The Velocity of the Bat: A Cursory Ranking of Hitters with the Highest Bat Speed in MLB. Shown in the diagram is Eric Hosmer’s HR (vbat = 75.9 MPH) in the 11th inning of Game 2 of the ALDS on October 3, 2014.
Of Ted Williams Three-Rules to hit by, the third and final one is “to be quick with the bat” (Williams and Underwood, 1970). Bat speed is not a readily available statistic you can just look up. Most of the info you hear about bat speed is purely anecdotal and generally from the careful eye of hitting coaches.
Bat speed (vbat) can be estimated for HR’s from the equations on the Hosmer diagram. Assuming ecollision = 0.2 for wooden bats (Nathan, 2003), obtaining vexit from HitTracker of Greg Rybarczyk and the ESPN Stats & Information group, and mining the associated vball with that HR from PITCHf/x of BrooksBaseball.net allows you to calculate it.
There are some limitations to this estimation. Since PITCHf/x isn’t complete until the 2008 season, we are limited to the last 7 years of data. Also this is an approximation which uses velocities from two separate measurements. To be clear we are not talking about average angular velocities through the entire swing. The values estimated here are linear velocities which are approximated in a frame of reference very near the bat-ball collision. Enough of the physics, let’s get to the fun stuff.
So now the question is who has the highest consistent bat speed on HR’s in MLB since 2014?, Is it Nelson Cruz who is rocking HR’s early in 2015 in a difficult SAFECO park, Mike Trout who pulled down the AL MVP in 2014, or perhaps Bryce Harper since his swing has been compared so favorably to the Babe (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/sports/bryce-harper-swing-of-beauty/).
No. 1 is Giancarlo Stanton who holds the fastest exit velocity HR ever recorded (May 21, 2012) on HitTracker at 122.4 MPH with a corresponding vbat = 89.9 MPH. If that isn’t impressive enough it was a grand slam too. http://m.mlb.com/video/v21638519/colmia-stanton-crushes-a-grand-slam-down-the-line/?c_id=mlb. According to StatCast, Giancarlo Stanton also has had 2 hits recorded with exit velocities of 120MPH in 2015 attaining vbat = 85-86 MPH on each.
It is one thing to hurl a 5 & ¼ oz fastball at 90 MPH, but to swing a rigid 33 oz (on the average) bat that can be over 3 feet long against even stagnant wind resistance at nearly 90 MPH is crazy to me.
A surprisingly close No. 2 was Edwin Encarnacion who has been generating very high bat velocities on HR’s up in Toronto.
Eric Hosmer came into the show averaging vbat = 70 MPH on HR’s in 2011 and 2012. However something happened before the 2013 offseason, and his has consistently averaged 73 MPH ever since.
Mike Moustakas, though he had a great year for just vbat in 2014, he has typically averaged vbat = 71-72 MPH in other seasons. Also to note Alex Gordon had a vbat = 72.5 MPH in 2014, but is only averaging 69.5 MPH on HR’s in 2015.
The Royals have many things to point to their great success since 2014. But players who bring desired hitting traits such as high like Hosmer and Moose also deserve some recognition.
It should also be noted that this is a cursory list, and there were a few players who were on the cusp such as Jose Bautista, Adam Jones, and Hanley Ramirez. If you have any requests for a player’s vbat let me know @royal_ball
If you like Newtonian mechanics and Galilean transformations, my method is presented below.
Estimation of the velocity of the bat:
The efficiency of the collision between the bat and the ball, ecollision is defined as the ratio of the incoming to exiting ball speed. The * represents a frame of reference in which the bat is at rest. So that, v*ball = vball and v*exit = vexit when vbat = 0 at the collision location. I had the idea for estimating bat speed after I saw the following publication (Nathan, 2003) available here:http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/nathan-papers.html
As Nathan states in this paper, common collision efficiencies, ecollision for wooden bats are 0.2. This allows us to estimate bat speed of HR’s by knowing the exit velocity, vexit (hittrackeronline.com from Greg Rybarczyk and the ESPN Stats & Information group) and the pitched ball velocity, vball on those HR’s (PITCHf/x from BrooksBaseball.net).
It should also be noted that the data presented here for 2015 are only through May 20, 2015
Ted Williams and John Underwood. “The Science of Hitting” Simon & Schuster. New York, NY. 1970.
Alan M. Nathan. (2003) “Characterizing the performance of baseball bats.” Am. J. Phys. Vol. 71(2) pg 134-143.
