Edwards: How much control do pitchers exert over exit velocity?
From Craig Edwards at FanGraphs on January 12, 2017:
When it comes to batted-ball exit velocity, its a lot easier to write about hitters. It’s become fairly clear that hitting the ball hard is a skill, and that the numbers are mostly consistent from year to year.
When it comes to pitching, however, things are much less clear. Given the outcomes for individual batted balls based on exit velocity — even in the absence of the complementary launch angles — suppressing exit velocity appears to be a benefit for pitchers. Given how much control hitters exert over exit velocity, it stands to reason that pitchers have considerably less control. Whether they have any control at all is something we can begin to determine by looking at Baseball Savant‘s full-season data from 2015 and 2016.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-much-control-do-pitchers-exert-over-exit-velocity/
Originally published: January 12, 2017. Last Updated: January 12, 2017.