Can A Hitter Add Exit Velocity?
Can A Hitter Add Exit Velocity?
How rare is it for a hitter to significantly increase their exit velocity production from one season to the next?
Intro
Everybody loves a fantasy baseball sleepers list. A great way to win your fantasy league is to find that hitter who gets drafted late or not at all and then goes off for a 30-homer season.
These are rare cases, but they do happen. And when they happen, they happen because a hitter either
A) Starts hitting the ball harder
B) Starts hitting the ball higher
“Higher” isn’t the most precise term, but it sounded much more poetic. What I really mean is “starts hitting the ball at a more optimal launch angle range.” Most often, that does mean higher.
Today, we focus on hitting the ball harder.
This post was inspired by Nolan Schanuel. The guy has the launch angle stuff figured out just fine with his 10-degree average angle and his great 38% Sweet Spot rate. What he is lacking is the exit velocity (a very low 99.2 90th-percentile EV). If Schanuel wants to have a breakout season in 2025, he will have to add some exit velocity. That begs the question - how hard is that to do?
Data Explanation
I am using 90th-percentile exit velocity rather than average because it is more predictive. I’m not going to prove that to you right now, but I’ve done it in the past - so you’ll have to believe me.
To understand what is good and bad in this metric:
If we put a simple target number on it, I choose 105. If I’m drafting a hitter that I want 20+ homers from in a single season, I’m looking for a guy with at least a mark of 105 miles per hour on this metric.
In terms of what qualifies as a significant change, I’m saying about 1.5 miles per hour. That’s a bit above half of one standard deviation.
The Results
Paywall time! Subscribe today to get everything I’m doing here this offseason. You’ll get the full team previews and 2025 season projections along with the full analysis pieces like this one that I’ll do this winter.