For the first time in 2015, Major League Baseball equipped all 30 of its ballparks with Statcast tracking technology that will make an unprecedented wealth of previously uncharted information available to teams and fans. Clubs already have access to the radar- and camera-based data, but starting this week, the league will provide leaderboards featuring new metrics devised from Statcast readings.
The press release announcing the news gives samples of individual performances in exit velocity — the speed at which the ball leaves a hitter’s bat. No one will be terribly surprised to learn that Giancarlo Stanton is responsible for both the season’s hardest hit ball — at a cool 120.3 miles per hour — or its hardest hit home run, a 119.2 mph blast off Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez on June 23.
What’s incredible is the extent of Stanton’s dominance of the exit-velocity leaderboard. Not only was that home run more than 2 1/2 mph faster than any other hit this season, but Stanton is the only player in the Majors with multiple hits and multiple homers that rank in the Top 5 of exit velocity. Basically, Giancarlo Stanton is to hitting baseballs what Aroldis Chapman is to throwing them.
Statcast will also provide an array of granular defensive metrics that show a player’s route efficiency, distance covered and top speed. Here it is in use for various All-Stars: