How can a team that's top 10 in average exit velocity rank 5th or 6th from the bottom in runs scored? (No, it's not about ground balls) How last night was emblematic of the Jays hitting season so far: A Wednesday morning #BlueJays ⚾️🧵 Let's start here: 2 loud... outs from Vladdyshow more

We'll get back to those in a second, but first --- most teams that hit the ball hard, also score a lot of runs: NYY (1st AEV, 2nd Runs) BOS (2nd AEV, 7th runs) LAD (6th AEV, 3rd runs) NYM (3rd AEV, 12th runs) ARZ (7th AEV, 5th runs) PHI (8th AEV, 6th runs) Jays do not. Why?

It's not ground balls. Jays are 15th in ground ball rate. They aren't racking up high exit velo balls in play on the ground. So don't cite that as a reason. And they're pulling ball in the air a decent amount (15th in league), the highest it's been since 2021. So it's not that.

So we know they hit the ball hard quite often, but they aren't really producing. So let's look at the production on those hard hit balls: Blue Jays MLB Rank on Hard Hit Balls Amount 9th Amount in Air 7th Average 28th Slug% 28th Hmmmmm.... let's dig further.

Let's get back to that opening video. 1st example: 3-1 cutter, hit to the wall, HR in a handful of parks... out. 2nd example: 1st pitch fastball 93mph centre cut, hit to wall, HR in handful of parks... out. Common thread? Low attack angle (3° on one, -3° on the other)

When you look at the entirety of Toronto's hard hit balls, a pattern emerges. The Jays rank 29th in average attack angle on hard hit balls, and 29th in avg swing tilt. Meaning, even when they hit the ball hard, Jays are often doing it with flat bat paths, and catching it late.

Points of reference... MLB avg on hard hit balls: 32° tilt, 9° attack Dodgers: 35° tilt, 11° attack Jays: 29° tilt, 7° attack

Intuitively, this all makes sense: If you're gonna hit the ball hard, you want to do it on the upswing a bit. League-wide numbers going back last couple years back this up.... It's far more productive to hit a ball hard with an attack angle >10° compared to <10°

And that table is where you get to the answer to our original question: How can a team that hits the ball hard as often as the Jays score so few runs?

Worth pointing out: While last night's examples are Guerrero & he's prob primary factor, it's not exclusive to him. Santander & Bichette each have 5° avg attack angle on their hard hit balls. Wagner, Roden, Heineman, Straw, Clase, Gimenez, Barger, Kirk all below MLB avg

In fact, the only 2 Jays comfortably above the avg attack angle threshold on hard hit balls are the 2 Jays exceeding expectations offensively the most this year: Varsho & Springer.

And I think looking at those guys, you can understand maybe what guys like Guerrero & Bichette might have to sacrifice in order to produce more power. They might need to swing & miss more. They might need to strikeout more. They might need to guess more.

Listen, I write this like it's clear as day and easy to change, it's not. We are talking making tiny, tiny changes over the course of fractions of seconds.

Catching a ball inch further out front could make all the difference in the world, but just trying to do that might ruin a hitter's mechanics & cause them to hit the ball hard less often. In other words, tradeoff might be net zero.

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. And it's the most fascinating too. Hope you enjoyed reading. Happy Wednesday.

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