Early 2025 Hitter Average Bat Speed Risers and Fallers

Last year, the team at Baseball Savant blessed us with a cornucopia of new bat tracking metrics. One of those shiny new numbers was hitter average bat speed, which measures the speed at which a hitter swings. Last year, there was a robust 0.70 correlation between average bat speed and HR/FB rate among qualified hitters. That’s significant! Since average bat speed requires only a few swings to become predictive, it’s a great stat to monitor early on when small sample caveats apply to nearly every other metric. This might end up being a strong power breakout predictor before the power breakout actually occurs! On the flipside, perhaps a meaningful decline suggests disappointing output.

So let’s now review the hitters who have seen their average bat speeds increase and decrease the most compared to last year.

Vinnie Pasquantino! I knew there was a reason he graced the cover of my first base rankings. It’s really cool to see him atop the gainers so far this year. That’s because back in 2023, his season was cut short when he had to undergo surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder in mid-June. Shoulder injuries are notorious for sapping power (and pitcher velocity), so it wasn’t a big surprise when he failed to increase his HR/FB rate or ISO in 2024. Now further removed from the surgery, seeing his average bat speed jump by this amount already is huge. It suggests that perhaps he was still recovering last year and his power was slow to return. I was already a fan given his unique skill set for a power hitter, but now my confidence in a big breakout has increased.

Could this finally be the season that Bryce Harper breaks out?! Kidding, kidding. It’s surprising to find his name ranked second here, but I guess small sample sizes can still plague this metric.

Brett Baty was last ranked as the Mets second best prospect and 19th overall, with 50/60 Game Power and 70/70 Raw Power grades. But his power has been non-existent so far in about a season’s worth of MLB PAs, so his disappointing performance combined with Mark Vientos‘ coming out party last year made him an afterthought. A Jeff McNeil injury and strong spring training performance gave him another chance as the team’s starting second baseman. The early bat speed returns suggest that something may have indeed clicked and he’ll look more like what was originally expected than how he has looked the past couple of years. With no speed and a batting average likely to hurt, he’s still more than a deeper mixed league guy, but the power upside looks more likely to materialize than in the past.

We only have average bat speed data since the second half of 2023, but Andrew Benintendi hadn’t recorded a mark above 68 MPH since, which is well below the league average (71.5 MPH). At the very least, this jump suggests that he’s completely healthy now after suffering a fractured right hand last year. Unfortunately, he still plays in a weak lineup and last year his speed completely evaporated. So there’s not a whole lot of fantasy excitement here.

Well hey, maybe Daniel Schneemann could wrestle away that second base job from Gabriel Arias if this early bat speed gain proves sustainable.

Willi Castro with power?! With a pair of infielders on the IL, the Twins have started Castro at second base in all three games so far. He already owns speed, stealing 33 bases in 2023 and 14 last year, so adding power would make him a real nice power/speed combo producer. What’s interesting here is that he has surprisingly posted consistently strong maxEV marks each year. However, with only mid-single digit Barrel% marks, those hard-hit balls haven’t translated to home runs. Perhaps this is the year that changes.

Holy cow Junior Caminero! That’s the second highest average this season and third highest when including 2024. It certainly explains how he was graded with elite 70/80 Raw Power scores. I would have loved to own him this year, but sadly, seemingly everyone else did too, raising his price far above what his projections valued him at. His power upside looks stratospheric though, so it’s certainly possible he not only earns his draft day cost, but delivers some profit as well.

Pete Crow-Armstrong is already an elite defender and stole 27 bases last year in just 30 attempts. Only a 9% HR/FB rate and .148 ISO highlighted one of his weaknesses though. This year, his increased average bat speed hints at more power coming, which could perhaps suddenly give him 20/40 upside. That would make him quite profitable for those who rostered him.

After a strong small sample in 2023, Logan O’Hoppe’s power dipped last year, even though his average bat speed actually rose slightly compared to 2023. If this new and improved bat speed is maintained, there’s a good chance he can get back to the 20%+ HR/FB rate plateau, putting him back into the conversation of best fantasy catcher.

Alejandro Kirk’s best skill is his contact ability. I love these types of guys because you already know they can control the strike zone, so it’s just a matter of them taking that knowledge and turning it into more power. Kirk’s HR/FB rate and ISO have declined every single season, but his HardHit%, maxEV and Barrel% tell a story of more stable power. This is the type of second catcher to speculate on with your fingers crossed this increased bat speed sticks.

Hmmm, the quotes I read suggest average bat speed only needs a couple of swings to be meaningful, and yet here’s Juan Soto as the league’s biggest faller! That could either be super scary for Mets fans and Soto owners, or the metric still subject to small sample randomness, even if on the whole it generally only needs a couple of swings to stabilize. I wouldn’t worry here, though I’m curious to return to these numbers in a month to see what has changed and what has stuck.

I’ll just take this opportunity to question William Contreras’ batted ball distribution. It’s heavy on grounders and light on both line drives and fly balls. It’s super weird for a power hitter, and a guy who has routinely posted .300+ BABIPs, as you would expect a higher LD%, at least around the league average. It makes me question how sustainable that BABIP is, especially as his speed declines due to aging.

Funny to see the strong side of the Mets second base platoon on the risers list and the weak side, Luisangel Acuña, on the fallers list. Acuña has big speed and hasn’t shown much power, so right now, a loss of bat speed doesn’t matter all that much. This is particularly true given he doesn’t figure to get much playing time.

Colt Keith’s power was quite disappointing last year in his rookie debut, so it’s not great to see his bat speed down so much already. Perhaps that explains his 41.7% strikeout rate and 17.5% SwStk% so far. With limited speed, his owners are hoping this is just a small sample blip and his power will improve from last year.

With no speed anymore, owners need Orlando Arcia to produce mid-teen power again, especially considering his batting average has been weak during multiple seasons. He’s not at an age you’d suddenly expect a sharp decrease, so this is probably just small sample size noise.

Mike Yastrzemski hasn’t been able to replicate his 2019 debut HR/FB rate, as he’s been stuck in the low double digits for the last three seasons. With little speed and a strong side platoon role capping his plate appearances, he’s become the definition of a replacement level outfielder in shallow 12-team mixed leagues. Now that he’s batting at the bottom of the Giants order, he’s no longer a guy you plug in to replace an injured slot with the hopes of a homer or two, as there are likely better options available.

Martín Maldonado is still playing?! His power completely collapsed last year, so it’s very possible that he’s just cooked.

It’s pretty incredible that one-time uber prospect Jurickson Profar finally had his coming out party at age 31 last year. It was mostly a combination of career best BABIP, HardHit%, and Barrel% marks, and xwOBA suggests his results were deserved. That doesn’t mean he’ll repeat, of course. We’ll see if this early drop in bat speed is the foreshadowing of a disappointing season.

Brandon Lowe homered yesterday so I wonder how much his bat speed may have increased if that game was included. I was hoping to roster him given his new home park, but I had more bidding competition than I expected and failed to land him anywhere. Assuming the bat speed doesn’t remain an issue, we could see him return to the 20%+ HR/FB rate plateau.

Gee golly, this was not the start for Rafael Devers his owners expected. Figures as this is the first time I’ve ever owned him, and he ends up opening the season by striking out 12 times in 18 PAs! His season ended slightly immaturely last year due to shoulder issues, which didn’t seem to be resolved by the time spring training rolled around, likely contributing to him being named the team’s DH. Perhaps the shoulder is still not 100%, which is concerning to say the least. Nothing an owner could do right now except remain patient and hope this start will be forgotten in two weeks.