Boston Red Sox best hitters by Statcast reveal a few surprises

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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.

Eduardo Nunez

Brls/PA – 1.4
AvgEV – 86.5 MPH
MaxEV – 104.9 MPH
95 MPH+ – 17
wRC+ – 107
.269/.319/.448

Nunez has kicked off a fine follow up to his 2017 season. He’s been a slightly above average hitter with similar pop to last year but has seen a drop in his BABIP from .333 to .281. As a career .307 BABIP hitter, you can expect that to improve a bit going forward which will bring all of his triple slash numbers up.

As a slightly better than league average bat with the ability to play passable defense at most positions on the diamond, he’s holding his own so far.

Andrew Benintendi

Brls/PA – 2.5
AvgEV – 87.2 MPH
MaxEV – 107.7 MPH
95 MPH+ – 19
wRC+ – 108
.243/.365/.400

Andrew Benintendi is still trying to get things going in 2018. His wRC+ is up a little bit from last season, but his slugging suggests he’s not driving the ball quite as well. This is mostly due to a drop in BABIP, like Nunez, which should improve going forward. His 2017 season BABIP was an almost perfect league average at .301. So far in 2018, it’s .267 which is a significant drop.

His Brls/PA are down from 4.0, but his AvgEV and MaxEV are similar at 87.1 MPH and 108.6 MPH respectively. If the BABIP comes up to league average, expect Benintendi to look similar to the hitter he was last year for the Red Sox.

Rafael Devers

Brls/PA – 3.5
AvgEV – 93.5 MPH
MaxEV – 113.1 MPH
95 MPH+ – 25
wRC+ – 112
.284/.344/.469

Devers burst onto the scene in 2017 displaying some incredibly advanced hitting skills, including the ability to hit for power. His MaxEV in 2017 was 112.3 MPH which is just hard enough to suggest elite ability. He’s already topped that with a blast at 113.1 MPH. His AvgEV is 4.2 MPH from last season, suggesting he’s making quality contact more frequently.

He may have been struggling to adjust to major league breaking pitches in 2017, so seeing a higher AvgEV is encouraging. His average launch angle is up to 13.6 degrees from 8.6 last year, which coincides with a drop in dribbler rate from 29.5% to 13.1%. He’s still hitting more ground balls than you’d like to see from someone with his ability to hit for power to all fields, but the overall results are still there.

He appears to be taking a step forward. How big of one is still a question, but it will certainly be fun watching that unfold over the next few months.

J.D. Martinez

Brls/PA – 18.2
AvgEV – 95.4 MPH
MaxEV – 112.6 MPH
95 MPH+ – 31
wRC+ – 136
.307/.333/.560

The Boston Red Sox slugger was their prized free agent acquisition this winter. Brought in to add the middle of the order threat the team lacked in 2017, Martinez has done exactly what he was paid to do. His Brls/PA is 1st in the majors, he’s 6th in AvgEV, his 112.6 MPH blast is the 57th hardest MaxEV of the year, and he’s tied for 7th in balls hit 95 MPH or harder. While his wRC+ isn’t tops in the game, his league-leading Brls/PA suggests there may be some room for improvement in his results on balls in play, despite his .400 BABIP.

No one in baseball is making high-quality contact more often than Martinez, and few are hitting the ball as hard as often. This is what the Red Sox were looking for when they signed him. And with the improvements from the four top hitters on this list, we could be in for a wild ride this summer.

Hanley Ramirez

Brls/PA – 7.7
AvgEV – 92.2 MPH
MaxEV – 117.5 MPH
95 MPH+ – 27
wRC+ – 137
.314/.372/.500

Hanley Ramirez has the second hardest hit baseball of the season at 117.5 MPH. That’s just .4 MPH behind the leader, Aaron Judge. His 92.2 MPH AvgEV is 34th in the majors. He’s got 3 HR and 3 SB so far, and his 137 wRC+ has him tied for 45th in the majors with Jose Ramirez and Matt Davidson.

In short, this is what a healthy Hanley can do. The question, as always, is whether he’ll stay healthy all season and that, unfortunately, is much harder to stay confident about. That said, he’s been absolutely smoking the ball so far, and if this continues, expect the next guy to continue to scrape for PAs despite his success.

Mitch Moreland

Brls/PA – 8.9
AvgEV – 93.8 MPH
MaxEV – 114.3 MPH
95 MPH+ – 20
wRC+ – 171
.349/.408/.605

Mitch Moreland is on a hot streak. As great as it is to see him with the 17th best wRC+ in baseball, he’s not quite this good. For his career, he is an almost perfectly league average hitter at a 99 wRC+, and his BABIP is an unsustainable .371 when compared to his career .287. So regression is coming.

That said, he’s been an incredibly productive hitter so far with the 24th hardest MaxEV of the season and the 15th highest AvgEV. Mitchy-Two Bags his hitting the ball well and is doing so hard enough to suggest he’s fully recovered from the injuries that plagued him in 2017.

While that doesn’t mean he’s going to be a Mike Trout-level hitter going forward, it could mean a solidly above average year from him in a part-time role, a la Mike Carp in 2013. Doing so while providing excellent defense could make Moreland one of the best bench assets in the game.

Xander Bogaerts

Brls/PA – 15.0
AvgEV – 92.8 MPH
MaxEV – 111.2 MPH
95 MPH+ – 15
wRC+ – 199
.368/.400/.711

Xander Bogaerts was one of the best hitters of the season when he went down with an ankle injury. Thankfully it wasn’t too severe, and he could rejoin the team next week. Bogaerts has the third highest Brls/PA in the league, the 28th highest AvgEV and his wRC+ would rank 6th, just ahead of Mike Trout if he had enough PAs to qualify.

This is the Bogaerts most of us have dreamed of since he charged through the minors and landed in Boston late in 2013. He has excellent contact skills and hits the ball for massive power. Hopefully, he can continue crushing the ball when he gets back on the field even if his .414 BABIP means there’s regression due.

Mookie Betts

Brls/PA – 16.5
AvgEV – 93.0 MPH
MaxEV – 110.6 MPH
95 MPH+ – 33
wRC+ – 215
.366/.459/.732

Over the winter the biggest question in Boston, other than “When will J.D. Martinez sign?” was “Would the real Mookie Betts, please stand up?”

In 2016 he finished the year second in MVP voting behind Mike Trout with a 137 wRC+, 31 HR and 26 SB. He followed that in 2017 with a 108 wRC+, 24 HR and 26 SB. So which guy was going to show up for 2018?

It appears that 2016 Mookie is back, and maybe more. After making some changes to his swing and approach, Betts is out of the gate as arguably the best hitter in baseball.

His 215 wRC+ is second in baseball to Christian Villanueva; he ranks second in Brls/PA, 24th in AvgEV and 6th in balls hit 95 MPH or harder.

While there is regression coming, it might not be as much as you think. His BABIP is only .345 which is just 44 points higher than his career rate. What’s more is he’s sporting a career-high AvgEV while having a career low GB%.

Will Mookie Betts rise even higher for the Boston Red Sox?

Since the hardest contact comes from balls hit 0-10 degrees, that jump in exit velocity is an incredibly good sign. In fact, 47.7% of his contact has been in the 10-26 degree range so his gaudy wRC+ may be more sustainable than not.

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We could be in for a breakout year from the young superstar, which is a weird thing to say about someone who nearly won an MVP two years ago. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see him set career highs in all three slash stats, wRC+ and HR when we’re all said and done.

Add it all up and what does it mean?

For those not keeping count at home, the Red Sox look incredibly good through Statcast data. Their hitter ranks among the top 50 in the following are:

Brls/PA: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 47th
AvgEV: 6th, 15th, 17th, 24th, 28th, 35th
MaxEV: 2nd, 24th, 41st
wRC+: 2nd, 6th (Bogaerts not qualified), 47th, 49th

Next: Derek Jeter drilled by Bryant Gumbel on Marlins tank-job

That’s a whole lot of hard, quality contact and that’s before Andrew Benintendi has gotten things going or Dustin Pedroia has laced up the cleats for the first time. This Boston Red Sox offense was supposed to be good enough coming into the year. It may be way better than that and should be firmly within the discussion for the best offense in the game when the season wraps up.

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