Statcast provides baseball fans many useful hitting attributes for free. While the information is available freely, fans can reverse engineer some of the vasts data in different combinations and analysis in order to make sense of what their favorite players and teams are trying to do.
For example, at Launch Angle Graphs, statcast provides and reports all members of Team Elevate dutifully. Hitters with a launch angle (defined as the vertical angle at which the ball leaves a player’s bat after being struck) between 15 and 25 degrees are hitting line drives, and those with a launch angle of 25 to 45 degrees are likely hitting home runs.
By comparing players who have changed their swing planes the most, one can isolate hitters who are trying effectively to hit the ball on a line drive.
The chart below compares all players who have changed their swing plane the most in all of baseball. Note that of the top 15 hitters in all of baseball, four hitters are on the Mets:
| MLB Rank | Player | Total Balls Hit Into Fair Territory | 2017 Launch Angle | 2016 Launch Angle | Difference |
| 1 | John Jaso | 49 | 23.6 | 7 | 16.6 |
| 2 | Miguel Montero | 35 | 21.7 | 9 | 12.7 |
| 3 | Yonder Alonso | 73 | 21.1 | 10.3 | 10.8 |
| 4 | Brandon Guyer | 36 | 23.2 | 12.8 | 10.4 |
| 5 | Yoenis Cespedes | 50 | 24.6 | 16.4 | 8.2 |
| 6 | Travis d’Arnaud | 48 | 15.6 | 8.4 | 7.2 |
| 7 | Rougned Odor | 105 | 19.8 | 13 | 6.8 |
| 8 | Jose Bautista | 79 | 21.1 | 14.9 | 6.2 |
| 9 | Nick Hundley | 45 | 16.4 | 10.5 | 5.9 |
| 10 | Josh Harrison | 94 | 17.3 | 11.5 | 5.8 |
| 11 | Jed Lowrie | 100 | 16.6 | 11.2 | 5.4 |
| 12 | Eduardo Escobar | 45 | 20.1 | 14.8 | 5.3 |
| 13 | Byron Buxton | 52 | 18.8 | 13.5 | 5.3 |
| 14 | Curtis Granderson | 85 | 23.5 | 18.4 | 5.1 |
| 15 | Wilmer Flores | 47 | 23.3 | 18.4 | 4.9 |
Kevin Long is the hitting coach of the Mets, and to have four hitters at the top of this list shows the Mets’ approach is to hit the ball hard in the air.
As a result, the Mets offense has caught fire in 2017, as the Mets are through May 10th fourth in the National League in runs scored and third in home runs despite being twelve in batting average and eleventh in on base percentage.
Once injured players such as Cespedes, d’arnaud, and Duda return to the lineup, Mets fans should look forward to even more offensive explosions from their team.
