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Average bat speed, fast swing rate, squared-up percentage and blasts. Thanks to Major League Baseball, those are all new, publicly accessible numbers and statistics that can be found on Baseball Savant.
On Sunday, those new numbers, along with a few others, were released for every hitter who has swung a bat in the majors this season. The new bat tracking data has led to some conversations about what these numbers mean, along with how they can be, and will be, used moving forward. Eno Sarris of The Athletic wrote about just that and more on Monday.
For the Phillies, these new numbers have revealed new information on each of their players’ respective swings.
Kyle Schwarber has one of the best average bat speeds in the big leagues this season at 77 mph. Only Giancarlo Stanton (80.6 mph) and Oneil Cruz (77.7 mph) swing the bat faster on average. The average bat speed in the majors is 72 mph. Schwarber is also second among qualified hitters in fast swing rate at 73.9%. A fast swing is produced when a player’s bat speed registers at at least 75 mph.
Of the new statistics that come from bat tracking data, the number of square-ups and blasts a hitter produces might be the most important and useful.
For a ball to be considered squared-up by Statcast, it must reach a certain exit velocity. For a ball to be considered a blast by Statcast, it must be squared-up and make contact with the bat swung at a minimum speed. In each case, certain thresholds must be met. Squared-up swings are good; blasts are even better.
In the first month of this season, squared-up balls produced a .371 batting average and .656 slugging percentage. Meanwhile, blasts produced a .545 batting average and 1.116 slugging percentage.
When it comes to squared-up and blast percentages, Alec Bohm has been one of the best hitters in baseball so far. The Phillies’ third baseman leads his club in both squared-up (41.4%) and blast percentage (21.5%) when making contact. Those marks rank 15th and 19th among qualified hitters this year. These numbers can help better explain Bohm’s good start, along with his bat speeds.
In the season’s first month, fast swings produced a .307 batting average and .603 slugging percentage. Bohm’s average bat speed is right around the league average (72.2 mph). His fast swing rate is 22.9%.
But just because a player swings the bat hard, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be a good hitter. And just because a player’s average bat speed is slow, doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be a good hitter.
Take Bryson Stott, for example. His average bat speed this year is 66.9 mph — 213th of 220 qualified hitters. He also hasn’t produced a single fast swing. But that hasn’t stopped him from coming up big in the batter’s box of late.
Entering Monday, Stott had slashed .333/.460/.625 over his last 15 games. During that time, his average bat speed remained 66.9 mph. But because he was still able to square-up pitches, he produced. Stott’s squared-up rate when making contact over those 15 games was 36.9% — 69th among qualified hitters during that stretch. Stott’s hot streak continued on Monday. He played hero in the Phillies extra-innings win over the Mets by going 2-for-4 with a home run and driving in the game-winning run with a sacrifice fly.
Embed from Getty ImagesAs a team, the Phillies’ average bat speed (71.5 mph) ranks 14th among big-league clubs, while their 33.2% squared-up rate and 14.6% blast rate when making contact rank 17th and 9th, respectively.
These new numbers are only part of the equation when it comes to understanding hitters and their swings. They do, however, offer more information that can be used to better understand how, and why, certain hitters are performing the way they are.
Moving forward, it’s possible fans will see, read and hear about these new numbers when taking in baseball content. It’s not required, but it could be important to have a basic understanding of them, especially for the next time you visit Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies have started displaying more advanced metrics on their new out-of-town scoreboard in right field. Maybe they’ll start to incorporate things like average swing speed and blast rate on it throughout the summer.
