Attempting to determine who has the sting within the T-Cell Dwelling Run Derby? This is a brand new means to have a look at the sector: with Statcast’s new bat pace leaderboard.
Bat monitoring is all new for the 2024 season, and we are able to use it to see which of the eight sluggers in Monday’s Derby at Globe Life Area have been producing the quickest swings coming into the competition.
Why would bat pace matter for the Dwelling Run Derby? Properly, greater bat speeds translate to greater exit velocities, and better exit velocities translate to extra distance — assuming the Derby sluggers are all in a position to sq. up the ball on the barrel of the bat, which, contemplating these are elite hitters getting fed batting apply pitching, they in all probability will. So slightly additional bat pace would possibly make the distinction in just a few additional balls leaving the yard.
By dwelling run totals, the order of the 2024 Dwelling Run Derby contestants goes like this: Gunnar Henderson (28), Marcell Ozuna (26), José Ramírez (23), Teoscar Hernández (19), Pete Alonso (19), Adolis García (17), Bobby Witt Jr. (16) and Alec Bohm (11).
However their bat pace ranks look slightly totally different.
2024 Dwelling Run Derby area ranked by bat pace
MLB common bat pace: 72 mph
Let’s take a better look. Listed here are three Dwelling Run Derby bat pace favorites, and one Derby bat pace sleeper.
Season bat pace: 75.8 mph
Quick swing price (% of swings 75+ mph): 61.4%
Avg. bat pace on HR: 77.2 mph
Henderson is the one participant on this yr’s Dwelling Run Derby who has a top-10 bat pace within the Majors, interval.
He is in the identical prime tier of bat pace as Aaron Choose and Shohei Ohtani, his fellow stars on the prime of MLB’s dwelling run leaderboard.
Henderson, like Choose and Ohtani, is a grasp at turning his elite bat pace into harmful swings. They’re three of the highest 4 hitters in Statcast’s new “blasts” stat — a swing that mixes a excessive bat pace with squared-up contact on the barrel of the bat. A blast is the probably swing to be a house run. However solely Henderson is within the Dwelling Run Derby.
On his dwelling run swings — the kind of swing you would possibly anticipate him to placed on the ball fairly persistently in a Dwelling Run Derby — Henderson’s bat pace jumps to 77.2 mph, the best among the many 2024 Derby area.
This is his quickest dwelling run swing of the yr: 80.8 mph bat pace to take Phillies ace Zack Wheeler deep to left-center. If he can try this in opposition to a 97 mph fastball from the most effective pitchers in baseball, think about what Henderson can do in a Dwelling Run Derby.
Season bat pace: 75.0 mph
Quick swing price: 51.5%
Avg. bat pace on HR: 76.4 mph
Alonso is a King of the Dwelling Run Derby — he is a two-time champion, and the all-time chief in Derby dwelling runs with 195. We do not have bat monitoring for Alonso’s Derby wins in 2019 and ’21, however the brand new knowledge is a reasonably sturdy indication of how Polar Bear Pete has grow to be one of many all-time greats of the occasion.
In addition to Henderson, Alonso is the one 2024 Derby participant whose common swing is a “quick swing,” as he sits proper on the 75 mph mark for the season, with over half his swings reaching that threshold.
He is linked on just a few dwelling runs with bat speeds of 80-plus mph, together with this blast off Padres ace Dylan Stop at Citi Area, the place he had an 80.0 mph swing on the dot.
Season bat pace: 74.6 mph
Quick swing price: 48.7%
Avg. bat pace on HR: 76.2 mph
The parallels between Henderson and Witt — two of the sport’s most enjoyable younger shortstop phenoms — prolong to their quick bats.
Witt’s compact swing packs unimaginable energy. He has the shortest swing of any 2024 Derby contestant, 7.1 toes (that is how far the barrel of the bat travels from the beginning of his swing to the purpose of contact), however the third-highest bat pace.
A brief swing would not actually matter for the Dwelling Run Derby, with its batting-practice pitching, but when Witt actually lets it rip on Monday, he would possibly generate even greater bat speeds than typical, and ship the baseballs flying even farther.
However even along with his typical swing, he is obtained the bat pace to win. Witt’s one in every of eight hitters (together with Henderson) with over 100 “blast” swings this season — none greater than this 80.7 mph swing he used to crush a 111 mph, 468-foot dwelling run into the fountain at Kauffman Stadium, his quickest dwelling run swing and longest dwelling run of the yr.
Ramírez ranks lifeless final in bat pace among the many 2024 Dwelling Run Derby area. However that does not consider one main issue: He is a switch-hitter. And his Derby efficiency might come all the way down to which facet of the plate he bats from.
The Guardians star batted righty within the 2022 Dwelling Run Derby (partly as a result of a proper thumb damage that hampered his left-handed swing) and was eradicated within the first spherical by Juan Soto. So that you would possibly anticipate him to show round and bat lefty in 2024.
However J-Ram’s bat pace, a minimum of in video games, is definitely a lot greater from the suitable facet than it’s from the left facet. Ramírez as a right-handed hitter really has upper-tier bat pace.
Ramírez’s bat pace by plate facet
Season bat pace as RHB: 74.1 mph (as LHB: 70.3 mph)
Quick swing price as RHB: 37.8% (as LHB: 9.9%)
Avg. bat pace on HR as RHB: 77.5 mph (as LHB: 72.1 mph)
In case you simply take a look at Ramírez as a right-handed hitter solely, he’d rank within the prime half of the Derby area in bat pace total, and No. 1 in bat pace on dwelling runs. His 4 quickest dwelling run swings of the season have all been as a righty, like this 80.6 mph swing to go deep in opposition to the Royals:
Ramírez says he’ll see which facet of the plate feels higher at Globe Life Area earlier than he makes his Dwelling Run Derby resolution — however possibly he ought to let his bat pace make the choice for him.