If Kyle Schwarber hadn’t hit his 300th homer, and if José Alvarado hadn’t been suspended, the release of new Statcast data to the public would’ve been the biggest story of the week.
Well, probably not. Not outside of a certain sabermetrically-inclined class. Nerds, if you’re not concerned with niceties. But if the words “new Statcast data” weren’t enough to get you excited, let me explain why you ought to be.
This week, the folks at Baseball Savant released information on Attack Angle and Attack Direction to the public. Attack Angle is “the vertical angle at which [the] sweet spot is traveling at the point of impact” with the ball.