How Texas Rangers rookie Evan Carter’s home run launch angles have defied the norm

Evan Carter did a few things he hasn’t done often in the Rangers’ 6-4 win over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday. His diving catch to rob Jared Kelenic of a base hit in the second inning, for the record, does not qualify. He’s done something of that ilk once or twice.

But on those rarities, we’ll work backward for the sake of storytelling. Carter snapped a career 0-for-20 drought vs. left-handed pitchers when he recorded an infield single against southpaw Tyler Matzek in the eighth inning. But before that, in the top of the fourth inning, he hit a 398-foot two-run home run against starter Darius Vines.

A Carter home run vs. a right-handed pitcher isn’t necessarily anything unordinary. The 31-degree launch angle that it left Truist Park at might’ve been.

It tied the highest launch angle he’d ever recorded on a home run in his young major league career. The other? A 421-foot two-run home run vs. Seattle’s Eduard Bazardo last September that also carried a launch angle of 31 degrees.

Carter — the Rangers’ No. 2 prospect — is a line-drive home run hitter. That’s what the small, 43-game major league sample size suggests. His nine home runs at this level have been hit at an average launch angle of 24.7 degrees, and two-thirds of those came on angles below that mark.

That’s a rather low launch angle for someone who’s hit as many home runs as Carter has since his MLB debut. Don’t feel bad if you were unaware.

“I don’t really pay attention to it,” Carter said last week in Detroit. “It’s just my swing, I guess? I don’t pay much attention to it.”

It’s time for a brief physics lesson. The ideal launch angle and speed for a home run is considered to be between 25 and 30 degrees with an exit velocity of at least 100-plus mph. Adolis García hit 39 home runs last season at an average launch angle of 27.8 degrees. Corey Seager’s 33 blasts left at an average of 28 degrees. Marcus Semien’s 29 home runs yielded an average launch angle of 29.1 degrees.

One of Carter’s nine career home runs (including the postseason) meets that ideal threshold. His third career home run off of Seattle’s Bryce Miller last Sep. 22 came at a 30-degree angle. The caveat, most launch angle theorists note, is that the numbers are a generalization and aren’t necessarily applicable to each player’s individual swing.

That may be of interest to Carter, whose 2-for-4 night vs. Atlanta on Sunday helped break a 1-for-18 skid that he’d been on since last Monday’s series opener against the Detroit Tigers.

“I just want to hit it hard,” Carter said. “I don’t care where it comes from, I just want to hit it hard.”

Carter’s other seven home runs carried launch angles of 31, 24, 24, 22, 22, 20 and 19 degrees. For perspective, just over 4% of home runs hit leaguewide last season (274 of 5,862) came on launch angles of 22 degrees or lower. Nearly half of Carter’s have.

“Hit it hard enough at the right spot of the field and it’ll get out, I guess?” Carter said. “I don’t know. I’m not up there trying to hit the ball to the moon, I’m just trying to hit it hard. Some of them, I guess, go out at the right launch, if you want to say.”

Since Carter debuted with the Rangers on Sept. 9, 2023, only one player leaguewide has hit more home runs than he has off of a lower average launch angle: The Mets’ Pete Alonso has hit 10 (with an average launch angle of 23.9) in that span, according to Baseball Savant.

Even that is a deviation from a larger sample size. Alonso’s 46 home runs last season came on an average launch angle of 26.9 degrees. Alonso, a 6-3, 245-pound first baseman, is a prolific longball swatter and has won two home run derbies and competed in a third, last year in Seattle.

Carter, a wiry 6-2, 190-pound outfielder, does not necessarily fit that mold. According to a Baseball America scouting report from last season, Carter’s power tool graded at 50 on a 0 to 80 scale. That rating is considered major league average and equates to 19-22 home runs over the course of a 162-game schedule.

He hit 34 home runs in 246 minor league games — which, conveniently, equates to 22 home runs over 162 games — but has already hit eight home runs in his first 43 major league games. That measures out at just a shade over 30 home runs per 162 games.

So it’s worth asking, does the 21-year-old have more power than he gets credit for?

“Yeah, I do,” Carter said. “I mean, I hit the ball just as hard as anybody else. Obviously, there’s some people who hit it unusually hard, but I mean, you can’t take what happens in the minor leagues into account for what’s going to happen in the major leagues.”

Allow him to explain.

“The balls are better, the lights are better here,” Carter said. “The stadium, everything is better. The batter’s box is better, the environment ... every single factor — outside of your swing — is better. Obviously, the pitching is better, but I don’t think that saying somebody in the minor leagues doesn’t have power and then seeing him hit homers in the big leagues is like ‘Oh, what happened?’ Well, it’s easier to hit the ball harder.”

That’s kind of all he cares about anyway. The numbers will sort themselves out.

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