In this age of analytics, when we evaluate batters and try to project the future, we talk about exit velocity a lot. Exit velocity measures how hard the bat hits the ball, and the typical metric is average exit velocity. Average exit velocity is just what it says: compute the ball’s average exit velocity off the bat for all of a batter’s contact during a specific period (like a season).
The recent fangraphs article, “The Doomed Search for a Perfect Way To Interpret Exit Velocity” (Andrews), inspired me to re-examine the exit velocity for Astros’ batters in 2023.