WAF 43: VAA with Alex Chamberlain

Wins Above Fantasy – Alex Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) of FanGraphs joins Van Burnett (@Van_Verified) and Steve Gesuele (@stav8818) to talk about Verticle Approach Angle (VAA): what it is and how we can use it for fantasy purposes.

Useful Alex Links: VAA Article, VAA PitchCon Presentation, Pitch Leaderboard, Similarity Scores
Alex "Oxlade" and Googling yourself (3:40)
What is VAA and its importance (6:44)
What influences VAA (10:00)
How to contextualize VAA and what pitches it is useful for (13:43)
Using VAA(AA) to identify good fastballs (18:00)
Relationship between VAA and other pitching metrics (29:20)
How pitchers control contact quality and launch angle for hitters (32:30)
The curious case of Shane Bieber (35:30)
How we can use VAA for Fantasy and Chris Paddacks issue with the fastball (43:00)
Alex's similarity tool and getting excited for Shane Baz (44:30)
Josiah Gray's location issue (56:45)
Logan Gilbert and the "buffet line" of pitching metrics (1:02)
Is Michael Kopech's fastball truly elite? (1:04:35)
Brady Singer's unique sinker (1:07:50)
Adbert Alzolay should end up on Pitching Ninja a lot in 2022 (1:09:40)
Van's obligatory question on Ranger Suárez (1:12:20)
Putting a bow on VAA (1:16:00)
What Alex is working on (1:20:00)

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