​
​
Sign In
  • Support FanGraphs
    FanGraphs Membership
    FanGraphs Shirts
    FanGraphs Mugs
    Gift a Membership
    Donate to FanGraphs
  • Fantasy
    Fantasy Tools
    Fantasy Player Rater
    Auction Calculator
    Ottoneu Fantasy Baseball
    Signup, FAQ, Blog Posts
  • Blogs
    Blog Roll

    FanGraphs
    • Effectively Wild Episode 2352: Turn Every Paige
    • RosterResource Chat - 7/24/25
    • The Cardinals DFA Erick Fedde as They Slide Further From Contention
    • Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 7/24/25
    Podcasts: Effectively Wild

    FanGraphs Prospects

    RotoGraphs
    • The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 1437 – Batter Rebounds to Believe In
    • Midseason 3B Rank Assessment
    Podcasts: The Sleeper and The Bust | Field of Streams | Beat the Shift

    Community Research
    • Effectively Wild's Preseason Predictions Game Update: Ben Clemens

    Archived Blogs: The Hardball Times | NotGraphs | TechGraphs | FanGraphs+
    Archived THT: THT Live | Dispatch | Fantasy | ShysterBall
    Archived Podcasts: FanGraphs Audio | Chin Music | UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project | Stealing Home | Doing It For Bartolo | OttoGraphs |
  • Projections
    2025 Pre-Season Projections
    ZiPS, ZiPS DC
    Steamer
    Depth Charts
    ATC
    THE BAT, THE BAT X
    OOPSY
    2025 600 PA / 200 IP Projections
    Steamer600, Steamer600 (Update)
    2025 Updated In-Season Projections
    ZiPS (RoS), ZiPS (Update), ZiPS DC (RoS)
    Steamer (RoS), Steamer (Update)
    Depth Charts (RoS)
    ATC DC (RoS)
    THE BAT (RoS), THE BAT X (RoS)
    OOPSY DC (RoS)
    3-Year Projections
    ZiPS 2026, ZiPS 2027
    On-Pace Leaders
    Every Game Played, Games Played %
    Cy Young Award Projections

    Auction Calculator
  • Scores
    Today
    Live Scoreboard, Probable Pitchers
    Live Daily Leaderboards
    Win Probability & Box Scores
    2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019
    AL Games
    BAL (4) @ CLE (3)Final
    TOR (11) @ DET (4)Final
    ATH (5) @ HOU (2)Final
    SEA (4) @ LAA (2)Final
    NL Games
    SDP (7) @ STL (9)Final
  • Standings
    2025 Projected Standings
    2025 Playoff Odds, Playoff Odds Graphs
    2024 ZiPS Postseason Game-By-Game Odds
    AL East
    Blue Jays61420.0
    Yankees56464.5
    Red Sox55496.5
    Rays53508.0
    Orioles455715.5
    AL Central
    Tigers60440.0
    Guardians51518.0
    Royals50539.5
    Twins495310.0
    White Sox376622.5
    AL West
    Astros60430.0
    Mariners55485.0
    Rangers53507.0
    Angels495411.0
    Athletics436218.0
    NL East
    Mets59440.0
    Phillies58440.5
    Marlins485310.0
    Braves445714.0
    Nationals416117.5
    NL Central
    Brewers61410.0
    Cubs60421.0
    Reds53508.5
    Cardinals53519.0
    Pirates426119.5
    NL West
    Dodgers60430.0
    Padres55485.0
    Giants54496.0
    D-backs505310.0
    Rockies267633.5
  • Leaders
    Major League Leaders
    Batting: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, Career
    Pitching: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, Career
    Fielding: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, Career
    Major League Leaders - Rank
    Batting: Ranking Grid, Compare Players, Compare Stats
    Pitching: Ranking Grid, Compare Players, Compare Stats
    Splits Leaderboards
    Pitch-Type Splits Leaderboards
    Season Stat Grid

    Postseason Leaders
    Batting: 2024, (WS), (LCS), (LDS), (WCS), Career
    Pitching: 2024, (WS), (LCS), (LDS), (WCS), Career

    Spring Training Leaders
    Batting: 2025, 2024, 2023
    Pitching: 2025, 2024, 2023

    KBO Leaders
    Batting, Pitching
    NPB Leaders
    Batting, Pitching

    Minor League Leaders
    AAA: International League, Pacific Coast League
    AA: Eastern League, Southern League, Texas League
    A+: Midwest League, South Atlantic League, Northwest League
    A: California League, Carolina League, Florida State League
    CPX: Arizona, Florida
    R: Dominican Summer League
    College Leaders
    Batting, Pitching

    WAR Tools
    Combined WAR Leaderboards
    WAR Graphs
    WPA Tools
    WPA Inquirer
    Rookie Leaders
    Batters 2025, Pitchers 2025
    Splits Leaders
    Batters: vs L, vs R, Home, Away
    Pitchers: vs L, vs R, Home, Away
  • Teams
    Team Batting Stats
    2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
    Team Pitching Stats
    2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
    Team WAR Totals (RoS)
    AL East
    Blue Jays  |  DC
    Orioles  |  DC
    Rays  |  DC
    Red Sox  |  DC
    Yankees  |  DC
    AL Central
    Guardians  |  DC
    Royals  |  DC
    Tigers  |  DC
    Twins  |  DC
    White Sox  |  DC
    AL West
    Angels  |  DC
    Astros  |  DC
    Athletics  |  DC
    Mariners  |  DC
    Rangers  |  DC
    NL East
    Braves  |  DC
    Marlins  |  DC
    Mets  |  DC
    Nationals  |  DC
    Phillies  |  DC
    NL Central
    Brewers  |  DC
    Cardinals  |  DC
    Cubs  |  DC
    Pirates  |  DC
    Reds  |  DC
    NL West
    D-backs  |  DC
    Dodgers  |  DC
    Giants  |  DC
    Padres  |  DC
    Rockies  |  DC
    Positional Depth Charts
    Batters: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, DH
    Pitchers: SP, RP
  • RosterResource
    Current Depth Charts
    AL East
    Blue Jays
    Orioles
    Rays
    Red Sox
    Yankees
    AL Central
    Guardians
    Royals
    Tigers
    Twins
    White Sox
    AL West
    Angels
    Astros
    Athletics
    Mariners
    Rangers
    NL East
    Braves
    Marlins
    Mets
    Nationals
    Phillies
    NL Central
    Brewers
    Cardinals
    Cubs
    Pirates
    Reds
    NL West
    D-backs
    Dodgers
    Giants
    Padres
    Rockies
    In-Season Tools
    2025 Closer Depth Chart
    2025 Injury Report
    2025 Payroll Pages
    2025 Transaction Tracker
    2025 Schedule Grid
    2025 Probables Grid
    2025 Lineup Tracker
    2025 Minor League Power Rankings
    Offseason Tools
    2025 Free Agent Tracker
    2025 Offseason Tracker
    2025 Opening Day Tracker
  • Prospects
    Prospects Home
    The Board
    The Board: Scouting + Stats!
    How To Use The Board: A Tutorial
    Farm System Rankings

    Top Prospects List
    20252024
    AL
    BALCHWATH
    BOSCLEHOU
    NYYDETLAA
    TBRKCRSEA
    TORMINTEX
    NL
    ATLCHCARI
    MIACINCOL
    NYMMILLAD
    PHIPITSDP
    WSNSTLSFG
    2025 Preseason Top 100
  • Glossary
    Library
    Batting Stats
    wOBA, wRC+, ISO, K% & BB%, more...
    Pitching Stats
    FIP, xFIP, BABIP, K/9 & BB/9, more...
    Defensive Stats
    UZR Primer, DRS, FSR, TZ & TZL, more...
    More
    WAR, UBR Primer, WPA, LI, Clutch
    Guts!
    Seasonal Constants
    Park Factors
    Park Factors by Handedness
  • Sign In
Crowdsourced Trade Value: Pick between player matchups to create your own trade value list!

We Have a Pop-Up Controversy

by Jeff Sullivan
September 26, 2016

Think about what you know about hitters and pop-ups. Pop-ups, for all hitters, are bad. They might as well be one-pitch strikeouts. And, you know who doesn’t hit them? Joey Votto. You know that Joey Votto pretty much never hits a pop-up. It’s among the many things that make him extraordinary. Joe Mauer also doesn’t really hit pop-ups. Christian Yelich. Ryan Howard. Shin-Soo Choo. On and on. And there’s Howie Kendrick. Kendrick doesn’t hit pop-ups. But:

@based_ball ICYMI: Howie Kendrick hit a pop-up today. (leading off the 7-th inning).

— Santiago Padilla (@SantiPadillaR) September 25, 2016

That was tweeted at me yesterday. And when I checked the live statistics on FanGraphs, Kendrick had an infield fly. Yet when I check those same statistics today: nothing. It’s as if it’s been erased. Here is the batted ball in question:

Fielded comfortably by the second baseman. We’d all identify that as a pop-up, right? In one sense, then, Kendrick did pop up yesterday. You could say it’s the most important sense. Yet, here’s the leaderboard, when I look at everyone who’s batted at least 500 times over the past three calendar years. This is why this matters. (It doesn’t matter-matter, but, you know.)

pop-ups-last-three-years

Kendrick is the only guy with double zeros. Everyone else has hit at least one infield fly. So, what are we supposed to do, here?

In truth, it’s not that much of a mystery. We get batted-ball data from Baseball Info Solutions, and they have a specific definition of what makes an infield fly. Yesterday, when I checked the live stats, those were getting fed in by MLB Gameday, and that has a different, looser definition. So Kendrick’s fly ball was a pop-up by one definition, but not by both. If you take the BIS data as gospel, Kendrick objectively remains without such a blemish. But you can’t really say Kendrick hasn’t hit a pop-up. He just hasn’t hit one particular kind of pop-up.

Heck, this was just a matter of weeks ago:

The last time I checked, the BIS cutoff was 140 feet. That is, any fly ball hit more than 140 feet wouldn’t count as an infield fly. Kendrick still hasn’t popped up within the infield. But these flies flew only a little beyond 140. And now that we have Statcast, we can try to run some numbers ourselves. We’re still going to have to define things arbitrarily, and Statcast sometimes has trouble picking up batted balls hit at extreme angles, but let’s just see what we can do for 2016. Why don’t we set a cutoff at a launch angle of 60 degrees?

Joey Votto has zero such batted balls. Christian Yelich, zero. Joe Mauer, one. Howie Kendrick, one. Starling Marte, one. I don’t know how many batted balls are missing from the sample, so it’s not authoritative. But, it’s something. No definition of a pop-up is going to be the definition of a pop-up. This is the issue with bucketing. But Howie Kendrick either has a pop-up or two, or he doesn’t. According to the numbers we have here, Kendrick hasn’t popped up once in three years. That’s amazing! It still, no matter what, reflects a legitimate ability of his, but his is a soft zero. There’s no arriving at a one true answer.

Howie Kendrick most certainly doesn’t hit pop-ups. Except for the rare occasions when he does. Welp?





Clayton Kershaw Experimented On the Rockies
 
Wilson Ramos Tears ACL, Nationals Suffer Big Loss

Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

12 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Dominikk85Member since 2020
8 years ago

does pop up percentage correlate with fly ball percentage?

0
Jeff SullivanMember since 2022
8 years ago
Reply to  Dominikk85

Basically. If you tend to hit the ball at a lower angle, then even your flies will be hit at a lower angle than most.

0
Jeff SullivanMember since 2022
8 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Sullivan

I should say, though, the relationship is not *that* strong.

0
Jetsy Extrano
8 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Sullivan

Do you know if some hitters show higher variance in launch angle than others?

… Well heck, I could grab the data and answer that myself.

0
Dominikk85Member since 2020
8 years ago
Reply to  Jetsy Extrano

I would assume that better hitters have more hits in that 10-30 degree band which is most productive. deviating from that either way is bad so it makes sense good hitters avoid deviations.

on the other hand jose Bautista is a pop up machine and he is one of the most productive hitters of the last decade so you probably can’t avoid deviations at least to one direction in some cases if you have an extreme pattern (although some can).

BTW I would be interested if grounder machines like yelich have more “pop downs” or chopper at more than minus 10 degrees or so than average.

1
    Effectively Wild Episode 2352: Turn Every Paige
    7/25 – Ben Lindbergh
    RosterResource Chat - 7/24/25
    7/24 – Jason Martinez
     
    2
    The Cardinals DFA Erick Fedde as They Slide Further From Contention
    7/24 – Jay Jaffe
     
    11
    Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 7/24/25
    7/24 – Dan Szymborski
     
    1
    Rich Hill Is Alive With the Sound of Scream-Grunts
    7/24 – Davy Andrews
     
    5
    The Circumstances Under Which I Would Happily Institute a Salary Cap
    7/24 – Michael Baumann
     
    30
    2025 Trade Value: Nos. 11-20
    7/24 – Ben Clemens
     
    248
    Andrew Abbott Merits More Attention (And He’s Getting It Here)
    7/23 – David Laurila
     
    1
    The Brewers Are What We Expected, but Also Better
    7/23 – Michael Baumann
     
    15
    2025 Trade Value: Nos. 21-30
    7/23 – Ben Clemens
     
    156
    Catching up With the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects, 2025
    7/23 – Dan Szymborski
     
    58
    Effectively Wild Episode 2351: The Worst Way to Lose
    7/22 – Meg Rowley
  • Alex Chamberlain
    Post Count: 13
  • Ben Clemens
    Post Count: 1393
  • Ben Lindbergh
    Post Count: 2329
  • Dan Szymborski
    Post Count: 1132
  • David Appelman
    Post Count: 907
  • David Laurila
    Post Count: 2081
  • Davy Andrews
    Post Count: 286
  • Eric Longenhagen
    Post Count: 952
  • Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan
    Post Count: 9
  • Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice
    Post Count: 15
  • Esteban Rivera
    Post Count: 119
  • FanGraphs Staff
    Post Count: 29
  • Jake Mailhot
    Post Count: 324
  • Jason Martinez
    Post Count: 110
  • Jay Jaffe
    Post Count: 1710
  • Jon Becker
    Post Count: 80
  • Kiri Oler
    Post Count: 44
  • Kyle Kishimoto
    Post Count: 69
  • Leo Morgenstern
    Post Count: 145
  • Matt Martell
    Post Count: 21
  • Meg Rowley
    Post Count: 685
  • Michael Baumann
    Post Count: 509
  • Michael Rosen
    Post Count: 48
  • Paul Sporer
    Post Count: 13
  • Sean Dolinar
    Post Count: 112
  • Tess Taruskin
    Post Count: 47
  • Travis Ice
    Post Count: 5
  • 2024 Postseason
  • 2024 Trade Deadline
  • 2025 BBWAA Ballot
  • 2025 Classic Baseball Ballot
  • 2025 MLB Draft
  • 2025 Positional Power Rankings
  • 2025 Replacement-Level Killers
  • 2025 Trade Deadline
  • 2025 Trade Value
  • 2025 ZiPS Projections
  • Best of 2024
  • Chat
  • College
  • Contract Crowdsourcing 2024-25
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Effectively Wild
  • Effectively Wild 2025 Season Preview
  • Extension
  • Featured
  • Featured Prospects
  • Five Things
  • Free Agent Signing
  • Hall of Fame
  • Idle Thoughts
  • JAWS
  • Job Postings
  • Mailbag
  • Matrix Reloaded
  • MLB Draft Week 2025
  • Old Scouting Reports Revisited
  • Power Rankings
  • Prospect List
  • Prospect Week 2025
  • Prospects
  • Prospects Report 2025
  • Q&As
  • Research
  • Site News
  • Talks Hitting
  • Angels
  • Astros
  • Athletics
  • Blue Jays
  • Braves
  • Brewers
  • Cardinals
  • Cubs
  • Diamondbacks
  • Dodgers
  • Giants
  • Guardians
  • Mariners
  • Marlins
  • Mets
  • Nationals
  • Orioles
  • Padres
  • Phillies
  • Pirates
  • Rangers
  • Rays
  • Red Sox
  • Reds
  • Rockies
  • Royals
  • Tigers
  • Twins
  • White Sox
  • Yankees
  • Top of the Order
  • Trade
  • We Tried
You are going to send email to

Move Comment

Updated: Thursday, July 24, 2025 6:00 AM ETUpdated: 7/24/2025 6:00 AM ET
@fangraphs - Contact Us - Advertise - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy
sis_logo
All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info Solutions.
mlb logo
Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball.
Mitchel Lichtman
All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman.
TangoTiger.com
All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com
Retrosheet.org
Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet.

Support FanGraphs
Become a Member

Please consider becoming a FanGraphs Member. All the great work that you've come to rely on is made possible by Member support, including analysis, stats, projections, RosterResource, prospect coverage, and podcasts.

Membership starts at $.16 a day.

Already a Member: Log In

Sign Me Up