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Fantasy Baseball: 3 Young Hitters who are Launch Angle Improvement Candidates

By Lucas Kelly

PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTEMBER 12: Ozzie Albies #1 of the Atlanta Braves is congratulated by Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 and Freddie Freeman #5 after hitting a two-run home run in the first inning during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on September 12, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTEMBER 12: Ozzie Albies #1 of the Atlanta Braves is congratulated by Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 and Freddie Freeman #5 after hitting a two-run home run in the first inning during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on September 12, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images) /
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Given that we now have more time to prepare for the upcoming Fantasy Baseball season, here are 3 candidates that can improve their launch angle in 2020.

The coronavirus may have pushed back the season, but we have all been reading, writing and discussing baseball without any MLB games actually being played for months now. I’ll just keep going on as I have been but with a more, elastic, opening day date.

Personally, I’ve been able to spend more time preparing for my fantasy baseball draft and generally nerd out over statistics, projections and pure estimations of what will be once the season starts.

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This article is a mix of all three of those things.

First, launch angle. You may have heard of it.

Historically, hitters were taught to hit the top half of the baseball and hard. This “hard on the ground” approach became less and less successful as teams shifted more and more. The influence of data collection gave defenses the ability to be in the right place at the right time for these more traditional hitters.

As you can imagine, hitters were annoyed with the fact that there was a defender waiting to pluck up a grounder, blooper, or even line drive seemingly every time they came to bat. Thus was born the idea of, “Just hit it over everyone” by hitting the bottom half of the ball in an uppercut type of swing.

According to the MLB glossary, a typical fly-ball will be hit with a 25-50 degree launch angle. If a batter strikes a ball within that range (launch angle), hits the ball hard (hard%) and pulls the ball (pull%), the potential for more home runs should increase.

Here are the stats, provided by Fangraphs, we’re looking for in our Fantasy Baseball projections and why:

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