TroutBaseball

From Sam Miller
https://open.substack.com/pub/pebblehunting/p/how-much-is-strength-worth?r=udsyc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
 
Six weeks after the Angels drafted Nolan Schanuel last summer, they promoted him to the majors. It was the fastest promotion for a position player in 45 years. The results have been mixed and raised interesting questions of whether he was rushed, whether he’s good, etc.
You probably have a mental model for how a player who essentially skips all the minors leagues would fail. This guy would be flailing at breaking balls outside the zone, probably late on quality fastballs, he’d be making bad swing decisions, with too many strikeouts and not enough walks. That’s not Schanuel. His chase rate is one of the league’s lowest, his contact rate is among the league’s highest, SEAGER loves him, and according to MLB’s newest bat-tracking stats he squares up baseballs more often than almost any hitter in the game. We’re talking truly exceptional here: Schanuel has the league’s second-highest “squared-up” rate on swings, a spot behind Luis Arráez, a spot ahead of Juan Soto.
Schanuel just doesn’t hit the ball hard. Despite being 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, despite playing a position (first base) that typically demands power hitting, despite squaring up baseballs at elite rates, Schanuel produces less force than essentially any hitter in the league. In the past two years, only 18 batters have failed to hit at least one baseball 107 mph. Only six have failed to hit a ball 106 mph. Only three have failed to hit a ball 105. Schanuel has never hit a ball 104. It’s possible he can’t?
I’m not going to try to solve the riddle of Schanuel here, or tell you what to think of him. This just sparked my curiosity on a Schanuel-relevant question: How much is strength worth? What if you took a hitter with a great approach, like Schanuel, and made him exactly 2 mph stronger? On the day that I did all the querying that follows, Schanuel was hitting .237/.315/.333, despite all sorts of excellent hitting technique. What, according to Statcast, would he have been hitting if he were physically stronger? That was my question. 
So I got every batted ball Schanuel had hit—there were 94 at that point—along with Statcast’s expected batting average (xBA) and expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA, an all-in-one offensive value measure). These are based on launch angle (hit how high?) and exit velocity (hit how fast?) but not direction (hit where?). (You can read more explanation of how the expected stats are calculated here.)
Then I got the xBA and the xwOBAs for balls hit at exactly that launch angle and 2 mph harder.
So, consider this fly ball that Nolan Schanuel hit: 
That has an expected batting average of .260 and an expected wOBA of .334. It’s not terrible contact, but it has to be hit down the line, or in an extreme hitter’s park, or on an extreme hitter’s day, to get over the outfielder’s head. Otherwise, as when Schanuel hit it this year, it’s routine. 
But if you add just 2 mph, like in this otherwise identical fly ball hit by Jared Walsh in the same ballpark one year earlier, 

now it’s a home run! That one was, at least. In the aggregate, that launch angle with [Schanuel + 2 mph] exit velocity has an expected batting average of .417, and an expected wOBA of .601. Hit that ball at that launch angle on every at-bat and you’ll end up with a better wOBA than Barry Bonds ever had. Over the past four years, batters who’ve hit the Schanuel fly ball have slugged .694; batters who’ve hit the [Schanuel + 2 mph] fly ball have slugged 1.188. 
From that you’d conclude that 2 mph makes a huge difference, and on precisely that fly ball it does. But I’ve set you up. It turns out that 2 mph actually doesn’t change as much as I’d assumed. Partly this is because of what’s known among Statcasters as the donut hole—the range of exit velocities where hitting a fly ball harder makes it more likely to get caught. Here’s a poorly hit Schanuel fly ball, with an xBA of .750:
And here’s a slightly less poorly hit [Schanuel + 2 mph] fly ball, which—because it carried a few extra feet to the outfielder—had an xBA of just .491.
So, it goes both ways. Still, in the aggregate, harder is generally better, and now we can say exactly how much better: 
Schanuel’s contact: 
All balls: .303 xBA, .313 xWOBA
Balls hit in the air: .401 xBA, .427 xWOBA
Balls hit on the ground: .154 xBA, .138 xWOBA
[Schanuel + 2 mph] contact:
All balls: .316 xBA, .338 xWOBA
Balls hit in the air: .413 xBA, .460 xWOBA
Balls hit on the ground: .168 xBA, .151 xWOBA
That’s not nothing. It would lift him from the 33rd percentile of all hitters this year to, roughly, a league-average one, though not for his position. It’s not enough to make him a star.
But, then, Schanuel’s contact isn’t just 2 mph weaker than the rest of the league’s. He’s arguably, literally the weakest hitter in the league now that the 5-foot-6 second baseman Tony Kemp has been relegated to Triple-A. The average big leaguer’s max velocity over the past two years is 7 mph harder than Schanuel has ever hit a baseball.
So let’s add 5 mph.
Unsurprisingly, this changes a lot more, and not just because more of those “routine” fly balls become routine home runs. His relationship with the infield starts to change. His batting average on groundballs goes up almost 40 points. And here’s a Schanuel line drive that the shortstop caught: 
Really good swing. An expected batting average of .720. Do that twice a game and Schanuel, like Luis Arraez and Mark Grace, might have an interesting career. But add 5 mph to it—without changing the launch angle at all—and it ceases to be remotely catchable by the infield, with an xBA of .900: 
An extra 5 mph also opens up the opposite field gaps in a way that, for Schanuel, they aren’t open now. Here’s Schanuel hitting a fly ball the other way:
And here’s [Schanuel + 5 mph] hitting an otherwise identical fly ball the other way:

Both are outs, but it’s obvious that the second one is much more likely to go for extra bases, especially in certain ballparks or on certain nights. Schanuel’s fly ball to the left-field gap has an xBA of .163. Adding 2 mph hardly changes that. But adding 5 mph makes it a really dangerous swing: xBA of .345.
In the aggregate, 5 mph of extra strength—distributed equally on every batted ball— bring Schanuel from around the 33rd percentile of all hitters to around the 75th percentile.
Schanuel’s contact: 
All balls: .303 xBA, .313 xWOBA
Balls hit in the air: .401 xBA, .427 xWOBA
Balls hit on the ground: .154 xBA, .138 xWOBA
[Schanuel + 5 mph] contact:
All balls: .344 xBA, .392 xwOBA
Balls hit in the air: .433 xBA, .533 xwOBA
Balls hit on the ground: .191 xBA, .173 xWOBA
You didn’t have to be a genius to know that “bad exit velocity” is a direct result of “slow swing.” But the bat-speed metrics that Statcast released earlier this month help illuminate the Schanuel situation a bit.
Schanuel’s bat is very slow. It’s the third-slowest among qualified hitters. It could be that, relative to his extremely strong peers, Schanuel just isn’t as physically strong. (I’m reminded of Chris Young, who for a while was both the tallest pitcher in baseball and the slowest-throwing pitcher in baseball; size isn’t destiny, and not every good athlete has 99.99th-percentile muscle fibers.)
But Schanuel’s swing is also very short. You can see it in this old video clip from his college days—he starts his hands high, right above his head, and brings them down but hardly back at all, creating almost no load.
That’s the challenge with asking “How much is strength worth?” Nolan Schanuel, I think we can say at this point, isn’t Stanton strong. He wouldn’t produce Stantonian exit velocities no matter what his swing looked like. But that incredibly short swing up there is a choice, and it has its benefits. It’s presumably what helps him do well on every offensive metric except for what happens after he puts the ball in play. It’s presumably also a cause of his biggest weakness—his weakness.
So, “what if you took a hitter with a great approach, like Schanuel, and made him exactly 2 mph stronger?” Well, you might not have a hitter with a great approach, like Schanuel. Is that swing why Nolan Schanuel is in the majors, or is that swing why Nolan Schanuel disappoints? No resolutions today. Hitting is hard, and it doesn’t get any less hard when you make it more abstract.

Ahead: 88.3 mph
Behind: 85.7 mph

The final price on the Ohtani Bobblehead was $1,850.

Guaranteed whatever pitch CJ threw was no over the plate

I have every bobblehead given away at Angel Stadium.  You can see the full list here
https://www.trout.la/complete-list-of-angel-stadium-bobbleheads/
 
I also have most of Trout's minor league bobbleheads as well (the main exception being the SL Bees). I have a few KC Royals and a few others as well. 86 unique bobbleheads in total.  There are people who own hundreds, so I'm by no means saying I've got one THE best collections in the world. Considering most people have something like Chuck's set, and I've got a full set from one team, I'm in a different collecting class than most.
 
My favorites are Trout's Wall catch, Bo Jackson wall run, and CJ Wilson's leg kick.

The Dodgers are going to have security issues the next time they have an Ohtani bobblehead if they are literally handing out items that people think they can get a thousand dollars for.

Thank you for attending my bachelorette party

I have every bobblehead given away at Angel Stadium.  You can see the full list here
https://www.trout.la/complete-list-of-angel-stadium-bobbleheads/
 
I also have most of Trout's minor league bobbleheads as well (the main exception being the SL Bees). I have a few KC Royals and a few others as well. 86 unique bobbleheads in total.  There are people who own hundreds, so I'm by no means saying I've got one THE best collections in the world. Considering most people have something like Chuck's set, and I've got a full set from one team, I'm in a different collecting class than most.
 
My favorites are Trout's Wall catch, Bo Jackson wall run, and CJ Wilson's leg kick.

After all the things that have happened to the Angels over the last 10 years, how did this story land on the Dodgers? This is an Angels scandal! Give it back!

After all the things that have happened to the Angels over the last 10 years, how did this story land on the Dodgers? This is an Angels scandal! Give it back!

After all the things that have happened to the Angels over the last 10 years, how did this story land on the Dodgers? This is an Angels scandal! Give it back!

I only feel better that everyone is having the same debate.

I was messing around drawing pictures of Ohtani in AI and it flipped out an interesting logo. I took the concept and refined it. One thing I think the Angels need to change in the red logo on the red hat, so I included to simplified alternative versions.  Also included are the pre-exisiting logos that I think are evoked (and probably inspired the original AI).

Just a fun little project. No copyrights or designers were harmed in the creation of this post.

Translation: "We gave the Angels the opportunity to drive the Dodgers' price up even further."

Typography wise it is nothing like the Alabama logo. Just adding a serif doesn't make it, all A's look alike. You are being a font racist.  

Everything Is Awesome 

The halo firmly around the center of the A, reminds me of how I feel tied up by this team... for better or worse.

This will happen AFTER they announce two expansion teams

This will happen AFTER they announce two expansion teams

Ron Washington was on the Starkville podcast.  It's clear he wants to teach Trout and "Rondon" to be leaders.  He also seems to have found a way to better dialogue with analytics guys.
https://theathletic.com/podcast/243-the-athletic-baseball-show/?episode=632https://theathletic.com/podcast/243-the-athletic-baseball-show/?episode=632

That's 42 in all. 18 on the 60 Day

The Braves had 50. 14 on the 60-day (so the argument applies to other teams)