Quote:
Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave
I'm not against having more information, and I agree that EV can augment available information. My point is that in of itself EV won't tell you anything you don't already know and is not a vital stat. If it went away tomorrow because Amazon stopped paying for the advertisement baseball life would go on and we'd still know who hits the ball hard often and who doesn't.
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This statement is just simply wrong. Exit velocity itself in fact CAN tell you things you don't already know. Things exit velocity can tell you that you don't already know (which have basically all already been stated in this thread):
1) Gee looking at this box score (I'm looking at this box score since I went out to dinner with my wife and couldn't catch the game), player X looks like he had a horrible game, going 0-5...but wait, the average exit velocity on those outs was 95 mph. Seems like it wasn't really a horrible game after all, just a bit of misfortune.
2) I've never seen or heard of player X before, I wonder what his game is like. Wow he just recorded an exit velocity of over 115 on that batted ball! I can tell from this one event that Player X has the potential to hit 40+ homers annually!
3) Well player X had a down year homer-wise compared to his past seasons and I, like any other normal human being in this world, did not watch every single at bat of his this season. Is this the first signs of aging/decline? Was it simply bad luck? Wait a second, his average exit velocity actually increased a tick compared to his previous seasons?! This must mean his 'down' season was more of a mirage than a sign of bad things to come; his hard hits just wound up in gloves more frequently than usual. I'm fairly certain he'll revert to his usual homer levels next season (breathes sigh of relief).
Based purely on the stated scenarios above, exit velocity told you important things about both past and future events that you wouldn't have otherwise known.