The Trout Metric

At the Hardball Times, the Trout Metric tries to explain why Mike Trout is a great hitter despite not ranking high in exit velocity:

The greatest hitter of our generation was 101st last season in average exit velocity. One Hundred and First. Despite this, we still obsess over exit velocity and generally hate the Yankees more (if that is possible) for having the two hardest hitters in baseball at the same time. Today, we’re going to visually explore the importance of keeping a narrow range of launch angles (read: lower standard deviation of launch angle), as well as the benefit of a picking when to max out your swing (aka: higher standard deviation of exit velocity).

TROUT = (Average Exit Velocity)*(St. Dev. of Average Exit Velocity)/(St. Dev of Launch Angle)

Essentially, the formula rewards players who hit the ball harder on average, pick their spots (show a greater spread in their exit velocities) and have consistent launch angles.

Basically, the higher the ratio of standard deviations, the more production a batter will get out of a given exit velocity.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2HORaj4