Some obvious facts.
1 – The harder you hit the ball the better.
2 – The harder you hit the baseball the more likely it is that you will produce hits.
Pretty simple ain’t it?
Of course there are things like “bad luck” that play a part, but over the course of an entire season, if a player is able to consistently hit the baseball on the screws, on the barrel of the bat, that the hits will start to fall. Let’s look at some of the data for hitters that talks about things like batted ball speed.
The following is a listing of the players with the top exit velocity, on average, in 2016 (minimum 100 batted ball events listed as BBE).
| Player | BBE | Avg GB EV (mph) |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 149 | 96.1 |
| Nelson Cruz | 209 | 92.8 |
| Matt Holliday | 206 | 94.4 |
| Mark Trumbo | 216 | 94.0 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 199 | 93.3 |
| Tyler Flowers | 103 | 90.9 |
| Justin Bour | 145 | 94.4 |
| David Ortiz | 227 | 90.6 |
| Chris Carter | 171 | 86.9 |
| Josh Donaldson | 234 | 90.3 |
| Jake Lamb | 176 | 89.2 |
| DJ LeMahieu | 229 | 93.4 |
| Christian Yelich | 209 | 91.6 |
| Miguel Sano | 123 | 86.3 |
| Eric Hosmer | 220 | 93.4 |
| Yoenis Cespedes | 199 | 90.7 |
| Kendrys Morales | 212 | 90.8 |
| J.J. Hardy | 119 | 94.0 |
| Pedro Alvarez | 107 | 88.9 |
| Jose Bautista | 166 | 90.8 |
| Anthony Rendon | 226 | 93.7 |
| Jayson Werth | 204 | 93.4 |
| Brad Miller | 185 | 93.2 |
| Ryan Howard | 126 | 88.2 |
| Cameron Rupp | 139 | 89.5 |
| Justin Smoak | 123 | 89.3 |
It’s not at all surprising that Stanton leads baseball in velocity off the bat. When he hits the ball, he crushes it. Too bad he’s on pace for nearly 200 punchouts.
Holliday is only hitting .241 this season, but his .210 Isolated Power mark is right on his career mark (.212), speaking to his hard hit ball rating.
Zimmerman is a surprising name on this list at 5th in baseball. His season has been a mess of injury and lack of base hits. Still, he’s hitting the ball with as much authority as ever, and if he can just stay healthy it stands to reason that his second half production will improve.
Flowers is dealing with a hand issue now, but in limited work this season he’s been a pretty solid hitter with a .253/.343/.425 slash line, the best of his career.
LeMahieu and Yelich are far from power hitters. Still, both men are hitting the ball extremely hard. They just don’t lift it. No worries. They know their games and excel at it.
Sano has been hurt, and the whiffs are always there, but per usual, when he hits the ball he usually hits the ball hard.
Hardy? Really? Apparently.
Miller is on pace for 26 homers with a .459 SLG this season. His game has holes no doubt, but he has hit the ball hard this season and it’s often ending up in the seats.
Howard – who knew?
Rupp and Smoak round out the list. Rupp has nine homers and a .836 OPS this season. Buster Posey has 11 homers and a .843 OPS this season. Meanwhile, Smoak has a 28.1 percent line drive rate, an absurdly high number, as he has hit the ball very, very hard.
Now to the men who don’t hit the ball with much oomph.
| Player | BBE | Avg EV (mph) |
| Billy Burns | 197 | 82.3 |
| Jose Iglesias | 214 | 82.7 |
| Jarrod Dyson | 110 | 83.0 |
| Billy Hamilton | 155 | 83.1 |
| Ben Revere | 187 | 83.7 |
| Carlos Perez | 132 | 83.9 |
| Alcides Escobar | 277 | 84.1 |
| Ender Inciarte | 167 | 84.3 |
| Ramon Flores | 138 | 84.7 |
| Alexei Ramirez | 251 | 84.7 |
| John Jaso | 192 | 85.0 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 103 | 85.0 |
| Erick Aybar | 152 | 85.2 |
| Ichiro Suzuki | 131 | 85.4 |
| Michael Bourn | 103 | 85.6 |
| Mallex Smith | 100 | 85.6 |
| Gregor Blanco | 126 | 85.8 |
| Coco Crisp | 213 | 85.9 |
| Andrelton Simmons | 167 | 85.9 |
| Joey Rickard | 163 | 86.0 |
| Omar Infante | 108 | 86.0 |
| Jed Lowrie | 210 | 86.1 |
| Brandon Belt | 219 | 86.2 |
| Ketel Marte | 197 | 86.3 |
| Derek Dietrich | 158 | 86.3 |
| Chase d'Arnaud | 108 | 86.3 |
| Denard Span | 226 | 86.3 |
In fact, if you look at the top-10 do any of those batters stand out as impressive hitters? No they don’t. Hell, if you keep heading to down the list isn’t it shocking to see just how many of these fellas just don’t do much to drive the baseball? The only player on this list, the only one, that drives the baseball with any authority is Mr. Belt of the Giants. Pretty shocking is it not? I thought so too.Burns hits the ball softer than anyone. Not a shock. In fact, the bottom four men on the list are all fellas who slap the ball around the field and use their wheels. They aren’t in the mold of driving the ball into gaps.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).