By: Chase Martaus
The evolution of technology and science has made its way into the game of baseball. The way a baseball game is presented to its fan on television is more specific and complex.
Television networks are not just broadcasting baseball games. They are adding metrics and science to their broadcast.
As soon as a ball comes off the bat, viewers know how far the ball was hit, at what speed the ball comes off the bat, and the direction down to the degree the ball went, which is now referred to as launch angle.
Every ball that is hit has a launch angle; a result-based system that measures in degrees exactly which direction the ball leaves the bat.
The angle is 10 degrees or lower for a ground ball, a line drive is 10 to 25 degrees, a fly ball is 25 to 50 degrees off the bat, and a popup is a higher than 50-degree angle.
This phenomenon was formally introduced to baseball fans in 2015, when Josh Donaldson, who put together an MVP season the year prior while playing third base for the Toronto Blue Jays, introduced it while appearing on the MLB Network for a segment on hitting.
“If a coach tells you to get on top of the baseball, tell him no,” said Donaldson. “In the big leagues, these things that they call ground balls are outs. They pay you for home runs.”
Not everyone agreed with Donaldson’s statement. Dr. Daniel Czech is a former pitcher in the Milwaukee Brewers organization who coaches high school and travel baseball. He expressed his concern for the young athletes who watched Donaldson.
“Broadcasters use this word and they do not really know what they mean or express the validity or liabilities of it,” said Czech. “Then, those words become the lexicon of baseball.”
Prior to Donaldson’s segment in 2016, the average launch angle in baseball was 9.96. In 2020, the average launch angle in Major League Baseball was measured at 11.9 degrees, which is a substantial increase.
According to metrics from ESPN, Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers had the highest launch angle in 2020 with a 26.8 degree angle. The next closest hitter was 3.6 degrees lower than Gallo.
It did not lead to more home runs from Gallo. He hit just 11 home runs in the 60 game season in 2020. He also hit a career low .181, and had the fourth most strikeouts in all of baseball with 79.
Gallo’s numbers appeared to be an outlier though, as the number of home runs across baseball have gone up as the degree of the swing increased. Over the course of a 162 game season, the total number of home runs hit in the MLB was 4,909 in 2015; however, in 2019, the number shot up to 6, 776 home runs.
Launch angle is not only used in the major leagues. It has made its way to all levels of baseball including the college ranks, high school and travel ball.
Kermit Smith is the head baseball coach at Appalachian State. He and his staff use it to decide which prospects to pursue in recruiting.
“We have a new evolution of metrics that we are using to recruit that were not available to us 30 years ago,” said Smith.
With hitters taking bigger swings, it forces pitchers to make adjustments to the way that they pitch. Zach Sanders, a pitcher at Tusculum College in Tennessee, says that pitchers look for a hitter’s launch angle when preparing to face them.
“We are not just looking for tendencies from a hitter anymore,” said Sanders. We are looking to see whether or not there is an uppercut in their swing, and the location in which we pitch is determined by the degree of their swing.”
It remains to be seen how long this phenomenon
remains in the game of baseball. There are proposed changes in the MLB to
change the baseball in a way that will reduce home runs.