No matter how intense of a fantasy baseball league one plays in, learning more about the terms utilized on Statcast can provide insight when researching. It also provides some clarity understanding what's covered in our own player profile series here on Fantasy Alarm. With broadcasts displaying launch angles and exit velocities, it's making inroads into baseball no matter how many refuse to buy into analytics. Keeping all of this in mind, this article hopefully removes some of the aversion to the numbers at one's fingertips available on Statcast and other sites going forward.

In order to stay within the KISS principle, not the band but the acronym of keep it simple stupid, here's my best shot at some clarity on Statcast data along with how to apply it.

Batted Ball Event (BBE)

Applicable to hitters and pitchers, a batted ball event includes outs, hits and errors of any ball in play which produces a result. A foul ball caught for an out counts as a batted ball event. Basically, the total either generated by a hitter or yielded by a pitcher during a season.

Exit Velocity (EV)

Not to be confused with another abbreviation (ED), exit velocity represents how fast, in miles per hour (MPH) a ball was hit by a batter. Hitting a ball hard (from a batter's perspective) should result in a higher likelihood of a hit. Preventing hard hits (from a pitcher's perspective) helps prevent them. Both hitters and pitchers skill levels can be displayed by this statistic.

Hard Hit Percentage (HH%)

Once again, applicable to pitchers and hitters alike, a hard hit gets credited any time the exit velocity of a batted ball event ensues with an exit velocity of 95 MPH or better. Usually the higher this number gets for a batter, the better and for a pitcher it's the reverse.

Launch Angle (LA)

How high, in degrees a ball was hit by a batter. More research indicates the pitcher and his arsenal affects this more than the hitter's swing makes it a tough one to predict. However, in the case of a player like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who finished 2020 with a hard hit percentage in the 93rd percentile (50.7 percent) but with only nine home runs in 221 at-bats, his 4.6 degree average launch angle resulting in a 54.6 ground ball rate comes into play.

As for pitchers, the average launch angle average allowed, lower equals better. Depressing a hitter's launch angle keeps baseballs in the park.

For launch angle, this guide breaks it down simply, our goal:

  • Less than 10 degrees = ground ball
  • 10-to-25 degrees = line drive
  • 25-to-50 degrees = fly ball
  • Greater than 50 degrees = pop-up

Barrels (Brls)

A batted ball with a perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle creates a barrel. On average, a barrel can be identified as a batted ball with an expected batting average of .500 or better and an expected slugging percentage of 1.500 or higher.

For example, a ball traveling at 99 MPH with a launch angle between 25-to-31 degrees equals a barrel. Citing a statistic from Statcast, in 2016 this type of batted ball event yielded a batting average of .822 and a slugging percentage of 2.386, pretty, pretty good.

But, there's more. If one produces a batted ball event of 100 MPH, the launch angle expands by three degrees to 24-to-33 degrees. This occurs for each MPH over 100 (at 2-to-3 degrees for each MPH over) until it reaches 116 MPH which any batted ball with a launch angle of 8-to-50 degrees becomes a barrel. So there's hope Vladito. Luckily, Statcast figures this out for us and even provides a barrel percentage along with a barrels per plate appearance on its leaderboards. For the visual crowd, me included:

Sweet Spot Percentage (SwSp%)

This statistic helps formulate barrels. A batted ball event with a launch angle between 8-to-32 degrees represents the sweet spot. It identifies how hitter's produce this launch angle and it also shows which pitchers prevent them.

Expected Batting Average (xBA)

Measures the likelihood a batted ball becomes a hit. It uses exit velocity, launch angle and on certain types of batted balls, sprint speed based on hits since Statcast (2015) started tracking them. This takes defense out of the equation in an effort to identify if a player's over or underperforming based on results versus their displayed skills. So, the quality of contact over the actual results gets factored into this statistic. Again, higher equals better for hitters and lower equates to better for pitchers.

Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA)

Hopefully the readers stayed with this until this point. xwOBA gets formulated using exit velocity, launch angle and like above, sprint speed on certain types of batted ball events but also incorporates strikeouts along with walks. Do not get confused by this, it's an equation:

Long story short, a hitter with a high xwOBA indicates skill over what might have happened over the course of a season. One example, Marcell Ozuna who recorded an xwOBA of .387 in 2019 versus an actual wOBA of .336. Those 51 points over represented a hitter whose skill set deserved a better fate. Short sample aside, Ozuna surged in 2020 leading the National League in home runs and RBI while finishing third in on-base percentage. Let the numbers help identify player's skills, do not totally dismiss them.

Once again, a hitter with an xwOBA above his actual for a season should improve in the next season. Pitchers prefer a smaller xwOBA displaying skills for keeping hitters off the bases helping fuel their success.

Expected Weighted On-Base Average on Contact (xwOBAcon)

A derivation of xwOBA, adding in the bacon makes this measurement just about the contact. So it excludes walks and hit by pitch which appear in xwOBA only. This concentrates on a hitter's ability to get on base using quality of contact.

Expected Slugging Percentage (xSLG)

Based on quality of contact, a recurrent theme, instead of actual outcomes. Therefore, the better a hitter produces hard hits in the sweet spot range fuels a better xSLG:

  • 1B + (2B times 2) +(3B times 3) + (HR times 4) divided by at-bats = xSLG

Again, this takes defense out of the equation. Ozuna's xSLG in 2019 (.548) his actual (.472).

Expected Home Runs (xHR)

New to Statcast starting in 2019, expected home runs takes a player's home run total then applies it to how many ballparks it would have left, then divides by 30. There are also three different home run classifications on Statcast:

  • No-doubters - Out of any of the 30 stadiums in MLB
  • Mostly-gone - Out of 8-to-29 stadiums
  • Doubters - Out of seven or fewer stadiums

One can also view how many home runs a player hit in 2020 may translate to a new ballpark depending on a move via free agency or trade. For instance, if D.J. LeMahieu signed with Toronto, his 10 home runs from 2020 produce an xHR of 11 in Yankee Stadium, but in Rogers Centre his xHR drops to seven. Taking it out further, he's hit 39 home runs the last two years with an xHR in Toronto of 24 total. It may be nothing or it may be something to consider when a hitter changes venue. This being a hypothetical of course.

Sprint Speed

Referenced above in the xBA and xwOBA definitions, Sprint Speed was introduced in 2017 as a metric to quantify speed by measuring how many feet per second a player runs in his fastest one-second window. Where was this during my years in high school track? Sorry, do not mean to digress here. There are two categories in which a player gets scored for a "qualified run":

  • Runs of two bases or more on non-home runs excluding running from second base to home on an extra-base hit
  • Home to first but not counting when running out a "topped” or "weakly hit” batted ball event

A player's best results, approximately two-thirds, are then averaged for a player's season average of feet per second.

Bolt

Any run described above in which a player records a sprint speed of 30 feet per second or faster. According to Statcast data, bolt numbers usually align with the league totals of stolen bases. Trea Turner led the majors with 54 bolts in 2020 if scoring at home but only recorded 12 stolen bases in the shortened season.

Spin Rate

One can access these under the pitcher's arsenals by pitch on Statcast. Spin rate measures how much spin, in revolutions per minute, a pitch was thrown with. When trying to figure out how a pitcher improved or perhaps found a foreign substance to produce a higher spin rate, see Trevor Bauer and his improvements in Cincinnati, best of luck. But it may shed some light on how a pitcher may be taking a step forward in his development, Corbin Burnes .

Expected ERA (xERA)

This statistic takes the xwOBA formula to the ERA scale. It attempts to measure the quality of contact (EV and LA) along with strikeouts, walks and hit-by-pitches to credit the hitter or pitcher for the moment of contact.

It can be similar to FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) and Statcast maintains it's not necessarily predictive. More useful for setting a scale of performance for the season being researched. For a predictive statistic, use SIERA on Fangraphs instead.

Whiff Percentage (Whiff%)

On Statcast, this statistic appears to be higher than on others. This measures the whiffs divided swings on a particular pitch and overall arsenal by a pitcher. Same for a hitter, it's the whiffs (swing and miss) in relation to swings. One should not confuse this for swinging strike percentage (SwStr%) on Fangraphs.

Put Away Percentage (PA%)

Rate of two-strike pitches which result in a strikeout by a pitcher. What pitch a pitcher uses in this situation and how well it performs can be mined from this statistic.

Called plus Swinging Strikes Percentage (CSW%)

Metric created by Alex Fast, helps measure a pitcher's command by combining his called strikes plus his swinging strikes (whiffs) divided by the number of pitches per contest or pitch itself.

With a focus on identifying players who either fall short of or exceed in some of these key categories can unlock the door on a breakout. Whether a statistic can be repeated or improved upon along with how to value a player or his projection for the upcoming year. Do not be afraid to apply these into your own research and at the very least, hopefully this clears up some of the numbers often referred to on our site and in broadcasts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Credits:

BaseballSavant.com

MLB.com Statcast Glossary