Statcast Primer available!

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The AZ Snake Pit has published an illustrated primer on how to use MLB’s Statcast system. It’s really easy to learn and use.

Want MLB exit velocities or barrel information? Or any stat you can think of? For a game, a season, a given period of time? As of yesterday? It’s all there for the taking. Free.

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Zero interest? Shocker. This is a great data source.

[stealofhome]

I wish something like this was available back when I had time to analyze these stats. I did a writeup in The Hardball Times Annual a few years ago with some Inside Edge data which was the best thing at that time. Running that analysis with actual Statcast data would be awesome, but my wife wouldn't be too happy about never seeing me again.

[5-4-3]

Originally Posted by stealofhome

I wish something like this was available back when I had time to analyze these stats. I did a writeup in The Hardball Times Annual a few years ago with some Inside Edge data which was the best thing at that time. Running that analysis with actual Statcast data would be awesome, but my wife wouldn't be too happy about never seeing me again.

Which stats did you analyze?

[stealofhome]

I took hang time, horizontal hit angle, and distance and created an expected run value for a particular hit type. Then I translated that to a player's expected wOBA based off where they were hitting (their process) instead of what results they got. Now we have exit speed, exact location, etc. and I'm sure somebody is doing something similar, though I haven't read up on any recent baseball analysis for a few years.

[stiffy]

Originally Posted by stealofhome

I took hang time, horizontal hit angle, and distance and created an expected run value for a particular hit type. Then I translated that to a player's expected wOBA based off where they were hitting (their process) instead of what results they got. Now we have exit speed, exact location, etc. and I'm sure somebody is doing something similar, though I haven't read up on any recent baseball analysis for a few years.

There's a stat that does exactly this, using launch angle and exit velocity, called xwOBA (expected wOBA, as you called it too). Here's the leaderboard from last year. It's probably the best hitting statistic we have publicly right now.

Speed also seems to have a noticeable effect on the difference between xwOBA and their actual wOBA.

[stealofhome]

Originally Posted by stiffy

There's a stat that does exactly this, using launch angle and exit velocity, called xwOBA (expected wOBA, as you called it too). Here's the leaderboard from last year. It's probably the best hitting statistic we have publicly right now.

Speed also seems to have a noticeable effect on the difference between xwOBA and their actual wOBA.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I did it in the 2015 Hardball Times Annual just as Statcast was starting and before it was publicly available. Glad to see there are people doing that work.

[stiffy]

Originally Posted by stealofhome

Yeah, that's what I figured. I did it in the 2015 Hardball Times Annual just as Statcast was starting and before it was publicly available. Glad to see there are people doing that work.

Just in case you (or anyone else) are curious, a guy I think is on the cutting edge of this stuff is Andrew Perpetua, who runs xStats. He's got a great set of stats built of the Statcast data.

[5-4-3]

Originally Posted by stiffy

Just in case you (or anyone else) are curious, a guy I think is on the cutting edge of this stuff is Andrew Perpetua, who runs xStats. He's got a great set of stats built of the Statcast data.

Thanks!