Early 2025 Hitter maxEV Gainers

It’s hard to evaluate statistics this early without sounding the small sample size alarm bells. Yesterday, I looked at hitter bat speed, which supposedly conveys meaningful information after only a few swings, but still isn’t perfect this early. Today, I’ll look at another metric that works over small sample sizes, but only one side. That’s maxEV or the highest exit velocity a batter has hit a ball over a specified time period. We can evaluate the maxEV gainers already, but given that the metric could increase as the season progresses, it doesn’t make sense to review the fallers.

Like bat speed’s strong correlation with HR/FB, maxEV has a 0.67 correlation with HR/FB from 2023 to 2024. It would therefore stand to reason that if a hitter has already exceeded last season’s maxEV, then perhaps he has gained power and could be in for a surge. So let’s review those names.

After hitting just two home runs through the 2024 season’s first three months, Corbin Carroll salvaged his season by blasting 20 home runs over the second trio of months. Those last three months weren’t strong enough to avoid finishing with a maxEV a full 2.3 MPH lower than 2023, though. This year, he laps the field so far in maxEV gain, which is not only a nice rebound from last year, but another 1.9 MPH higher than his previous career high of 113.8 MPH in 2023. I think he’s got more power upside than it might seem with consistent 40%+ HardHit% marks and elite maxEV, it’ll just be a matter of raising his Barrel%. That’s obviously no easy task, but he seemingly has the ability to hit the ball hard enough for a power spike, but just needs to pair those hard hit balls with optimal launch angles more frequently.

After suffering through last year’s disappointing season on multiple fantasy teams, I really wanted to like Ryan Mountcastle and roster him cheaply this year given the changes to his home park. Unfortunate, and as usual, there’s no such thing as a sleeper anymore, as my competitors clearly had the same goal in mind, preventing him from joining any of my teams. Mountcastle has always been strong in the maxEV department, with all his Statcast metrics actually suggesting he’s capable of far more power than he’s hit for so far. But this year’s maxEV is the highest of his career, which previously sat at a strong 114.6 MPH to begin with. I don’t think the park change figures to add more than a couple of extra homers, but he could also simply experience a power spike, or merely a return to his 2021 level, anyway.

Tommy Edman, power hitter? Nah. This is one of those fake gains, as he recorded just 139 at-bats last year and his maxEV was easily the lowest of his career. HIs mark this year would actually represent his second lowest mark, so don’t get too excited by his appearance.

A power spike for Brice Turang, who stole 50 bases last year? Yes please! He did post a 10.2% HR/FB rate over a full Triple-A season back in 2022, but that was his only double digit HR/FB throughout his entire professional career. Heck, he has never been above the 6% mark he posted last year with the Brewers! Though I obviously don’t know whether this was a fluke batted ball or hints of a power spike, but imagine if he’s now a 15-homer guy to go along with all those steals. Jackpot!

Like Edman above, this isn’t a real gain for Trevor Story. Last year, his season was cut short due to injury after recording the lowest maxEV of his career, and while he has already exceeded that, it’s still low in absolute terms and barely above his low water mark last season.

Otto Lopez has never shown any power in his professional career, maxing out at last year’s 7.1% HR/FB rate. Interestingly, he has posted maxEV marks over 110 MPH before, so I’m guessing that his hardest hit balls are on the ground and he hasn’t been able to hit fly balls with the same authority. He did steal 20 bases last year, so he doesn’t need to hit for more power to be fantasy relevant in deeper leagues. At this point, I don’t think this means anything until he could prove he could translate higher EV into a higher HR/FB rate.

This is the highest EV Derek Hill has recorded since we have stats for. He’s shown power in the past, along with speed, so he would have been a nice little sleeper given his power/speed combo mix. Playing for the Marlins severely dampens the excitement, but for as long as he’s starting, he’s worth speculating on in deep leagues.

Xander Bogaerts’ gain here doesn’t look like it means a whole lot. His maxEV had dipped over the last two years, but he had been above 112 and even 113 MPH from 2019 to 2022. So this is merely a small gain off the bottom of the last two seasons.

The rest don’t have significant enough gains to really call out ech one, so I’ll just mention a couple of the names that are interesting.

It appears that Brandon Lowe is no longer on the strong side of a platoon and will start against lefties. The extra playing time is a positive, as you’ll get increased counting stats, offset by a slightly lower batting average. I really wish I rostered him, as he has posted Pull% marks of 32%+ on his fly balls the last two seasons, which could work wonders in his temporary new home park.

Excluding the short 2020 season, Nolan Arenado is coming off his worst offensive season. His maxEV, HardHit%, and Barrel% all plummeted and at age 34, it’s fair to wonder how much rebound he has in him. The slightly increased maxEV right now doesn’t mean much as we need to see more evidence that last year was the aberration and not the beginning of a downtrend.

The highest EV we have Jasson Domínguez recording is 111.6 MPH, posted at Triple-A last year. So his current maxEV could improve, but the big question is if he’ll hit a high enough rate of fly balls to matter. Despite his power, he hasn’t been a big fly ball guy and posted just a 21.6% FB% during last year’s tiny sample.