Looking For the Next Jose Bautista
On Monday, I looked at which players showed an increase in their batted ball distances from 2010 to 2011. Not all increases can be seen in the year to year data. Some changes begin to occur during the season like with Jose Bautista and Curtis Granderson in the past couple of years. Here is a look at some players that may be turning their game around for the better
The data I use for the analysis is from MLB. It is used in their Gameday display and on their website. The data indicates where the ball was fielded, not landed. The reason I like to only look at fly ball and home run distances is that the ball is usually fielded where it would have landed. Besides the distance the ball travels, it is also important for a HR hitter to pull the ball as much as possible. The fences can be up to 100 ft shorter in the corners than in straight away center.
So I took all the hitters with 30 total fly balls or home runs in both halves of the 2011 season. Then, I compared the change in distance and angle of the batted balls. Here is a select list of players with a decent jump in distance and/or angle (full list of players here).
Note: For the Batted Ball Angle angle, -45 degrees is a ball hit on the left field line, 0 is a ball hit to dead center and +45 is a ball hit on the right field line.
| 1st Half of 2011 | 2nd Half of 2011 | Difference | ||||
| Name | Distance (ft) | Angle | Distance (ft) | Angle | Distance (ft) | Angle |
| Ellsbury Jacoby | 264 | -1.0 | 297 | 7.6 | 34 | 8.6 |
| Phillips Brandon | 272 | 11.0 | 305 | 3.4 | 33 | -7.5 |
| Scutaro Marco | 244 | 9.2 | 276 | -1.4 | 33 | -10.7 |
| Tulowitzki Troy | 295 | -0.5 | 316 | -6.2 | 21 | -5.6 |
| Swisher Nick | 282 | -9.3 | 303 | 5.4 | 21 | 14.7 |
| Jeter Derek | 272 | 15.8 | 293 | 10.1 | 21 | -5.7 |
| Uggla Dan | 285 | 1.2 | 305 | -6.6 | 20 | -7.8 |
| Ellis Mark | 259 | 7.7 | 278 | 2.3 | 18 | -5.4 |
| Young Delmon | 269 | 7.5 | 286 | -2.3 | 17 | -9.8 |
| Suzuki Kurt | 258 | 2.4 | 274 | -6.2 | 16 | -8.6 |
| Napoli Mike | 305 | 8.9 | 320 | -0.7 | 15 | -9.6 |
| Murphy Daniel | 265 | -8.8 | 279 | 4.5 | 14 | 13.3 |
| Willingham Josh | 284 | -1.6 | 298 | -15.3 | 13 | -13.7 |
| Cabrera Melky | 271 | 2.7 | 283 | -3.8 | 12 | -6.5 |
| Hill Aaron | 251 | 4.5 | 263 | -1.7 | 11 | -6.2 |
| McCutchen Andrew | 282 | -0.5 | 293 | 6.6 | 11 | 7.1 |
| Howard Ryan | 305 | 0.0 | 314 | -5.7 | 10 | -5.7 |
| Markakis Nick | 278 | -9.4 | 287 | -0.3 | 9 | 9.1 |
| Jackson Austin | 281 | 5.6 | 290 | 12.8 | 8 | 7.2 |
| Smith Seth | 295 | -8.9 | 303 | -3.3 | 8 | 5.6 |
| Callaspo Alberto | 257 | 1.4 | 264 | -7.1 | 7 | -8.5 |
| Kubel Jason | 281 | -3.5 | 288 | 3.0 | 7 | 6.5 |
| Infante Omar | 262 | 4.7 | 268 | -2.8 | 6 | -7.6 |
| Hosmer Eric | 281 | 6.1 | 287 | -8.8 | 6 | -14.9 |
| Ross Cody | 280 | -9.0 | 286 | -3.7 | 6 | 5.3 |
| Soriano Alfonso | 277 | 2.5 | 283 | -3.6 | 6 | -6.1 |
| Hunter Torii | 284 | 8.8 | 289 | -1.4 | 6 | -10.3 |
| Konerko Paul | 279 | -5.8 | 285 | -0.1 | 6 | 5.7 |
| Cuddyer Michael | 284 | 1.0 | 290 | 6.8 | 5 | 5.8 |
| Bruce Jay | 288 | -4.0 | 293 | 2.0 | 5 | 6.0 |
| Ramos Wilson | 284 | 5.8 | 289 | 15.9 | 5 | 10.1 |
If you want to look at the data for any player over any time frame, you can go to:
http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/
User: fangraphs
PW: Dave (capital D)
Click on: Angle and Distance of a Hitter’s Batted Balls
Enter in the player and parameters.
Here is a more detailed look at a few of the players.
Josh Willingham – Josh had his greatest HR total in 2012 with Oakland. The key for the right handed hitter was not the increase in distance, but his ability to turn on the ball for HRs. Here is graph of his batted ball angles over the last 5 years with a LOESS averaging curve.
Generally his fly balls were to center field in the past, but he really began to turn on them in 2011. Oakland may have been the worst place for him to be productive. If he moves to a hitter friendly park, watch out.
Jacoby Ellsbury: Here is Jacoby’s splits for the season:
First Half
0.316/0.377/0.490 11 HRs
Second Half
0.328/0.375/0.625 21 HRs
He kept getting better as the season went on. He saw his distance increase (33 ft more) and he pulled the ball more (by 8 degrees). People may think that he may regress a bit in 2011. If he hits like he did in the second half, he could improve in 2012.
Nick Markakis – His numbers aren’t the sign of a breakout, but they may be a sign of a halt in the decline of his power. Here are his SLG and batted ball numbers since 2008:
2008: 0.491, 304 ft
2009: 0.453, 299 ft
2010: 0.436, 291 ft
2011: 0.406, 283 ft
The power decline is obvious. He did show some signs of improvement in the second half. He hit the ball a little further at 287 ft. Also, he began to turn on the ball a little bit more by 9 more degrees. This can be seen with his 2nd half SLG at 0.442. He is not back to his 2008 levels. If an owner is looking for a little more fantasy value than the trends and projections may say, Nick could be your man.
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Looks like Hosmer really started to get used to major league pitching in the second half, pulling lot more balls.I imagine his distance will continue trending upward as well as he nears his prime.
I believe you have it backwards. The more positive the number, the closer the ball is hit to the right field line, which in Hosmer’s case as a left would represent pulling the ball. The first half of the season Hosmer pulled the ball a bit, hitting to the right field side of center (though really close to hitting up the middle). The second half Hosmer went the other way with more pitches, hitting balls to left-center.
ah yes, i misthought
just glancing at the angle numbers, it looks like there is little to no correlation with pulling the ball more, and hitting it farther.
it actually looks like most of the guys who saw increases in distance actually pulled the ball LESS in the second half
I think the takeaway is that all the guys who experienced distance increases also demonstrated a significant change in angle. Whether that means they started pulling, driving to center, or hitting opposite field doesn’t seem to matter – it’s the fact that they changed their angle that is consistent.
Can you add the respective HR totals for each half in the chart? Would help to see which hitters are actually turning their batted ball profile change into counting stats.
Just wait. I am doing a ton more work on this subject. I am actually thinking of completely changing how the data is displayed. It is an SQL nightmare.
Sounds good. Thanks for digging into this topic of who might be the next Bautista/Granderson. Thanks to the info in this article, I will be keeping my eye on Willingham.
typo:
>Josh had his greatest HR total in 2012 with Oakland.
Typo… or projection? eh… You see what I did there?
Don’t you need to do some sort of adjustment for switch hitters?
Swisher hits from both sides of the plate. Pulling a ball down the line lefthanded, he gets a -45. Do the same thing righthanded, he gets a +45.
Average pull angle, 0 degrees…
sort of suprised to not see Weiters on here. He smacked the piss out of the ball in the second half of the season.
jeter, hill, ellis??? this article is a load of horse manure.
The data are the data. If you think the conclusion it’s trying to draw is that Jeter or Scutaor are about to have a power breakout, then your head is what’s full of the aforementioned horse manure. You have to account for the distances hit, not just the differences. It doesn’t matter if a player improved his average distance by 20 feet in the second half if he was hitting 230 feet in the first half.
But an increase in distance doesn’t just have to mean HR. It also means hard-hit balls, which indicates better contact and could bode an improvement in BA and OBP.
So quick to dismiss…