Squared-Up Charge and Launch Angle: A Visible Investigation

I proceed to search out Statcast’s bat monitoring information fascinating. I additionally proceed to search out it overwhelming. Hitting is so advanced that I can’t fairly think about boiling it all the way down to just some numbers. Even once I have a look at a number of the extra advanced shows of bat monitoring, like squared-up rate, I typically can’t fairly perceive what it means.

I’ll offer you an instance: once I seemed into Manny Machado’s early-season struggles last week, I discovered that he was squaring the ball up extra continuously when he hit grounders than when he put the ball within the air. That sounds unhealthy to me – arduous grounders don’t actually pay the payments. However I didn’t have a lot to check it to, other than league averages for these charges. And I didn’t have context for what shapes of squared-up fee work for numerous completely different profitable batters.

What’s an analyst to do? If you happen to’re like me in 2024, there’s one most popular possibility: ask my pleasant neighborhood massive language mannequin to assist me create a visible. I had an concept of what I needed to do. Basically, I needed to create a chart that confirmed how a given hitter’s squared-up fee various by launch angle. There’s a distinction between squaring the ball up like Luis Arraez – line drives into the hole all day – and doing it like Machado. I hoped {that a} visible illustration would make that just a little clearer.

First issues first: I downloaded each ball in play from this 12 months the place Statcast recorded a bat pace, pitch pace, launch angle, and exit velocity. Then I manually calculated whether or not every batted ball was squared up. As a refresher, a batted ball is squared up if the ball travels at 80% of its most theoretical velocity, as measured by a proxy formulation: 1.23 * bat pace + 0.23 * pitch pace at dwelling plate, which is roughly 92% of pitch pace at launch. If you happen to’re keen on following together with me at dwelling, you could find that information here. If not, bear with me, as a result of I’d like to point out you some photos I made.

From there, Gemini (my LLM of selection, although I’m certain others would find yourself in roughly the identical place) and I started working. We calculated the squared-up fee of every hitter at every angle. I needed to make a number of choices right here about the best way to combination information. I made a decision to bulk up each angle by on the lookout for balls hit inside 10 levels of it both method, then threw out each bucket that didn’t have no less than 20 information factors after doing that bulking up. There’s some overlapping information this fashion, however pattern sizes are sufficiently small, and I believe that hitter intent is broad sufficient, that when you’re questioning how continuously somebody squares up a batted ball at 15 levels, taking a look at 5 levels and 25 levels are each helpful inputs.

These are the components that I got here up with, however I wasn’t fairly certain the best way to flip that idea right into a program that would make graphs out of my concept. However that’s nothing I couldn’t resolve after a number of hours of developing with concepts, translating them into Python code utilizing generative AI, discovering issues with the code, developing with new concepts to resolve these issues, translating these new concepts into new code, discovering new issues… you get the concept.

Basically, I needed a graph of how good Machado is at squaring up the ball relying on whether or not he’s hitting it down, flat, or up. Nice information. I acquired precisely that graph:

He’s squaring up a ton of his contact on the bottom, similar to we knew. He’s getting essentially the most out of his bat pace far much less continuously on the juicy launch angles within the 20 diploma vary. That doesn’t sound very similar to Arraez, the bat management god, in any respect. However what does Arraez’s graph appear to be? It appears to be like like what you’d count on:

As a aspect word, the scale of the circles is proportional to the proportion of contact in that bucket. Arraez’s largest circles are line drives of varied sorts. He hardly has any excessive grounders or excessive popups. That’s what wonderful bat management appears to be like like.

How does that evaluate to Machado? After a spherical or two of dancing with Gemini, the software I constructed can assist with that too:

You could possibly just about guess this even earlier than this graph, but it surely’s nonetheless good to see it in photos. Machado is squaring up grounders on the identical fee, however his swing simply isn’t getting it completed within the air proper now. We will throw in a 3rd hitter to point out what it appears to be like like while you’re the alternative of Machado. Right here’s Bryce Harper, whose uppercut swing is etched into pitchers’ nightmares in every single place:

Harper is the brand new sequence, in Philly pink. When he hits the ball on the bottom, he’s hardly ever squaring it up. In different phrases, these are largely mishits; when he’s squaring the ball up, it’s typically within the air. He persistently beats Machado at squared-up fee within the air, and he hits extra fly balls as nicely. He won’t sq. the ball up as continuously as Arraez, however he swings a lot tougher and connects usually sufficient. Maybe unsurprisingly, he’s mashing to date this 12 months.

For one more enjoyable comparability, let’s have a look at Aaron Judge and Juan Soto:

They’re each making pristine contact throughout the board. They’re at or above an 80% squared-up fee for just about all the things within the air, they usually’re each swinging arduous too. That’s a lethal mixture. Choose is even avoiding grounders; he doesn’t actually have a left tail to talk of. His largest cluster of launch angles is essentially the most harmful one in baseball while you’re hitting the ball arduous. In different phrases, he’s swinging arduous, squaring the ball up continuously, and doing it on dwelling run trajectories. No marvel he’s slugging .703.

These two elite hitters are getting it completed in nearly the identical method. Nevertheless it’s not the identical for everybody. The Dodgers’ three stars present some variation:

Mookie Betts has changed into an excessive fly ball hitter. Right here’s the graphical proof of why that’s working: He’s contacting the ball most squarely at round 30 levels of raise, and he’s hitting the ball within the air extremely continuously. To the extent that he has mishits, he’s getting too far below the ball and popping it up, which is sensible given his general method. Shohei Ohtani, too, is squaring the ball up most continuously within the air. He isn’t hitting a ton of grounders, although greater than Betts. He’s additionally completely rifling low line drives — have a look at all these excessive blue circles within the 10-20 diploma band.

Then there’s Freddie Freeman. He hits all the things sq. at about the identical fee. His most frequent launch angles are principally all the things from 10-40 levels. There’s nearly no variation in his line; each Betts and Ohtani have increased highs and decrease lows. Freeman’s swing appears to be a chameleon; it simply adjustments to suit the contact sort. In quite a lot of methods, he’s a burlier however much less exact Luis Arraez:

They each simply rake, plain and easy. Arraez hits it flush extra continuously, after all, however Freeman swings 7 mph quicker. Arraez focuses extra on the 5-15 diploma band; Freeman faucets into his energy by hitting extra balls within the 25-35 diploma vary. However they’re each completely peppering all the things, whether or not within the air or on the bottom, they usually each hit a ton of line drives. These guys are unimaginable.

We will do extra. Wish to see some younger American League shortstop dynamos? Check out Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson:

Witt has a promising contact form, however not an ideal one. It’s like Freeman’s, solely shifted down a bit and with extra grounders. There are some pink flags, like his comparatively low squared-up fee when he’s placing the ball within the air. To be trustworthy with you, although, I’m unsure how necessary squared-up fee is in these small and cut-up samples. I’m extra keen on form for now, and I’ll have time to do extra testing of how a lot the degrees matter later. The important thing half, for me, is that Witt’s most frequent outcomes are fly balls and line drives, however his most frequent square-ups happen on grounders. Make that correction, and much more upside may very well be obtainable.

Henderson, alternatively, looks like he was designed in a lab. He squares the ball up most continuously on the launch angles the place arduous contact is most advantageous. He doesn’t have sufficient popups to get any dots up there. His grounders are all mishits. Certain, perhaps he might focus much more batted balls round his finest swings, however he’s doing precisely what I need each hitter to do: hitting the ball flush when he elevates, and doing so with plus bat pace.

Right here’s a thriller that this information can resolve: Why does Henderson have 20 homers to Witt’s 11? Witt hits the ball tougher, hits fewer grounders, and even has the next barrel fee. However Henderson’s swing is designed to sq. the ball up within the air extra continuously, so he’s lined up high-value launch angles and high-value exit velocities higher than his Kansas Metropolis counterpart.

I believe this information will get way more attention-grabbing when now we have entry to a number of years of historical past. I’d like to know if Kyle Tucker’s swing form has modified along side his decrease groundball fee and otherworldly manufacturing. I’d be keen on seeing how hitters who change their batted ball tendencies change their squared-up tendencies. I need to see whether or not Nick Castellanos has all the time squared up the ball precisely like Bryce Harper, or whether or not he used to have a special form and the brand new one is correlated together with his downfall:

I haven’t fairly found out what to do with all of this in the long term. I believe it’s extra of a storytelling software than one thing that may let you know who might be nice and who will battle. That mentioned, I like the tales! Arraez is sweet within the methods you’d count on. Betts maxes out on energy together with his swing. Harper’s uppercut is cool to see in information. And the way about that uppercut towards Yandy Díaz’s ground-friendly methods:

Yandy is smashing these grounders. You and I already knew that, but it surely’s cool for this information to confirm the attention take a look at. That’s principally what that is to me; a method of changing some dry information factors right into a story.

The software I constructed isn’t reside on the pages of FanGraphs for a lot of causes. It’s hilariously rudimentary. It’s buggy. It’s programmed by me, a coding imbecile, relatively than by our workforce of fantastic builders. It won’t even be helpful in the long term.

So no, you’ll be able to’t simply click on on a single hyperlink and mess around with this to your coronary heart’s content material. However I’ve two issues to supply that may hopefully make it as much as you. First, that is an open supply venture. Yow will discover the Python script that generates these graphs here, together with the underlying information. I’m definitely not assured that that is essentially the most environment friendly solution to do issues – I used to be constructing from scratch with out quite a lot of expertise on this space. When you have some enhancements or whatnot, let me know!

Second, I occur to have the code and the flexibility to put up photos to the web. So when you’re keen on a selected comparability, ask me beneath within the feedback. I’ll get to as many as I can for the following day or so, as a result of I perceive that “hey, simply learn to use this pc programming language actual quick” isn’t precisely a solution to assure broad entry.

So, yeah. That’s the top! No actual conclusion at this time, other than a) I believe this software is cool and b) listed below are some photos of it. I hope you prefer it, and I hope there might be extra bells and whistles earlier than lengthy.