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Eric Samulski reviews the MLB exit velocity leaderboard to find 2022 fantasy baseball draft sleepers and later-round targets for undervalued hitters.
As we wait for MLB and the MLB Player's Association to work through the lockout issues and move forward with the 2022 baseball season, we've been digging into a few players that stand out as good fantasy investments based on their 2021 Statcast numbers. As with evaluations of any metric, these should be taken as PART of a larger discussion. You shouldn't draft players just because they hit the ball hard or just because they can get batters to swing and miss. You want to make sure that skill fits into a larger profile that you feel brings value to your team based on the cost you're spending in your draft.
So far this offseason, I have already dug into barrel rate risers and fallers, xBA leaders, and xSLG leaders. Some of the guys discussed below were discussed in more detail in those articles, so I encourage you to check them out as well.
Today we're going to dive into exit velocity, but, like a fancy contestant on Top Chef, we're going to serve exit velocity two ways. For starters, we're going to look at average exit velocity. While max exit velocity is fun and shows just how hard a human can hit a baseball, I prefer to focus on average EV because it shows who's making loud contact regularly. This is, obviously, important because harder hit baseballs usually lead to more positive results and suggest that a hitter's swing mechanics and timing are in sync. However, as with anything, context matters, so we really want to see plus exit velocity at a launch angle that can lead the ball to carry into the gaps or out of the park. That's why the second thing we will look at is exit velocity on balls in the air, which will tell us not only who can hit the ball hard but who can carry over that authority when the ball is lifted into the air as well.
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Exit Velocity
A few of the names that show up on the leaderboard are players that I've already discussed this offseason. Both Josh Donaldson and Tyler O'Neill showed up in my barrel rate gainers piece, and Chad Pinder showed up in my xSLG leaders piece. I encourage you to click those links for detailed breakdowns, but Donaldson and Pinder are two players in particular who I think are coming up as draft values based on their current ADP. I also think people forgot how hard Yasmani Grandal hit the ball last year because they focused so much on his absurd walk rate. He's my 4th catcher as of now, ahead of the trendy Daulton Varsho.
Yordan Alvarez, DH/OF Houston Astros
I'm sure you're not surprised that Yordan Alvarez hits the ball hard. However, after being plagued by knee injuries in his first two seasons, this was the first time we got to see what a full season of the slugger looks like, and it was pretty nice. Alvarez finished the season hitting .277/.346/.531 with 33 home runs, 92 Runs, and 104 RBI. He was able to play in 144 games, including 41 games in the outfield, which gives him that all-important OF eligibility for 2022 fantasy seasons.
After only playing in two games in 2020, we really have to look at Alvarez's 2021 season in a vacuum or in relation to his 2019 season where he was called up halfway through. Based on that, much of Alvarez's plate discipline metrics remain consistent, except he actually improved his overall contact rate and his swinging strike rate (SwStr%) from that 2019 debut. Perhaps more importantly for us, his contact profile also remained elite. In 2021, Alvarez sported a 15.9% barrel rate, 87th-percentile HR/PA rate, and 94th-percentile average exit velocity on balls in the air. He continued to hit just under 60% of balls in the air or on a line and, after a dip in pull rate in the first half of the season, regained his pull side power.
Realistically, it's hard to be upset about any aspect of Alvarez's hitter profile. He only has 40th-percentile contact rates, but that's normal for a power hitter, and he made clear gains there from his debut season. He hits the ball extremely hard and hits it in the air often while batting in the middle of the lineup for one of the best teams in the league. The only weakness in his game is that he won't steal bases for you. However, if you are able to get stolen bases from one of your first two picks, Alvarez is a tremendous value, currently going around pick 40 since he is superior to the outfielders going before him (Starling Marte, Teoscar Hernandez) in essentially every category except for speed.
Evan Longoria, 3B San Francisco Giants
Longoria showing up in the top five is not something I expected, but the veteran had a strong opening to the 2021 campaign, hitting .280/.376/.516 during April and May while racking up nine home runs, 28 Runs, and 30 RBI. Unfortunately, Longoria collided with Brandon Crawford on June 5th while attempting to field a ground ball and suffered a strained shoulder. He was out of the Giants' lineup until August 14th, when he returned for only one week before landing on the IL again with a hand injury. In the 31 games after he sprained his shoulder, Longoria had seemingly lost the power he had re-discovered early in the year, hitting .228/.305/.424 with four home runs. At 36-years-old, it's fair to wonder if we will ever see Longoria back up to the 130 game mark that he used to hit so easily.
However, considering Longoria is slated to be the Giants' opening day third baseman, and the Giants have an organizational track record of getting peak performance out of veteran players, it's important not to write off Longoria's hot start. His 13.4% barrel rate was the highest of his career, as the 94.1 mph exit velocity, 113.2 mph max exit velocity, and 54.5% hard-hit rate. Another improvement that really jumps out was that Longoria cut his swing rate that pitches outside of the strike zone (O-Swing%) by 7% from 2020 to a career-low 22.5%. In fact, during his first-half breakout, Longoria's swing rate overall had dropped ro 41.8%, which is the lowest he's produced since 2013 in Tampa Bay. He also raised his first pitch strike rate back up 4%, which suggests that Longoria was either jumping on easy first pitches or working the count and being more patient for pitches he could drive.
We can make the assumption that Longoria was looking for pitches to drive more than in years past because of the lower swing rates but also the lower contact rates. He put up the lowest zone contact rate of his career (although only by a few tenths of a point) and saw a decrease in overall contact rate as well. Yet, Longoria raised his fly ball rate (FB%) to 40.1%, which is an 8% jump from 2020 and is the highest mark he's achieved since 2016. He also raised his rate of fly balls and line drives (Air%) by 10% from 2020 and 5% from his 2019 peak. Lastly, this theory is supported by the fact that he posted his highest walk rate (12%) since 2011 and his highest strikeout rate (23.4%) since 2013. So, Longoria was being more patient overall, but trying to drive the ball in the air more when he did swing, which lead to harder contact and a renewed power surge.
All of this seems like a clear approach shift to me that could easily carry over into 2022 if Longoria comes to spring training with his shoulder fully healthy (we saw how that sapped Cody Bellinger's power this year). He's a risky pick without seeing any spring training at-bats, but he's also being taken at pick 400 right now, which means he's all upside if we get 120+ games of the 2021 swing changes.
Barrels Over 100 mph
While average exit velocity is great, I also like a similar metric, which looks at the rate of barrels a hitter has over 100 mph. What this does is show us which hitters can get close to their max exit velocity as often as possible. Obviously, the more consistently you're hitting the ball near top velocity, the more damage you're likely doing.
Let's start by just taking note of the duplicate names because being on both lists is obviously a good thing: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr., Yordan Alvarez, Tyler O'Neill, and Joey Votto. I've covered most of these guys in the articles linked above, so make sure you check that out.
Bobby Dalbec, 1B Boston Red Sox
Dalbec is a trendy name right now, and he appears fifth on this list, so we need to talk about him. Let's get the obvious out of the way: Dalbec hits the ball extremely hard. His max exit velocity of 115.6 mph was in the 96th-percentile, his 20.2% barrel rate was in the 99th-percentile, and his 97 mph average exit velocity on balls hit in the air was in the 91st-percentile. The other obvious thing with Dalbec is that he has a swing-and-miss problem,
Those bright reds are amazing to see, but those dark blues with the whiff rate and strikeout rate are worrisome. Much has been made about Dalbec's plate discipline improving as the year went on, but if you look at a rolling average of his strikeout rate during the 2021 season, you see that his numbers improved for a short bit of time, but he returned to a plus 30% strikeout rate fairly quickly.
If we go through his strikeout rate by month, we see that he had a 32.9% rate in April, 39.3% rate in May, 39% in June, 39.1% in July, 25% rate in August, and 31.8% rate in September. A quick game log search also tells me that in August, when his rate was at its lowest, Boston played 16 games against Cleveland, Minnesota, Baltimore, Detroit, and Toronto (and avoided Robbie Ray), which is an admittedly crude process, but suggests that over two-thirds of Dalbec's game in his best strikeout month were against teams with below-average strikeout pitchers. Again, we need to deep dive into every at-bat against every pitcher to really bear that out, but it is something to keep in mind because Dalbec wasn't an entirely different hitter from August on.
According to Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard, from August 1st on, Dalbec had a 28.8% strikeout rate, 19.1% SwStr, 35.9% contact rate, 36% O-Swing, and .396 xwOBA. He still hit the snot out of the ball, but that strikeout rate still would have been the 15th-worst in baseball among hitters with over 400 plate appearances. Dalbec is likely to always be a heavy swing-and-miss player, which is why Alex Cora hits him at the bottom of the lineup despite his power. It's also why the Red Sox gave him part-time playing time in the playoffs.
Dalbec will almost certainly open the season as the Red Sox first baseman and have a chance to show gains in his contact profile. However, if the team re-signs Kyle Schwarber, as is expected, then Dalbec doesn't have a long leash because Schwarber and top prospect Triston Casas will be waiting to take first base reps away and both of them are left-handed hitters, which gives them a platoon advantage over Dalbec. It's entirely conceivable, he only gets the 450 plate appearances he got this season, which can make him a risky draft pick. However, there is certainly 35 home run upside here if Dalbec can play well enough early in the season to secure playing time with the Red Sox or, more likely, a trade out of town when the Red Sox call up Casas. As such, he's worth a draft pick at his current 248 ADP, but just understand that the pick certainly comes with risk, and I think the swing-and-miss in his game will ultimately cap his upside.
Brandon Belt, 1B San Francisco Giants
Brandon Belt is currently going only two picks ahead of Dalbec and is a player I have more confidence in. Many people had been clamoring for the Giants to move Belt so that we could see the left-handed hitter breakout in a more favorable park. However, the breakout started happening in 2020 despite never leaving the Giants.
Over the last two seasons, Belt's barrel rate has spiked to near 17% in both seasons and his hard-hit rates are at career highs. That's part of the reason Belt hit 29 home runs in just 97 games last year and has 38 home runs across his last 148 games, essentially a single season's worth of games. Last year he had a 99th-percentile wOBA (.526), 93rd-percentile xwOBA (.373), and 95th-percentile xwOBA on contact, to go along with a .526 xSLG. He continued to show his standard tremendous plate discipline and strong reach rates while hitting the ball hard in the air with a 94.2 mph average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives (69th-percentile).
In fact, it's this ability to hit the ball with authority in the air that has been one of the biggest changes for Belt. In 2018 and 2019, he finished with 20th and 23rd percentile average exit velocities on balls in the air, respectively. In 2020, he jumped up over three mph to finish in the 82nd-percentile and did so by actually lowering his launch angle, perhaps trying to drive through the ball for carry instead of under the ball for lift. While the groundball rates, fly ball rates and pull rates remained pretty consistent for Belt between 2018-2021, it's clear that he is making a more concerted effort to drive pitches in the air, perhaps being more aggressive on pitches up in the zone.
However, we can't talk about Belt without addressing the injury history. First, let's just say that it's not as bad as you think it is. Prior to the shortened 2020 season, Belt had played 100 games or more in seven of eight seasons and played at least 130 games in five of those eight seasons. In 2020, he played 51 games, which was essentially a full season, so we're talking about three seasons over the last ten years where he hasn't played at least 110 games.
Obviously, the injuries added up last year, in particular in the first half of the season where Belt battled multiple side/oblique injuries, then a knee injury in June before suffering a thumb injury at the end of September. While the knee injury kept him out the longest, it's clear the oblique injuries were impacting him during the first half of the season since he hit .253/.363/.512 in the first half with a much higher than average 32.3% strikeout rate and 12.6% SwStr%. However, in the second half, with the oblique injuries presumably behind him, Belt hit .297/.394/.690 with a much-improved 21.1% strikeout rate and 1o.1% SwStr.
If you can get 120-130 games from Belt at this current production level, I think you could be looking at a .260 hitter who gives you 25-30 home runs and 150 RBIs+Runs. That's pretty valuable going at pick 240.
Air% Exit Velocity
Let's end with one more exit velocity metric. Hitting the ball hard is great. Consistently hitting the ball hard is better. Hitting the ball hard in the air is the best. Obviously, we know that groundballs don't become home runs, so if we're looking for players that can meaningfully drive the ball, we want to track the players who don't just hit the ball hard but hit the ball hard with elevation.
A lot of the same names appear on this list too. Guys like Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and Yordan Alvarez make sense. Yasmani Grandal, Mike Zunino, and Mitch Garver being on here is interesting for those looking for power from the catcher spot, and guys like Chad Pinder and Josh Donaldson are potentially surprising, but I already told you that those two have been popping in a few of my metric breakdowns this offseason and might be worth noting. This list is also just another reminder that Byron Buxton is really good at baseball, and it would be a treat to see him play a full healthy season.
Some other names that stand out that we haven't discussed yet are Miguel Sano and Joey Gallo. Obviously, we know these guys have elite power. Sano had a 17.7% barrel rate last year and was in the 99th-percentile on exit velocity on balls hit in the air. Meanwhile, Gallo had an 18.5% barrel rate and was in the 96th-percentile on exit velocity on balls hit in the air. Yet, they both strike out a ton. Gallo had a 34.6% strikeout rate and 14.8% SwStr% last year with an xBA of .199 while Sano had a 34.4% strikeout rate and a 15.5% SwStr with a .213 xBA. If you're intending to draft either one of these guys, you absolutely need to have a plan to augment the hit you'll take in batting average. If you don't plan to draft high batting average guys early or late, like a Nick Madrigal or Luis Arraez, etc., then having these two on your team can be detrimental, despite their power. As such, I prefer Sano because he's currently going late enough in drafts that he can be a bench bat for you.
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