Sabermetrics: Statcast Contact Quality for SP

What is Statcast contact quality for pitchers and how to use sabermetrics for fantasy baseball? Definition includes Brls/BBE and average airborne exit velocity (EV) for pitchers.

Welcome RotoBallers to our overview of Statcast contact quality metrics for pitchers. This article is a deeper dive into the predictive value of metrics such as Brls/BBE and average airborne exit velocity (EV) for pitchers, and is part of our ongoing series "Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball."

In this article, we'll discover which pitchers led MLB in barrels allowed, Brls/BBE, and average airborne EV in 2024. We'll also look at some of the past names atop those leaderboards, including fantasy mainstays you wouldn't want to cross off your list preemptively on draft day.

You can find our entire sabermetrics glossary, which includes links to many other sabermetric stats as part of this series. Each stat deep dive will be released over the next few days. Stay tuned!

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Statcast Contact Quality Metrics for Pitchers

Statcast metrics such as barrels and Brls/BBE are great ways to evaluate a fantasy baseball batter's performance, so it is natural to assume that the metrics would also be predictive for pitchers. As much as batters want to hit a Barrel every time, pitchers want to avoid them at all costs. Yet, there is evidence that pitchers do not have the same influence over barrels as a batter.

Aaron Judge recorded a league-leading 105 barrels in 2024. JP Sears copped the league lead among pitchers by allowing 57, a significantly lower number than Judge's total. This fits well with DIPS theory, which states that batters can do more to influence batted balls than pitchers can.

It's also not fantasy-relevant, as Sears isn't an appealing fantasy option. The next four names on the leaderboard include Austin Gomber, Carlos Rodon, Kevin Gausman, and Kutter Crawford, all tied with 52 barrels allowed. Are these numbers indicative of anything?

How to Interpret Statcast Contact Quality Allowed

Gausman is by far the most interesting name on that list for fantasy. He's a former ace, but his rate of Brls/BBE isn't the reason for his down 2024. His 9.7 percent mark was slightly better than his 2023 mark of 9.9 percent, though his ERA was much stronger in 2023 (3.16) than in 2024 (3.83). We can even go back to 2022 and see that an 8.1 percent Brls/BBE rate only produced a 3.35 ERA.

It doesn't look like Gausman's Brls/BBE has anything to do with his bottom-line performance. Using the Brls/BBE leaderboard might seem like a better bet than raw Barrel totals. Still, the Brls/BBE leaderboard is full of undraftable pitchers: Tanner Rainey (14.3 percent), Max Meyer (13.9 percent), Roddy Munoz (13.7 percent), Taijuan Walker (13.4 percent), and Triston McKenzie (13 percent).

We don't need a fancy stat to avoid those arms. Maybe we need to simplify this and use average airborne exit velocity. The top six in FB/LD EV allowed last season were Keaton Winn (96.7 mph), Camilo Doval (96.4), a tie between Ryan Pressly and Meyer (96), and another tie between Ben Brown and Bobby Miller (95.9).

There are some interesting names on that list, but nothing actionable in fantasy. Doval averaged 94.1 mph in 2023, while Pressly averaged 94.6, meaning looking at the 2023 numbers wouldn't have given you pause before their down seasons. We've struck out again in our search for something predictive.

A Case Study of Statcast Contact Quality Allowed

Robbie Ray, SP, San Francisco Giants

Extreme examples are often useful tools to examine broader trends. 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray always had a reputation for being hit hard. Ray's Statcast contact quality metrics weren't good in his Cy season, as his raw total of 46 Barrels allowed tied for the 10th-highest among qualified pitchers while his 9.8 percent rate of Brls/BBE ranked 15th that year.

It also didn't matter if his 2.84 ERA was any indication. Take a look:

Ray was in the 15th percentile for average EV allowed, 16th for Barrel%, and 17th for hard-hit%. He still "deserved" a batting average against of just .219, suggesting the contact quality metrics failed to capture much of anything.

Lest you dismiss Ray's 2021 season as "lucky," it's worth pointing out that his reputation for allowing hard contact isn't reflected in his career Statcast numbers. The following chart lists Ray's Brls/BBE and ERA from 2015-2022, exempting 2020 for sample size purposes:

Year          Brls/BBE          ERA

2015          5.1%                   3.52

2016          6.9%                  4.90

2017          5.1%                   2.89

2018         8.7%                   3.93

2019         10.6%                 4.34

2021         9.8%                   2.84

2022         7.9%                   3.71

Ray's Barrels allowed him to fluctuate wildly, with his best ERA corresponding to his second-worst Brls/BBE mark. In 2022, Ray's ERA ballooned by almost a full run despite dropping his rate of Brls/BBE by nearly two full percentage points. If there is anything predictive here, this author fails to see it.

Looking at contact quality metrics would have prevented you from rostering profitable arms. Past top-5 lists included names such as Justin Verlander, Luis Castillo, Shane McClanahan, Framber Valdez, and Nathan Eovaldi, all of whom have been fantasy stalwarts since their appearances. Ouch.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Statcast metrics such as barrels and average airborne EV should probably just be ignored for pitcher analysis. These metrics are great for evaluating batters, but this author can't get anything out of them for pitchers, even with the benefit of hindsight. That conclusion may make this seem like a worthless article, but it isn't.

Seemingly every fantasy analyst uses contact quality to credit pitchers, either through the Statcast numbers above or an approximation such as the Hard% posted on FanGraphs. This type of analysis may explain a pitcher's performance after the fact, but it seems to have zero predictive value. Therefore, you can gain a competitive advantage by ignoring it completely.

More Sabermetrics & Statcast for Fantasy Baseball