Statcast-ing call: Say hello to 2016 standouts

With the second year of Statcast™ in the books, let’s take a joyful moment over a holiday weekend to name the 2016 All-Statcast™ team. It should go without saying that this isn’t simply a list of the best players at each position, because you don’t see Mike Trout or Kris Bryant here. We just went through an entire week of giving awards to all of baseball’s brightest stars, and what we’re doing here is something of an extension of that.

So let’s see which players did something extremely interesting from a Statcast™ perspective at each position and make a team out of it. We guarantee you’ll learn something new about players you already thought were valuable.

C — David Ross, A Pitcher’s Best Friend If you watched the postseason at all, you know that Jon Lester’s inability to throw to first base or prevent runners from taking huge leads was a big story for all of October. But you also noticed that Lester wasn’t being victimized by stolen bases nearly as badly as you’d think. Why? A big part of that is due to the skill of Lester’s personal catcher, the now-retired Ross.

We’re specifically talking about exchange time, which is the time from when the ball hits Ross’ glove to the time he gets it out of his hand. We looked at the 45 catchers who had 20 or more stolen-base attempts on them this season, and no one had a quicker exchange than the .66 seconds that Ross averaged. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, for example, had a .88 mark (near the bottom), and the Major League average was .74 seconds. It might not sound like much, but every bit counts, and it’s a big part of how Ross was able to keep runners from taking advantage of Lester.

1B — Miguel Cabrera, King of Barrels In his 14th season in the big leagues, Cabrera still looked like he might just keep on hitting forever, as his 2016 line (.316/.393/.563, 152 wRC+) pretty much nailed his career numbers exactly (.321/.399/.562, 153 wRC+). While that was the sixth-best hitting line overall in ’16, there was one thing that he did more often than anyone else: Barrel the ball up.

That’s not just a baseball term any longer, not now that we’ve created a new Statcast™ metric called “Barrels” to describe the perfect marriage between exit velocity and launch angle. You can read the full definition here, but the point is to show the batted balls that are hit the hardest at the most ideal angles, because you can hit the ball as hard as you want straight up or down, and it’s not going to lead to success. You have to hit the ball hard and hit it with the right elevation; barreled balls led to an average higher than .800 this year.

Got it? No one hit more barrels this year than Cabrera, who did so 72 times, beating out Nelson Cruz’ 68 and Mark Trumbo’s 67. It’s the best thing a hitter can do, and Cabrera did it more often than anyone.

2B — Dustin Pedroia, The Fastest Glove in the East Like Cabrera, the veteran Pedroia put up a stellar season right in line with his career averages in 2016. Unlike Cabrera, he also continued to provide defensive value, tying with Ian Kinsler for the most Defensive Runs Saved in the Majors among second basemen with 12. But let’s look at this from a more interesting perspective — exchange time, specifically on plays when the batter was out and the second baseman was credited with an assist.

Dustin Pedroia’s age-32 season (2016): .318/.376/.449 (120 wRC+)Dustin Pedroia’s career numbers (11 yr): .301/.366/.445 (117 wRC+)

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) November 21, 2016

Dustin Pedroia’s age-32 season (2016): .318/.376/.449 (120 wRC+)Dustin Pedroia’s career numbers (11 yr): .301/.366/.445 (117 wRC+)

That includes mostly two kinds of plays, both the regular grounder and the successful double-play pivot. Pedroia’s exchange time was 1.02 seconds, the lowest of the 68 second …

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