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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 2022 season was struck by Oneil Cruz. It was clocked at 122.4 mph, but Cruz only got a single for his efforts. The hardest-hit home run was tied for the second-hardest hit ball overall: a 119.8 mph blast off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton tied with himself, reaching on an error on the other batted ball clocked at 119.8 mph. Stanton also hit the fifth, sixth, and seventh hardest-batted balls of the season, with Cruz and Shohei Ohtani each appearing in the top 10 twice.
Most of the data in this article comes from the "Search" function on Baseball Savant but be warned that its interface is far from intuitive and that it can take several minutes to load your search results even with a strong internet connection. You may also get random error messages just because. 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 2022 was 88.6 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 ignore context and use overall average exit velocity to evaluate both HR/FB and BABIP.
You really shouldn't do that unless you believe that 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 85.7 mph on ground balls in 2022, and every mph above or below that figure is very important. For instance, hitters produced a batting average of just .155 on balls in the 82-84 mph bucket in 2022, 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 2022, the average airborne exit velocity in Major League Baseball was 92.7 mph. All other things being equal, a batter with an average airborne EV in the same area would be expected to be near the league-average HR/FB. Six qualified hitters matched the league-average EV on airborne batted balls last year: Brandon Drury, Nolan Arenado, Yoan Moncada, Tommy Edman, Tim Anderson, and Elias Diaz.
Of these, Drury crushed the league's 11.4% HR/FB with a 17.9% figure that should be expected to regress holding everything else constant. Arenado should be safe since his 12.3% HR/FB was essentially league average, and the rest posted below-average HR/FB marks last year. Importantly, none of Moncada, Edman, Anderson, and Diaz are known as power hitters and most should have seen their HR/FB boosted by their home parks. 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.
Conclusion
Hitting the ball hard is obviously 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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