The 11 hitters with the fastest bats in MLB

The 11 hitters with the fastest bats in MLB

May 13th, 2024

Who has the best bat speed in Major League Baseball? We can finally answer that question.

Statcast unveiled its all-new bat tracking leaderboard today. For the first time, we can measure hitters' swing speed, swing length, bat path and a whole lot more.

There are a lot of new stats available, but the flagship metric is bat speed, which measures how fast the sweet spot of the bat is moving at the point of contact with the baseball. You can now see every MLB hitter's average bat speed on Baseball Savant.

So let's take a look at the Major League leaders in bat speed for 2024. You're going to like this list. The names certainly match the eye test.

Here are the hitters with the top bat speeds in the big leagues.

1) , Yankees: 80.6 mph

Stanton is the king of bat speed. There's Big G, and then there's everybody else. Stanton is the only hitter in baseball with an average swing speed over 80 mph. Keep in mind that the MLB average swing speed is 72 mph. The threshold for a "fast swing" is 75-plus mph. So we repeat: Stanton is averaging over 80 mph.

An incredible 98% of Stanton's competitive swings qualify as fast swings. No other hitter is even close -- Kyle Schwarber is second in fast-swing rate at 74%. And the 6-foot-6 slugger has generated a bat speed of 80 mph or higher on 121 of his 199 competitive swings this season. That's nearly double anyone else -- Oneil Cruz is next with 66 swings at 80-plus mph.

So it's no wonder that Stanton just hit the two hardest home runs of the 2024 season. On his 119.9 mph homer on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, he had a swing speed of 83.7 mph. On his 118.8 mph homer the day before, he had a swing speed of 85.1 mph. The "Stantonian blast" couldn't exist without his unparalleled bat speed.

2) , Pirates: 77.7 mph

Another giant slugger comes in at No. 2. Cruz, standing 6-foot-7, can reach exit velocities very few hitters can -- he actually has the hardest-hit ball in Statcast history, a 122.4 mph single on Aug. 24, 2022 -- and that's because of his elite bat speed, which is tops among left-handed hitters.

Cruz is second only to Stanton in swings faster than 80 mph. Just look at what he did Saturday. Cruz had a 119.7 mph double -- the second-hardest-hit ball of the year behind Stanton's 119.9 mph homer -- and a 114.1 mph home run, his hardest of the season. Cruz's bat speed on the double was 84.2 mph; on the homer, it was 80.6 mph.

3) , Phillies: 77.0 mph

Schwarber's penchant for crushing no-doubter home runs is the biggest reflection of his top-shelf bat speed. The Phillies slugger has 31 no-doubters since the start of last season -- those are home runs that would be gone at all 30 MLB ballparks -- tied with Shohei Ohtani for the most of any hitter. Schwarber's top-three bat speed powers those balls out of any yard.

He can be a bit all-or-nothing -- Schwarber has one of the fastest bats when he gets a competitive swing off, but he's also among the Major League leaders in "swords," the awkward half-swings when a hitter is badly fooled by a nasty pitch. But when Schwarbs gets ahold of one, he gets ahold of one.

4) , Giants: 76.9 mph

Chapman's bat speed hasn't translated to results yet in his first season with the Giants, and maybe it's a reason for encouragement that he can break out of his early-season slump -- the third baseman isn't struggling because of a slow bat that can't catch up to big league flamethrowers. What he needs is to start connecting his barrel to the baseball.

Chapman has squared the ball up on a very low number of his swings -- which means, essentially, that he's not hitting the ball on the sweet spot of the bat. That's just as important as getting off a fast swing. If you look at hitters like Mookie Betts or Luis Arraez, their success comes from squaring up the ball at an elite rate, not from elite bat speed.

But if Chapman can square up more pitches at his high bat speed, he'll start doing lots of damage. Look at how he turned on an inside fastball from Nick Lodolo and belted a grand slam to the deepest part of left-center field at Oracle Park on Saturday. He's got more swings like that in him.

5) (tie) , Braves: 76.7 mph

Acuña doesn't have the same home run numbers in 2024 as he did in his historic power-speed season in 2023, but his top-tier bat speed shows that the reigning NL MVP probably isn't far off.

What Acuña needs is more "blasts" -- those are swings with both a fast bat speed and squared-up contact. Blasts lead to barrels -- batted balls with optimal exit velocity and launch angle -- and barrels lead to home runs. And Acuña got a big one on Friday, when he crushed a 114.2 mph, 461-foot home run beyond the home run apple at Citi Field against the Mets. His bat speed: 81.0 mph.

5) (tie) , Cubs: 76.7 mph

You might be surprised to see Morel this high on the leaderboard with all the big sluggers around him, but the Cubs third baseman just has great bat speed. That helps explain how Morel can consistently post high barrel rates and hit for the power he does. Morel is tied for fourth in the NL with nine home runs this season, behind only Marcell Ozuna, Teoscar Hernández and Shohei Ohtani, and is on a 30-plus homer pace.

And he has to have a fast bat to turn around a 99.3 mph fastball from Paul Skenes and rope a 108.4 mph line drive up the middle like he did on Saturday. Morel's bat speed on that base hit was 77.6 mph.

7) , Yankees: 76.5 mph

You were probably waiting for Judge's name to pop up. Because for every Stantonian blast, there's a Judgian blast to go with it. The Yankees superstar comes in at No. 7 .

Judge doesn't sell out with every single hack like Stanton does, but the 6-foot-7 slugger's swing is every bit as dangerous. Even though he got off to a slow start by his standards, Judge ranks among the league leaders in blasts, with 44.

And he's had some big swings of late. On his 115.7 mph, 473-foot home run at Yankee Stadium on Thursday -- tied with Mike Trout for the longest of 2024 -- he had a bat speed of 79.4 mph. On his 115.9 mph, 441-foot homer against the Brewers the week before, he had a bat speed of 80.3 mph. And he reached double-digit homers on Sunday, tying him for fourth-most in the AL, with a 78.4 mph swing to go oppo at The Trop against the Rays.

8) , Angels: 76.3 mph

Adell's an interesting one, because the Angels' former top prospect has never really put it together in the big leagues, but with Mike Trout injured, he's currently their best hitter. Adell has a 142 OPS+ this season, the first time the 25-year-old has been above average in his career, and he's ripped some balls in 2024.

Adell's hit three homers with bat speeds over 80 mph -- a 111.9 mph home run with an 81.8 mph bat speed on Friday against the Royals, a 108.1 mph home runs with an 81.4 mph bat speed on April 10 against the Rays and a 108.0 mph home run with an 81.5 mph bat speed on April 27 against the Twins.

9) , Mariners: 76.2 mph

The Mariners' electric power-speed star has been lagging in the home run department, but he's not lagging in the bat speed department. So hopefully it's only a matter of time before J-Rod starts leaving the yard. Rodríguez's bat speed is still translating to hard-hit balls -- he ranks in the 93rd percentile of MLB in average exit velocity at 93.1 mph and in hard-hit rate at 52.3%. He's just not making enough contact to take full advantage right now.

It's hard to believe J-Rod only has two home runs, but even those homers show you what he can do with his fast bat. On April 23, Rodríguez used an 82.7 mph swing to turn on an inside-edge fastball from Dane Dunning and rip a 110.5 mph home run to the second deck at Globe Life Field. Then this Sunday, J-Rod smashed a 109.0 mph homer to straightaway center field in Seattle with a 76.8 mph bat speed.

10) , Yankees: 76.1 mph

Soto in pinstripes has been everything the Yankees dreamed of. He's the early-season AL MVP frontrunner and is the toughest at-bat in baseball. Soto's fast bat and mastery of the strike zone combine to let him cover whatever a pitcher throws at him. He doesn't just have top-10 bat speed in the Majors, he also squares the ball up at one of the highest rates of any hitter, on close to 40% of his swings. And because so many of those swings are fast swings, above the 75 mph threshold, Soto is also one of the very best hitters at blasting the baseball. Nearly one of every four Soto swings results in a blast, second only to William Conteras and just ahead of Shohei Ohtani.

11) , Astros: 76.0 mph

Again, it should shock no one that one of the most dangerous sluggers in baseball has one of the top bat speeds. Like Soto, Alvarez also ranks among the blasts per swing leaders for 2024. He also just had his best swing of the season -- the 116.8 mph home run he ripped off Marcus Stroman at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, which is the fourth-hardest homer of 2024 behind two by Stanton and one by Ohtani. Alvarez's swing speed on that was 83.0 mph.