How the Yankees Add Up Using Baseball's New Math
For many years now, baseball fans who love digging through the game's numbers have made FanGraphs and Baseball Reference their homes away from home. While those sites are still abundantly useful for getting lost in rabbit holes, there's a new kid in town. Baseball Savant harnesses the power of Statcast by providing a central database for things that seemed unfathomable to measure just a few decades ago like exit velocity, launch angle, and spin rate. Miserable baseball fans with stale minds tend to hate these things and will shout to the heavens about them. Those of us who agree that knowledge is power tend to embrace them as new tools that inform us on the state of baseball at this very moment, which will no doubt change significantly in due time, just as baseball always has. But who am I to judge?
Before we dig into some numbers here, I want to address this lazy, growing narrative that "analytics are ruining the game" being pushed by folks who probably don't quite grasp analytics in the first place. Even my childhood hero is getting in on the action, although that's done nothing to diminish my love for Donnie Baseball. The terse thought that analytics are at the root of all of the game's ills isn't actually a thought at all. It's a shallow finger point that misses what's actually going on.
After an offensive boom in baseball in the late 1990's, the game has seen a steady shift towards pitchers that's reaching a fever pitch at the moment. There are many reasons for this. Pitchers throw harder and with more movement than they ever have before, thanks in no small part to an unmitigated increase in use of foreign substances on the mound. A ball that's thrown harder and with more movement is obviously more difficult to hit. Especially when most batters face a defensive shift designed to rob them of hits when they come to the plate. You can blame this on analytics too, but teams shifted for Ted Williams well before analytics was a bad word because it was the smart move. Teams are getting smarter and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
So with the baseball getting harder to hit, supposedly evil people with computers determined that the best way to score runs in that kind of environment is to make the most of the precious few chances there are to make contact. Swinging harder and trying to get the ball in the air to create more extra base hits is the counter move in this chess match. This has the side effect of an ever increasing number of strikeouts and less balls in play in general. That's not exactly beautiful baseball, but it's the solution to maximize run potential.
For those that think the best way to combat dominant pitching and make baseball more watchable is to just choke up and put the ball in play, I invite you to take a look at the state of baseball in 1968. During that season pitching dominance was also at a fever pitch, but analytics as we know it today weren't around to "ruin the game." The result? More balls were put in play, but most of them were weak grounders or lazy fly balls that turned into easy outs. In 2021, outs are being made at roughly the same rate, but many more runs are being scored since the chance of a big hit is being prioritized over weak contact that leads to certain outs.
What's making matters worse for hitters in 2021 is that the folks running baseball - in their infinite wisdom - made material changes to the baseball designed to reduce the number of home runs being hit and have more balls in play. It's early, but the results so far are actually no change in home runs and an increase in strikeouts since the slightly lighter ball is moving more when pitched.
It's clear that the situation baseball is in currently - much like the situation in 1968 - makes for a less than appealing product on the field, even if hitters are doing their best to make the most of a disadvantage right now. So rather than falsely blaming analytics as the root cause and offering no real solution, what can Major League Baseball actually do to restore balance and make it look pretty again?
Let's again look back to 1968 and baseball's reaction to offense hitting rock bottom. After that season, new rules were implemented to standardize the height of pitcher's mounds, establish a more conservative strike zone, and crack down on the use of foreign substances on the mound. That seems like a pretty good starting point for baseball's rules committee this winter. As has been the case for about 150 years, baseball is ever-changing and sometimes things get unbalanced. It's then up to smart people in the commissioner's office to re-balance via rules to improve the on-field aesthetics. That is, NOT the people who decided to start extra innings with a runner on second base.
Let's leave the nerds with computers alone. They're not ruining baseball, they're simply trying to give their team the best chance to win given the constraints of the rules they're subject to. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, we can go on with the chlorophyll.
Death and Taxes, and Stanton and Judge Murdering Baseballs
When the Yankees acquired Giancarlo Stanton prior to the 2018 season, he gave the team - along with Aaron Judge - two of the biggest, most formidable sluggers that baseball has ever seen. Anybody who's watched these two at the plate can attest that they don't hit your run-of-the-mill home runs. They can hit tape measure blasts that call to mind all-time greats like Mickey Mantle or Reggie Jackson. But do they truly stand out over their peers when it comes to how hard they hit the ball? With the help of Statcast, we can answer that.
To quantify just how hard Judge and Stanton can hit the ball, we'll start with exit velocity, or the speed at which the ball leaves their bat when they make contact. In 2021, Stanton's average exit velocity is 98.9 MPH while Judge's stands at 97.3 MPH (as of 5/30/21). Those values are good for best and second best in the major leagues, and that's no small sample fluke.
Since this data has been captured league-wide in 2015, both have had average exit velocity values that consistently sit within the top 1% of all players. Same goes for their hard hit percentage values, which is just the proportion of their batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 95 MPH. The cherry on top here is that Stanton has also posted the best maximum exit velocity value across all of baseball each season since 2015. For seven straight seasons - including 2021 - he's hit at least one ball over 120 MPH. Only two other players have hit a ball that hard in that time frame. Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez.
Great, so Stanton and Judge hit the ball very hard, but does that even really matter? I'm so glad you asked! It does matter, and here's why. Statcast has proven that the harder a ball is hit, the better the batting average and slugging percentage, especially when the ball has a launch angle around 25-30 degrees. So much so that the term barrel now refers to balls hit at least 98 MPH at that sweet spot launch angle. Batted balls hit within those limits have at least a .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.
Given how hard Judge and Stanton hit balls when they connect, it should be no surprise that their barrel percentages have also consistently been within the top 5% of all major leaguers since this data has been available. While major league pitching is getting faster and more deceptive, the Yankees' twin towers are making the most of their limited opportunities on hittable pitches.
But as many will be quick to point out, this dynamic duo is not God's gift to baseball. They have their flaws. Both Judge and Stanton have trouble staying healthy, and their maximum effort on swings might have something to do with that. They also strike out at rates that would be unheard of just a decade or two ago. This makes them prone to slumps and understandably causes frustration among fans who would gladly trade a few less home runs for a bunch more base hits.
That's easier said than done though and the overall results for Stanton and Judge are overwhelmingly positive. It's clear that they'll trade a high strike out rate for more hard hit balls and by more conventional metrics their production at the plate doesn't suffer for it. Since 2017, Judge's OPS+ ranks second among all major leaguers at 157 and Stanton's value of 148 ranks sixth. It's hard to argue that they could do better than that. Sure we'd like to see them avoid their frequent trips to the injured list, but even as they enter their 30's both of these guys still have an elite ability to pound the life out of baseballs.
Why Is The Machine Broken?
Last year DJ LeMahieu won the AL batting title by a landslide and was a legitimate MVP candidate. In 2021, he has plummeted back to earth as a league average hitter and the Yankee offense is suffering as a result. What has caused such a precipitous fall from grace for the man they call Machine?
Given what was said regarding Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge above, LeMahieu struggles must be due to him not hitting the ball as hard as he did last year, right? Well, not exactly. His average exit velocity and hard hit percentage have dipped a bit compared to 2020, but he has never been a guy who relied on hard contact and launch angle to do his damage. In fact, when he was one of the best hitters in baseball last year, he only hit five barrels all season. He's already hit three in 2021. We'll need to look elsewhere to find what's ailing DJ.
While hard contact isn't necessarily what makes the Machine run smoothly, LeMahieu has always been a hitter who relies on consistent contact and a relatively high batting average to keep his offensive production high. Thus far in 2021, he simply hasn't made enough contact to be the quality hitter we've been accustomed to seeing, as evidenced by his 19.7% whiff rate compared to just 11.2% in 2020. To further illustrate, the chart below shows his contact percentages when seeing pitches firmly in the strike zone (Zone) and firmly out of the strike zone (Chase). No matter where the pitch is, DJ can't seem to get his bat on the ball the way we saw last year.
Digging a bit deeper on this reveals that there are two pitch types in particular that LeMahieu is struggling with. In 2020 he feasted on four-seam fastballs and sinkers, but his production on those pitches this year has dropped significantly. The drop can mainly be attributed to a corresponding increase in whiff rate on those pitches.
Given the data above, and the heat maps that Baseball Savant has available for DJ, it's clear that his biggest problem in 2021 is chasing and missing on pitches that fall below the strike zone. Pitchers are no doubt noticing this and taking advantage, lest they meet the fate of nearly all the pitchers that faced LeMahieu in 2020. To break his early season slump, the Yankee coaching staff should be stressing the importance of laying off sinkers and fastballs at the knees. Let pitchers miss with those until he ultimately gets pitches that he can stroke for clean hits, just like he's done with regularity since joining the Yankees. Hey DJ, hit it.
Hot Buttered Cole and a Pleasant Surprise in the Bullpen
Last year in a shortened season Gerrit Cole pitched like the ace he was paid to be for the Yankees. Thus far in 2021 he's found another gear, and aside from a dud in Texas a couple weeks ago he's basically been untouchable. What's catapulted one of the best pitchers in baseball to new heights on the mound?
Oddly enough, Cole's hard hit percentages don't reveal anything special. Batters don't tee off on him consistently, but in recent years he's been about average when it comes to the rate at which he surrenders hard contact. What separates Cole from the rest is his elite ability to miss bats while not clogging the base paths with a high walk rate. But overall, his contact and whiff rates in 2021 are in line with his 2020 rates, so something else is going on here.
That something else is Cole's newfound reliance on his changeup as a "put away" pitch, or the pitch that gets the strikeout when a batter has two strikes. Throughout his career, Cole has made sparing use of his changeup but is clearly making a concerted effort to maximize its potential in 2021. The table below focuses on his four-seam fastball and changeup alone, and the results are dazzling. Keep in mind that he's pitched just over 70 innings thus far and logged only 73 innings last year, so we're looking at a comparable sample.
Thanks to some added velocity, Cole's four-seamer - still his most-used pitch - has shown some improvement, but the main take away here is his changeup's dominance after a nearly three-fold increase in its use. When batters aren't flailing away at it, they're making harmless contact. Better yet, his 30.6% put away percentage for his changeup represents the highest value for any pitch in his repertoire. This is the first time in his career that has been the case. Cole's dominance in 2021 is due to him pitching both harder AND smarter.
One of the best arms backing up Cole in the bullpen this year is a 34-year old lefty named Lucas Luetge who hadn't pitched a major league inning in six years before breaking camp with the Yankees this spring. In just over 25 innings pitched he's posted a sparkling 2.45 ERA. Even Luetge's mother couldn't have seen that coming. So what can this magic be attributed to?
Like Mariano Rivera at the end of his career, Luetge mostly relies on a cutter that rarely breaks 90 MPH and has deceptive horizontal movement. Also like Rivera, that pitch induces a ton of weak contact. So much so that his average exit velocity and hard hit percentage values of 84 MPH and 24.3%, respectively, each sit in the top 3% of all major league pitchers thus far. It's a safe bet that the Rivera comparisons will stop there and Luetge won't become one of the best closers in baseball well into his 40's. But let's enjoy Lucas with the Lid Off while it lasts.
All data presented above was obtained from either Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, or FanGraphs.
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