MLB stats: Combining contact and exit velocity for MLB’s hardest hitters
By Bill Felber
These 25 players are the MLB’s best at combining velocity off the bat with consistent contact
Because it quantifies how hard a player hits the ball, exit velocity is one of the most informative of MLB’s new statistics. Anybody who has spent any time at all at third base understands the difference between fielding a routine ground ball and fielding a rocket.
The statistic is pretty straightforward. It’s a measure of the average velocity of the ball off the bat. In general, hitters recognized as among MLB’s elite hit the ball harder than “average” players.
The Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton, for example, is famous – pitchers might say notorious – for his exit velocity. In 2018, he averaged 93.7 mph off the bat. In all of baseball, only two hitters exceeded that. They were Joey Gallo, at 93.9, and Stanton’s teammate, Aaron Judge, 94.7.
However, exit velocity remains imperfect in performing its mission. Its essential flaw is that it only factors in balls that are actually hit. Exit velocity ignores the increasingly common instances when a batter strikes out. In assessing batter performance, this can lead to false readings.
Gallo’s 93.9 mph exit velocity for the 2018 Rangers only considers the 293 times when he made contact. But Gallo had 500 official at-bats in 2018, in 41 percent of them his exit velocity didn’t average 93.9 mph; it averaged zero mph because he fanned.
A true valuation of a player’s Exit Velocity Per At Bat cannot ignore those results.
Below we’ve identified the 25 players who, during the 2018 season, had the highest Exit Velocity Per At Bat. The calculation is simple. Multiply each player’s exit velocity by the number of times he actually hit the ball, and divide the result by total at bats.
(One note of clarification: In this rating, we use official at-bats rather than plate appearances in order to provide a measurement structure that is identical to the one used to calculate exit velocity.)
To use Giancarlo Stanton as an example, his 93.7 mph exit velocity came on 406 batting contacts. 406 x 93.7 = 38,042.2. Stanton had 617 official at-bats. 38,042.2 / 617 = 61.7. That makes Stanton’s Exit Velocity Per At Bat 61.7 mph.
For point of reference, the average major league Exit Velocity Per At Bat is about 68 mph.
This top 25 list will underscore the brilliance of some players while casting a few occasionally overlooked ones – such as the major league’s No. 1 in Exit Velocity Per At Bat – in an entirely new light.