Carlos Cortes, Sal Stewart and more max exit velocity Statcast standouts

Earlier this year, I quarreled with the Statcast bat speed metric. I suggested cross-referencing it against max exit velocity and that max EV would be the more bettable stat.The issue I have with bat speed is that it’s an average. Hitters aren’t maxing out their bat speed with every swing. Sometimes they are fooled and barely swing. Median would be better, but we don’t have that. Speaking as a former competitive bowler, I know average is a bad stat. People purposely tank games they know they’ll lose to lower their average for tournaments. If we had medians instead of averages, you couldn’t tank. I’m not suggesting that hitters are tanking at-bats, but they are not swinging full bore with two strikes and a runner on third, if they are good hitters. They’re wisely just trying to put the ball in play.Advertisement