by Throughout baseball history, the goal of batters has been simple: hit the darn ball as hard as possible. Naturally, pitchers try to prevent that from happening.
With the advent of Statcast, we can finally see exactly how well players accomplish their respective goals. There’s little doubt hitters have the majority of control over how hard the ball is hit. They’re the ones swinging the bats, after all. But how much can a pitcher control exit velocity? That question is much harder to answer.
To start, let’s look at the starting pitchers with the lowest average exit velocities from 2015, the first year of Statcast, to 2018. All of these pitchers have at least 1,000 batted balls against them over that time, providing a nice sample size.
Quite the curious list. There are several names one would expect to see: Clayton Kershaw, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber, Chris Sale. Their inclusion at the top of the leaderboard is no surprise; all except Sale have won a Cy Young (and he’s finished in the top five multiple times). Not only do they all strike batters out at elite rates, but they don’t walk batters either. Naturally, one would expect them to limit hard contact.
Others on the list — Kyle Hendricks and Dallas Keuchel being the best examples — don’t have overpowering swing-and-miss stuff but make up the difference with elite control. These are your Greg Maddux-lites.
But quite a few others seemingly don’t belong in either category of pitcher. Jason Vargas sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s in the bottom 15% in xFIP over the last four seasons, yet limits hard contact well. Tyler Anderson and Adam Wainwright sport ERAs over 4.50. How can these pitchers limit exit velocity so well without stuff that jumps off the TV screen or pinpoint command? Does their lack of success despite limiting hard contact mean it’s all luck — that pitchers have little control over how hard a ball is hit? Stats like FIP, xFIP, and SIERA assume that answer is yes.
The questions continue when looking at the bottom of the exit velocity leaderboard.
Many of the names aren’t surprising. In second-to-last is Chris Tillman, owner of the worst ERA for a starting pitcher in baseball from 2015-’18. Sixth from the bottom is Hector Santiago, who has the worst FIP and xFIP in that span. But several successful pitchers are also mixed in: James Paxton, Chris Archer, Marcus Stroman, and Robbie Ray stand out. How do they find success despite giving up hard contact consistently? Is exit velocity for pitchers, then, meaningless?
Like any statistic, average exit velocity doesn’t provide a full picture of a pitcher’s ability. We can, however, piece it together with other data to tell a more complete story.
Why Limiting or Allowing Hard Contact Isn’t Always Telling
The BABIP Effect?
When the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, it’s entirely out of their hands what happens next. A well-located pitch that gets the hitter off balance can result in a bloop single. A line drive rocket can get caught by a speedy center fielder. It’s why ERA estimators exist. It’s also why batting average on balls in play (BABIP) has become prevalent.
A player with a BABIP far above or below their career average can probably expect the law of averages to catch up at some point. The league average BABIP for the last 10 seasons has stayed consistent, ranging between .291 and .298. That gives us a solid baseline. But, of course, not every player — hitter or pitcher — will stay between those rates. Batters who consistently hit the ball hard will usually carry a higher BABIP, and we know batting average goes up as exit velocity does. Some of the top names on the list over the last decade include Aaron Judge (.356), Joey Votto (.355), Paul Goldschmidt (.355), Mike Trout (.354), and J.D. Martinez (.347).
By that logic, pitchers should have a similar fate on balls in play, right? Not so fast.
Yes, names like Kershaw (.268), Jake Arrieta (.271), and Rich Hill (.274) are among the leaders in BABIP over the last decade. But we also see pitchers such as Chris Young (.249) atop the list. Young has a 5.29 xFIP and 0.6 fWAR in that time. Santiago (.270) sits just outside the top 10. Aaron Sanchez (.280) is in the 85th percentile as well. At the bottom of the list, we mostly see a conglomeration of below-average pitchers, but Noah Syndergaard (.315), Patrick Corbin (.313), and Jameson Taillon (.313) make appearances as well.
Perhaps that explains some of the bizarre results at the top and bottom of the exit velocity leaderboard. Maybe pitchers such as Vargas sport an abnormally high BABIP and are unlucky; on the other end, maybe Paxton has a strangely low one thanks to some fortunate bounces. However, the effect appears to be minimal. Paxton has a BABIP well above league average since 2015 (.311); Vargas is right at league average (.293).
This largely holds true up and down the leaderboard. Pitchers in the top 15 percent in exit velocity since 2015 have allowed a .289 BABIP. Pitchers in the bottom 15 percent have fared only slightly worse at .299. That only amounts to 10 extra hits per 1,000 balls in play.
Here are the BABIP and average exit velocities of the 141 pitchers from our sample on a scatter plot:
The results are all over the place. There’s no clear trend line, although Tableau tried its best anyway. The r-squared value of the data is only .04, representing almost no correlation. Put simply: Just because a pitcher has a high exit velocity allowed doesn’t mean their BABIP is high.
The Importance of Missing Bats
If bad or good luck doesn’t necessarily lead to results that seem out of line with exit velocity, what does? How does Paxton succeed despite a lot of hard contact while Vargas struggles as he prevents it?
The answer is pretty simple: missing bats. Paxton’s strikeout rate sits at 26.8% since 2015. Vargas is at a below average 18.7% in that time. This trend doesn’t apply to those two pitchers—we can see it across the board. While limiting hard contact is important for pitchers, keeping runners off base is the ultimate goal. That means limiting walks, hit batters, and balls in play. Walks and hit batters are entirely in the control of pitchers. Balls in play, however, are left up to luck and defense. By striking more hitters out, pitchers can mitigate any external factors out of the equation.
First, let’s look at the exit velocity overperformers highlighted earlier (those who limit runs despite allowing a lot of hard contact). Among those in the bottom 15 percent in exit velocity, five pitchers rank in the top 15 percent in keeping runners off base (balls in play + walks + hit by pitches): Danny Salazar, Chris Archer, Robbie Ray, James Paxton, and German Marquez. This group represents five of the six pitchers (Marcus Stroman being the other) with a FIP and xFIP below 4.00 despite allowing an average exit velocity exceeding 88.4 mph.
The conclusion: Pitchers can overcome hard contact by striking batters out at an above-average rate. Those who allow a lot of balls in play—even if the contact isn’t particularly powerful—are testing fate. With more frequent contact comes more hits. Even if a pitcher’s BABIP isn’t inflated, they may allow a lot of runs if batters put a large amount of balls in play.
For example, let’s compare two pitchers with identical BABIPs (.270) between 2015 and 2018: Clayton Kershaw and Jose Urena. Both have average exit velocities better than the league average. Kershaw, of course, is known as arguably the top pitcher of his generation. Urena is the dictionary definition of a replacement-level pitcher. The two pitchers have over two runs of separation in their ERAs (2.22 vs. 4.37), FIPs (2.49 vs. 4.65), and xFIPs (2.57 vs. 4.75). The difference? Kershaw limits baserunners (30.0 K%) and Urena does not (16.4%).
That logic also plays out for the pitchers with low average exit velocities but poor run-prevention numbers.
Of the nine pitchers with a 4.00 xFIP or higher, six have a below average strikeout rate (league average between 2015 and 2018 was 20.5%). The pitchers who overachieve (C.C. Sabathia, Chase Anderson, Kyle Freeland) do so in part because they limit hard contact. Sabathia and Freeland are helped tremendously by above-average ground-ball rates. (Anderson falls more under the “lucky” category. Despite a well below-average GB%, his BABIP is fairly low at .274.)
The pitchers who still struggle (Tyler Anderson, Adam Wainwright, Jason Vargas) have other factors impacting them in addition to low strikeout rates. Anderson pitches in Coors and has a below-average GB%. Wainwright has an unusually higher BABIP (.325). Vargas is a fly-ball pitcher with a high home-run rate (1.41 per nine innings).
Does this all mean average exit velocity is a useless measurement for pitchers? It does mean that keeping runners off base is more important than forcing a batter to make weak contact. But exit velocity is still a useful tool when put in the proper context with other metrics. The pitchers who excel at preventing baserunners and hard contact are the elite. Here’s the list of pitchers who rank in the top 15 percent in exit velocity, ERA, FIP, xFIP, and K%:
- Clayton Kershaw
- Noah Syndergaard
- Max Scherzer
- Jacob deGrom
- Rich Hill
- Chris Sale
- Corey Kluber
Not a bad list, eh?
Advantages of Command
Nasty stuff is the best way to limit hard contact and miss bats. But that doesn’t explain how all pitchers find success. How do pitchers like Kyle Hendricks and Dallas Keuchel produce solid peripherals without missing bats? How does C.C. Sabathia lead baseball in exit velocity without the repertoire he had in his younger days? Command. Hendricks, Keuchel, and Sabathia have the uncanny ability to place the ball where they want it more often than not.
That doesn’t necessarily mean throwing a lot of strikes. Plenty of pitchers can do that. Control is keeping the ball in the strike zone; command is the pitcher’s ability to put the ball exactly where he wants it.
Unfortunately, command isn’t the easiest concept to measure because it’s impossible to know the pitcher’s intent without asking him or the catcher. Pitch tracking data does provide a starting point, though.
The team behind Statcast created a concept called “Attack Zones.” It breaks the strike zone up into four categories: heart, shadow, chase, and waste. Here’s what the zones look like:
Staying out of the heart of the zone is the name of the game for a pitcher without elite stuff. Hill, Marquez, and Scherzer are in the top five in percentage of pitches in this zone since 2015; they get away with it because their repertoire is so good that batters still can’t hit those pitches. Someone like Hendricks, who only maxes out at 90 mph and doesn’t have an elite pitch, wants to stay out of this zone in favor of the “shadow” areas. There, he can still throw strikes while reducing the hitter’s chances of making hard contact.
Hendricks, Sabathia, and Keuchel excel at this. Among 150 starting pitchers with at least 5,000 pitches since 2015, they rank 107th (Sabathia), 111th (Hendricks), and 141st (Keuchel) in Heart%. They’re also among MLB leaders in percentage of pitches in the “shadow” portion of the strike zone.
The highlighted pitchers are others with average exit velocities below the league average (87.3 mph). There certainly seems to be something to this. Pitching on the periphery of the strike zone is vital for anybody, but especially for those without a 99-mph heater or a wicked breaking ball.
To reinforce that thought, here’s the league average exit velocity by attack zone since 2015:
- Heart: 90.5 mph
- Shadow: 85.3 mph
- Chase: 76.6 mph
- Waste: 69.0 mph
How the Reds Pitchers Stack Up
Yeah, yeah, this is a Cincinnati Reds site. Time to shut up about the rest of the league already! Next week, we’ll put all this into context as far as current Reds pitchers go. How does hopeful ace Luis Castillo stack up? (Hint: Very well.) What can we read into Raisel Iglesias’ sharp increase in exit velocity this year? Who has made the biggest improvement? Which surprising pitcher leads the team? We’ll tackle all of those questions and more.
