Who hits the hardest fly balls on the Royals?

I have an article at Beyond the Box Score that details the methods behind what I'm about to present to you. Call this a preview. Not a sneak preview, because I'm not being sneaky, nor am I sneaky in general.

What I attempted to do was to figure out the difference between a hard hit fly ball and a weakly hit fly ball using fly ball distance from the PITCHf/x database. Long story short, I came up with 311 feet as the cutoff. So, a soft fly ball is less than 311 feet. A hard fly ball is greater than or equal to 311 feet. If you're interested in the methodology, go read my article on BtBS.

So, naturally, I applied this methodology to the Royals hitters. I took some liberties defining what a "Royals" hitter was. My dataset was for 2012-2014, and I wanted only those players who had played for the team for all 3 of those seasons. So, I've got Alex Gordon, Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Billy Butler, and Jarrod Dyson.

What I'll present to you are the league average numbers such that you have a baseline for comparison. Then I'll present each player with some commentary. In each category, I'll show you the number of fly balls, the average distance, the batting average, slugging percentage, production (PRD, 1.7*BA+SLG), and frequency.

MLB Average

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	67961	246.2	0.094	0.138	0.298	71.5%
Hard	27099	347.1	0.556	1.920	2.865	28.5%

Gordon

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	286	247.5	0.136	0.213	0.444	68.9%
Hard	129	341.8	0.527	1.682	2.578	31.1%

Gordon allocates a few more of his fly balls to the hard hit category compared to average, but he doesn't hit the balls as hard. The average distance and production are lower than league average. Gordon, though pretty close to league average distance in the soft category, has higher production than average.

Perez

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	200	249.3	0.090	0.110	0.263	73.0%
Hard	74	345.4	0.554	1.932	2.874	27.0%

Perez hits fewer hard fly balls than average. He does close to average damage on those fly balls, though. His weakly hit fly balls, while going for more distance, result in slightly lower production.

Hosmer

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	187	247.8	0.102	0.144	0.317	62.5%
Hard	112	344.4	0.500	1.652	2.502	37.5%

Hosmer rivals Giancarlo Stanton in his frequency allocation of soft and hard fly balls, but that's where the comparison stops. Hosmer's soft fly balls are about average in every way. However, his hard hit fly balls aren't hit quite as hard, as shown by his lower average distance and lower production compared to MLB average.

Moustakas

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	253	248.4	0.103	0.130	0.305	71.5%
Hard	101	345.0	0.485	1.594	2.418	28.5%

Moustakas is exactly average in his frequency allocation. His average distance is fairly close to MLB average. His production on the soft flies is average. However, his production on the hard hit fly balls is below average.

Cain

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	137	244.0	0.146	0.204	0.452	77.8%
Hard	39	339.9	0.513	1.667	2.539	22.2%

I'm not sure where those accusations of "he has pop" are coming from. Cain hits far fewer hard fly balls than average, and his production and distance on those hard hit fly balls are below average. However, he does squeeze some extra production out of the soft flies, likely due to his speed.

Escobar

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	272	244.1	0.085	0.099	0.244	85.3%
Hard	47	337.8	0.511	1.596	2.465	14.7%

Ouch. Even worse than Cain. In every way.

Butler

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	229	248.7	0.162	0.223	0.498	67.4%
Hard	111	353.5	0.550	1.892	2.827	32.6%

Butler allocates more fly balls to the hard hit category compared to average. Despite a larger average distance within that category, he has about average production. He squeezes some extra production out of the soft fly balls.

Dyson

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	90	244.6	0.078	0.100	0.233	80.4%
Hard	22	332.9	0.545	1.545	2.471	19.6%

Blech. Dyson and Escobar aren't good at fly balls. At least Dyson hits more hard fly balls than Escobar does.

So, after that examination, there are several players whose production on hard hit fly balls is below average. Those players' average distances are a bit below average, and so is their production. A few players have higher than average production on the soft fly balls. I'm calling this a point in favor of the theory that opposing outfielders play deeper at Kauffman to prevent the double but allow the single, but to be really confident about that, I would need to compare our guys' fly balls at Kauffman to those hit at other stadiums. At that point, sample sizes might get too small. Granted, I don't know exactly what a big or small sample size is in this analysis. I feel more confident about Butler's results than Dyson's, but nothing really seems out of whack with expectations. I'd expect Dyson, Cain, and Escobar to hit weak fly balls.

So, given that Butler signed a big contract with an opposing team, is there any information from this analysis that might reveal why the A's gave him a moderately sized bucket of money? Maybe.

Butler, 2012-2013

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	161	246.2	0.199	0.273	0.611	66.8%
Hard	80	356.6	0.612	2.175	3.215	33.2%

Butler, 2014

Bin	Count	Avg Dist	BA	SLG	PRD	Freq
Soft	68	254.7	0.074	0.103	0.229	68.7%
Hard	31	345.6	0.387	1.161	1.819	31.3%

He hit a similar, albeit less favorable (1.9 percentage point drop in hard hit fly ball %), frequency compared to the 2012-2013 numbers, but the hard hit fly ball distance was 11 feet less. His production numbers on the hard hit fly balls plummeted. I think there's evidence of decline--I would guess 11 foot drops in fly ball distance don't happen by accident--but I think Butler got pretty unlucky too. The A's are betting on Butler being unlucky and/or injured in 2014.

So, make of this what you will. Seems to me like Butler hits the ball the hardest out of the group, but he was dragged down by 2014 numbers. He could be due for a rebound, though Oakland's home park is pitcher-friendly. I'd still expect better than his 2014.

Can the 2015 season start already?