Robinson Cano has not had the season that the Mets were hoping for (I can hear the NJ/NY accent, 'You're telling me!' from over here) But this post is not about Cano and the Mets, but rather whether there is a pattern within sluggers changing their swing to increase their launch angle and getting beaned. It really is amazing how many words can be used to explain the HBP.
Cano has only been plugged twice this season and his launch angle has consistently been below 10. But what about other guys who seem to keep getting hit? Reds slugger Derek Dietrich was all over the news feed a few weeks ago when he was hit 6 times within the same series against the Brewers. To date, Dietrich has been nailed 16 times while hitting with an average launch angle of 19.3 this season. This led me to the question, does having a higher launch angle make you more likely to be hit by a pitch?
I remember listening to announcers discussing how part of a higher launch angle swing's mechanics involve starting the hands faster. Looking at both of the videos above, you can see how quickly the hitter's hands start to move through the zone. It seems that a lot of hitters are starting to move their hands before they even see that the pitch is coming inside. Is there a correlation between a higher launch angle and more HBP's?
Upon first look...no...not really. In the above graph you see all data from the 2019 season for batters with at least 213 AB's. The HBP and LA (avg_hit_angle) variables only have a correlation score of .11, meaning, little to no correlation. Though the number is positive, indicating that even though it may not be significant, as LA increases so does HBP.
Here's a break down of the top 5 batters in this graph:
You'll notice that they are all above a 10 for average launch angle. Dietrich would be in the top spot, but he misses the mark with the AB cut-off. Which makes it even more interesting that he has been hit so many times this season. When I limit the data even more to only include hitters with an HBP stat greater than 5, the correlation actually decreases to .07.
My next thought was to apply this same correlation test to last season's data to see if the correlation numbers would increase with more data. The result was that the opposite happened. Changing the data in the same way, to include players with at least 213 AB's and more than 5 HBP, the correlation was a negative .04.
In the end, this data shows there is no correlation between players launch angle and the amount of times they get jammed. But, maybe you see something I don't. Clearly batters are changing their swings to increase their launch angle, but swings are so diverse and unique to the player. It would be hard to say that a higher LA always moves the hands quicker and therefore opens hitters up to getting hit.
Stay tuned for another analysis involving LA, HBP and statistical significance to see if looking beyond correlation can give us further insights.
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