THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Awesome.

Can anyone explain to me why on page 7 for 70-75 exit speed MLB average is .354? Kind of confused there.

I have to say, this is like a toy store. Except the toys are free.

Anon, this is just a wild guess, and it’s probably more likely that it’s just a sample size issue, but the only thing that comes to my mind is bunts. If that’s the speed bunts generally leave at, then this could be the result of bunting for basehits.

Bunts should have an exit speed much lower than 70 mph.  A good bunt would be in the neighborhood of 20 mph.

Using reference objects and angles on 30 FPS video, I get similar results for at least Austin Fleet.

http://i.imgur.com/QTEpL.png

Haven’t found reasonable enough quality video for most of the others, but if you search YouTube for Johan Yan, you’ll see exactly why he’s got a 5 foot “extension” measurement.