Boston Red Sox top hitters by Statcast reveals a few surprises

BOSTON, MA - APRIL 5: Hanley Ramirez
BOSTON, MA - APRIL 5: Hanley Ramirez
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Red Sox
BOSTON, MA – APRIL 5: Hanley Ramirez

After a 17-2 franchise-record start was tempered by two straight losses, it’s time to take a closer look at part of what has driven the early success for the Boston Red Sox hitters in 2018. Can they keep mashing at this level?

The Boston Red Sox hitters are looking good in the early going. But exactly how good have they been? Using Statcast data found at Baseball Savant, we’ll take a closer look at the best Red Sox sluggers to this point in the season and how they rank against the rest of the league.

We’ll be using barrels per plate appearance (Brls/PA), which is a measure of high-quality contact. These are balls put into play which have a minimum batting average of .500 and a slugging of 1.500. This is a rate stat, which means players with smaller sample sizes can rate in the top 10. But it is an excellent measure of the quality of contact made in whatever sample we happen to be looking at.

These breakdowns will also include average exit velocity (AvgEV), maximum exit velocity (MaxEV), and balls put into play at 95 MPH or higher (95 MPH+). We’ll throw in a few standard stats as well as wRC+ and triple slash lines, and list them in reverse order of wRC+.

Missed the cut.

Hitters to not make this list include Christian Vazquez, Jackie Bradley Jr., Brock Holt, Blake Swihart, and Sandy Leon due to the fact that they are currently all below league average hitter. In some cases, well under. Tzu-Wei Lin has also been excluded because he does not have enough PA to qualify for Baseball Savant’s leaderboard.

Of note, Jackie Bradley Jr. has 8.3 Brls/PA which ranks 57th in baseball despite his 91 wRC+. His AvgEV is a very healthy 90.2 MPH so we can expect him to start seeing better results soon. Brock Holt has an AvgEV of 87.6 MPH and 2.4 Brls/PA. Christian Vazquez has none and an AvgEV of 88 MPH. Neither Swihart nor Leon appears on Baseball Savant’s leaderboard.