Measuring the Short 2020 Season

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Photo Credit: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez

Across baseball this winter front offices will have to come up with an answer to the same question: They have all the statistics from an abbreviated 2020 season but what, if anything, do those numbers mean?

While trying to navigate a potential minefield of small sample size numbers it’s helpful to have Statcast data to add some context and measure players’ inputs, not just their outputs. Per MLB’s glossary, Statcast “is a state-of-the-art tracking technology that allows for the collection and analysis of a massive amount of baseball data in ways that were never possible in the past.” The technology took a major step forward in 2020, adding optical tracking sensors from Hawk-Eye for pitch, hit and player tracking. Twelve high speed cameras now combine to track ball and player movement on every pitch.

The website Baseball Savant collects Statcast data and compiles leaderboards on nearly every physical aspect of the game, often leading to surprising results. Here are some of those leaderboards for the Brewers in 2020:

Average Exit Velocity, hitters:
(among ten qualified batters, minimum 126 plate appearances)

The Leader: Christian Yelich, 94 mph
The Laggard: Omar Narvaez, 81.6 mph
The Surprise: Yelich

As we’ve noted previously, Yelich’s rough season at the plate in 2020 was not reflected in his peripheral numbers. Yelich hit 124 balls into fair territory this season and the average was more than 4 mph faster than any of his teammates. Perhaps even more encouraging is the fact that Yelich’s exit velocity was even higher on balls hit in the air at 97.1 mph. Yelich was the only Brewer to hit more than 45% of his balls in play at 95 mph or faster, and he had 55%.

Runs Gained by “Swing & Take” at the plate:
(among 11 qualified batters, based on number of pitches seen)

The Leader: Ryan Braun, +5 runs
The Laggard: Eric Sogard, -8 runs
The Surprise: Christian Yelich, -2 runs

As a team, the Brewers did an excellent job laying off pitches that Baseball Savant classifies as offerings they would have to “Chase.” All 11 qualified Brewers had a positive rating in that field and they were led by Yelich, who added eleven runs to his value with his decision making in those cases. Yelich, however, gave all of that value back and then some with his decisions on pitches over the “Shadow” of the plate, visualized here as the few inches inside and outside the edge of the strike zone. He was credited with -15 runs on those pitches, tied for the seventh-worst total in all of baseball.

Outs Above Average on defense:
(among 8 qualified fielders, based on defensive chances)

The Leaders: Eric Sogard and Luis Urias, +2 outs
The Laggards: Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura, -2 outs
The Surprise: Avisail Garcia, even

The Brewers switched a lot of players in and out of roles during the season, limiting the number of qualifying fielders here, and the short season also limited opportunities for fielders to separate themselves from the pack in either direction or provide a reliable sampling of their skills.

With all of that said, Avisail Garcia was nearly exclusively a corner outfielder across his first eight MLB seasons before playing 44 games in center for the Brewers this season and it’s worth noting that he rated out as roughly average at the more difficult defensive position. Baseball Savant estimates that an average fielder would have converted about 84% of the balls hit to Garcia into outs, and he was able to match that rate.

Sprint Speed:
(among 16 qualifiers with at least 10 competitive running samples)

The Leader: Tyrone Taylor, 28.2 ft/sec
The Laggard: Jedd Gyorko, 23.9 ft/sec
The Surprises: Avisail Garcia, 28.0 ft/sec and Orlando Arcia, 26.2 ft/sec

The MLB average sprint speed on competitive plays is around 27 feet per second and 10 of the 16 Brewers measured here fell below that threshold, including a few unexpected names. At the top of the leaderboard Taylor was the only player credited with a “Bolt,” a single second where he covered more than 30 feet.

Garcia isn’t built like someone who should be able to compete with the game’s elite runners but he was only a couple of inches behind Taylor at 28 feet per second, which placed him around the middle of the pack in a speedy group of center fielders. He also had a sample of 71 “competitive runs,” so this isn’t a fluke from one or two isolated occurrences. Arcia, meanwhile, rated out as one of the game’s slowest middle infielders.

Barrels per Plate Appearance, Pitchers:
(among 11 qualifiers who faced 75 batters)

The Leader: Devin Williams, 2.0%
The Laggard: Josh Hader, 6.4%
The Surprise: Alex Claudio, 2.5%

It’s likely important not to draw any definitive conclusions from this relatively small sample size. Hader’s team-leading 6.4% is based on just 34 balls in play against him all season and is the result of just five “barrels,” or balls hit with the ideal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. Of the 11 Brewers in this sample 10 were above average by this measure, with Hader as the lone exception.

Meanwhile, Claudio continues to succeed with an increasingly non-traditional arsenal: While the average MLB fastball velocity continues to grow year over year, Claudio’s fastest offering was an 86 mph sinker he threw 114 times in 2020 and his most oft-used pitch was a 73 mph changeup. 2020’s “three batter minimum” rule meant that Claudio faced a lot of righties (about 57% of all opposing batters in 2020, as compared to 49% in 2019) but he was still largely able to avoid solid contact.

To read more Brewers On Deck Circle columns by Kyle Lobner, click here.