Should Teams Plan on More Homers, Strikeouts in 2018?
Even though the 2017 season officially ended last week, the preparations for next year have been underway for some time. In a sense, teams have been planning for 2018 for years. After all, it can take a high-school draft pick five-plus seasons to receive the sort of development and polish necessary to survive in the major leagues. Balancing the future and the present is a significant task for a front office. And since the close of the season, teams have been gathering and meeting at their respective operational headquarters to narrow strategies on how to attack this winter and how to best position themselves in 2018 and beyond.
Just over a month ago, after an Alex Gordon home run set the major-league record for total homers in a season, I arrived at the (tentative) conclusion that it would be more challenging to plan for the future in today’s game. Consider: just three years ago, the game was in the midst of a depressed run environment. There was this idea that the future of offense was going to be defined by flat swings and line drives.
Said former Giants hitting coach Hensley Meulens (now the club’s bench coach) to the Washington Post back in 2014:
“We work on a level swing,” Meulens said. “We always talk about being flat. We always talk about, if you miss, make sure you miss down and not up. From spring training on, we’ve been on these guys. All throughout the year, if you see somebody popping up in batting practice, we pull them aside and say, ‘That’s not what we’re doing here.’ I’m proud of the guys that they listen. They’re all-in for this plan, and it’s worked for us.”
Wrote Tom Verducci for Sports Illustrated of the Giants-Royals 2014 World Series in which teams went three consecutive games without a home run:
What the Royals and the Giants did exhibit in the Series is an offensive approach that may indeed be the way forward for future champions. Both teams are stocked with high-contact, athletic hitters who put the ball in play to all fields, a counterattack to the high-velocity bullpens and sophisticated defensive shifts that have wrought games with more strikeouts and fewer hits.
Things have changed, eh?
Hitters are going over shifts, not around them.
Many believe popping into the top of the batting cage is no longer taboo.
While you could argue that the Giants’ expansive ballpark requires a different approach, the value of an air ball is still greater than the value of a ground ball at AT&T Park.
A lot of people thought hitters were in a tough spot and that the offensive downturn would be stickier back in 2014. Things change, and things have never changed so quickly in baseball — at least since the close of the dead-ball era — as they have in the last couple of seasons. For those reasons, I suspect it’s tougher to plan and predict the future. What will the environment look like in 2018? In 2023?
For starters, there’s the matter of the ball.
The ball changed in the second half of 2015. It began to fly further — a development documented by Ben Lindbergh, Alan Nathan and Rob Arthur. This postseason, it appeared not only to exhibit the reduced air resistance that has characterized it the last two-plus years, but also to help hitters in another way, with some pitchers complaining about the ball feeling slick. There’s perhaps some merit to their claims: as Jeff Sullivan recently observed, Houston’s Brad Peacock simply stopped throwing his slider in the postseason.
MLB claims that it hasn’t intentionally arranged for any changes to the ball; indeed, the ball-specification standards are so wide that the claim is plausible. So there might not be a conspiracy theory. But MLB and Rawlings can change the run-scoring environment pretty dramatically with even just subtle alterations of the ball. If there are plans to make such changes, the league could benefit everyone — particularly those in charge of filling the rosters of major-league teams — by making that information public. As of now, I think we have to assume the ball is going to continue to jump in 2018 unless we are told otherwise.
But accounting for the ball is merely a part of planning for the future. The power spike goes way beyond that.
Hitters have changed. And the changes they’ve made might be more permanent. Major-league batters produced an average launch angle of 11.8 degrees in the regular season, a Statcast-era high; that figure increased to 12.1 degrees in the postseason.
Consider the launch angle leaders from the postseason:
| Rank | Team | Sample size | Avg. Launch Angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MIN | 22 | 18.7 ° |
| 2 | HOU | 479 | 14.1 ° |
| 3 | NYY | 290 | 12.8 ° |
| 4 | LAD | 372 | 11.9 ° |
| 5 | CLE | 105 | 11.7 ° |
| 6 | WSH | 122 | 11.4 ° |
| 7 | ARI | 98 | 10.3 ° |
| 8 | BOS | 105 | 9.5 ° |
| 9 | CHC | 203 | 9.2 ° |
| 10 | COL | 33 | 6.8 ° |
With more hitters becoming more receptive to new philosophies and more often optimizing their performance through data tools, we are probably far away from reaching Peak Airball.
I suspect the offensive environment is going to become even more extreme next season and that the 2017 home-run mark will be shattered, though a de-juiced ball could change that.
Another question: are strikeouts going to continue to climb?
Hitters struck out in a record 21.6% of plate appearances this past season, up from 20.4% in 2014 and 17.1% a decade earlier in 2007.
If strikeouts continue to climb in addition to fly-ball rates and home runs per fly ball, it will erode the value of individual and team defense. Pitchers and batters are both doing their best to keep as few balls in play as possible. It’s the transformation into a bat-missing pitcher that allowed Charlie Morton to break out this season for the Astros and win an ALCS Game 7 and a World Series Game 7.
The good news for planners, as both Dave and I detailed regarding Morton — and I noted about Chris Taylor — is that players have proven to be perhaps more malleable than we thought. But that’s also dependent upon the openness and motivation of a player and environment.
In the short term, I’d bet the game continues to become more extreme — and that point extends to pitcher usage and roles.
In each of the last two seasons, just 18 starting pitchers have reached the 200-inning mark.
We can debate the merits of bullpenning all we want, but teams are going to be pitching more and more from their bullpens in the future. Accordingly, there’s perhaps value to be had in getting out ahead of this trend and adapting, finding more hybrid arms, developing the practice among minor-league pitchers, and respecting the Third Time Through the Order Penalty.
Pitchers have more and more moved away from fastballs, a development we continued to witness with the World Series champion Astros, both in Lance McCullers‘ postseason appearances and, to a lesser extent, Morton’s.
In 2017, major-league pitchers recorded the highest curveball rate (10.8%) and lowest sinker rate (18.%) in the PITCHf/x era (as you can see on FanGraphs leaderboards).
More and more pitchers are asking why fastballs should be a primary pitch and for good reason:
| Pitch type | 2017 Postseason wOBA | 2017 Regular Season wOBA |
|---|---|---|
| vFA | 0.355 | 0.354 |
| vFT/SI | 0.328 | 0.364 |
| vCU | 0.298 | 0.266 |
| vSL | 0.253 | 0.275 |
| vCH | 0.235 | 0.304 |
It’s the low, sinking fastball to which hitters have adapted. And while the game always ebbs and flows, in 2018 it seems like more hitters will be raising their sights and adding loft to their swings. In short, chasing more quality breaking-ball dominant pitchers and fewer sinker-type arms might be advisable.
Predicting the future is tough. What we do know is the run-scoring environment has become more extreme in three successive seasons, starting-pitcher innings continue to decline, and breaking-ball usage continues to increase along with velocity. While the ball could change, some of these trends seem like they will continue on their 2017 trajectories. The probability of returning to a 2012-14 run environment seems unlikely. The future is, by nature, unknowable. But we can think about the future in probabilistic terms, and this is a game becoming increasingly extreme. That makes planning for tomorrow more difficult than ever before.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Excelente artículo.
I see someone is still all in on the so-called “fly ball revolution.”
When did this become so-called?
When did it become the “fly ball revolution”, since the main effect (and goal of it!) was to hit the ball harder and get slightly higher line drives?
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/updating-the-language-of-hitting/
The whole “fly ball revolution” thing that keeps being touted is probably not a “fly ball revolution” but a more subtle “swing mechanics change”…if indeed, it is a single “thing” and not a set of changes that are slightly different in philosophy and outcomes. And if we assume these changes are all the same thing, it may not have even “helped” everyone.
There is something happening, but I think the lens of a “fly ball revolution” at this point is leading us further away from what is actually happening than closer.
This seems like a really semantical nit-pick. The point is that people are hitting fewer ground balls.
It is only a semantical nitpick if you think that that conscious changes to hit more fly balls are the reason for more fly balls (and not, for example, something pitchers are doing), that all the different types of balls in the air have the same implications for team strategy, and that it is successful enough that it will continue to spread. The first one probably isn’t an issue, but the second two are possibilities.
So, you are saying it is semantic nitpick as when people say fly ball revolution they are not talking about the pop up-like fly ball. I don’t think batters are trying to hit balls with a launch between X and Y degrees. They are likely trying to get the barrel on the ball and get the ball in the air. They know it will lead to liners and the more productive type of fly balls.
I like you but you’re almost certainly nitpicking and/or wrong. The Dodgers are pretty big in this area and Turner has worked with a lot of players, and it doesn’t only show up in higher fly ball%s. As either JT or Turner Ward (the hitting coach) would point out, a level swing horizontal to the ball isn’t on plane, because the ball is descending due to gravity. The slight uppercut maximizes your odds of making contact.
Some guys are not seeing their improvements in the form of hitting more balls in the air, but in hitting those balls better. Both Chris Taylor and Yasiel Puig fall into this category: they didn’t significantly increase their FB or LD rates, but they did significantly increase the quality of contact on their FBs and LDs, and got substantially better results.
Some of the things guys do have also lead to other kinds of swing improvements; Taylor removed a lot of noise to his swing and made it shorter to the ball, resulting in him having less issues adjusting between serious velocity and breaking pitches, and consequently to higher quality contact all around.
And the Dodgers absolutely focus on not hitting the ball on the ground, as an organization, not just on an individual level. Just calling it the fly-ball revolution is shorthand, because there are certainly more things going on, but its equally true that people who are interested in this view downward launch angles as strictly negative (much like extremely high launch angles, Carlos Correa and the 48 degree home run not withstanding). Even a mildly positive launch angle (say, a 3 degree line drive) will bounce once before it leaves the infield. You need about 10-12 degrees to get the ball high enough in the air to get it over the head of the infielder. However, hit to the holes, those mildly positive balls have pretty good outcomes because they are very hard hit and only hit the ground once before finding the outfield.
Anything negative is pretty much universally bad in terms of outcomes, and those are the direct result of swing planes that aren’t level with the pitch (eg the directly horizontal swing).
Okay everyone, you’ve had your fun. But the “fly ball revolution” is likely not one single thing, nor is it likely even motivated by (or result primarily in) “fly balls”, and it likely does not yield the same benefits to all players (and may simply lead to lots of popups for a few of them). And if you try to plan for a singular “fly ball revolution” which is a half-dozen different strategies and different batted ball trends then you are wasting your time.
This “fly ball revolution” moniker is not something to plan for, because it is not a “thing”. You cannot effectively plan for something you don’t actually understand.
Fly ball revolution is simply the agreed shorthand used at FG to talk about hitters elevating the ball more over the past few seasons. We all understand what the author and each other are referring to. You picked such a strange hill to die on.
I don’t actually think that we all do agree what this is all about. I would go so far that we don’t know enough about what this “fly ball revolution” is to even agree on it. Or that it is one thing.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/updating-the-language-of-hitting/
To me, this reminds me of the Mona Lisa popularity illusion. The “fly ball revolution” just becomes whatever it is that we’ve decided people are dong. An endless stream of just-so stories.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/books/review/book-review-everything-is-obvious-once-you-know-the-answer-by-duncan-j-watts.html
I think when Travis uses fly ball revolution he is referring to a fairly small group of players who made similar adjustments in philosophy, most of them in direct contact with each other (Turner and Murphy via Marlon Byrd, also JD Martinez), even if the outcomes of those changes are not all identical (Turner is getting more of roughly the same quality line drives and fly balls; Murphy getting better results on the ones he does hit). Those players are known to have spread their philosophy to teammates and organizations.
What it looks like for each player is different, but it is definitely true that having large swaths of players and team hitting staffs embracing the Ted Williams hitting strategy is a change from the baseline.
There’s a clear lineage of ideas even if what it looks like for each individual player is different, and in a few cases organizations are actively involved (The Dodgers acquired Taylor and encouraged him to work with JD Martinez’s hitting instructor).
Every correlation between hitting a baseball and the physics and geometry that rule this action say that an uppercut swing is the best way to go. So much goes into this that it is grossly inadequate to try to simplify it but there are some obvious points that can be made. From the physics side, when the bat and ball meet from directly opposite directions the transfer of energy is maximized. Anything less loses something at impact. This does not necessarily produce the longest drives, that includes launch angle, but it has been shown that high launch angle and low spin is very efficient. Looking at the best way to make contact is more in the realm of geometry. The ball is released from about 55 feet from the plate at a height of about 6 feet. It reaches the plate at a height of about 2-3 feet. While the ball is not moving in a straight line, it is clear that it is moving downward and for simplicity we will call this a right triangle with one side of 55 feet, another of 3 feet and a resultant downward angle of 3.12 degrees. That is significant and should approximate the optimum angle of the slight upswing. These are not numbers that are pulled out of the air but are real and it has shocked me that there are still many who doubt this.
I don’t doubt this is the optimal solution for the modal major league baseball player. But as Joey Votto says, every player has to develop a more individualized set of mechanics to maximize how hard/far they hit it. Also, let’s see how those numbers change/stay stable once a greater proportion of major league baseball players do it. It probably won’t change much, but we might see more much more heterogeneity.
I agree there’s a profile of dudes who are helped by ground balls – they’re called “Dee Gordon” and “Billy Hamilton”.
They certainly aren’t named Eric Hosmer.
that is if there is no gravity, I think the actual angle over the plate will be like 5-8 degrees depending on Speed and pitch type.
yes, of course it is not as easy as just swing up. a lot of things have to be adapted starting with the Body posture and Hand path to lift the ball effectively without popping up. it is always a cascade of things and very hard to do in practice but the desired end result is clear: try to hit as many hard hit balls between 10 and 30 degrees as you can. easier said then done though.
Unquestionably the angle of the ball as it crosses the plate is greater than the simple mathematical formula would produce. Gravity and the spin induced by the pitcher might be able to effect quite a dramatic downward plane, and I have no access to any numbers, but the point is the same. Hitting a baseball is hard but it is foolish to attempt to do it while defying the Laws of Physics and Geometry. At the very least, do not try to hit the ball with the bat on a plane that is crossing the plane of the pitch.
Pretty sure K rate will go up like it almost always does unless MLB does something drastic like lowering the mound. HRs come and go, but this seems different as it teams are actively working with hitters to increase launch angle. Juice balls helped as it made the gains hitters saw in homer totals seem more real to the hitters (i.e., easier to follow a path if you see results even if the results aren’t all due to launch angle).
As such, high K pitchers are likely to be even more in a premium. High contact guys are going to be developed to get more loft in the minors even if ball is de-juiced.
The slick thing is only thing that really concerns me. What happens if the ball is truly slick, and remains slick? Astros basically dumped the slider as Verlander went to a cutter grip, Peacock went 4-seam crazy, and Giles was benched (basically gave up 2/3’s of a season’s worth of runs in the postseason). The prospect of a pitch being nerfed by a change in the ball bothers me more than a juiced ball. Sure the juiced ball helps certain players more than others, but the loss of a slider could greatly affect slider only pitchers. Granted, I guess the juiced balls have really hurt the power only guys that didn’t hit many to the warning track prior to the juiced ball.
Nice article. If I was GM, I’d consider three teams that didn’t K more: Astros, Indians and Twins. Astros dumped their high-K players from 2016 and increased HR. They had the lowest K-rate in the majors last year and improved by 163 Offense Runs. Indians reduced K-BB% from 11.6% to 8.8% and hit more HR. The Twins cut their K-BB% from 14.6% to 11.2%, stayed constant on HR, and improved by 57 Offense Runs. I’d say “plan on a lot of HR and better pitch selection”.
IMHO, I don’t think the high K and HR environment reduces the need for good defense. If anything, teams will need to minimize base runners to limit damage from all the HR.
Agreed. Only 1 team in the top 9 in strikeouts made the playoffs this year, so to treat strikeouts as just ‘the cost of doing business’ is wrong. Even with homers, only 3(!) of top 10 home run hitting teams made the playoffs. The feast-famine approach probably is a fool’s errand.
It’s a copycat league. I think teams are going to look at the Astros and see that you don’t need a 40-HR guy with a lot of Ks if you can get 20 up and down your lineup with fewer. The correction may already be starting. Some of the big power TTO players had trouble getting jobs, or getting much money, this season. I think they are starting to be devalued.
Yeah, just copycat having MVP candidates at SS and 2B and you’ll be fine!
It is like when people say that everyone is going to copy the Yankees’ philosophy of having everyone average 97 MPH fastballs. Sure, great idea! I am sure every team will just adjust a couple of formulas in their spreadsheets and do it…
I mean on the other hand its clear there are organizational philosophies, and some of those are informed by data and those teams seek out players who fit the mold. The Dodgers loooooove the rising fastball and their bullpen is full of pitchers who are good at it.
In fact, their bullpen didn’t have anyone in it in the postseason who was good at anything besides that approach, possibly to their detriment; their path through the bases loaded, 1 out situation is popups and strikeouts. I think Watson had the highest GB% of any pitcher in the Dodger bullpen and hes not exactly a famous groundball guy.
On the whole, that philosophy has worked great, regardless of whether Brandon Morrow finally gave up HRs in the postseason after not doing it all year. It is the cost of that philosophy to give up a few.
I don’t think much will change, the HR are simply a new baseline,you accept them as a given on both sides of the ball.
Sure you try to avoid the single digit launch angle (at some point almost anyone will be like 11-16 average LA as that talent range gets closer) or 80 mph exit zero power guys but other than that the homers come on its own.
And on the pitching side you accept them too. You maybe try to limit them a little using gb pitchers but that strategy has been around for two decades now and the value seems to be diminishing with low ball uppercut swings.
The main strategy will remain trying to limit baserunners with more Ks and less walks and make those homers solo shots.doesn’t work every time but is the only thing you can do.
If its TTO and TTTOP what will the first T stand for in TTTTXXX acronyms of the future?
I think the next trend is Brandon Guyer-esque HBP mechanics. Aleve for everyone!
If the slicker ball is intentional that could mean pitchers have to go back to fastballs since it is harder to spin curves and sliders.
I hope mlb hasn’t gone too far with the ball juicing, most have accepted the springy ball but if it is now harder to grip too that could tip the scale too much towards offense.
Mlb oobviously has decided tov keep that in the closet so we can forget about ever knowing the truth
Is the discrepancy in wOBA for the respective pitch types a reflection on how “effective” a pitch is, or that Fastballs are overwhelmingly used in hitter’s counts?
The latter. All pitch types when controlling for count, batter, and game situation, should have the same value. Otherwise the types that were more successful would be thrown more often, until all pitch types DID have the same value.
Of course wOBA is not the correct metric for the value of the pitch since that value has to include balls and strikes.
It is extremely difficult to predict run scoring, however, if I were forced to make an even-money bet I would have to bet that run scoring goes down next year, if for no other reason than “regression toward the mean.”
Trying to figure out what the league and players will do and how that will affect run scoring, is an exercise in futility.
I would be wrong, but if you go back over history, I’m guessing that run scoring changes from year X to X+1 is negatively correlated to changes from X+1 to X+2.
Is there a specific type of hitter that would do well regardless of changes to the ball? Besides Trout, I mean.
Low-K guys? High-walk guys? Guys with speed?
So the ball staying juiced is now an a priori?
I’d suggest that we all pay close attention to what Joey Votto did in 2017 when thinking about future offensive trends. He turned back the clock on strikeouts without any decline in performance. And he did so at 33 years old: on an age-adjusted basis he significantly outperformed expectations.
I suspect that most of the players who could successfully adopt a “loftier” batting approach have done so. For everyone else, Votto may represent a different path forward.
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No doubt, much has changed in the last 3 years. But in terms of scoring, I always keep one eye on the long view:
— This year’s scoring average of 4.65 R/G seems high by 2014 standards, but it’s the same as in 2008. So, it took 6 years to reach the local low, and just 3 years to gain it back; that’s not a big deal.
— The 10-year average is still falling, as it’s done steadily since 2003’s local high. Despite scoring hikes each of the last 3 years, the 10-year rate fell each year. The current 10-year rate of 4.39 is the lowest since 1994.
Should we expect even more scoring next year? History says no:
— The live-ball era saw 4 prior streaks of 3 straight scoring increases. Just one of those reached a 4th year, 1950 — and *then* came the sharp drop, shedding 0.67 within 2 years.
— There was one 4-year streak in the dead-ball era, starting from the lowest rate of modern times; the 4th year was a tiny rise, and was followed by a half-run drop.
— The PED era peaked in 2000, a 3rd straight rise; 2 years later, scoring was down half a run.
— 1987 was a 3rd rising year; ’88 crashed by 0.62, and ’89 stayed down there.
Past results don’t assure future performance, but I know how I’d bet.
yes. offense is up a Little but OBP is quite low, we are basically in a solo hr era. Overall offense is basically at an average Level despite historically great power.
now if mlb decides to axe breaking balls with slicker balls that could Change everything.
If skepticism on the ball being altered ends up being true, I can see the MLB becoming more like F1 where teams have to do their own testing and characterization. This could be the next step in the data evolution as sabermetrics expand from roster construction to swing mechanics and game play. Teams wouldn’t likely appreciate it, but an intentional, public change in the ball design would add another dynamic to the game and it would be interesting to see which organization can build their baseball operations department to respond most effectively.
Regarding the rumored change of the ball: The focus of MLB, Rawlings, and us fans shouldn’t be on the ball’s wide spec limits; it should be on the manufacturing process and if there’s been any change in variation, drift of the mean over time, etc.. Rawlings and MLB stating the balls meet spec limits is a distraction technique used by suppliers in many industries to cover up inadequate statistical process control.
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btw I have a Suggestion: why not Keep the ball slicker Or lower seamed but make it deader? That could mean more contact without home runs exploding. I’m not saying totally deaden it, just enough to keep HRs at a decent level of like between 1.0 and 1.1 per team and game. If that move could get the HRs down back to about 1 and Ks back to say 18% that is what most people wanted. I could see the slick ball (if that is true at all) was an attempt to lower K rate by making it harder to spin the ball but then you also have to do something to deaden the ball because if you make the ball moving less while keeping it as bouncy as it is you will get a big increase in HR.
I think current HR rates are still OK and I don’t want low HRs but I don’t want a slowpitch softball or HR derby. If the HRs would shoot up to like 1.5 that would change the game too much. Nobody wants a new DB era but most want to resemble the game the game that was played in the last 100 years.
the coefficient of restitution (bounciness) hasn’t changed. It’s the aerodynamics that have changed. The ball isn’t any more lively it just travels further. You should look up the work by MGL, Ben Lindbergh, etc