Kings of Candy: Sweet-Spot% Risers

David Emerick analyzes MLB hitters who improved their Sweet Spot rates (SwSp%) during the 2020 season and could be fantasy baseball assets in 2021.

While the 2020 season may not have given us much of a sample to evaluate outcomes (home runs, doubles, flyouts, etc.), the core events of exit velocity and launch angle stabilize more quickly and can be stickier than combination statistics like ISO or BB%.

Two of our FSWA Writer-of-the-Year Finalists, Eric Samulski and Nicklaus Gaut, have already analyzed players who improved their exit velocities and finding power in the StatCast data. However, plenty of players generate admirable careers and productive fantasy seasons with middling exit velocities (EV). Whit Merrifield and Michael Conforto are prime examples of hitters with excellent fantasy profiles but who rely on launching the ball at an ideal angle rather than high-end EV. 

While exit velocity remains the more predictive measure of future power output, a hitter’s Sweet Spot % (SwSp%) can suggest productive hitters who don’t always appear on the top 10 percent for exit velocity. A hitter's Sweet-Spot rate reflects how frequently a batter launches a ball between 8° and 32°, the ideal range for safe hits. 

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2020 SwSp% Leaders

Freddie Freeman’s 49.2 SwSp% is one of the most ludicrous statistics I’ve seen. For me, it rates up there with Gerrit Cole’s 39.9% K% from 2019 as a sign of season-long dominance. Granted, it was a 60-game season, but it’s still a remarkable achievement. Since 2015, the next closest performance came from Joey Votto in 2018, when he enjoyed a 46.2 SwSp% in 2018.

There are a number of encouraging names on that leaderboard, and some of them show up in the gainers section as well. One of the most surprising is J.D. Martinez. Before Freeman tested positive for Covid-19 in July, Freeman’s ADP of 17 was just ahead of Martinez’s 22. Their 2020 performances went in the opposite direction, though, and it’s fascinating to see them together here.

There are lots of factors involved in analyzing the difference between their seasons, but the news that players will be able to review game video again and Martinez’s appearance on this list make his current ADP (96) an appealing price and risk. Granted, Martinez’s average exit velocity dropped by 2 MPH, so there is cause for concern. However, it’s encouraging that even with the velocity issues, he still managed to square up so often and actually improved his barrel rate from 2019’s 10.8% to 11.0% in 2020.

However, most of those names are familiar to readers, and while that leaderboard is interesting, our true focus here are those hitters who most improved their SwSp%:

SwSp% Risers

I extended this list down to include 4% just so I could include Dansby Swanson, whose evolution over the last two years has given him an ATC projection for 22 HR, 12 SB, and a .257 batting average. Those numbers are basically his 160-game average over the last two seasons. Despite a drop from 89.9 MPH to 89.0 MPH in his EV, Swanson’s improved contact profile buoyed his barrel rate from 7.7% in 2019 to 11.4% in 2020. Managers probably shouldn't expect a huge improvement in how hard Swanson is striking the ball, but they can be confident in his ability to continue producing the way he has the last two seasons.

Like Swanson, Renato Nunez had his best season despite a drop in his EV. For Nunez, his average EV plummeted from 89.9 MPH (64^th percentile) to 86.6 MPH (13^th percentile). It’s hard to imagine Nunez continuing to produce an .816 OPS and 120 wRC+ with that EV. However, Nunez has generally hit the ball plenty hard, and he also improved his barrel rate last season. His launch average launch angle of 21.1° is near close to ideal for hitters. Combine that with improvements in plate discipline, and there’s real promise in his bat.

Didi Gregorius, Maikel Franco, Francisco Lindor, and Paul Goldschmidt all fall into the same basic category. Each one saw his SwSp% increase but suffered a drop in EV and Brl/BBE%. That’s not necessarily a cause for concern because so many hitters struggled with timing and getting acclimated for the first month. Among those four hitters, the changes for Lindor and Gregorius were most concerning: Lindor’s barrel rate dropped by 1.9%, and Gregorius’s EV plummeted 4.4 MPH.

Teoscar Hernandez has shown up on a ton of lists during this offseason and preseason. Managers should be reassured about his presence here. He’s always been a player with high EV, and that didn’t change last season when he improved his SwSp%, barrel rate, average EV, and max EV. Not only did Hernandez dramatically improve his SwSp%, he pushed it into the top-10 in the league. The high strikeout rate will continue to be a concern, but four consecutive years of improved plate discipline seems to have turned Hernandez into a player who can now use his power to drive balls out of the park.

Lourdes Gurriel’s 2020 was similar to Hernandez’s. However, Gurriel did not improve many of the EV stats, and his launch angle actually dropped in 2020. That might prompt skepticism, except that the launch angle dropped because he dropped his infield-fly rate from 10.1% to 7.4, and he turned those infield flies into line drives, which increased from 17.7% to 25.9%. Gurriel doesn’t offer the same level of power as Hernandez, but his lower strikeout rate and stronger contact skills should make him a more stable asset.

Trent Grisham’s line illustrates exactly the kind of growth that managers want to see in a young player. He increased his SwSp% enough to nearly make the top-20 leaderboard, improved his Brl/BBE% from 5.4% to 11.1%, and hit the ball hard more frequently than he did in his 2019 season. For Grisham, the primary concern seems tied to his difficulty with breaking pitches and the 40.7% ground-ball rate and 16.0% infield-fly rate directly tied to those. There was still lots of good hard contact in his profile (a 24.8% line-drive rate and 41.6% hard-hit rate), and that should stabilize his batting average, but there is some genuine cause for concern.

Ian Happ looks an awful lot like Dansby Swanson: a player who took longer to become good than we originally expected. However, the improved contact and additional experience have rendered him a player with real value. Happ is available 50 picks after Swanson, but he plays the outfield and offers fewer steals.

Jeimer Candelario seems to consistently appear on lists of productive players available in most leagues or available in trade for almost nothing. The improvement from a 32.9 SwSp% to 37.5% represents a move from the 33^rd percentile to 79^th. That growth was compounded by an increase in his EV and his hard-hit rate. The overall effect was that Candelario doubled his barrel rate from 5.1% to 10.3%. He's a potential sleeper pick for managers searching for power in the later rounds.

Orlando Arcia is one of the most interesting names here. He’s long been described as an elite athlete with above-average fielding abilities. However, not only did Arcia improve his SwSp% from 26.5% to 37.3%, he improved his average EV for the fourth consecutive season. His EV is now officially above average (barely), and the improved contact gave him a .325 xwOBA and .281 xBA. BaseballSavant lists his batting profile as closest to Wilson Ramos (.86), Michael Brantley (.82), Corey Dickerson (.81), Tommy Pham (.80), and Carlos Correa (.79).  That’s a wide range of players, but it reflects the potential for a player whose bat has continued to develop his entire career.

If you have any sense of how to analyze Mark Canha’s batting profile from the last three years, message me on Twitter. Canha’s profile has shifted dramatically over the last three seasons.

It could be attributed to a late bloomer experimenting and the instability of limited ABs. Canha’s improved SwSp% was basically a return to his 2018 level. He did keep some of his EV gains, but it’s a difficult profile to unpack because we didn’t have a clear sense of him before 2019 anyway. Add in two years of inconsistent development and age, and it’s difficult to evaluate the numbers. Despite that, it’s even tougher to figure out how a player with a  131 wRC+ over the last three years is going after pick 250.

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