Kagan: The physics of hard-hit balls

From SABR member David Kagan at The Hardball Times on August 18, 2016:

If you look at the Statcast Leaderboard, Giancarlo Stanton is as dominant on the hitting side as Aroldis Chapman is on the pitch speed chart. Yet, he has not earned a “Stanton Filter” like Chapman has on the pitching side.

Stanton has topped 120 mph for the speed of the ball of his bat. For some reason, MLB calls this the “exit velocity” as opposed to the “batted ball speed” or something more sensible. Although in Stanton’s case his hits act as if they were shot out of a cannon, so I guess “exit velocity” is appropriate.

On April 30, 2016 Stanton hit a mammoth 462-foot homer. According to Statcast, it had an exit velocity of 116.8 mph at a launch angle of 23.5˚.  These numbers seem to be valid and within tolerance, matching the values from ESPN Home Run Tracker.

Now that a good portion of 2015 Statcast data is available, we are in a position to look at the physics of all well hit balls – be they homers, singles, or loud outs.

Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-physics-of-hard-hit-balls/



Originally published: August 18, 2016. Last Updated: August 18, 2016.