Ever since Main League Baseball launched the primary drip of its bat monitoring information this spring, I’ve been maintaining a tally of a selected leaderboard. I don’t know if anyone else cares a lot about it, however I’ve been fascinated by the quick swing leaderboard. I haven’t been monitoring it religiously; I’ve simply been checking in each couple of weeks. Additionally, I haven’t been taking a look at it the best way you’re purported to. I’m solely the underside of the checklist. I suppose that makes it not a lot a leaderboard as a trailerboard, however I don’t care. I’m all for it as a result of there’s an honest-to-goodness horse race occurring there.
A quick swing is one the place the barrel of the bat is touring at the least 75 mph when it strikes or comes closest to the ball. That quantity was chosen, per Mike Petriello, “as a result of that’s the road the place, on a per-swing foundation, a swing goes from damaging run worth for a hitter to common, on its method to constructive.” All issues being equal, it’s higher to swing arduous. On a person participant foundation, right here’s the correlation between fast-swing charge and wRC+. Roughly talking, 5 proportion factors of fast-swing charge is price three further factors of wRC+:
Right here’s one thing which will shock you: Quick-swing charge (R = .48) has a stronger correlation to wRC+ than common bat pace does (R = .41). I assume that that is the case for a similar cause that Ninetieth-percentile exit velocity is a extra helpful stat than common exit velocity. You’re ignoring an enormous chunk of much less helpful info and specializing in the swings that can lead to actual harm.
To be clear, there’s a sure type of bias baked into these numbers. It’s not simply that quick swings are higher, it’s that the majority gamers must put themselves in good place to get off their finest swing. The extra it’s important to alter to the pitch since you didn’t time it up proper or as a result of it moved in a route you weren’t anticipating, the extra it’s important to change your mechanics, which is able to drag down your bat pace. Subsequently, gamers with higher pitch recognition, higher plate self-discipline, and extra adaptable swings will get off tougher swings extra typically. The best bat pace recorded to this point is 88 mph, however 25 completely different gamers have hit at the least 87.7 mph, and 67 completely different gamers have hit at the least 87.0. In different phrases, a lot of gamers are able to hitting the ball as arduous as Aaron Choose or Shohei Ohtani. The true differentiator is their capacity to get to that energy frequently.
The underside of the checklist works in a similar way. There are many gamers who hardly ever swing arduous, however they’ve completely different causes for it. Few of the gamers on the very backside of the quick swing leaderboard have the capability to swing as arduous as Oneil Cruz. Nonetheless, some are deliberately taking shorter, softer cuts as a result of they’re prioritizing strong contact, whereas some (I’m so sorry, Charlie Blackmon) appear to be swinging softly as a result of they only can’t put themselves in an excellent place to drive the ball. In the present day, we’re within the two gamers who finest exemplify the soft-swing-to-celebration pipeline: Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan.
I’ve been checking the underside of the quick swing leaderboard for one cause: For a lot of the season, neither Arraez nor Kwan had registered a single quick swing. They had been at 0.0%. They had been the one certified gamers with double zeroes, and I used to be rooting arduous for them to make it by means of the entire season that means. By way of July 9, Kwan was working a 172 wRC+, fifth finest in baseball, whereas Arraez was at 104. The leaderboard was lovely and it regarded like this:
Alas, nothing gold can keep. On July 10, Arraez noticed a juicy 96.5-mph four-seamer from Bryce Miller proper over the center of the plate. The Crown Prince of Cromulent Contact lastly caved to his interior caveman, unleashing a 77.1-mph swing that resulted in a 97.9-mph bullet — proper to second base for a simple groundout:
And similar to that, it was a one-horse race. Regardless of coming from nowhere to slug .512 within the first half, Kwan stood alone as the one certified participant in baseball who hadn’t registered a single quick swing all season. Perhaps that stress was an excessive amount of for him, as a result of he solely lasted one other 13 days earlier than becoming a member of Arraez. (Extra seemingly, Kwan was merely urgent, as he was at that time mired in one of many worst slumps of his quick profession.) Like Arraez, Kwan yanked a innocent grounder to the appropriate facet of the infield. Not like Arraez, he didn’t even make nice contact, sending a Shelby Miller splitter on the backside of the zone to first base with a 76.5-mph swing:
Just a little over two weeks later, Kwan lapsed once more, however at the least this time he received his cash’s price. Simeon Woods Richardson put a particularly hittable four-seamer belt excessive and proper over the center, and Kwan acknowledged the providing with the bare-minimum quick swing, a 75-mph minimize that despatched the ball 396 ft into the appropriate discipline bleachers:
Though that was the quickest tracked swing of Kwan’s season, it solely ranked twentieth when it comes to exit velocity. That’s one of many methods that each of those gamers possess. They’re so good at squaring the ball up that they don’t essentially must swing arduous. Again when bat monitoring information got here out, the formulation for figuring out precisely how squared-up any batted ball is was launched as effectively. It’s a easy proportion based mostly on the pace of the pitch and the pace of the bat. It appears to be like like this:
Squared-Up Proportion = EV / ((Bat Pace x 1.23) + (0.2116 x Pitch Pace))
Utilizing that formulation, let me hit you with a trick query: Each time Participant A swings, they’ve a bat pace of 65 mph, they usually sq. the ball up at 90%. Each time Participant B swings, they’ve a bat pace of 65 mph, they usually sq. the ball up at 80%. Who hits the ball tougher?
I informed you this was a trick query. They’re practically similar. Participant A hits the ball 91.0 mph, whereas Participant B hits it 90.7 mph. Understand that the squared-up cutoff is 80%. Understand that a mean bat pace of 75 would put you close to the highest of the league and 65 mph would put you close to the very backside. Each single time, Participant B is squaring the ball up and swinging with the bat pace of the common residence run, however they’re nonetheless a hair under Participant A. Kwan and Arraez are by no means going to problem for the league lead in exit velocity, however they sq. the ball up each typically and effectively.
I’d like to finish on one thing that’s undoubtedly not statistically important, so don’t take it too critically, however I nonetheless suppose it’s fairly fascinating. At first of this text, I discussed that 75 mph is the cutoff for a quick swing as a result of, on common, that’s the place swings begin to accrue constructive run worth. It takes a humongous pattern, like entire-league humongous, to make these numbers statistically important. On a person participant foundation, any correlation you discover might be tiny, however I made a decision to have a look at each tracked swing this season from each Arraez and Kwan, after which calculate the correlation coefficients between their bat pace and run worth. For Arraez, there was virtually no correlation in any way (R = .01) between bat pace and run worth. Even should you restrict the pattern to balls in play, the correlation solely will increase to .02. For Kwan, the correlation continues to be a particularly weak .06, however it at the least appears to exist. Out of curiosity, I ran the numbers for Aaron Choose, and located a correlation of .09, going as much as .13 should you look solely at balls in play. For Choose, tougher swings are likely to see higher outcomes. For Kwan, and to a stunning extent for Arraez, the 2 are a lot much less associated. Since they don’t essentially must swing arduous to carry out effectively on the plate, possibly it’s time they concentrate on what’s most vital. Proper now Arraez is forward 1-to-2 within the Laborious Swing Avoidance Sweepstakes. He’s received simply over a month to defend that lead.
