Quote:
Originally Posted by kjb023
That particular batter's average exit velocity would be very helpful in this regard; if a guy averages 360 ft on his HR with an average exit velocity of 115 mph, those HR are line drives and likely to stay HR for quite a bit longer. A slower exit velocity, obviously, and you're looking at balls that might fall short of your 361 ft fence, as you said. Launch angle comes into play, too, but that's a whole different thread...
|
If it's useful in this regard it's being used to augment other observations, which I've said over and over is something EV can do. I can also find out if the batter hits a lot of line drives simply by looking up his line drive rate, which is a kept statistic these days. I have average distance, I know the line drive rate. I know flat trajectory line drives necessarily must have more velocity than a fly ball with an arcing trajectory. EV stops being vital. It may be a nice shortcut for quick reference, but not vital, other data can tell the story too. If Amazon stopped sponsoring statcast (and you see the data on your TV screen because Amazon pays for the ad, not because you
really need to know how far and how fast that home run went save for vanity window dressing), or it went away tomorrow for another reason, baseball life would go on because there are other tools in the box.