What new bat speed metrics say about the Diamondbacks

Early this week, the baseball analytics community rejoiced at the sight of new public bat speed metrics on Major League Baseball’s Baseball Savant website.

The concept of bat speed is not new to the sport. It’s just common sense, really: The harder you swing, the farther the ball can travel.

Bat speed is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the speed at which the bat — specifically the sweet spot, in this case — moves through the strike zone. To ensure that oddities such as bunt attempts and check swings do not skew the calculation, average bat speed is determined based on a hitter’s top 90 percent of swings.

So far this year, there is a clear correlation between bat speed and results:

• Bat speed 80+ mph: .332 AVG, .674 SLG
• Bat speed 70-79 mph: .274 AVG, .479 SLG
• Bat speed 0-69 mph: .201 AVG, .252 SLG

Swing harder, do better. That simple, huh? Well, not necessarily.

Among qualified hitters, the highest average bat speed in the majors belongs to New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton at 80.6 mph. The lowest average bat speed belongs to the San Diego Padres’ Luis Arraez at 62.4 mph. (We will get to the Diamondbacks’ leaderboard later on.)

Ironically, Arraez has been a much more valuable hitter than Stanton in recent years. In 2023, Arraez won the batting title with a .354 batting average alongside an .861 OPS. Stanton, meanwhile, hit .191 last year with a .695 OPS. While it is better to have good bat speed than to not have it, it is far from the only thing that matters.

In light of that, Baseball Savant also introduced a metric to track the percentage of swings that result in a “squared-up” ball. According to the site, a ball is squared up if the hitter achieves 80 percent or more of the maximum possible exit velocity for that specific batted ball. That max exit velocity can be calculated based on the hitter’s bat speed on that particular swing and the velocity of the pitch.

Unsurprisingly, the squared-up rate leaderboard includes several top-notch hitters such as Arraez, Betts and Yankees slugger Juan Soto. As is the case with the average bat speed leaderboard, however, not every hitter near the top is among the best in the league.

Ideally, hitters ought to do both: square the ball up often and swing hard in the process. Baseball Savant has a stat for that, too. It is known as a “blast,” and it occurs when a batter squares up a ball and swings 75 mph or harder at the same time.

The blast rate leaderboard is a star-studded list, with a top three of the Milwaukee Brewers’ William Contreras, Soto and Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of public bat speed data is that it will allow us to monitor bat speed changes over time. In particular, this should help us track how well veteran hitters are aging. We cannot do that yet, though, as MLB has only released data for the 2024 season.

For now, there are still plenty of fun tidbits to unpack. Here are some takeaways relating to the Diamondbacks.

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Who is Diamondbacks’ bat speed king?

The most obvious question, of course, is which Diamondbacks player has the highest average bat speed in 2024. The answer is Christian Walker.

Walker’s average bat speed is 74.5 mph, just ahead of Corbin Carroll (74.4 mph) and Joc Pederson (74 mph).

Here is the full leaderboard, including the league average for reference:

Player	Average Bat Speed
Christian Walker	74.5
Corbin Carroll	74.3
Joc Pederson	73.8
Randal Grichuk	73.3
Ketel Marte	73.2
Pavin Smith	73.1
Blaze Alexander	72.7
League average	71.8
Eugenio Suárez	71.5
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	70.5
Gabriel Moreno	70.2
Jake McCarthy	69.1
Tucker Barnhart	67.2
Kevin Newman	66.9

Of the 13 currently active Diamondbacks hitters, seven have above-average bat speed, including the aforementioned trio of Walker, Carroll and Pederson, as well as Randal Grichuk, Ketel Marte, Pavin Smith and Blaze Alexander.

As a team, the Diamondbacks are tied for seventh in baseball in average bat speed, trailing the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers and San Francisco Giants.

Again, though, swinging fast is only part of the picture. If you don’t actually hit the ball — or if you only catch a piece — it doesn’t matter how hard you swing.

Here is a look at how often each D-backs hitter (min. 25 swings) is squaring the ball up (that is, achieving 80 percent or higher of maximum possible exit velocity):

Player	Squared-Up %
Pavin Smith	38.3
Kevin Newman	38.0
Ketel Marte	29.4
Gabriel Moreno	29.0
Randal Grichuk	26.5
League average	26.3
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	22.9
Corbin Carroll	22.7
Eugenio Suárez	22.3
Jake McCarthy	21.7
Joc Pederson	20.5
Blaze Alexander	20.3
Christian Walker	17.3
Tucker Barnhart	15.6

Just four of the Diamondbacks’ 13 active hitters come out above league average here, and only two D-backs hitters — Marte and Smith — are better than the league average in both average bat speed and squared-up swing rate.

That points to a larger storyline: While Diamondbacks hitters as a unit swing harder than most other teams, they have not reaped the full benefit since they haven’t squared balls up as consistently as most other teams.

As a team, the Diamondbacks have a squared-up rate of 24.1 percent, which is tied for 24th in baseball.

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Ketel Marte, switch hitter

As a switch hitter, Ketel Marte really has two separate swings for us to analyze. The difference, it turns out, is significant.

Batting right-handed, Marte’s average bat speed this year is 77.2 mph. Among qualified major leaguers, only Stanton has a more powerful right-handed swing than Marte.

Batting left-handed, Marte’s average bat speed is 71.1 mph. That is below league average.

Not only do those numbers align with the eye test, but they also align with Marte’s hitting stats. This year, Marte has slashed .365/.420/.762 against lefties compared to .245/.290/.391 against righties. Entering play on Wednesday, he had a blistering 95.5 mph average exit velocity batting right-handed compared to a 91.9 mph mark batting left-handed.

One other difference between Marte’s two swings relates to swing length, one of the other hitting metrics that Baseball Savant introduced this week. Swing length measures how far the sweet spot of the bat travels from the start of the swing to the point of impact. Interestingly, Marte’s right-handed swing (7.8 feet) is longer than his left (7.5 feet).

That brings us to our next topic…

Diving into swing length

Here is a rundown of D-backs average swing lengths, from longest to shortest:

Player	Swing Length (ft)
Eugenio Suárez	7.7
Randal Grichuk	7.7
Ketel Marte	7.6
Joc Pederson	7.6
Christian Walker	7.5
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	7.4
Tucker Barnhart	7.4
Pavin Smith	7.4
League average	7.4
Blaze Alexander	7.3
Corbin Carroll	7.1
Gabriel Moreno	7.0
Jake McCarthy	6.9
Kevin Newman	6.7

All other things held equal, a shorter swing is better than a longer swing. Nonetheless, hitters with long swings can still excel. Marte, Pederson and Walker have all had plenty of success at the plate this year despite their longer-than-average swings.

That trio has something else in common, though: They all have above-average bat speed. That helps a lot.

The ideal scenario, of course, is to have both above-average bat speed and below-average swing length. Entering play on Wednesday, only 12 qualified major-leaguers had an average bat speed of 74 mph or higher and a swing length below 7.4 feet.

Corbin Carroll is one of them, alongside several other marquee names:

Player	Avg Bat Speed	Swing Length
Matt Chapman, SF	76.8	7.3
Juan Soto, NYY	76.1	7.3
Jesús Sánchez, MIA	75.6	7.2
Gunnar Henderson, BAL	75.5	7.3
Bobby Witt Jr., KC	75.3	7.0
Elly De La Cruz, CIN	74.9	7.3
Riley Greene, DET	74.6	7.3
Eloy Jiménez, CHW	74.5	7.3
Colton Cowser, BAL	74.3	7.0
Corbin Carroll, ARI	74.3	7.1
William Contreras, MIL	74.3	7.3
Wyatt Langford, TEX	74.0	6.8

Not every player here is a star-level talent, but many of them either are already or seem to be trending that way. The fact that Carroll is on the list reminds us how special his powerful, efficient swing still is, even though the results have not come this year.

fastest Diamondbacks swings of the year

It wouldn’t feel right to conclude a survey of D-backs bat speed metrics without finding the fastest swing by a Diamondbacks hitter this year. Here it is:

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A foul ball! A bit anticlimactic, huh? Entering play on Thursday, that hack by Walker was the 41st-fastest swing recorded in baseball this year at 87 mph. Matt Chapman of the San Francisco Giants owns baseball’s fastest swing of the year at just under 88 mph.

To make things more interesting, we can narrow our search to the fastest swing by a D-backs hitter that actually resulted in a ball in play. That brings us to this 86.6 mph swing by Carroll:

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Bat speed, of course, does its best work when the ball is hit in the air. It only felt right to find the D-backs homer with the highest bat speed this year as well. That belongs to Marte, who whipped his bat through the zone at 85.4 mph on this blast from the right side:

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All this talk of fastest swings of the year led to one final task: finding the fastest swing by each D-backs hitter this season.

It is important to recognize that average bat speed does not say much about how fast players are capable of swinging. It is just the average of their top 90 percent of swings. Depending on a player’s approach at the plate, he may or may not regularly put his full bat speed capabilities on display often.

With that in mind, here is a look at the fastest swing by each D-backs hitter this season (entering play on Wednesday). Average bat speed for each player is included for reference:

Player	Max Bat Speed	Avg Bat Speed
Christian Walker	87.0	74.5
Corbin Carroll	86.9	74.3
Ketel Marte	86.3	73.2
Joc Pederson	85.5	73.8
Blaze Alexander	85.0	72.7
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	83.7	70.5
Pavin Smith	83.6	73.1
Jake McCarthy	83.6	69.1
Randal Grichuk	83.3	73.3
Eugenio Suárez	83.1	71.5
Gabriel Moreno	81.6	70.2
Tucker Barnhart	79.3	67.2
Kevin Newman	77.9	66.9

The largest gap between average and maximum bat speed here belongs to Jake McCarthy. While McCarthy’s average bat speed is on the lower end at 69.1 mph, his maximum is 83.6 mph, roughly in line with that of Gurriel and Suárez, both of whom are considered power hitters. It appears that McCarthy is capable of significantly more bat speed than he typically shows.

The player with the smallest gap between average bat speed and max bat speed is Randal Grichuk. Grichuk’s bat speed has topped out at 83.3 mph this year, which is the fifth-lowest mark on the team, despite his impressive 73.3 mph average bat speed for the season. Perhaps Grichuk’s role as a platoon player who sees favorable matchups often makes him more likely to swing hard.

Of course, we should note that just because, say, Gabriel Moreno’s max bat speed is 81.6 mph this year does not mean that is the fastest he can swing. That is simply the fastest that we have observed so far. In that sense, players with more plate appearances have a definitive advantage, since we are more likely to observe extreme outcomes in larger samples than smaller ones.

That leads to one final point that really can’t be overstated: The sample size here is only about one-fourth of a season. We do not know yet how much data we need to draw reliable conclusions, nor do we really have a handle on how important these metrics are for hitter success.

As is often the case with new baseball stats, we’ll have to learn as we go. Hopefully, we’ll pick up some useful things along the way.

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Top photo: Mitch Stringer/USA TODAY Sports