Baseball and Velocity &
Acceleration
Have you ever wondered how fast a baseball flies in home runs? The
speed of the ball forming a beautiful arch, disappearing over the fence
with acclaim and applause from players and spectators?
In the 2020 MLB season, homerun appears under approximately 3.46%
of low probability per plate appearance.1 We could obviously assume
that not all balls become homerun, and many research shows that it has
to satisfy the necessary launch angle and batted ball speed.
Think about the best thing a Major League hitter can hope to do when
he steps to the plate. He obviously wants to hit the ball hard, because the
.626 batting average shown on balls hit 100 mph or more in the Statcast
is pretty compelling.2 He wants to hit it at the right angle, too, because a
ball hit straight up or down isn't going to be a hit no matter how hard it's
struck. What he wants to do is hit it hard at an optimal level for success.
We can come up with the right combination of velocity and angle to
identify those high-value batted balls, and from there, it's easy enough to
make leaderboards that show the best hitters at creating them and the
best pitchers at preventing them. We call these batted balls a barrel.
According to MLB, a Barrel is assigned to a well-struck ball where the
combination of exit velocity and launch angle generally leads to a
minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.3 This
explanation seems somewhat vague, however. Perhaps the best way to