Smith/Icon Sportswire | Feature Image by Justin Redler (@reldernitsuj on Twitter), Jeremy is currently a senior studying Computer Science and Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh. In fact, Stanton has 13 of the 20 hardest-hit balls on record for 2021. I'd like to direct your attention to the bottom of this list where Max Stassi and Josh Bell have joined the company of players like Rafael Devers, Nelson Cruz, and Ronald Acuna Jr.? In 2021, Zunino got off to a hot start, resulting in his first All-Star selection. I know when Im healthy, I can bring some things to the table. of his glove and to the base on a stolen base or pickoff 2021 Qualified Hitters Max Exit Velocity Leaders The above table was responsible for a boatload of homers in 2021. Nick Mariano's Waiver Picks - Get 'Em While They're Hot (Premium Content) Spring training performance contains enough signal to identify some real standouts for further analysis. All the same, it looks like hitting the ball harder will not, on its own, take him to the next level. He and All-Star teammate Aaron Judge create one of the hardest-hitting tandems in all of baseball. April 22nd, 2023. Baty has been performing quite well himself, although his exit velocities are more in the Really Quite Good range rather than the Destroyer of Worlds range. Both Josh Donaldson and Tyler O'Neill showed up in my barrel rate gainers piece, and Chad Pinder showed up in my xSLG leaders piece. A few of the names that show up on the leaderboard are players that I've already discussed this offseason. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, and . Full Astros leaderboard, Athletics: Matt Chapman -- Aug. 29, 2020 at HOUExit velocity: 115.9 mph (Watch it)Chapman might be one of the games best defensive players over at the hot corner, but he can also launch homers with the best of them. Full Pirates leaderboard, Reds: Aristides Aquino -- Aug. 8, 2019 vs. CHCExit velocity: 118.3 mph (Watch it)Aquino surprised everyone in 2019, as the Reds rookie slammed 19 home runs in just 56 games that season, setting an NL rookie record for most homers in a month, with 14 coming in August. 90) are all bringing heat in Spring Training. Full Twins leaderboard, White Sox: Jake Burger -- April 18, 2023 vs. PHIExit velocity: 118.2 mph (Watch it)Burger's home run with a 118.2 mph exit velocity continued his hot streak to begin the 2023 season. Year Sec. After being shut out in Thursday's opener . Vientos is a third baseman in theory, but he doesnt field well. Major League Leaders. For starters, we're going to look at average exit velocity. The other obvious thing with Dalbec is that he has a swing-and-miss problem. If youre going to claim to be a baseball writer and write for a site that claims to provide analysis youre going to have to be able to take the heat. Sunday Notes: Bill Haselman Recalls the Brawl That Almost Broke Cal's Streak, Effectively Wild Episode 2000: We Thought of More Things We Like About Baseball, The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 1169 Sunday FAAB ft. Michael Govier, Starting Pitchers Arent Leaning On Their Best Pitches. The 90th-percentile exit velocity agrees with that production, as he currently ranks 25th in Major League Baseball. He continued to show his standard tremendous plate discipline and strong reach rates while hitting the ball hard in the air with a 94.2 mph average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives (69th-percentile). Pitching: . You want to make sure that skill fits into a larger profile that you feel brings value to your team based on the cost you're spending in your draft. Not sure whats going on with the fangraphs commenting community lately, but it appears some of us are incapable of framing feedback in a constructive or positive manner. How fast, in miles per hour, a ball was hit by a batter. In 2021, Alvarez sported a 15.9% barrel rate, 87th-percentile HR/PA rate, and 94th-percentile average exit velocity on balls in the air. During those three stretches, his average exit velocity peaked at 92.2, 93.6, and 96.3 mph, respectively. The clubs top 10 is littered with both young talent and veteran sluggers. time of a pitcher's first movement or pitch release. Coming off a promising 58-game cameo in 2021, Nootbaar made the Cardinals' Opening Day roster last season, but he was struggling at 2-for-16 with no extra-base hits by late April. Let's start by just taking note of the duplicate names because being on both lists is obviously a good thing: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr., Yordan Alvarez, Tyler O'Neill, and Joey Votto. So we give to you our PBR South Carolina Leaderboard. Statcast Leaders Baseball Savant Top Prospect Stats. If you're intending to draft either one of these guys, you absolutely need to have a plan to augment the hit you'll take in batting average. He's posting numbers fairly close to his breakout 2019 in terms of exit velocity and expected slash line. Don't have an account? Dalbec will almost certainly open the season as the Red Sox first baseman and have a chance to show gains in his contact profile. In fact, during his first-half breakout, Longoria's swing rate overall had dropped ro 41.8%, which is the lowest he's produced since 2013 in Tampa Bay. After only playing in two games in 2020, we really have to look at Alvarez's 2021 season in a vacuum or in relation to his 2019 season where he was called up halfway through. Lars Nootbaar's journey to becoming MLB star It represented his fourth home run in his previous five games. We continue our look back at 2021 coverage with the top exit velocities produced in front of PBR Scouts. For just $0.83/month, get an ad-free experience and access to RotoBaller's VIP Discord Chat Community, If you can't subscribe, please consider turning off your adblocker for RotoBaller.com, Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App, More Statcast & Fantasy Baseball Analysis, Jose Urquidy Leaves Game Early With Shoulder Injury, Matt Brash Earns First Career Save Sunday, Expected To Return Beginning Of Next Season, Doubtful Monday, Continues To Make Improvements, Aledmys Diaz Hopeful To Avoid Injured List, Austin Corbett Not Expected To Be Ready For Season, Could Open Season As No. Unfortunately, Longoria collided with Brandon Crawford on June 5th while attempting to field a ground ball and suffered a strained shoulder. 11 of the ballparks that have hosted spring training games are set up for Statcast, and we have exit velocity data on at least 15 balls in play for 199 players. He's a risky pick without seeing any spring training at-bats, but he's also being taken at pick 400 right now, which means he's all upside if we get 120+ games of the 2021 swing changes. Hopefully, he can earn some more playing time as well. Unfortunately, this data is not currently available on Baseball Savant. In 2022, his xwOBA outpaced his wOBA by 33 points, the 11th-highest difference among all qualified batters. But if youve been following the Tigers in spring training, you know that even though Torkelson is crushing the ball, he cant buy a base hit, and thats a familiar story. The Tigers infielders blasts can be seen sprinkled all over the clubs leaderboard despite joining the team at the start of the 2020 season. Davy Andrews is a Brooklyn-based musician and a contributing writer for FanGraphs. It marked the club's first three-game winning streak of the season. But Zunino has always been a guy who could punish the ball when he connects, as Mets lefty David Peterson found out the hard way on this shot. Standings. The movement of a pitch is defined in inches, both in Pitch Type: Four-Seam Fastball; Pitch Speed: -Spin Rate: -Batting HOU. Major League Leaders. * Imminent Big Leaguers article. Either way, I still think there are some parts of Santanders profile to be optimistic about; I would argue hes much closer to an average hitter than hes shown so far this season. With Corey Dickerson traded and Starling Marte potentially on the move, Cooper should see regular time in right field and has been holding down the third spot in the lineup. Its great that hes crushing the ball in spring training, and his .278/.328/.389 slash line is still much better than last years. Jake Cave was playing through a broken back but didnt realize it. Team Season Pitches Zone % Zone Swing % Zone Contact % Chase % Chase Contact % Edge % 1st Pitch Swing % Swing % Whiff % Meatball % Meatball Swing % 2021: 24,204 pitch. While max exit velocity is fun and shows just how hard a human can hit a baseball, I prefer to focus on average EV because it shows who's making loud contact regularly. illustrator; Gamefeed; Scoreboard; Probable Pitchers; . McClanahan, the 23-year-old lefty who debuted with big velocity but . Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App Exit velocity: 117.3 mph ( Watch it) Tampa Bay acquired Zunino from Seattle in 2018, and he struggled at the plate in his first two seasons with the Rays. Our goal is to put out the highest-quality content and tools. He could be working with some strength that he didnt have last year. Good lord. If youre trying to predict regular-season exit velocity, youd obviously rather have 200-plus PAs worth of information from last year (r=.71) than 15-plus BIP from this years spring training (r=.50). Baseball Savant Scoreboard, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | MLB.com Thanks for the feedback! He put up a .346 BABIP in low-A, then played in 27 games at high-A and put up a .400 BABIP. Last year, his average exit velocity was in the 78th percentile, but his xISO, which he underperformed by 35 points, was in the 51st. By volume, Gausman leads the majors in strikeouts through the first month, with 54 against just six walks, the kind of strike zone control that will get a . Buxton currently sits in the 99th percentile in barrel rate across the league. @ AJCassavell. Many people had been clamoring for the Giants to move Belt so that we could see the left-handed hitter breakout in a more favorable park. He put up the lowest zone contact rate of his career (although only by a few tenths of a point) and saw a decrease in overall contact rate as well. Statcast Leaders Baseball Savant Top Prospect Stats. He ran a 40.3% groundball rate in 2022 and is currently at 35.9% in spring training. Last year he had a 99th-percentile wOBA (.526), 93rd-percentile xwOBA (.373), and 95th-percentile xwOBA on contact, to go along with a .526 xSLG. As Jay Jaffe said in the first base positional power rankings, Torkelson has nowhere to go but up. ZiPS agrees, pegging him for a 115 wRC+, a whopping 39-point jump from his rookie season. Not only is he continuing to walk at an elite clip and avoiding strikeouts, but he is also hitting the ball well. He managed that feat in 2018 and 19, but the Cave of recent vintage has been a shadow of himself. Full Mariners leaderboard, Rangers: Joey Gallo -- June 5, 2018 vs. OAKExit velocity: 117.5 mph (Watch it)Gallo led the league in average exit velocity (94.4 mph) in 2018, so its only fitting that he gets the top spot for Texas. Ads help us pay RotobBaller's award-winning writers as much as possible they are vital to the site's operations and team. Full Mets leaderboard, Nationals: Bryce Harper -- June 15, 2017 at NYMExit velocity: 116.3 mph (Watch it)Prior to his move to Philly, Harper was the hardest hitter in the Nats lineup, leading the team to four playoff appearances in six years. THE BOARD! | Prospects | FanGraphs Baseball Among players with at least 50 PA, Buxton ranks eighth in 90th-percentile exit velocity. Statcast Hitter Leaderboard: Whiff Rate | Fantasy News - RotoBaller However, we can't talk about Belt without addressing the injury history. How far, in feet, a runner is ranging off the bag at the News reports at the time referred to Caves injury as a stress reaction, but either way, he deserves a little bit of grace here. a batted-ball event with a launch angle between eight thrown with. By Statcast accounts, Josh Bell is back. All of this seems like a clear approach shift to me that could easily carry over into 2022 if Longoria comes to spring training with his shoulder fully healthy (we saw how that sapped Cody Bellinger's power this year). He had three different stretches of at least 30 balls in play with a hard-hit rate over 50% (one of them peaked at 63%). Hitting the ball hard is great. PHOENIX -- Now that he has homered and stutter-stepped his way around third base, we can say it a bit more emphatically: Fernando Tatis Jr. is back. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, It's All-Star time, sadly. 2021. For a batter, Best Speed is an average of 50% of his hardest hit balls. Full Red Sox leaderboard, Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton -- Aug. 9, 2018 vs. TEXExit velocity: 121.7 mph (Watch it)This one should come as no surprise. Exit velo is very important but a *major key* is actually hitting the ball first haha. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 16-30). For just $0.83/month, get an ad-free experience and access to RotoBaller's VIP Discord Chat Community, If you can't subscribe, please consider turning off your adblocker for RotoBaller.com, Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App, Jose Urquidy Leaves Game Early With Shoulder Injury, Matt Brash Earns First Career Save Sunday, Expected To Return Beginning Of Next Season, Doubtful Monday, Continues To Make Improvements, Aledmys Diaz Hopeful To Avoid Injured List, Austin Corbett Not Expected To Be Ready For Season, Could Open Season As No. Zunino has an insanely high 24.2% barrel rate, which is bound to regress, but exciting nonetheless. . Torkelson was terrible when he put the ball on the ground and great when he didnt. The solo shot eclipsed the 117.9 mph homer Jorge Soler smashed against the Mets at Truist Park on Oct. 3, 2021, for the hardest-hit homer Statcast has tracked for a Braves batter. In fact, Stanton has 13 of the 20 hardest-hit balls on record for 2021. Youth. That's why the second thing we will look at is exit velocity on balls in the air, which will tell us not only who can hit the ball hard but who can carry over that authority when the ball is lifted into the air as well. No, you guys are just being rude. First, let's just say that it's not as bad as you think it is. He was out of the Giants' lineup until August 14th, when he returned for only one week before landing on the IL again with a hand injury. If that profile sounds familiar, its because everything you just read about Vientos applies equally to Ruf. A Statcast metric designed to express the demonstrated skill of catchers at preventing wild pitches or passed balls compared to their peers. This tool allows you to see how many of a player's batted balls would have been home runs in the 30 parks around the Majors, based on the trajectory of the ball and the various wall heights and distances of the ballparks. You shouldn't draft players just because they hit the ball hard or just because they can get batters to swing and miss. From there, you can sort by EV: FB/LD. xwOBA is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle He entered the season as a defense-first backstop and career .231 batting average in a supposed timeshare with Kurt Suzuki. We would appreciate your support by either turning off your adblocker or signing up for our ad-free subscription tier.Thanks for being a reader! Giancarlo Stanton Ties Own Exit-Velocity Record On Ground Out - NESN.com Full Yankees leaderboard, Guardians: Franmil Reyes -- Aug. 16, 2020 at DETExit velocity: 114.1 mph (Watch it)Cleveland has had two prominent stars for the better part of the Statcast era in Francisco Lindor and Jos Ramrez, but their leaderboard is topped by the big righty in Reyes. What this does is show us which hitters can get close to their max exit velocity as often as possible. MLB Statcast standouts from Opening Week 2021 Maybe some of that was bad luck, but the longer it goes on, the more likely it looks the issue is with his batted ball profile. While the groundball rates, fly ball rates and pull rates remained pretty consistent for Belt between 2018-2021, it's clear that he is making a more concerted effort to drive pitches in the air, perhaps being more aggressive on pitches up in the zone. How much time, in seconds, it takes a runner to get from Hanley Ramirez's two lone homers in Cleveland rank high on the team's leaderboard as well, as he crushed them both over 113 mph. All orgs will receive a full list. Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. Batting: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, Career. The Yankees defeated the Mets 8-7. L. Exit Velocity: -Launch Angle: -Hit Distance: 0 ft; BOTTOM 9. Download our updated fantasy baseball app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, sleepers, prospects & more. Hes hit 12 of them at least 105 mph. the ERA scale, A measurement of a player's top running speed, expressed One look atMike Zunino's Statcast sliders says it all: He's an elite defensive catcher with extraordinary pull-side power and a big hole in his swing. Im hoping Savant adds it to player pages sometime in the near future, Your email address will not be published. Let's end with one more exit velocity metric. See stats like hard hit rate and hit location for minor league batters. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images), May 17, 2021; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso (20) hits a single against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning at Truist Park. Of all players with at least 15 balls in play recorded by Statcast, Vientos ran the second-highest average exit velocity of the spring at 97.5 mph. Obviously, the injuries added up last year, in particular in the first half of the season where Belt battled multiple side/oblique injuries, then a knee injury in June before suffering a thumb injury at the end of September. Statcast Leaderboard | baseballsavant.com 84) and Baz ( No. But Our Princess Is in Another Castle routine, explaining that the pair still have some development objectives to reach. When asked what those objectives were, Eppler served reporters a delectable word salad: Just continuing to get tested in different game situations. He's powered up equally against lefties and righties, but it should be noted he's batting .327 against left-handers and .219 against right-handers. And the need to improve his overall profile. Some of the guys discussed below were discussed in more detail in those articles, so I encourage you to check them out as well. Author mentions the high K rate more than once in reference to Vientos. In December, the Phillies claimed Cave off waivers from the Orioles, who had claimed him off waivers from the Twins in October. First, a look at the overall exit velocity leaders. While quite a bit has been written on it, the subject's money quote is from Rob Arthur: For every mile per hour above 108, a hitter is projected to gain about 6 points of OPS relative to their predicted number. Cave hit a ball 110.5 mph a few weeks ago, a height he hadnt reached since 2019, and hes also another year removed from the broken back business, which, again, might have been a big deal. xERA is a simple 1:1 translation of xwOBA, converted to The Reds are crushing everything, and Naquin is leading the charge. Juan Soto has since made his mark on the list and on the franchise, guiding the Nats to a World Series title a little over two years after Harper crushed this homer. He does everything all the previous winners have . This is what happens when exit velo metrics and statcast sliders outweighs analyzing the rest of a hitters profile. Statcast refers to the spin that contributes to movement I see that so often in todays analysis. The statcast era people get so excited about that exit velo number. Guys like Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and Yordan Alvarez make sense. Expected Earned Run Avg (xERA) xERA is a simple 1:1 . In fact, it's this ability to hit the ball with authority in the air that has been one of the biggest changes for Belt. xBA measures the likelihood that a batted ball will Dalbec is a trendy name right now, and he appears fifth on this list, so we need to talk about him. Exit Velocity & Barrels . We cant just ignore the fact that its been three years since he had success at the big league level, but in 2022 he posted a career-lowest strikeout rate, and his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were above league-average for the first time since 2019. Statcast Leaders Baseball Savant Top Prospect Stats. Join the Best Live Fantasy Chat Community! Play Ball Youth Baseball & Softball. However, the breakout started happening in 2020 despite never leaving the Giants. Jake Cave thinks the broken back might have been a big deal. The past three games, however, went much more to plan. Full Padres leaderboard, Rockies: Carlos Gonzlez -- April 4, 2016 at ARIExit velocity: 117.4 mph (Watch it)As one of the sweetest-swinging lefties the game has ever seen, CarGo has sent plenty of moonshots out of Coors Field as a member of the Rockies. and, on certain types of batted balls, Sprint Speed. become a hit. Rays: Mike Zunino -- May 14, 2021 vs. NYM. A table displaying leaders in Statcast metrics such as Sweet Spot % (SwSp%), Barrels, Exit Velocity (EV), Batted Ball Distance (DST), Projected Home Run Distance (HR-DST), Launch Angle (LA) and Batted Ball Events (BBE) . He's back and heating up again with three HR and seven RBI in the week leading up to the All-Star break. Pitching: . one base to another, like Home To First. Essentially, Cave hit a lot more fly balls to the big part of the ballpark, and he didnt have the strength to send them over the fence. He narrowly missed out on a wins title in 2019, when he was a 20-game winner for the Astros but teammate Justin Verlander won 21. In 2020, he played 51 games, which was essentially a full season, so we're talking about three seasons over the last ten years where he hasn't played at least 110 games. Attaining a high Exit Velocity is one of a hitter's primary goals. Spring Training Statcast highlights for 2021 - MLB As of Sunday night, 1,650 batters have seen at last one pitch during spring training this year. He had a 60% hard-hit rate over 20 recorded BIP. A lot of the same names appear on this list too. Starts and Sits - All Starting Pitcher Matchups for Fantasy Baseball (May 1 - May 7) Instead, Stassi is slashing .296/.377/.496 and has an impressive 54.5% HardHit% to go with his above-average framing rate in the 74th percentile. Full D-backs leaderboard, Dodgers: Corey Seager -- Sept. 30, 2021 vs. SDExit velocity: 115.3 mph (Watch it)Somehow, despite the seemingly endless dingers the homer-happy Dodgers have hit in the Statcast era, it took seven seasons for a Los Angeles player to notch the franchise's first tracked 115+ mph homer. Hitting the ball hard in the air is the best. In spring training, his 64.7% hard-hit rate and a 94.1 mph average exit velocity resulted in a paltry .590 OPS. Join the Best Live Fantasy Chat Community! That has made for a 16.7% Brls/BBE rate that is tied with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Not too shabby. There are few surprises at the top. Thanks to Statcast, we now know the exit velocity of each ball hit across the big leagues each day, no matter if its a squeaker or a towering homer. This is interesting because Santana has always been known for his great plate discipline. Analyzing Spring Training's Exit Velocity Leaders, Part 2 A batted ball with the perfect combination of exit That's pretty valuable going at pick 240. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted Tatis launched his first Major League home run since 2021 in the top of the first inning of the Padres . window.". Here are the numbers: 188 players have had at least 200 PAs in one season, then the next season had at least 15 spring training BIP measured by Statcast and then took 200 regular-season PAs. A Bolt is any run where the Sprint Speed (defined as Required fields are marked *. Since arriving in Clearwater, hes posted a 61.5% hard-hit rate and 92.3 mph average exit velocity. As such, I prefer Sano because he's currently going late enough in drafts that he can be a bench bat for you. Last year only one qualified batter had a higher strikeout rate. attempt. However, considering Longoria is slated to be the Giants' opening day third baseman, and the Giants have an organizational track record of getting peak performance out of veteran players, it's important not to write off Longoria's hot start. Fantasy Baseball Injury Reports - Updates for J.D. How high/low, in degrees, a ball was hit by a batter. Full Rangers leaderboard, Braves: Matt Olson -- April 11, 2023 vs. CINExit velocity: 118.6 mph (Watch it)Olson annihilated a 3-1 sinker from Reds right-hander Luis Cessa in the first inning of Atlanta's contest against Cincinnati at Truist Park, sending it well beyond the right-center-field wall. the 90th percentile in exit velocity and the . However, in 2021, his offense has exploded out of the gate. Interestingly, Alonsos hit you can see in the video below is one of only two produced by a National League player on this list. Naquin has gotten off to a hot start in 2021, leading to him gaining more playing time in the outfield for the Cincinnati Reds. You'd think he would be more than 13% rostered across Yahoo leagues. Loading Batted Ball Stats. The two Matts -- Chapman and fellow Gold Glover Matt Olson -- dominate both the corners of the infield and the top of the As list. Shane Baz and Shane McClanahan, Rays. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info . 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018. He is running a 66.7% hard-hit rate and a 96.2 mph exit velocity during spring training, and maybe just as importantly, he has one of the biggest sample sizes on the list, with 33 balls in play measured by Statcast. exit velocity of 95 mph or higher. Statcast defines a 'hard-hit ball' as one hit with an Heres the first entry from Judge, a double off Boston reliever Adam Ottavino. Although we have only played a months worth of baseball and results may be a bit whacky, this metric generally stabilizes quickly, so early-season data holds value. He is running a 66.7% hard-hit rate and a 96.2 mph exit velocity during spring training, and maybe just as importantly, he has one of the biggest sample sizes on the list, with 33 balls in play measured by Statcast. Santander joins Zunino as the other of the two players in the top 15 of 90th-percentile exit velocity that are not names you would expect to see. Full Giants leaderboard, Padres: Manny Machado -- Aug. 20, 2021 vs. PHIExit velocity: 119.6 mph (Watch it)Machado launched a laser just over the left-field wall in the third inning of the Padres' contest with the Phillies, dethroning Franchy Cordero for San Diego's hardest-hit homer after more than three years. But Our Princess Is in Another Castle, 2023 Positional Power Rankings: Designated Hitter, 2023 Positional Power Rankings: Bullpen (No. Yasmani Grandal, Mike Zunino, and Mitch Garver being on here is interesting for those looking for power from the catcher spot, and guys like Chad Pinder and Josh Donaldson are potentially surprising, but I already told you that those two have been popping in a few of my metric breakdowns this offseason and might be worth noting. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Giancarlo Stanton #27 of the New York Yankees in action against the New York Mets at Citi Field on September 11, 2021 in New York City. Naquin is barreling balls at double the rate of his career average. Well start the list at number 20, with a name you will see a lot in this ranking: Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees. Brandon Belt is currently going only two picks ahead of Dalbec and is a player I have more confidence in. Obviously, Naquin will come back down to earth at some point, but it will be interesting to watch how much of this recent development is sustainable. That is to say, he isnt doing something completely new, but hes showing that even when he was going right last year, he still had more in the tank. That's part of the reason Belt hit 29 home runs in just 97 games last year and has 38 home runs across his last 148 games, essentially a single season's worth of games. Meanwhile, Gallo had an 18.5% barrel rate and was in the 96th-percentile on exit velocity on balls hit in the air. Photo by Nick Tre. However, in the second half, with the oblique injuries presumably behind him, Belt hit .297/.394/.690 with a much-improved 21.1% strikeout rate and 1o.1% SwStr. Luckily, PL has a database that I used to pull this data from, but yes I did have to calculate myself.