On Monday, baseball nerds everywhere celebrated Baseball Nerd Christmas, that most special of holidays. Baseball Savant released new metrics for public consumption, and they’re absolutely fascinating. You can read about the details at the official MLB site, but the short explanation is that we can now compare player bat speeds. Teams have had this data for a while, but we’ve been stuck relying on the ol’ eyeball test. Two things can be true at the same time: Eyes are perhaps the most amazing evolutionary development in the history of sentient life, and they’re also lying liars that lie.
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So let’s review the new bat-tracking metrics. Is there anything we can take away from them? A “takeaway,” if you will?
The Giants have two of the hardest swings in baseball … but there’s a catch
I was originally going to write that the Giants have two of the hardest swingers in baseball, but I caught myself. The hardest swingers in baseball history belong to the Yankees, and that will never be challenged. The Yankees also have Giancarlo Stanton, who’s a freakish outlier in all of these metrics. A true swinger.
But Jorge Soler and Matt Chapman swing the bat harder than almost anyone else in baseball. Soler has the 15th-highest bat speed in the majors. Chapman has the fourth-highest bat speed, and you can read Baggs and Eno on why that’s important. Highly recommended.
However, the new metrics aren’t just sharing the speed of a bat through the zone. They’re also taking the speed of the bat and matching it up with the velocity of the pitch thrown to the hitters. With those two numbers, you can extrapolate the maximum exit velocity that physics will allow. The difference between the maximum exit velocity possible and the actual exit velocity is what MLB calls the “squared-up rate.”
Squared-up rate is what reminds us that it’s possible to swing a bat as hard as possible while still not taking great or productive swings. Soler, in particular, isn’t making good contact, despite whipping his bat through the zone with more velocity and violence than Shohei Ohtani. The bat is going fast, but the ball isn’t leaving the bat as fast as expected, considering the swing and velocity of the pitch.
I’d rather start with the bat speed than not, though. Something to note is that we don’t have the data from last season, so we can’t compare Soler’s data with what he was doing last year, but my guess — and it’s definitely just a guess — is that maximum bat velocity stays (mostly) static, while squared-up rate ebbs and flows with the cleanliness of a batter’s swing at that particular moment. Soler might have the same physical components that he did last season, but there’s a ghost in the machine that’s preventing the ball from jumping off his bat the same way.
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That doesn’t mean it’s an easy fix. Just that there’s at least one part going right.
LaMonte Wade Jr. has a short, short swing, which explains a whole lot
Another thing the lasers track is swing length. This is defined as the start of a swing to contact with the baseball. There are a lot of batters who prioritize short swings over power, and they benefit greatly from it. Javier Báez has the longest swing length in baseball, and jeepers creepers, it isn’t working out for him at the moment. (Soler’s swing isn’t that much shorter, to be fair.)
Some of the shorter swings in baseball are high-average, high-variance batters like Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan. We knew they were freaks and outliers before this data, and now it’s extra-super-duper confirmed. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, which is a saying that hasn’t gotten less weird over time.
Wade, though, stands out in this class. His swing is short, short, short, but he’s also putting a charge into the ball that others aren’t. Check out the 10 shortest swings along with the average bat speed of each batter. Blue indicates below the league average, and salmon/red means above the league average.
Wade is up there with someone who has received plenty of MVP votes. Wade’s square-up rate is lacking, which would explain the difference between his world-leading OBP and his merely cool SLG, but this is the platonic ideal of an ultra-patient hitter. Spit on the bad pitches, then attack the good pitches with a violence that few others can approach.
Wade’s incredible start to the 2024 season is something that makes you want to look for data that he’s an outlier in some capacity. Here’s some data. He doesn’t make a lot of bad swing decisions, and when he decides to swing, he has one of the quickest and shortest swings around. It’s a combination to believe in.
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Jung Hoo Lee is different
This would have been a much, much cooler section if Lee hadn’t dislocated his shoulder on Sunday. Still, this helps explain a few things.
Lee’s .641 OPS is the same as Manny Trillo’s in 1984. It’s the OPS that Brad Hennessey had in 2005. It’s a bad OPS, all things considered. Yet Lee was one of the better baseball players on the field at any given time, at least according to the ol’ eyeball test. It’s been an incredibly surreal experience to watch a player over an entire month and think, “This guy’s got it figured out,” while looking at an OPS that’s similar to a backup catcher. If you think that’s hyperbole, here are some seasons from Giants catchers with an OPS between .630 and .650:
• Edwards Guzmán, (.647), 2001
• Eliézer Alfonzo (.643), 2007
• Bengie Molina (.644), 2010, cleanup hitter in a lost season
• Bob Melvin (.646), 1988
Wonder whatever happened to Melvin. Probably has an Etsy shop, selling handmade bracelets or something.
So that’s the company Lee was keeping. Except that I, as a stats-fearing, newfangled baseball writer was convinced that Lee was an excellent hitter, and that the OPS would just keep rising and rising. Without evidence. Just vibes.
Score one for the vibes. When Lee was a free agent, all of the profiles mentioned the same names. Steven Kwan, Luis Arraez. Luis Arraez, Steven Kwan. The two most anomalous players in baseball, with bat-to-ball skills that couldn’t be taught. That’s the kind of player who can thrive with a high-contact, gap-to-gap approach. But it’s a tricky needle to thread.
Except Lee has been much more than that. His average bat speed is much higher than that of both Arraez and Kwan — Lee’s above Freddie Freeman and closer to the top five bat speeds in baseball than Arraez. The biggest takeaway with Lee is that he has one of the quickest swings in baseball, which means he’s doing the most with what he has. If you’re skeptical, note that he’s right behind Juan Soto and Mookie Betts. Short swings with quality results. That’s the dream.
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When it comes to all of the available metrics — exit velocity, bat speed, squared-up rate — it’s clear that Lee doesn’t belong in the Kwan-Arraez bucket. He’s something more than that. I’ll give him my shoulder if it will help. Here, take my shoulder. I can play “Slay the Spire” with my toes at this point. TAKE MY SHOULDER.
(Photo of Wade: Robert Edwards / USA Today)
