Welcome to Random Thoughts
Thoughts, theories, and research too short for a blog post.
Hello readers! Welcome to a new section of my Substack, “Random Thoughts”. Over the past few weeks, I have realized that I have a lot of thoughts and hypotheses about baseball that simply don’t turn into a full blog post for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is a research project that doesn’t reach its intended conclusions, other times it’s just a few thoughts I have after an interesting article I have just read.
Instead of throwing these ideas in the illusory trash can, I decided it would be best to write about these ideas in a running thread within this blog post. Hopefully, these posts will provide more insight into my thought process, and/or provide inspiration for others to conduct future research.
Here is a table of contents of posts within this thread:
Thoughts on How the Orioles Develop Hitters
Biomechanic-influenced Pitch Comparisons
Thoughts on How the Orioles Develop Hitters
August 20, 2024
I have been intrigued by an article recently published in The Athletic written by Eno Sarris and Britt Ghiroli, “What’s the Orioles’ secret to developing great hitters? Rival teams have theories”. As the title suggests the article discusses the successes that the Orioles have achieved in developing young hitters in recent years and attempts to identify how they have achieved this presumed competitive advantage. Two theories are primarily posited: that they draft for VBA (vertical bat angle), or they focus on present power and work on improving the hitter’s swing decisions and/or launch angle.
I’ll mainly discuss the latter theory, which is that the Orioles focus on drafting players with present power and work on improving their swing decisions and/or launch angle. The draft is an incredible opportunity for an organization to add specific types of talent to their system, and I believe that the best organizations draft to their developmental strengths. For example, if a team is good at developing bullet sliders, they should target pitchers who are candidates to add one to their arsenal in the future (such as a pitcher with an over-the-top delivery with a fastball and curveball but no slider). On the hitting side, I believe it is common for teams to project on a hitter’s power in this way, targeting players with sufficient bat-to-ball and plate discipline skills since these are more difficult to develop. As it pertains to developing power, there are a variety of ways to project on a hitter’s future power output, such as envisioning a player’s strength at physical maturity to putting the player on a weighted bat training program to develop bat speed.
In my post, “Exploring Key Metrics and Methodology for Analyzing Offensive Performance - An Update” that I published back in June, I hypothesized that the next competitive advantage in player development could be finding a way to effectively improve a hitter’s swing decisions. With modern technology such as Trajekt available to recreate at-bats at game speed, there are more opportunities for hitters to see realistic pitches and hone their decision-making as a result. As swing decision metrics such as SEAGER have shown, there is a relationship between good swing decisions and offensive output, and swing rate has a negative relationship with run creation, emphasizing the importance of “making your swings count”.
As mentioned earlier, popular notion holds that swing decisions are generally more difficult to develop at the professional level, however, being able to effectively develop a player’s swing decisions can not only give an organization a competitive advantage but also affect their future projections of potential draft prospects. Imagine how different the offensive outlooks of Jac Caglianone, Seaver King, and Vance Honeycutt (who was drafted by the Orioles this season, gulp) look if we project more favorably on their swing decisions. By giving their prospects more in-game style looks during training (through using a Traject and/or the hyper-competitive environment the Orioles foster as detailed throughout the article), a team can develop a competitive advantage in training for swing decisions by placing a focus on having their hitters swing on pitches in their nitro zones early in counts, while improving their ability to “spoil” or make contact on pitches outside their nitro zones in two-strike counts.
It appears that the Orioles have also developed a competitive advantage in developing hitters by valuing the importance of makeup when drafting/acquiring hitters. I agree with the notion of targeting players with high makeup, especially during the draft process, given the adjustments that constantly need to be made as a professional baseball player. There is a reason why it is very rare to see a player go straight from college to the Major League level, and it is because the increased level of competition at each succeeding level forces players to make necessary adjustments in order to reach their full potential. In addition, many young players will go through their first major slump in their entire baseball careers during their time in the Minor Leagues, and it is imperative that they both have the mental fortitude in order endure such a stretch, the humility and curiosity to intake new information, and have the determination to make necessary adjustments to reach their full potential.
The theory that the Orioles draft for vertical bat angle is also quite interesting. As explained in the article, vertical bat angle is the angle of the bat, judged directly behind or in front of the batter. A steeper bat angle will typically indicate that a hitter is well-equipped to attack pitches low in the zone, while a flatter bat angle will typically indicate that a hitter is well-equipped to attack pitches high in the zone. I have used vertical bat angle occasionally on this blog using VBA data approximated by SwingGraphs, however, I have heard mixed opinions on the effectiveness of their methods so I typically use their data solely as a reference point. It is a bit of a mystery how the Orioles utilize this data at the Minor League level, given it is private information, but it seems likely that they feel more confident in making a hitter’s swing either flatter or steeper, and target players that have present top-end power and a swing they are comfortable making adjustments to.
Vertical bat angle data can also be used to game plan more effectively, as I touched upon in my article last year, “Examining the Future of Hitting”. Instead of relying solely on platoon splits, teams have already begun to move in the direction of utilizing hitters with flatter bat paths against pitchers who frequently pitch up-in-the-zone, and hitters with steeper bat paths against pitchers who frequently pitch down-in-the-zone. Hopefully, VBA data is a part of MLB’s next wave of bat tracking metrics, as it would be valuable to get more insight into this level of game planning on the public side.
In conclusion, it appears that the Orioles have developed a competitive advantage when it comes to developing Major League hitters and as a result, the team projects to be atop the American League East for the foreseeable future.
Biomechanic-influenced Pitch Comparisons
August 20, 2024
I recently came across an interesting thread on X from Brian Bannister, senior pitching advisor for the Chicago White Sox (thread at attached hyperlink). In the thread, Bannister discusses how the White Sox developed Davis Martin’s outstanding changeup (120 aStuff+) in less than 10 reps. Since Martin has always struggled to throw a changeup and had similar arm action and pitch data to Hayden Birdsong, Bannister suggested to Martin that he try the “kick change” grip, resulting in a much more effective off-speed offering.
This adjustment made me think about pitch similarity scores and comparison apps and their potential applications to on-field adjustments. In the public space, there are a few pitch comparison apps available that can be used to compare movement profiles between pitchers. My initial guess is that by comparing the movement and spin profiles of both of their four-seam fastball, the White Sox concluded that Martin was a “similar” pitcher to Birdsong and would be able to utilize a kick change grip effectively.
As shown by this screenshot from Alex Chamberlain’s Pitch Leaderboard, both pitchers share some similarities in their four-seam fastball profiles but they also share some significant differences (Birdsong gets more horizontal movement on his four-seamer and throws it harder). This leads me to hypothesize how biomechanics can play a role in formulating pitch comparisons and lead to more effective pitch design. Instead of simply looking at factors such as release point, extension, and spin characteristics, perhaps adding biomechanic data such as shoulder abduction, angular velocities, hip-shoulder separation, etc. can lead to more accurate and descriptive comparisons between pitchers. Not only would teams be able to compare pitchers based on the movement of their pitchers at release, but they would also be able to compare how their bodies move and design new pitches based off of their movement patterns. I wonder if teams already have models that incorporate this data to improve their pitch design sessions as part of the player development process.
In addition to utilizing biomechanical data, there could be added value in also creating a database of pitch grips throughout the entire league. Websites such as Getty Images post countless images depicting grips that pitchers use on various pitches, or perhaps a team could set up a camera in an ideal location in their home ballpark to capture each pitcher’s grips. Combining biomechanical data with a pitch grip database could provide organizations with a more effective blueprint to develop their pitchers’ arsenals during the player development process.
Thanks for reading!
Follow @MLBDailyStats_ on X and Adam Salorio on Substack for more in-depth MLB analysis. Photo credits to the Associated Press.