RADIO
Rick Lucks discusses how exit velocity (EV) can be used to predict a fantasy baseball player's future performance in his ongoing series on making sabermetrics more accessible to fantasy managers.
If you've watched a baseball broadcast in the Statcast era, you have undoubtedly noticed the broadcasters commenting on a batted ball's exit velocity or EV. Many have taken to using stats like Hard% and Soft% to forecast how a player should be performing, expecting larger Hard% rates to produce larger BABIP and HR/FB figures. There is a relationship there, but it is not as clear-cut as you might think.
The hardest-batted ball of the 2023 season was struck by Ronald Acuna Jr. It was clocked at 121.2 mph and landed over the fence for a home run. However, elite exit velocity doesn't always mean a positive outcome. Giancarlo Stanton hit the second-hardest ball at 119.5 mph, and he recorded an out. Stanton also had the sixth (118.6 mph single), eighth (118.3 mph double play), and 10th (118.1 mph HR) hardest-hit balls of the season. Only Shohei Ohtani appears twice in the top 10 otherwise.
Average exit velocity can be found on the Statcast leaderboards, while you need to use the Search function to find specific batted ball events. With that out of the way, let's take a closer look at how the EV readings on Baseball Savant can give you an advantage in your fantasy leagues.
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How Can I Use EV to Predict BABIP on Ground Balls?
The best way to get a feel for how hard a given batter usually hits the ball is to look at his average exit velocity. The league average mark in 2023 was 89 mph, but that stat is of little value. The exit velocity on airborne balls (both flies and line drives but not pop-ups) is all you need when evaluating a player's HR/FB rate, while ground ball exit velocity is the best indicator of a high BABIP on ground balls. Sadly, a lot of analysts use overall average exit velocity to evaluate both HR/FB and BABIP.
You really shouldn't do that unless you believe a grounder has a chance of going over the fence. Hard% is even worse, as it assumes that all batted balls of at least 95 mph are equal and makes no attempt to differentiate ground balls from airborne ones. So how do you figure out what's useful among these sabermetric measures? As always, the answer lies in placing these numbers in their proper context.
Major league batters averaged an EV of 86.1 mph on ground balls in 2023, and every mph above or below that figure is very important. For instance, hitters produced a batting average of just .173 on balls in the 84-86 mph bucket in 2023, dramatically affecting results even though the velocity doesn't seem that much lower than the league average.
As we've previously seen, players who can be shifted should be expected to struggle on grounders regardless of EV, while faster players can punch above their weight. Much like broader BABIP, it is a good idea to compare a player's current BABIP on ground balls to his previous work to account for these factors. As such, average exit velocity on grounders should be seen as one piece of a larger puzzle instead of the end of your BABIP analysis.
How Can I Use EV to Predict HR/FB?
In 2023, the average airborne exit velocity in Major League Baseball was 93 mph. All other things being equal, a batter with an average airborne EV would be expected to be near the league-average HR/FB. Five qualified hitters matched the league-average EV on airborne batted balls last year: Willy Adames, Jose Abreu, Jose Siri, Luis Rengifo, and Mike Tauchman.
Of these, Adames (13.6% HR/FB), Abreu (11.9%), Rengifo (13.9%), and Tauchman (10.8%) posted a HR/FB close to the league's 12.7%. Jose Siri was a huge outlier with a 26.6% HR/FB that isn't backed by his EV at all, and he should be expected to regress significantly in 2024. This isn't a group to look for power upside in.
While airborne EV is an important power metric to look at, other variables can prove more important. Ironically, airborne exit velocity's most important use may be to confirm whether a player besting his career BABIP on fly balls and/or line drives can continue to do so.
How Do I Use the Search Function on Baseball Savant?
Baseball Savant's Search interface looks intimidating, and using it can be worse. For example, here is what my screen looked like when I looked up the data for the ground ball bucket above:
There are so many different things to toggle, most of which aren't relevant to your specific query. Speaking from experience, the best advice is to simply play with it until you get a feel for what toggles what.
It's also slow, so be prepared to wait a few minutes for search results even if you have an excellent internet connection. It may crash or give you random error messages, too, so just reload the page and keep trying. You'll figure it out eventually, and there's a ton of fun, useful information hiding behind this awful interface.
Conclusion
Hitting the ball hard is a good thing, but limiting your fantasy analysis to just exit velocity is asking for trouble. Variables such as strong pull tendencies and foot speed can trump raw EV in a player's BABIP on ground balls, while home park, launch angle, and Pull% can all support elevated HR/FB figures even if the EV doesn't. Oh, and for the love of the fantasy baseball gods, please don't use Hard% for anything!
Stay tuned for more tips on how to leverage sabermetrics in your fantasy analysis.
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