Welcome back to Finding the Edge Podcast. I'm Garrett Boyam, joined with Robert Frey. And today we're going to talk about some of the anomalies with projections and some guys who outperformed them this past season. And you know, just seeing like what kind of what can we deduct or deduce, I should say, what can we deduce from those guys and how they were able to
outperform those projections? And one of the guys that I wanted to really look at or I think we're going to start the conversation with is Cody Bellinger. Because I've it's just been fun for me to watch him this year because I've seen more adjustability from him that's functional. And so that's that's kind of, I guess where at least for me, he started my following him and then it turns out he had a really great year.
I just remember seeing a couple of swings and I'm like, oh, that's that kind of fits the Caleb Abney model of breaking the rules, doing things. And so I guess today I wanted to kind of look at some of that because I wanted to see you know looking at stat cast what his, what some of his expected stats
were. You know, and it was kind of interesting to me just looking at some of this stuff like expected weighted on base, generally speaking, not for everybody, but for a lot of guys it ended up matching pretty close to like their batting average in some ways. I they they must be fairly correlated. Yeah, to the, for the most part, they seem correlated and then obviously there's some things. So like in recent years as of 2019, Statcast decided to change its ex global formula.
So from 2015 to 2018, it was just essentially exit velocity and logical, those two variables. However, from 2019 to present they also incorporated a bad or seasonal Sprint speed, so that way they can adjust for different speeds. Because if a topped or a weekly hit ground ball is hit, you know a runner like Corbin Carroll and a rookie of the year is more likely to get a hit on those plays, whereas a bigger player like say Pablo Sandoval is not.
It might be where in a situation where or we can think of a more recent player because I'm not sure if Sandoval played this past season. But we can think of a guy like Franco Reyes somewhere along those lines are like a Miguel Sano since we're, you know on that time like he's a bigger guy so he's comparing like Sano to Corbin Carroll.
You know, Sano is probably more likely to hit the ball harder, but for those weekly hit balls or topped balls, per Statcas's kind of barrel classification, Corbin Carroll's more likely to beat those out. So they felt like that should have been factored as well. So that's why I think in recent years it's starting to get more and more detailed towards, you know, a runner's speed rather than just hitting the ball hard.
Well, and then for me, you know, going back to Bellinger, that was something that clearly came up when I was looking at the dexterity of his hitting ability. There were some balls that became hits because simply because of his speed. For other guys, those would have been outs. The other element of it too, not that Bellinger is slow, but he's also left-handed, right? So the speed that he has gets a a little boost just to the sheer
fact that he he's left-handed. So then again somebody a right-hander with the same speed might not end up being able to be safe on some of those. There's other things that too though, like because Luisa Rise is not that fast and there are a couple of hits that they gave him at least early in the season, that there's a hard ground ball to 2nd or whatever. Guy bobbled it, threw it, and he was safe.
Oh, he threw it, it bounced and then the first baseman didn't field it or catch it and he was safe, but it wasn't because the ball had bounced and he caught it. He would have been out. So to me that's an error. And I don't know why they classified it as a hit because he was going to be out if if the if the first baseman have had actually caught the ball instead of missing it. So there's small things like that, but there are other little things like Luisa rise again not being.
I don't know where he ranks in the Sprint speed, but it's not it's not elite by any means. As far as I can tell, he's not known as being. Extremely fast baseball, so Bonds leader sprints free leaderboard of of players without at least 100 competitive runs. IE you know whether or not jogging things like that. Competitive runs. Cody Bellinger is 72nd, Luisa Rias is 200 and 35th. The average Sprint speed in the
MLB is 27 feet per second. Luis Soraas was slightly below average at 26.1 feet per second and Cody Bellinger was above average at 28.3 feet per second and. That's, that's where I think it's kind of interesting to me that A Rise is still able to beat out some of those, some of those infield hits. But I think that like I remember reading a long time ago, I think in one of the strength and conditioning books that I found for baseball, that everybody is
fast. Like there's a minimum speed that a guy needs to be able to play at in professional baseball in order to get enough hits, even the big guys. So even the big guys are relatively fast because if not, they would not be able to hit at a high or get on base enough if they were too slow. And so even the the slow guys can get down the line fast enough to beat out certain
infield singles. And so I think that to me is how I explain well Luis Arise isn't that fast yet he hit some balls in the infield that goes straight to fielders and then he's somehow able to be safe. So to me that says he's not that slow. But I think that's just a A we're talking about a relative right, when we're trying to compare players, right. That's where this factors in.
But at the same point, I think we all have to recognize that, you know every guy who plays in the in MLB baseball, like unless you're probably at the bottom of the barrel, like you're probably you're probably fast enough. But to your point, because X welba for Luisa, Luisa Rise is what came in at 5 or 353 and his batting average was 354. So I thought that was pretty, pretty cool to see like how close those two things got to
each other. I mean his expecting batting average, he outperformed his expecting batting average. You know, going back to, you know, the expected stats.
I thought that was kind of interesting like I don't know how accurate expected batting average actually is relative to what guys usually end up at. And so I don't see this is kind of the thing with like the expected stats like how much, how much, how much do you sit there and go Oh well he actually he over performed and it's like well, I don't, I don't really think so. Like if you look at if we're just talking about a rise in what I watched, if you look at
the launch angle that he created, it gave him the greatest opportunity to get a lot of those hits. And then you know I was watching too the IT said when they were playing the twins, they tried to pitch him up and in. But you could see that this year he, he hit a lot of those balls that were up well, well enough for hits. Like I want to say I saw multiple and I didn't get to watch all of his hits, but I saw, you know, at least 5-5 balls up in the zone that he hit.
Well, fastballs too. So I mean nothing that was like super high velocity, high spin. But still, the fact that he's able to get to those pitches tells me that this dude is super hard to to pitch to because especially early in the year, I didn't get to watch them later in the year, but early in the year they were hitting him with a lot of fastballs. Yeah. So anyways, I'm gonna repeat that just for the 'cause I got a stupid noise that popped up in
there early in the year. Luis Arise got a lot of fastballs. He was hitting a lot of fastballs. He did start to see more breaking balls, I think later in the year, but early in the year he was seeing a lot of fastballs and and hitting the fastballs. So I thought that was kind of interesting to note when it came to to like how what what is he getting his hits on. And I think that's another question to ask too.
If we're, especially if we're trying to look at, OK, how from, from an ecological perspective, how dexterous is a player How how, how much. Yeah, I think dexterity is probably how masterful. I'm trying to figure out another word for for people who aren't as familiar with like, what's dexterity right. The ability to display. I'm going to say it this way. The ability to display functional solutions under a myriad of different conditions so he's able to have success under a wide range of
conditions. Meaning, OK, so we can hit handle the fastball, but OK, what type of fastball? Right? Is it middle? Middle. Is it away? Is it up? Like, is there certain areas that he struggles with? Arise seems to display that he can handle a large range of fastballs, but not only fastballs but breaking balls. This is the same thing too too with with Bellinger. I saw it more with Bellinger because he had he got more breaking balls a lot. There were of the video clip that I put up.
I think it was about fourteen of those or of like showing his adjustability in his swing. He got fourteen hits and two K counts and two straight counts and a lot of those were breaking balls. Not all of them, but a lot of them were breaking balls and that to me says quite a bit as far as your ability and what you can do on the field. And that makes you a a dangerous and a potent hitter. And then I think that's part of what allowed him to to be the comeback player of the year. Absolutely.
And I mean another way to look at it too is like you said, you know, 14 hits with two chart counts like and we go back to like X Lobo versus Lobo. So, like, according to Baseball Savon, his XO was 327, his Lobo was 370. So like, he significantly outperformed his expected Wilba. And a lot of that was, you know, middle pitches. So again on Baseball Savant, his ex Wilba on pitches middle, away, 412 middle, middle, 379 middle and 3:41.
However, he performed 475 middle away, 520 middle, middle, 445 middle end. And a lot of that too is like you said like he had so many two strike hits. I think part of it, like you said with with his dexterity for Rias but similar with Cody Bellinger is being able to be you know adaptable and attuned to the specifying information of OK, I'm likely getting a breaking ball here. I don't have to put a an aggressive swing.
I need I need to put a swing that is likely to result in a hit, or a swing that allows me just to put the ball in play. I think for me, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bristle a little bit at the whole anticipation. Not that I think guys don't anticipate, but I think it's hard unless, I mean there is enough at the professional level to to know guys tendencies to to have a good idea what's going to be thrown here. But I think a lot of it can be handled by simply changing your approach.
So you know if you shift your intention and you have an approach of OK I'm in a two strike you know I'm going to take a two strike approach meaning OK I'm not going to try swing out of my shoes. I for me the way that I think of a two strike of approach is I liken it to a hit and run.
But a hit and run where where you don't have to swing but the intention is is I'm going to try stay on this ball and like because to me that's what it looks like is he's staying on the ball and he's being smooth and he's not trying to hit it as hard as he can. He's just trying to go bat or bat the ball and just be really smooth and and move however he has to to be able to hit the baseball.
And so that's where for me when I'm looking at it and just even to this is where I like Luis, arise and I wanted to look and I haven't gotten there yet but at some point I want to get through you know all of Acunia and like all the guys that hit really well this year at the top and just watch you know how they went about it, 'cause I think every guy is different. But anyways the conclusion that I've come to based upon these two guys, Bellinger and Arise is that and This is why I liked.
I really like Bellinger is that if you can hit a rising line drive with it with within a good within a good launch angle the IT doesn't. And by a rising line drive I mean one that clears the the infielders. Like if they jump it's either really hard for them to catch it or they can't catch it at all. And so if you can do that then you're going to give yourself a really good chance to get on base as far as like hitting the ball and it.
And when I when I think about it and as far as what was popular and I don't, I don't know if it's still popular. I think it's still there but it's not as popular of the whole notion of try to hit the ball in the air and as far as you can And and then we're kind of at at one point. Right. Because MLB is trying to change this and not have the game be just three true outcomes of you know hit the ball out of the park strikeout or I don't know walk. I can't remember.
Is that what was the third one or the three true outcomes? Is it basically like home run, strikeout or what was the what was the 3rd? One slash hit by pitch.
Yeah, right. And so this is where, you know and I've also heard this too of listening to some other guys talk about like, OK, if we strike out at too high of a clip, even though we're hitting a bunch of runs, we start to hurt our run value, you know, and and so there is there's a level of like there's value and This is why it was cool.
Arise was was very interesting because if you start looking at his stat line now, I don't think this year his yeah his runs were down relative to with the twins no it doesn't have RB is on here the one that I'm looking at do you have RB is on your your your expenses Yeah for what? He had 69 RB IS. Nice. How much do you have for 2022? He had 49. OK, so he had more RB is this year than he did last year. OK.
Cuz to me part of the value of a player now, yes, it all, it all depends upon where you are in the lineup and who's on base. But it's a question of during your the given the number of opportunities that you have, how, how well are you able to capitalize on those opportunities? I don't know if there's a stat for that. I mean, there's probably runners in batting average and running runners in scoring position, right, Because that would kind
of probably capture that. But, like to me, these are the ways that matter. I want to say another way you could capture is when probability added. OK, because that's that's where it's like, you know, a guy like Luis arise, I think would people sleep on because of the fact that he doesn't hit for for power, he doesn't really slug, you know, And they're like, you know, singles aren't really that worth it. But it's like depends. It depends, right. You know, everybody's big on
like on base. Well you know singles are the like, yeah they're not that much different than a walk but you know on a walk is a sure thing but still at the same point you're still on base. And if you got a guy in scoring position and a base open at first, a walk ain't going to score you that run, you know, or even 2 bases open like you need, you need three walks in a row to get you to get you a run.
So like a hit being able to put the ball in play and score the run is is huge because I mean so that's that's where I I look at. For me when I look at a guy like arise who hits for average. I want to look at his runs and his RB is because to me those two things combined together tell me how much offensive production like is it just you know he hits really well when nobody's on base and you know like it's just you're not really contributing that much you only you only hit when there's no
pressure. But if you're if you're scoring, if you're scoring enough runs for the team then I think it's it washes that whole you know I guess you know at one point the the the new school analytics way of looking at it of you know average is kind of not not really that valuable and I just I I think I think there's some level of truth to it to it but I don't I I don't I don't think you can completely dismiss
looking at batting average. Yeah. But there's also that that side of, OK, if you want to look at production in terms of runs and RBIs, those are both context dependent because for you to score runs, you need that are not home run related, right? You need guys behind you to be able to put the ball in play and move you around. And then for you to have RBIs on the same breath, you need the guys in front of you to get on base.
So that's why there's kind of this this disconnect because it is dependent whereas you know some analytics just say like we can't rely on that dependency. Well, here's, here's, here's my thought on how you kind of you do the analysis because I look at the Twins, OK. And so the Twins last year, their offense probably wasn't the highest scoring in baseball, right. But you look at it relative.
OK, so you. So when I looked at the team last year, I looked at, OK, where were all our runs coming from, right? Even though Luis arises numbers and runs well, actually a little bit higher in 2022. And then his RBIs were a little bit lower, right? So that says that when Arise was hitting, there weren't as many opportunities for him to hit hit guys in, but he was, if he was getting on base, he was scoring at a decent clip, higher at a higher clip than he was in 2023. You know.
And so this is where I I look at it in the sense of relative he was, he was the top, he was either the he was the one that was scoring the most runs for the team and Korea was second or Korea was first and then Arise was right behind him. So when you look at it relative to just your team because that's the context that matters and you begin to see for that team are you, who is the one for your team that's scoring all your runs? Who's the one who's driving them all in? And that you can.
That to me is a fair enough analysis of it's you can't start comparing across the league or whatever because to your point, it's context dependent. So therefore you have to look at it within the context that these numbers actually occur and then I think you can get a better sense of how much value can a player provide in a team setting. And so there's there's other stats we can look at too. So like runs create is a good one that you mentioned.
So like and that does include, you know, scoring runs as well, Not just creating runs by hitting, but scoring. You want to you want to flesh that out a little bit more of like what What goes into runs created what? What makes up? How? How do we come up with that number? Yeah. So like, we can do it. There's actually like a few different ways to calculate it. And this was from Bill James. It's like the most simplest way is hits plus walks multiplied by total basis divided by at bats
plus walks. And that is the most simplest way of calculating. Now if you want to get into more advanced stuff. So like there's a stolen base version of it where it multiplies by a stolen base factor, and then the technical one is multiplying by a factor of walks plus hit by pitches plus the times you have SAC buns, sacrifice flies, stolen bases, and then it also negatively waits you for hitting into double plays as well,
because you're. And it's like somebody like Correa, because I felt like he hit into it a decent number of. Yeah, so like that would negatively affect him on that on that version. Another way to look at it, and you're going to like this because the two people were talking about Araya's 14th in the MLB last year amongst qualified hitters, Ballinger 15th in the MLB last year amongst qualified hitters and weighted runs above average.
And that is based on woba. So it's taking that player's individual woba subtracting from the league woba. So Bellinger's was around 370, the league woba's around 3:20, so he gets 50 points boost. And then the woba scale, which just essentially is putting it on the same scale as OBP, so it could be red like OBP and multiplying by the number of PA's. And so it just basically just measures the amount of offensive runs a player contributes to their team compared to the average player.
And with that being said, so Arias 25.9 weighted runs above average. Cody Bellinger 23.9 weighted Runs above average again 14th and 15th and. OK, who is above them? Do you do you have, do you have Can you shoot me a a thing a thing that has this list or just share it share screen it, 'cause I I don't like part of me. I'm curious who's who's up there higher than that. I mean. I mean, look, Ronald Lacuna Junior. Like almost 100 and. 50 runs,
almost 150 runs all on his own. Oh my gosh, that's a lot. Damn Zacunia. 'S number one. OK. As he should be at 66.7, Otani is #2 at 57.3. And I I shared this with you. That's his third Mookie. That's his 3rd 56.5. But another way to think about this, too, that the top two players in the, OR I should say the top players in their respective leagues and WRAA, One MVP, Acunia and the National League of Tiny and the American League. Mookie Betts was 56.5. Matt Olson 56.4.
Freddie Freeman, Juan Soto, Corey Seeger, Yandi Diaz, Marcelo Zuno, Kyle Tucker, Bryce Harper, Corbin Carroll and Austin Riley are the 13 names above both Aryas and Ballinger. I think what's? That's not a light list. No. OK. So let's let's talk about Juan Soto, I think yeah, Juan Soto and I guess 2 Ozuna could be one, although the slug there makes sense for because I'm one Yep slug there is decent. So I'm trying to figure out where where is all this this run
production coming from is some. OK. So his OPS is 9/9/30, so that's part of it, right. Getting on base, his OPS is 900 or nine O 5. So this is where I'm I'm trying to understand, OK, where, how are they creating, how are they creating this, this, this run value? Because to me, what's interesting is that there's multiple different ways.
You see a lot of guys with higher averages, but you know Azuna and Soto, they kind of are on the lower end of the average side, you know, because it it felt like Soto kind of struggled this year, like swinging the bat, you know, his walks were always there, but swinging the bat, making contact was it was a down year for him or doing something hitting it well enough
to get hits. And so I guess what, what is your assessment as far as like OK, how are they still, despite the fact of not doing as much with the BAT as in other years, how are they still creating run value? So in Soto's case, I feel like like you said, the walks are always there, so he's still getting on base via walks and also the. Speed ain't it Ain't super, super crazy either. Yeah, so terribly slow, but so.
Like having guys like Machado and Kronenworth, I think behind him, you know that helped with you know the the run production for him. Just getting solely on base. Ozuna in his case, I think he had and this is where like we can maybe build on this stat and say like how many opportunities did Ozuna have compared to the average player of runners on
base. Because Ozuna was very likely to have guys like Acuna, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, guys in the top 13 of this list on base ahead of him to be able to drive in these runs. So now that to me it plays into OK, if we're we're talking about OK, all right. Do I want a guy like Ozuna. You know how valuable will he be to this ballclub if I don't have guys who can get on base in
front of him? Like, it's not that he won't be valuable, but you're not going to see he's not going to create as many runs for us because he's there's not going to be as many opportunities because I almost feel like and some of these things, whereas like a guy like arise, he can create opportunities because he's going to get on base enough, right, for for people to drive him in. Whereas you know, like you're talking about like, I wonder if there's a way to parse through
the numbers of like, OK, this guy really his his big upside is if we have guys on, he's really good at driving them in. But on the flip side, if he's not getting on base enough and there's not enough people to get on in front of him, his offensive value isn't as strong for our team. Like our team needs other pieces in order to support what this hitter actually brings to the table. Right. And so another way to look at.
I know I was trying to pull it out, but like, I remember going back to 2013 when the Cardinals made the World Series, someone who wasn't really known as a great hitter on his own, Alan Craig. That year he had. I don't know the exact number, but I remember at some point in the season he was hitting over 400 with runners in scoring position and it's like that. That alone can make him
valuable. But then again like OK after after the season he was traded, went to Boston and like he didn't have as many opportunities and that kind of like led to his downfall so to speak. But he, you know, took advantage of opportunities when there were runners on and they specifically in scoring position. So he liked those affordances because there are different affordances with runners on, on, on base than when there aren't. And maybe like, you know, the thought process could change.
It's like, hey, you know, like it's common, common knowledge. I wouldn't say common knowledge, but for the most part the pitchers are less likely to throw breaking balls in the dirt with a runner on third base. So maybe in Craig's mind, you know, with a runner on 30, he's like, I know I'm not getting a breaking ball. What, are you going to hang it? He's going to hang it. I'm getting better than breaking balls to hit. Hanging, yeah, Or better break
balls hit. And as like a Major League player, like you know you're going to hit that and hit that well. I mean two, there's some of it too of like and this is where I think it's you can, you can kind of still find it in the analysis, right, just without seeing video. But there are some guys, right, that they just hit certain balls better and it has to be in terms of location, right. Some guys the swings naturally work better with breaking balls like it just the ball just seems
to go right into their swing. And so usually though from my experience of seeing those like that's those are balls that are just like kind of in the middle of the zone you know and and so whether it's like middle away or whatever it's it's still those balls just kind of fall right into their swing path.
And so to your point I think it there is something to be said about it like if you got a guy on 3rd less than two outs or whatever even with two outs like getting a a breaking ball that's up is a is a much more hitable pitch that guys can do something with. So yeah. Anyways, I think I think that's a good, good observation.
Yeah, I mean it just depends on how many opportunities to get like with Craig, he had, especially in 2000, you know, say 2011, he had the affordance of having a guy like Albert Poulos ahead of him and a guy who would frequently be on base or he would, you know, hit for extra bases quite a bit, not including home runs obviously, but having guys like that. And then you add in another guy like Matt Holiday, you know,
patching those together. So like in in Ozuna's case, you know this is where we can kind of look at go dig deeper in the day and say like OK, he might be up here a lot, but how many opportunities do you have where various runners on base slash in scoring position? Because again, he had guys like Austin Riley and Cooney and Matt Olson all in front of them, and they all were wildly successful this season with the bat. The other thing too. I'm just looking at some of the
other numbers here. What's interesting to me? OK. Corbin Carroll, you know he he was hitting over 300 at some points I think, but his walk right, BB percentage, that's walk right. Yeah. OK. So his walk rate is is kind of on the lower end of of guys and I think that's kind of interesting that he was still be able to create the run value that he was even though like he seemed more like a a contact guy like kind of like a, a, a Quan and I don't know if I'm pronouncing his.
Name from Cleveland. Yeah, and but I mean, Quan did not have the same year this year that he didn't. You know, the other year, I don't. I don't know if it's because guys started figuring out how to pitch to him or there's something else going on, maybe an injury or something like that. But it's kind of interesting to me.
I think maybe he slugged at a decent percentage, so maybe he actually has more pop than Quan, you know, 'cause that was kind of. The other thing that was kind of interesting to watch with with Carol is despite the kind of interesting nature to his swing, like there, it seemed a little like the ball would kind of come off his bat a little bit more I'd have to look at. Like, I wonder if you have another hard hit percentages in here.
I wonder what his average exit below was, 'cause it's got to be more than a rise, which is interesting to watch. A lot of a rise's hits, though, are like in the 92 to 96 range. So it's not like he's hitting it super soft. I mean, but at the same point you're not seeing as many 100 balls over a hit over 100 from a rise.
And we we talked about in the past like if you go on Savant and find like exit be the launch angles, hit probabilities, a lot of them are in that kind of like middle to hard range with that launch angle that's slightly above the infield because you hit it hard enough to hit over the infield at a high enough angle, but not hard enough that it stays up long enough for the outfield to come and catch it. But the other thing's that big difference for Araya's compared to yes, compared to others.
The one thing to note on that that I've started to think about is that it's different at the young, at the lower levels, OK, 'cause the outfielders don't play at the same depth, even in college, you know, if like, 'cause I think sometimes you know as guys from, you know, being at a junior college, it depends what the the opposing team thinks you know or like the types of players that they play against.
Cause like, obviously if we're playing a a team that has more powerful bats, we're going to play deeper. But like when I was at the D1 level, like a lot of us, a lot of our guys, especially down the in the corners, left field especially, but I even think too probably a little bit in right field, like they're pretty standing pretty darn close to the warning track, you know what I mean?
And so if you're standing pretty close to the warning track, there's a lot more of like that low line drive even if you hit hard, that's going to tend to fall in front of the the outfielders. But if they're playing in more at like a standard high school depth, like those are going to get caught, you know. So that's where I think it's really interesting that to me the ones are more like you, you would say the flare burners, those ones tend to always be
safe. And that to me is where I think it's actually interesting to start looking at launch angle and exit Velo of like, OK, what do you got to get to 'cause I I mean, I don't, I have to go back and look for sure. But I mean off of rap soda, it'll give you some interesting numbers sometimes of like, hey, we think this is a hit, you know, a ball hit at 66 with a launch angle of 36, like, OK,
that's not great. That's not a great exit feel and that's not a great launch angle, but it somehow combines to drop in there. And other times you're like, man, how did that, that only went to to, I don't know, 56 or 274. And those are outs. And that's where I think it's very interesting to start like
our ability to gauge distance. This is why, again, going back to like the ecological approach, the thing that I draw away from that, that I think is really important that a lot of us forget when we start talking about analytics is that the game is not played. The individual person does not see the world in numbers. You know we're not walking around with Google Glass on our eyes and like the you know with with like the numbers always like on our eyes and we can see
them and like gauge this. You know it's not the the the human we understand things in terms of how it relates to us in terms of distances. Right. This whole the whole like you know why we're not on like the the the imperial numbers right are are in feet right. We understand things in terms of how they relate to our body. They're in feet and so like that that that to me is like the. I think we have to remember because that's for me, like you know, I haven't. I haven't.
You can dial in to begin to understand, you know numbers, but you know, this is where I think it'd be fun to begin to dial in. OK OK. How far is this distance? You know, when I see a ball hit in the air, how far about did that actually go just by looking because most dimensions on the field are pretty consistent.
You know even if we're talking about the output like This is why you know for example rhapsodo the average you know they'll give you a home run if you hit it over 330 feet to to to any of the corners because most of the corners on most fields are about 330 feet, right. And center field they have it. I think rhapsoda has it maybe no they have it further than that. But like you know 400 feet is
pretty standard to center field. So if you hit it over 400 feet to center, like you know so there's all this all this stuff is fairly standardize and then you can begin to start judging OK, how far is too far? You know like do I need to at like change my launch angle? Do I need increase or decrease my exit below. These things to me are more of
the this is the thing too. Hopefully at some point I can re talk to Bobby Tewksbury, 'cause this is the thing that I think he, he really cares a lot about is like the strategy. Like a lot of times we're going with this whole thing of like, let's just take one element and like or one strategy. Let's let's just go all in on this strategy.
You know like let's hit home runs all in on this strategy, you know Whereas it's like yeah but this is, this is like this is a game where why can't it be as intricate as far as strategy goes as some of the other sports. You know, which I think it is and it can be. And we we have in some ways sold some of the players short at times. And maybe it's because like our lack of coaching ability to be able to get more out of players of like we we end up going for the simpler approaches and maybe
they worked at one time. You know when the with the fly ball revolution, you know I think that worked that was really good for that moment in time. And the way that I'm going to analogize it is to strength and
conditioning, right. If I want to help somebody like peak in terms of speed, I can do that really easily If they have, if they have been like their programming has been really strength heavy focused and then if I switch it to more speed strength, they're going to get a really great response and feel super fast and and like powerful and quick. But it's all because of the setup And I think that's kind of the same thing with like the Fly Ball Revolution.
Was everybody was focused on hitting like ground balls to the backside and low line drives and had really pushy swings and the fly ball was demonized. And then the way that pitchers you know, attacked hitters was a lot simpler too. And so all these things allowed for that to like that to be a really great strategy for that period of time and like its
effectiveness. I think because it's older now people are developing counter strategies to that you know and some of it is just also the advancements in pitching too and pitching development, you know, velocity and now pitch design, all these things have come about during that period of time. And so I think I think we need to be looking for you know trying to find that edge, you know, so to speak.
And I think that's that's where I don't know this is this is just my rant right of like why I going to encourage people like Eco D and now hopefully this this helps for the transition for what you're about to say too. And this came up in the Sport movement skill conference, listening to some of the talks and and whatnot is how do we combine the analytics with like these ideas and so like that.
Hopefully that gives you a a good door to add what you're going to say I. Mean, I think now we can just say like I think it's a lot of conversation of OK, you know when we take a look at this movement solution or this type of style like what are the results. So you asked earlier about Araya's and Corbin Peril's average launching or average exit velocity and then I also look at average launching. So, Carol, this policy was 90 miles an hour. Araya's 88 miles an hour.
But what stood out for them compared to most everyone else is they had a slightly higher launch angle at 11°. And so now. Who's everybody else? Like who are you classifying? Just the the rest of the league average. Like, what's? Yeah, the rest of the league average. So what's the league average launch angle? It's right around 7:00. OK, OK. So that's that's that's fairly significant, it's like what 4 four points higher. Yeah, 4° higher.
Now the difference between that is OK, if you just took, let's say Araya's hit the ball every single time 88° with a or 88 exit. Yeah, 11. Degree line of shamble. He is ex. His Wobe is expected to be 612. Oh, wow. Yeah, so with a same thing with a 7° launch angle, it's 522, so it's a hundred point difference. Now we boosted up to 90 what Corbin Carroll's at 11 degrees 641, so slightly better, but then if you drop it down to 7° it's five O 3.
So they're they're still relatively good, but having that slightly higher launch angle and being able to hit in those exit V low ranges because then once you get to the harder ones like we'll look at 100 hundred is 881, but it's still the average being 7630 at 100°. So it's a lot. You know, it's one thing to be able to hit the ball hard, but it's another thing to be able to hit it in a I guess I should say, range that allows you to enhance your opportunities of a
hit. Well, and this is, this is kind of the thing that I want to kind of ask you about is like this is to me is this is the part of like OK, expected stats versus reality, OK. So the expected stat for Corbin Carroll is better on on the launch angle, the average launch angle and exit velocity than a rise. But they're averages. The reality is vastly different. You have a guy where where? Why don't I see a rise here? Oh, there he is at 14. OK, you have a rise hitting 354,
right? So because you're talking about expected batting average, well, his rise is expecting batting average. Not batting average. Oh, wobba wobba. OK. Now woba that's weighted on base, right? So. Yes. So that would include walks. Well, it would technically be. Technically it would be woba on contact. So that's that's like we're talking like double S triples. So you're looking at something that looks like the stat is more of a like a slugging like OPS type slat stat.
So I should analogize this closer to OPS than I should like what? What is this comparing to like like give me a real stat, you know what I'm saying, like like actual production, real production Like what? What do you, what do you compare woba against like expected woba versus actual woba? Is there a woba stat? Yeah, I guess, yeah, it's, it's next to Wade runs above average, but. Oh, there we go.
OK. So you had because this is to me the the OK 370 and I mean they're basically the same 369. Yeah. And so like looking at it that way, but you you start to see that they kind of got their in different ways. And this is like the important what the importance of standard deviation because Corbin Carroll is more likely to hit balls harder and further therefore
improving his well. But by hitting, you know especially in that ballpark in in Phoenix, hitting triples round runs, especially when you hit it to right center or even left center there like you are very likely to be able and with his speed hit get the third. Whereas Araya's, I guess Miami is a pretty good ballpark too but he doesn't quite have the
speed that Carroll does. But is still able to get more frequent hits with that more lower I guess with that launch angle and that exit velocity because he's more. I guess another way to look at this is accuracy versus precision, right? A rise is more precise with that average exit velocity and average launch angle. Whereas Corbin Carroll, he might be more accurate in the sense that he's hit basically. Like he might have some that are weakly hit. He might some have some that are
harder hit. Well, I almost wonder too. I just think about it in terms of launch angle. Like I want to say that, OK, just from watching a rise, he's so consistent in his in his launch angle, whereas I think like the the standard deviation or the the maybe that's not the right word, but like the the deviate or the variability, there's the word I'm looking for the variability within Corbin Carroll's launch angle is greater than the variability
within arise. Arise is fairly consistent in his launch angle, whereas I think Carol is either way, up is more up here and like, you know what I mean, Cause an average, right? Carol might have a ton of ground balls that that bring his average down, and his launch angle might actually be higher, you know, balls in the air, 'cause that might be also what you. I don't know, because part of it too of like a rise hits enough
ground balls where they're not. I think that's the other important thing too, 'cause even looking at Bellinger, some of his ground balls would have been where a typical second baseman or shortstop would be playing. But because they still, this is where I like it. I like it a lot. The guys still shift. They still shift in the infield. They just can't have it as extreme shifts.
And those shifts open up holes that create, because this is the thing I think, you know, I didn't like banning the the idea of banning the shift, but they didn't completely ban the shift. And I think that's it's it's about modifying the shift to create the most opportunities for hitters to hit. And I think what they did and how it's played out, I would say they did it correctly. They didn't over constrain it. They constrained it enough to afford more hits.
And so that I think is a is a positive there. And so anyways the so we're kind of where I'm going with that is that sometimes some of these these balls on the ground, when they're they're they're hitting it where they're not and that is somewhat a skill and that is somewhat a byproduct of how the opposing team is shifting. And so anyways the to me that's where I think it's it's interesting to look at some of the ground balls because some of them are hit hard enough that
affords them to be hits. And I've always wondered kind of about that like what's the minimum right. If I want to, if I want to shoot a ball through the the four hole or into the four hole, how hard do I have to hit it for the second baseman or the first baseman not to be able to go get
that ball? And from what I've seen if you really, truly get it in that hole correctly, I think you can get it as low you can hit it as low as like in the 60s like 6465. But I think on average, to be safe, 75 miles an hour is about minimum. Now this is, this is on an MLB field with short grass.
I think that's the caveat, you know if you you're hitting a low EV ground ball to the four hole and you got longer grass, that means that the the fielders have more time to get to that ball because it's moving slower, right.
So I don't I don't know that this transfers to a high school player or like a college player that is playing on a field with longer grass in the in the early spring like I. And so like I want to put that caveat in there of like you know it it exa veal still matters and probably matters a little bit more at the lower ages because of the fact that the the grass, the grass or your surface type is going to be more variable
than it is in a professional. Like, I think you have to put that caveat like there's so much more consistency in a playing surface at the pro level. Right. And if you, you know, you have a greater affordance of lower exit velocities. If you play on a turf field, say yeah, Toronto, yeah, Toronto, you can basically bury the ball on the ground with a very soft hit. And you are having a greater likelihood of getting a hit, you know, based on the parameters that you have stated because of
that fast turf infield. And so that's where at least you know, I I'm not like somewhere. I think ground balls are evil. I think they are. They're they're part of the repertoire, but you can't rely on them enough because the probabilities of them turning into hits, I think are lower than than, say, for example, a rising line drive that the infielders can't catch. I mean, it just makes sense to me, you know, unless the outfielders are playing super shallow. But that's kind of the thing of
like it was super cool. I thought that which made also no sense. But at one point they tried to play the odds with a rise and shifted either brought guys brought a guy into the infielder. Shifted the outfielders all to one side and left right field open. You know when when they had like the winning run on, I don't know second or third and arise just slaps, just hits his typical prototypical line drive that probably would have went right to the right fielder and boom,
game over, you know. So I think it's it's kind of one of those things though too like to go back to you know so everybody knows I'm not anti hit the ball hard because if you look at Arise a lot of his ground balls are like 90 plus and those are hard for infielders to handle even though it's not like the the top end you know of Velo.
It's still they're firm and those firm ones, like, there's something about it just even in my head of like, from a psychological standpoint, being on the receiving end of a ball that looks like it's coming at you hard makes it hard. Like you're just your motor skills tend to freeze up a little bit more. Your degrees of freedom tend to freeze a little bit more as a result.
So even though you dove for it and you probably could have actually have got it, often times you don't get it because you're you're not as fluid enough to be able to actually move the glove where it should be. You're just moving because you're like, oh gosh. And so anyways, that's why I think hard hit balls in general are are always still going to be, you know, relatively good.
Not to say that I I don't think there's sometimes it makes sense to hit weakly to an infielder because that is also a hard play. But the infielders also at times tend to also be fluid enough to make make up for those. Or that's a different element of of that problem. But anyways, I digress. All right, Robert, is there anything else in particular that you want to cover that I haven't haven't thrown out or fed to you? You know, as a create an affordance for you?
There's a better, better way of saying, is there any affordance I haven't created for you for something? That you wanted to talk about E ecological dynamics? No, I think we we covered a lot of kind of blending. You know, how can we have analytics help explain kind of some of the approaches within ecological dynamics and ask those kinds of questions? Because yeah, like not all
hitters are created equal here. And like Arias consistently is that that type of person where he's kind of the outlier if you will, where like based on he doesn't hit the ball that hard compared to the other people and you know within 5 or 10 spots of him, but he's still up here and and in successful you know type
of hitters. And so being able to discuss this and say like you know you can have different blends of hitters and still be successful And I think the the most successful teams have that they have guys who can do both. You know the guys who can hit for, who are mostly hitting for power. You know mostly the three true outcome guys. They have some guys in the
Araya's category. They have some guys who are a little bit above, but you know, you should have like you shouldn't be a one trick pony, if you will, on that and so. I think, you know, to kind of talk about, OK, how does ecological dynamics to be, be very specific and explicit here of my thoughts on how to utilize analytics from an ecological approach or how to bring those two together is it's all about context. OK, so you want to be asking the questions of, OK, use analytics to dig into.
I mean, obviously this is what people already do, but I think we have to remember this of, OK, let's find out what this guy does. Well, let's see if we can dig through the numbers to find out like, OK, how are they doing this 'cause they 'cause I think a lot of times we try to use these analytical models of a certain type of player. We try to shove everybody else into that model and compare them
to this model. Whereas I think there's we need to also and if not more so you're looking at and asking the questions especially of the anomalies like arise and I'm sure there's other ones that we can point to but like understanding of these other anomalies of like hey, this person also who breaks the model can still have success and how can we find out can they have success.
Because to me that's where I'm like, you know I want to know different things of like OK with the rise and these other guys, OK, what pitches are they hitting? Well where where are they hitting them? Right. These are all ecological questions in a way of like the context, you know if you want to begin to understand a player's skill because to me that's what ecological dynamics is all about. Is understanding skilled behavior.
OK. How do we begin to utilize the analytics to understand the skill of a player and not in terms of like how do they do on this model of like swing decisions or you know, like I don't know, like you know what's their OPS, whatever the whatever sort of model, you know that I think some, some a lot of people sometimes will have and then certain guys get left out. Because I mean I think right.
If you're looking at again finding an edge, right and finding, you know, kind of in a way that like I like listening to Kyle Bode talk about like them finding undervalued players, OK. If you want to be able to find undervalued players and have them come and be as successful in contributing to your team, I think you have to be able to look outside your model for other things. You know, other things of like, you know, again, like other
adaptable players. Because to me, to me, adaptability is the is the whole thing of like, yeah, some guys might say, for example, not everybody is going to do things the way that Cody Bellinger was able to do. But we don't have to have this rigid, like everybody needs to fit into this model of hitting, you know, of, you know, completely balanced, you know, stay back, whatever. Like every swing looks exactly the same. You can have this model of like you can have both.
And that's that's I think the the big thing for me, like what ecological dynamics does in that in that framework, in that perspective, in that worldview, is it frees me up to say that I don't have to ever have every guy look exactly the same and I don't have to, you could say, have a cookie cutter program that everybody's trying to fit into that we can individualize
it to the person. And then how I look at it as far as my role as a coach is, it's like how can I find and look at the vast, you could say, library of players throughout history and how they've done things. And how can I find those different pieces of of how they found success and take those pieces and apply it to the player and find the right fit.
You know, finding that, that that element that another player's done well that fits with this current player that's in front of me so they can find success. And so for me the the ecological approaches. Such a powerful tool in a lens by which in a filter you could say to help me look through the history, the vast history of the game, you know, from the past to the present to help whatever player is sitting in front of me right now.
So I hopefully that helps people kind of begin to see a little bit how these things come together and how like the power of the ecological approach. And obviously we need to get in to more in the future of like what is the ecological approach, where are all these little principles and all that sort of stuff. But hopefully that's a good way to kind of wrap and help tie this all together. Anything you want to close with? No, I think you close it very,
very well. All right, well, hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast and got something out of it. Until next time. Until next time.