Exit Velo: The Newest Trend

Baseball's statheads have their latest stupid stat to obsess over.  They've moved on from WAR and OPS to exit velo, which tracks the speed at which a ball leaves the bat.  It's listed as a stat category on MLB.com, and a number of stadiums have even added exit velo to the scoreboard.

Not surprisingly, Aaron Judge have five of the six spots on the exit velo leaderboard.  His record is 121.1 mph on one of his two home runs against the Orioles on June 10.  Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a 118.7 mph double on May 2, has the best non-Aaron Judge mark.  (Seriously, can the Home Run Derby just be a head-to-head between these two guys?  We don't need six others!)

I get the idea behind exit velo.  When a line drive is called a "rocket," it's generally because it was hit pretty fast.  Likewise, some balls are hit so hard they bounce off the wall or get to the outfielder so quickly that the batter is held to a single or the runner on second can't score.  There are countless examples of this, which is probably what led them to developing some sort of formula to figure it out.

Here's the thing, though.  Exit velocity really doesn't make a difference.  All it means is you hit the ball hard.  That's it.  And hitting the ball hard rarely makes a significant impact on the game.  With Aaron Judge's tape-measure shots, I don't really care how hard he hit it.  I care about how far it went.  Or, in the case of one that doesn't leave the yard, where he hit it.  

Would you rather set a record for exit velo only to see the outfielder make an amazing play for the out or be the guy who gets lucky and hits that slow-rolling ground ball down the line that stays fair for a single?  Only one of those guys sees his batting average go up.  Only one of those guys got on base.  Only one of those guys did something to positively impact the game.  

Basically what I'm saying here is the exit velocities may be gaudy and fans might like seeing the high numbers, but in the grand scheme of things, they're irrelevant.  They have no bearing on the outcome!

How is exit velocity any less relevant than pitch speed?  Well, the reason is because pitch speed can very much impact a game.  How many times have you seen Aroldis Chapman come out of the bullpen and strike out a guy by blowing three 100 mph fastballs right by him?  Likewise, how many times have you seen a hitter get fooled by something off-speed while sitting on a fastball (or vice versa)?  Fast pitches often lead to strikeouts, which can be significant (sometimes very) depending on the situation.  And what usually happens when the pitcher throws something slow right down the middle?  We all know the answer to that one.

So you see, pitch speed can be a very big deal.  It can sometimes even be the difference between winning and losing.  Exit velocity?  Not so much.  It's just a gaudy number that you can use in your arguments as to why one guy is better than another.  (Although, I will admit, exit velocity is less stupid than OPS, which counts the same thing twice, and WAR, which is a completely arbitrary number.)

This recent obsession with exit velocity can probably be attributed to the phenomenon that is Aaron Judge.  Just like the WAR craze started because of Mike Trout.  And I'm sure in a couple years, someone will come up with another new stat to talk about how great somebody is.  

But why do we need a new stat every time somebody new takes the baseball world by storm?  Can't we just enjoy greatness as we witness it?  Does that greatness really need to be quantified?