Pulled fly balls, the power-predicting metric fantasy baseball managers need to know

Another winter in the rearview mirror means another fantasy draft season is upon us, but some things never change.

My longtime readers already knew there was roughly a 0.0% chance Id get more than two articles into draft prep work without staying completely on-brand and doing an investigation into my favorite stat Pulled Fly Ball/Line Drives (PFBLD).

Advertisement Before last season, I identified that the trend of elevating pulled batted ball events would continue and could circumvent changes in the ball itself, humidor use or any other trick MLB may have up its sleeve.

This year, Im using a series of charts to visualize my latest stream of consciousness regarding MLBs offensive state and how PFBLDs test in relation to home runs relative to other power stats for fantasy relevance.

As far as finding a statistic that correlates to home runs, total PFBLD exceeds every metric other than Barrels by a country mile.

Simply put, fantasy managers should chase hitters that consistently pull the ball with lift.

(All data per Fangraphs, dating back 10 years to 2015) Lets start, as they say, at the beginning 2023 matched recent lows in runs scored per game, causing some panic in the fantasy streets.

However, the total from two seasons ago now appears to land smack in the middle of an established range over the past decade.

While the overall trend for runs scored per game points down, 2024 brought us near the 10-year average ...

with nothing major to report.

Scoring increased, but did it correlate with an increase in home runs the stat we covet most in fantasy baseball? As it turns out, those extra runs didnt come from the long ball, as 2024 marked the leagues second-highest plate appearance per HR in nine years.

Hmm (taps chin).

Anecdotally speaking, it seemed like the ball spent more time in the air than ever last season, but now is no time for assumptions as the late, great Warner Wolf would say, Lets go to the videotape.

Well, it doesnt take a Morgan Stanley senior technical analyst to sniff out the trend seen below.

When these types of movements are so apparent (similar to the increase in PFBLD), theres a good chance the efforts concerted.

Ive never shied away from due diligence and dont intend to start now.

If scoring is up, even slightly, with more plate appearances per home run, leaguewide HR/FB% would have had to take a bit of a nosedive, which checks out in the chart below.

If you smooth out the anomalous two-year spike in 2019 (happy fun ball) and 2020 (no cold weather games in April and May), another downtrend is shown.

It may not continue in perpetuity, but it does explain the widespread effort to elevate pulled batted balls (hence my obsession resulting in these unbelievably entertaining and informative articles).

Speaking of widespread efforts, last we checked, the leagues shared obsession with pulling fly balls couldnt be denied.

And as your faithful narrator, Im happy to report that tendency continued through 2024 decent evidence were still barking up the right tree.

If the ball is not quite carrying the way it once was, why not try and shorten the necessary distance traveled? (For reference, the average distance to the corners is roughly 60 feet shorter than dead center field.) With this in mind, hitters are focusing on inside pitches they can turn on.

Without setting minimum exit velocity parameters, PFBLD data will understandably lack the predictive qualities of Barrels.

That said, I couldnt help but wonder if more PFBLD were finding the outfield bleachers in regard to rate.

Turns out thats not the case, as shown below, but again, if we smooth out 2019-2020, we find ourselves in a pretty tight range for success one Id personally expect to continue.

Finally, the rubber meets the road.

Combining the decrease in homers on a per PA basis with a simultaneous rise in the frequency of PFBLDs should result in their increasing share of total home runs, despite some regression in conversion rate precisely what we see in our final chart below.

Eureka! The trend is out, friend, and its real.

For a second there, I was getting worried I might need a new infatuation.

As you can see, total PFBLD sits right under Barrels as correlative to home runs.

So who are these hitters? As if wed leave you hanging...

Thats more than enough out of me for now.

Please feel free to reply with your thoughts in the comments below, and make sure to follow me @JohnLaghezza on X for more fantasy musings, dad jokes and third-party links to my in-season betting content.

Thanks for reading! (Top photo of Jose Ramirez: Jason Miller / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.