I was kicking around an idea of stats last night and ... hard hit and exit velocity are great and all, but if youre not contacting enough baseballs overall, what good is it?
LIke, if Im starting from the ground up on a hitter and want to prioritize skills.... my first skill wanted would be contact rate. If the skill we want in our pitchers is the ability to miss bats, then logically, the skill we want in our hitter is the ability to not miss balls.
So, Skill 1 - contact. Then what... barrel rate? Exit velocity? Swing decisions? Swing path? Which of those would be prioritized and to what level does one have to be higher to overcome a failure in the others? Would swing decisions be the second most important right after contact?
Im thinking out loud here...
1. Contact
2. Swing Decisions
3. Barrel Rate
4. avg exit velo
what am i missing in this list that would be really important