If you’ve been keeping up with the MLB Draft Guide, a few weeks ago I contributed the Learn to Use GB, FB & LD Rates and I mentioned a few times how those rates can be viewed in conjunction with contact rates. Well low & behold you may now feast your eyes on contact rates and how much they can lend perspective to a hitter’s profile, and even a pitcher’s as well. In short, hard contact is more desired among hitters while they are a bit of a downer for pitchers. To understand more specifically we’ll examine Christian Yelich once again, who we did a deep dive on last year, and while the prediction didn’t pan out, his advanced metrics helped explain the phenomenon behind his uptick in power since joining Milwaukee.

Christian Yelich

Overall in the 2019 Understanding Contact Rates I didn’t foresee Christian Yelich repeating the 36 home runs, 110 RBI, and 118 runs scored that he put up in 2018. I actually thought he would regress because his 2018 hard contact rate of 35.2% translated to just 18 home runs. And in his first season in Milwaukee he doubled his home run totals while increasing his hard contact rate to 47.6%, which was the seventh-best in the league that year. So naturally, one would go on to imagine it was an outlier of a season after he had never come close to a hard contact rate of 40% and all of a sudden he ripped a 47.6% rate in a new ballpark. And it goes without saying going from Marlins Ballpark to Miller Park is a huge upgrade. No matter how many times Miami tries to move the fences in, it pales in comparison to Miller Park, one of the best environments in baseball for hitters. In 2019, Yelich improved hit batted ball profile with a 50.8% hard contact rate and that translated to 44 home runs. He saw a slight drop in runs (100) and RBI (97), but those are marks that nobody should scoff at. That’s still amazing production. He boasted an elite exit velocity as well at 93.1mph so Yelich’s production checks out. Obviously, after two seasons in Milwaukee with 80 home runs, nobody is going to question the legitimacy again. But we can’t just chalk it up to the ballpark anymore. He’s changed his profile as a hitter. He’s putting it in the air more and he’s generating harder contact and it wouldn’t surprise anybody if he contributed 35-40 home runs again in 2020.

Upon Further Review: Jorge Soler

Last year’s Christian Yelich could arguably be Jorge Soler,  and he went above and beyond with his batted ball profile. Prior to 2019, Soler had never even reached 20 home runs. More so, his previous career-high was just 12. And then he went out in 2019 and ripped 48 home runs so naturally, this should be looked into. It’s also worth noting, that Soler had never played in more than 101 big league games in a season. Last season he appeared in all 162 games, which is a feat in itself. He didn’t take a single day off last year, while normally some guys may get one Sunday off a month just to rest at least. But Soler was a true work horse last season. He hit .265 with a .354 on-base percentage. Those numbers actually match his 2018 batting average and OBP where he only played in 61 games. So since his BA and OBP were on par with what we’ve seen throughout his young career, his batted ball profile should explain everything, and boy does it ever. Soler has never been a stranger to putting the ball in the air. In 2016, his last season with the Cubs he touted a 43.3% fly ball rate in 86 games. In 2017, his first year with Kansas City that went up to 44.3% in just 35 games (he did spend almost half the season at Triple-A). Last season, he had a 41.2% hard hit rate, which is down from what we’ve seen. However, his hard-hit rate of 46.8% in 2019 (12th-best in the majors) sheds some light on the increase in power. And not just that, but he only had a soft contact rate of 13%, which was the lowest of his career. So more medium and hard contact translated to more power. I made the mistake of predicting regression last season for Christian Yelich . However, I’m going to take the same approach with Jorge Soler . Sure, he can keep up the batted ball profile and keep the hard contact up. But he likely can’t perform in 162 games again, and Kaufmann Stadium is still more of a pitcher’s park. 35-38 home runs seem more likely and that’s still a phenomenal output, but if his start to Spring Training has been any indication, Soler has not taken the winter off.

 

So as we’ve seen so far, we want players boasting a higher hard contact rate. Home runs are going up in Major League Baseball. Some of that may be due to the “juiced ball,” but it’s no secret there’s a trend of hitters putting the ball in the air more and aiming for extra-base hits and home runs. Offense is sexy and this translates to better contracts as well for players approaching free agency. 20 home runs used to be a good benchmark for hitters, but we can now see over 100 players hit that mark in a season. It’s not to take anything away from guys that do hit that mark, it’s just not an elite number anymore. Tommy La Stella had never hit more than five home runs in a season. And then last year he hit 16 and they all came before the All-Star Break. La Stella got hurt and played in just two games following the Break, but 16 home runs before July is an amazing feat for him. If he had stayed healthy, he may have reached 25. In looking at his batted ball profile, it should come as no surprise that La Stella hit more dingers after he had a 43.2% hard contact rate in 2019 after never even reaching 33% in any season with the Cubs. Like Soler, the playing time was more abundant for La Stella last season as he was virtually an every day starter before going down with injury. But this is the general trend we’re seeing across the league, everyone is aiming to hit for more power. In-season if you want to see whether a player’s power is legitimate, hard contact is a great measure to look into.

Soft contact generally translates to more ground balls, which translate to outs. But even among the league leaders in soft contact you’ll find names like Jonathan Villar (21.8% soft contact rate), Mike Moustakas (20.8%), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (20.8%) and you don’t necessarily want to avoid these specific players because they still contribute. Vlad and Moustakas still produce power, and keep in mind Moose is now hitting in Cincinnati. Villar still hit 24 home runs last year and he steals bases. But in general, if you’re getting nothing from a player except soft contact, you can look into unloading him on waivers.

For pitchers, I try not to read into batted ball data too much, but don’t mistake that statement as completely disregarding these metrics. As mentioned numerous times, hitters are targeting more power. MLB has helped them in fixing the baseballs so across the slate, pitchers are prone to harder contact. Across the league, pitchers are systematically at a disadvantage. If a pitcher is giving up harder contact at a more alarming rate than normal, then yes you should be concerned. In looking at the 2019 League Leaders in Hard Contact you’ll see some of the best pitchers in the game inside the Top 20. Madison Bumgarner , Clayton Kershaw , Justin Verlander , Aaron Nola , Walker Buehler , Trevor Bauer , and even Jack Flaherty (all the way down at 30th) are prone to hard contact. Verlander might be the most surprising. He had a 41.8% hard contact rate in 2019, which lead to a 1.45 HR/9 rate. And yet, he still kept his ERA down to 2.58, which is very impressive. If you’re noticing an unnatural trend for a pitcher, you can look at the hard contact rate, but also check and see if their velocity is down as well. It could be something wrong with the pitcher’s mechanics and delivery and if velocity is way down or his offspeed pitches aren’t generating as much movement, then that could impact the batted ball data.

Soft contact is great if you can find pitchers inducing ground balls. Ground balls lead to more outs and as you can see from 2019's League Leaders in Soft Contact we’ve got some of the best pitchers in the game atop that list. If soft contact isn’t great for hitters, then it’s obviously better for pitchers. But also keep in mind, strikeouts are the key for pitchers. Ground balls are safe and pop-ups are nice and squeaky clean, but strikeouts are needed for more fantasy relevance. If you’re targeting a streaming pitcher to eat up innings and maybe lower your weekly ERA in a categories league, sure a free agent with a respectable soft contact rate may be in play. But using soft contact to perk up a pitcher isn’t weighted as heavily as the negative impacts of hard contact.

In my opinion this is just part two of a four-part series on hitter and pitcher profiles. First, we looked at fly ball and ground ball rates and now we examined contact rates. Next up are exit velocity and launch angles. All these factors are great tools to utilize and look at when trying to determine if a player’s recent success or struggles may be legitimate. Exit Velocity and Launch Angles are due out later this week, but also read up on the Sample Size article when it comes out as well. Typically a decent sample size is about 40 games (in my opinion), roughly one-quarter of the season. That’s usually a really good mark to start looking at advanced data. Baseball is more than just batting average, ERA, and home runs nowadays. Digging deeper we can provide ourselves with an outlook on a player’s tendencies that we couldn’t have examined in years past so make sure you’re doing your homework in 2020.