Exit Velo is a Cincinnati Reds analytics blog for fans who want to understand what the numbers actually say about their team. I originally built it as a fantasy baseball site with statistical deep dives written in terms anyone could follow. A few articles in, I realized I only really cared about one team. Quality analysis for small-market clubs like the Reds is hard to find, and I wanted to help fill that gap.
There's an ocean of baseball data available online, most of it free or close to it. Analyzing it only takes a decent understanding of baseball, statistics, and basic coding. I have all three, plus years of teaching and writing experience, so I figured I'd put them to work. Most writing about advanced stats assumes you've been reading them for years. I want to write about these stats in a way that's valuable and accessible to all fans, regardless of experience.
Baseball now has a measurement system that captures what the traditional box score never could: how hard the ball was hit, at what angle it left the bat, and the gap between the hit a player deserved and the hit he got. It recently started tracking how fast the swing was, too. Those numbers can tell you whether a prospect is for real, whether a pitcher's ERA is lying, and whether the guy your league is selling low on is about to turn it around. Exit Velo translates all of that into language that doesn't require a statistics degree.
What you'll find here
Player profiles, scouting reports, farm system analysis, and game recaps, all through the lens of a Reds fan who digs into the data. What did Nick Martinez change when he left Cincinnati? Is Sal Stewart the next Joey Votto? Can Rece Hinds stop chasing?
You'll occasionally find fantasy content and articles about players outside the organization, but the lens is always Cincinnati. Every highlighted term can be tapped or clicked for a plain-English definition. Articles are labeled Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced so you know what you're walking into.
The name
Exit velocity is the speed of the ball off the bat, one of the first things Statcast taught us to pay attention to. A clean, physical number: how hard did he actually hit it? The name felt right.
Who writes it
I'm Allan Branstiter. My family has deep roots in Ohio, and I've been a Reds fan since birth. Some of my best memories are sorting baseball cards and watching games at my grandparents' house in Urbana. Eric Davis was my guy. I was the only kid in my school in Tennessee pulling for Cincinnati to sweep Oakland in the 1990 World Series. I've lived all over the world as an Army veteran and a military kid, but my favorite team never changes.
I'm a historian by training, but my day job is writing user guides and designing systems that turn complicated software and hardware into clear, actionable instructions. There's a good chance you've read something I've written or designed without even knowing it! I still collect cards, still play too much fantasy, and still have too many opinions about ADP (average draft position). I went deep into Statcast and found that most of the writing about it assumed you were already an expert. These are the pieces I wished other people wrote about the Reds. I research, write, and edit everything here on my own, so there are bound to be mistakes, but I do my best.