Fanatics’ Ariel Epstein highlights the electrifying form of Dodgers’ superstar slugger Ohtani, the hottest hitter in the league. Additionally, she notes the impressive run of the Phillies.
Baseball is a game of numbers, and Major League Baseball just released a bunch of them to break down batting.
MLB's Hawk-Eye tracking system uses 12 cameras around each team's ballpark, including five that run at 300 frames per second, to log data across the diamond with each pitch. The league has spent two years working on a bat-tracking model with the system and released its findings via Statcast on Monday.
So, what exactly do the numbers say about the best batters in the game? Let's dive in:
Bat speed
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The average swing for a big league batter comes in at 71.5 mph.
New York Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton has the fastest bat in baseball with an average speed of 80.6 mph. It marks another Statcast victory for Stanton, who is also MLB's king of exit velocity.
Stanton is noticeably ahead of the pack when it comes to bat speed. The 34-year-old's 80.6 mph mark is nearly three miles per hour faster than second-place Oneil Cruz of the Pittsburgh Pirates (77.7 mph). Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber (77.0 mph), San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Chapman (76.9) and Atlanta Braves outfielder (76.7) round out the top five.
MLB
On the opposite end of the scale, new San Diego Padres infielder Luis Arraez ranks dead last in bat speed at 62.4 mph. That didn't slow him down, though, as the former Miami Marlin won back-to-back batting titles in 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile, Stanton has hitting splits of .230/.283/.452.
Swing length
MLB also tracked swing length, which calculates the feet the bat travels during the swing.
Detroit Tigers infielder Javier Báez has MLB's longest swing at 8.7 feet. Stanton isn't far behind Báez, as he ranks second at 8.4 feet.
Once again, Arraez is at the bottom of a Statcast category. His 5.9-foot swing is the shortest in the majors. His slow but short swing is extremely effective, as he squares up (80% of the max attainable exit velocity) on an MLB-leading 43.5% of his swings.
For context, batters hit .372 and slug .659 when they square up a ball.
And, when they don't? Those numbers plummet to a .127 average and .144 slugging percentage.
Blasts
A blast comes when a batter squares up the ball and does so with a minimum amount of bat speed. In other words, it's the most valuable swing in the game.
While stars like the Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and Yankees' Juan Soto rank near the top of the list, no one has more blasts than William Contreras. The Milwaukee Brewers catcher has 58 such swings, eight more than Soto and 10 more than Ohtani, and a 34.5% blast rate, which obliterates the MLB average of 13.7%.
