
If you're looking at again finding an edge, right and
finding, you know, kind of in a way that like I like listening
to Kyle Bode talk about like them finding undervalued
players, OK. If you want to be able to find
undervalued players and have them come and be as successful
in contributing to your team, I think you have to be able to
look outside your model for other things.
You know, other things of like, you know, again, like other
adaptable players. Because to me, to me,
adaptability is the is the whole thing of like, yeah, some guys
might say, for example, not everybody is going to do things
the way that Cody Bellinger was able to do.
But we don't have to have this rigid, like everybody needs to
fit into this model of hitting, you know, of, you know,
completely balanced, you know, stay back, whatever.
Like every swing looks exactly the same.
You can have this model of like you can have both.
And that's that's I think the the big thing for me, like what
ecological dynamics does in that in that framework, in that
perspective, in that worldview, is it frees me up to say that I
don't have to ever have every guy look exactly the same and I
don't have to, you could say, have a cookie cutter program
that everybody's trying to fit into that we can individualize
it to the person. And then how I look at it as far
as my role as a coach is, it's like how can I find and look at
the vast, you could say, library of players throughout history
and how they've done things. And how can I find those
different pieces of of how they found success and take those
pieces and apply it to the player and find the right fit.
You know, finding that, that that element that another
player's done well that fits with this current player that's
in front of me so they can find success.
And so for me the the ecological approaches.
Such a powerful tool in a lens by which in a filter you could
say to help me look through the history, the vast history of the
game, you know, from the past to the present to help whatever
player is sitting in front of me right now.
So I hopefully that helps people kind of begin to see a little
bit how these things come together and how like the power
of the ecological approach. And obviously we need to get in
to more in the future of like what is the ecological approach,
where are all these little principles and all that sort of
stuff. But hopefully that's a good way
to kind of wrap and help tie this all together.
Anything you want to close with? No, I think you close it very,
very well. All right, well, hope you guys
enjoyed today's podcast and got something out of it.
Until next time. Until next time.