A question popped up in my mind recently: How does bat speed affect contact rate? We know that higher bat speed leads to better contact, but the question here is on making contact. Intuitively we’d think that more bat speeds leads to a little more time to make a swing decision and the ability to catch up to higher velocities, which then leads to more contact. On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t really matter and the gains are not as much as we think and the actually hitting ability of a batter is more important. Let’s dig into the data!
Here are the top 5 hitters based on bat speed
| Player | Average Bat Speed (MPH) | Whiff % | Batting Average | Barrel % |
| Oneil Cruz | 78.65 | 34.3% | 0.209 | 20.3% |
| Junior Caminero | 78.65 | 24.5% | 0.253 | 12% |
| Jo Adell | 77.62 | 28% | 0.229 | 16.7% |
| Nick Kurtz | 77.57 | 33.4% | 0.304 | 19.3% |
What stands out is that the barrel percentages are pretty elite, as we’d expect, but the whiff % is really bad and batting average nothing to write home about (except Kurtz, who had a phenomenal year). What gives? Maybe this is small sample theater (i.e. A small sample does not tell the whole story) so let’s look at 215 qualified players.
| Variable | Correlation with Bat Speed |
| Whiffs per swing | 0.618 |
| Squared up per bat contact | -0.471 |
| Competitive Swing % | 0.411 |
We get not so strong correlations for all combinations of variables. Interestingly, as bat speed increases then whiffs per swing and competitive swing % increases (positive trend) while squared up per bat contact decreases (negative trend).
Let’s look at the regression!
We get the following equation
Bat Speed ~ -140.6 + 22.5*Whiff_Per_Swing – 9.94*squared_up_per_bat_contact + 233.3*percent_swings_competitive
We get an R-Squared of 0.497, indicating that only 49.7% of the variability is explained by the model. All variables are significant and we see the same trends as the correlation showed.
Well, it appears that there is more than meets the eye (literally) when it comes to bat speed and contact. Other variables such as pitch selection, probably contribute to contact as well. So bat speed is a great indicator of quality of contact, but a moot point if a player is not making contact.
Note: As a professor who teaches data analytics, I decided to do this analysis in Excel since my students have to for the course. Although not great for large scale, you can explore data in Excel to get a start.
Dedication
This blog post is dedicated to my cousin Mike, who passed suddenly a couple months ago. He was the best food blogger in Orange County, and inspired me to do a blog. https://eatingmywaythroughoc.blogspot.com
Analytics In The Outfield 