Prime Ball-in-Play Traits of the 10 Playoff Teams, Part 2

The playoffs roll on, with subplots galore, most of them involving pitching-staff usage patterns that are long overdue. Meanwhile, let’s conclude our two-part series examining macro team BIP data for the 10 playoff teams, broken down by exit speed and launch angles. (Read the Part 1 here.) We’ll examine what made these teams tick during the regular season and allowed them to play meaningful October baseball. It’s more or less a DNA analysis of the clubs that made it to the game’s second season.

First, some ground rules. For each club, all offensive and defensive batted balls were broken down (first) by type and (second) by exit speed. Not all batted balls generated exit speed and/or launch angle data; just over 14% were unread, most of them weakly hit balls at very high or low launch angles. How do we know this? Well, hitters batted .161 AVG-.213 SLG on them, a pretty strong clue.

BIP types do not strictly match up with FanGraphs classifications. For purposes of this exercise, any batted ball with a launch angle of over 50 degrees is considered a pop up, between 20 and 50 degrees is a fly ball, between 5 and 20 degrees is a line drive, and below 5 degrees is a ground ball. For background purposes, here are the outcomes by major-league hitters for each of those BIP types: .019 AVG-.027 SLG on pop ups (5.7% of measured BIP), .326 AVG-.887 SLG on fly balls (30.9%), .658 AVG-.870 SLG on liners (24.4%) and .238 AVG-.260 SLG on grounders (39.1%).

As you might expect, there are massive differences in production within BIP types based on relative exit speed. If you hit a fly ball over 100 mph, you’re golden, batting .766 AVG-2.739 SLG. If you drag that category’s lower boundary down just 5 mph, however, you get to the top of the donut hole, where fly balls go to die. Hitters batted just .114 AVG-.209 SLG on fly balls between 75-95 mph. All other fly balls — yes, even including those hit under 75 mph — fared much better, generating .387 AVG-.786 production.

Line drives tend to be base hits at almost all exit speeds. All the way down to 75 mph, hitters bat over .600 on batted balls in the line-drive launch-angle ranges; down to 65 mph, hitters still bat around .400 range in each velocity bucket. At 65 mph and higher, a liner generates an average .673 AVG-.889 SLG line. Under 65 mph, liners tend to land in infielders’ gloves; hitters batted just .170 AVG-.194 SLG on those. On the ground, hitters batted a strong .423 AVG-.456 SLG on grounders hit at 100 mph or higher. Under 85 mph, however, the hits dry up almost totally, with hitters producing a .107 AVG and .117 SLG. Between 85-100 mph, hitters bat closer to the overall grounder norm, at .267 AVG-.294 SLG.

With that as a backdrop, let’s conclude our look at each playoff club’s offensive and defensive BIP profiles. Last time, we profiled the Orioles, Red Sox, Cubs, Indians and Dodgers; today, we’ll look at the other five, in alphabetical order:

New York Mets
Two of the 10 playoff teams played well over their true talent this season, at least based on my BIP-centric method of team evaluation. Both will be covered today. First, the Mets hit significantly more pop ups than their opponents (+69), not including untracked ones in that 14% “null” group. On the positive side, the Mets hit 160 more fly balls than their opponents; they were a whopping +86 vis-à-vis their opponents in the 95-105 mph buckets. This explains why they hit 66 more homers than their opponents.

Team defense was a problem for the Mets in 2016, and I would submit the situation was worse than most publicly available metrics indicate. Let’s look at the outfield first. The Mets allowed 33 fewer 100-105 fly balls than they hit, but allowed 15 more doubles than their opponents in that bucket. The Mets allowed barely fewer line drives than they hit, but allowed 15 more line-drive doubles and eight more (17 vs. 9) line drive triples than their opponents. After Juan Lagares‘ injury, the club did not employ a legitimate center fielder, and as a result of that (and perhaps subpar positioning) more batted balls found the ground, while hitters were also able to take extra bases on hits more often.

It wasn’t much better in the infield. Met pitchers did induce 168 more grounders than the team hit, but they allowed 96 more ground-ball singles than the Met hitters accumulated. Met hitters managed just five singles on grounders hit under 65 mph, while the club allowed 21 singles in that range. One bright spot: despite those extra grounders allowed, the Mets yielded four fewer ground-ball doubles. At least their infielders guarded the line well.

San Francisco Giants
Sometimes the most important stat is one that draws almost no attention. The Giants put 293 more balls in play than their opponents; that’s a pretty stark difference, one that almost ensures a competitive club. Only the Red Sox, Cubs and Nationals bettered that differential. The Giants out-singled their opponents by 100 and out-tripled them by 14 (54 to 40), though they were out-homered by 28.

The three-time even-year champs held commanding advantages over their opponents in total fly balls (+89), and even more importantly, in total line drives (+121). That line drive differential was the best in the game, well ahead of the +76 Indians. The Giants hit 57 fewer pop ups than their opponents, while interestingly earning five more hits (8 to 3) on those pop ups. Another key Giant strength was infield defense; though they hit only 36 more grounders than their opponents, they accumulated 68 more ground ball singles. Brandon Crawford says hi.

All of that said, there’s quite a bit of negative in their profile. Yes, the Giants’ team homer total is limited in part by their spacious home park, but their lack of power was real. They only hit 40 105-plus mph fly balls all season, the fewest of any club. In fact, no team allowed fewer than 40 fly balls in that bucket either. Their outfield defense grades out as ordinary at best in relation to their opposition. They allowed 118 fewer in-play flies than their opponents, but only 12 fewer in-play fly-ball hits. They allowed more fly-ball singles than their opponents, despite hitting well more total fly balls in the buckets where singles are most common. In addition, though they hit so many more liners than they allowed, the Giants actually allowed more line-drive doubles than they hit.

Texas Rangers
Jeff Banister really needs to win the AL Manager of the Year Award. Looking at BIP statistics, it’s extremely difficult to understand how the Rangers racked up 95 wins. Along with the Orioles and Blue Jays, they are one of only three playoff clubs to allow more batted balls than they hit, checking in at -83. One small indicator of “Ranger Luck”: the club actually notched 10 hits on pop ups this season, seven more than their opponents. Their .040 average on pop ups was over the twice the MLB average.

The Rangers allowed 56 more fly balls than their opponents, with almost the entire difference (-50) reflected in the 95-100 mph bucket. Their outfield defense does not grade out well; they allowed 22 more singles and 21 more doubles than their opponents, though they allowed only 71 more in-play flies. While the extra doubles allowed can be explained in part by the extra 95-100 mph fly balls, the singles difference is 100% real. On fly balls hit between 75-85 mph, the Rangers allowed 23 more singles (39 to 16) than they hit. Pretty staggering.

The infield is a much different story. While the Rangers allowed almost exactly as many grounders as they hit, they also recorded 32 more singles and 13 more doubles (39 to 26) than their opponents. They did hit their grounders a bit harder than the opposition, but the defensive difference was real. They were +8 (16 to 8) on grounder doubles and +32 on grounder singles between 95-105 mph; I’d guess that Adrian Beltre and his neighbor Elvis Andrus had something to do with that.

Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays had the worst total BIP differential of all 10 playoff clubs at -95. The long ball, obviously, was their friend, as they out-homered their opponents by 38. Interestingly, they hit the second fewest fly balls of the 10 playoff teams, only five more than the Dodgers.

The outfield defense, led by Kevin Pillar, was an obvious strength. The Jays hit almost exactly as many 100-105 mph fly balls as they allowed, but out-doubled their opponents by 13 (28 to 15) in that bucket. In addition, while they only hit 12 more in-play line drives than their opponents, they managed to hit 52 more line-drive singles. The biggest difference was in the 80-95 mph liner buckets, in which the Jays hit 36 more singles than their opponents.

The Jays both hit and allowed well more ground balls than the MLB norm. Thanks largely to the presence of starters Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez, the Jays allowed 152 more grounders than they hit, with only the opposing pitcher-facing Rockies and Cards allowing more grounders overall. Something to watch moving forward: the biggest difference in the grounder totals between the Jays and their opponents was in the higher-velocity buckets. If Stroman and Sanchez can learn to minimize grounder authority, the club has an awful lot to gain here.

Washington Nationals
Here’s another club with a dramatic positive BIP differential, at +315 overall. The 2016 Nats were a truly dominant club, notching 64 more singles, 15 more doubles and 48 more homers than their opponents.

The Nats hit substantially more fly balls (+101) than their opponents. Their outfield defense doesn’t grade out well; though they allowed 55 fewer in-play flies than their opponents, they allowed eight more fly-ball singles and 17 more fly-ball doubles, despite hitting their flies quite a bit harder than their opponents. On fly balls hit between 90-105 mph, they allowed 18 more doubles than they hit, despite totaling 59 more in-play flies in those buckets.

On liners, the Nats allowed 28 more singles than they hit, and hit 28 more doubles than they allowed. The surplus doubles were due to the Nats’ advantage in the higher velocity buckets; they were out-singled by 43 in the 80-95 mph buckets, due both to additional quantity of liners allowed in those buckets and the Nats’ defensive shortcomings.

The Nats hit 127 more grounders than their opponents, and they hit them hard. They were an amazing +143 in the 100-plus mph buckets; this reflects well on not only the Washington hitters, but also on the contact-management ability of their starters, particularly Tanner Roark. The club hit 57 more singles and 10 more doubles (26 to 16) than they allowed; this reflects more on the authority advantage accruing to their hitters rather than a defensive advantage for their fielders, though their infield defense does grade out better compared to their outfielders.