MINNEAPOLIS — Not all bat speeds are created equal, but for the first time, they are available for public consumption.
Major League Baseball, via Baseball Savant, made bat speed data publicly available this week, pulling back the curtain a bit on one aspect of hitters’ skill sets — and it is just one piece of the puzzle, not the end-all, be-all, as the data made clear.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Yankees have three of the top 10 hitters in average bat speed with Giancarlo Stanton well above the rest at 80.6 mph (ranking second was Pirates shortstop Oneil Cruz at 77.8 mph), Aaron Judge seventh at 76.5 mph and Juan Soto rounding out the top 10 at 76 mph.
At the other end of the spectrum, Alex Verdugo has the 12th-slowest average bat speed of 221 qualified hitters at 67.6 mph, but makes up for it with the third-shortest swing to be productive.
