Batted Ball Profile

[the54effect]

I was playing around in a scouting league and noticed that a power hitting prospect I recently drafted with a fairly large discrepancy between his OSA and Tool Scout potentials had the batted ball profile of a groundball hitter. I was consulting SOBR when I noticed that (at least in this league, in my organization) every players' batted ball profile remained consistent between OSA and Scout views.

I don't really like going under the hood (plus I almost exclusively do online play) but, I have two theories here:

1. Batted Ball Profile is determined in response to existing statistical data, and may (hopefully) be dynamic as a player progresses. The existing player did not hit for much power in his high school career, so this would make sense- and leave room to hope that, if the prospect can tap into his latent power, his batted ball profile might shift as his current ratings grow.

2. Batted Ball Profile is determined by some under the hood ratings, and may be stagnant. Since changes in batted ball profiles do not appear to be logged anywhere, I am concerned that this might be a 'tell' of sorts, whereby a player with high power potential but a groundball profile has no shot of ever reaching his dinger growth, outside of a random TCR adjustment. Looking through said organization, there were 28 hitters with HR Power Potential of 60+, with 24 of them profiling as flyball hitters, 3 of them as line drive hitters, and one as a normal hitter... zero groundball hitters prior to this prospect. Small sample size, but if the batted ball profile is static, I imagine this newly drafted prospect is sure to see his HR Power potential crater as the prophecy foretold.

Power hitters that are unable to elevate are maddening wormkillers- Christian Yelich comes to mind. One of the guys in SOBR was unable to create a hitting profile with the ratings listed that resulted in a groundball profile, which could mean a lot of things; I'm hopeful it is indicative of theory #1, although it could just mean that OSA's high opinion of the player's potential (60/45/65/55/75)is trash, and my tools scout that has him pegged for 50/55/50/55/65 is closer to the truth- and he's never gonna be able to change his launch angle.

ANYWAY. Just wanted to make some notes here and see if anyone had any thoughts- whether high power potential and a groundball profile is an immediate and insurmountable red flag, or if it is just tied to current ratings/production and therefore the player's progress can alter their destiny.

GOOD NIGHT!