MLB Tonight breaks down Jose Bautista's epic bat flip using Statcast technology
Statcast analysis of Jose Bautista's bat flip
The integration of Statcast™ technology into MLB broadcasts and highlights has revolutionized the way we look at monster home runs, insane diving catches and blazing speed on the basepaths. Now, it's being used to break down epic celebrations, too.
On Wednesday night, Jose Bautista hit the biggest home run of his long career -- a game-winner in Game 5 of the ALDS that he punctuated with a bat flip that surely made KBO players feel inadequate.
Well, the fine folks at MLB Tonight took that Statcast™ technology and applied it - finding that Joey Bats' bat reached a height of 10.6 feet off the ground and was suspended in the air for 1.74 seconds.
We're just a season or two away from Billy Beane assembling a full team of power hitters based on some new-fangled advanced bat flip metric like wFROB+ (Weighted Full Rotations On a Bat flip Plus).