For years, MLB hitters have been taught to hit the ball hard and in the air.
Numbers show that a hard-hit ball that has been lifted and in an ideal launch angle leads to the best results.
MLB, or Statcast to be more specific, has been able to measure how hard balls are hit for a few years now.
How about how hard hitters swing?
That’s a new one.
Of course, as you probably expected, New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton leads the league in average bat speed, Statcast’s newest tool to measure how hard a batter swings.
“Giancarlo Stanton leads the league in Statcast’s new Average Bat Speed metric!” the league tweeted, with some of the leaders in the new category.
Giancarlo Stanton leads the league in Statcast’s new Average Bat Speed metric! pic.twitter.com/wV1tUrZ1CH
— MLB (@MLB) May 13, 2024
At 80.6 mph on average, Stanton takes the crown here.
It’s not surprising because he is the owner of some of the hardest-hit balls in the Statcast era.
As you know, the harder you swing, the harder you will hit the ball: it’s not rocket science, but actually achieving those 75+ mph bat speed numbers is very, very difficult.
In fact, aside from not seeing Cincinnati Reds star Elly De La Cruz here, the entire leaderboard should surprise absolutely no one.
Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Oneil Cruz is second, generating 77.7 mph of bat speed on average.
We also see stars such as Kyle Schwarber, Matt Chapman, and fellow Yankees stars Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.
Right now the Yanks have all three bat speed demons – Stanton, Soto, Judge – healthy and producing.
That’s awful news for the rest of the league.
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