On Tuesday morning, legendary baseball author Jayson Stark was at Blue Jays camp in Dunedin, Florida, the place he discovered one thing he appreciated.
Here is one other Dunedin function I am a fan of. Exit velocity knowledge on the scoreboard throughout batting follow. Together with the bunts!
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T15:36:16.065Z
The Blue Jays have been posting dwell batted ball knowledge throughout batting follow, and that is certainly cool. On the absolute worst, that is an fascinating bit of data for anybody who occurs to be hanging round. All of us have various appetites for knowledge whereas consuming sports activities, however I don’t know anybody who sees a hitter put a ball within the seats and doesn’t instantly assume, “I ponder precisely how far he hit that.”
I’m certain the gamers and coaches have entry to this data at their comfort, ought to they need it. However sharing it on the scoreboard in actual time affords a novel alternative: To make use of this superior know-how to do shenanigans.
My first inclination upon having that thought was, “Properly, I suppose that’s yet one more factor I don’t have in widespread with skilled athletes,” however, wait, ballplayers love doing bits. Some skilled athletes are all the time on the transfer, all the time hopping from exercise to exercise, however many of the lifetime of a baseball participant is spent doing hurry-up-and-wait. I don’t know if you happen to’ve ever frolicked round a gaggle of younger males with time on their fingers, however really the spark of human genius resides inside any group of bored dudes.
Final 12 months I used to be killing time within the press field earlier than a recreation at Residents Financial institution Park when the Phillies emerged onto the sphere en masse. They arrange a marker in middle area, then one after the other they took turns chipping golf balls at it. Closest to the pin, I discovered later, bought the primary choose within the group’s fantasy soccer draft.
Each baseball group is like this, to a better or lesser extent. That’s how we bought the sizzling foot, the rally cap, and a few really progressive bodily comedy routines from the world of school baseball.
Clearly, it’s occurred to those guys that you can gamify the Statcast output at batting follow. Virtually, that’d imply taking pictures for the best exit velocity, however that’s boring. Not solely would the identical man win day-after-day, attempting to hit the ball as onerous as attainable is simply… work.
However what if you happen to have been on the lookout for particular targets? Like, seeing who might get closest to a totally flat launch angle.
Solely it seems that’s not very a lot enjoyable. Over the course of the Statcast period, there have been greater than 16,000 batted balls with a launch angle of 0 levels. You’d assume that’d imply a line drive, however in follow these are floor balls. The toughest-hit instance got here off the bat of… would anybody wish to guess?
Oh, you all stated Giancarlo Stanton. That was anticlimactic. So was that flat 122.2-mph screamer, it seems. Right here, check out essentially the most boring double play you’ll ever see.
OK, then. What lies on the different finish of the spectrum? In spite of everything, the unique publish not solely marveled on the utility of getting dwell batted ball knowledge on the scoreboard, it was tinged with a soupçon of “ha ha, isn’t it foolish that bunts have an exit velocity and launch angle?” (Which, to be clear, it’s.)
So let’s have it. What’s the softest you may hit a ball? Even in a batting follow surroundings, there’s numerous switch of momentum concerned in hitting a ball into truthful territory. Power equals mass instances acceleration, coefficient of restitution, issues of that nature. I don’t know, I’m not a physicist. With the intention to completely deaden a pitch that’s thrown even at 80 mph, you’d should be Tony Gwynn multiplied by The Flash.
However you will get shut. Counting spring coaching and the playoffs, the softest batted ball within the Statcast period got here off the bat at 5.2 mph. There are two cases of a ball hitting this mark. One is, to be frank, an information error. First, Lucas Duda was the hitter. I used to be about to say that he’s by no means bunted in his life, however Baseball Savant does have him down for 3 bunts in his large league profession, together with a profitable sacrifice.
But additionally, early within the Statcast days, the system had issues studying balls that got here off the bat at extraordinarily excessive or low launch angles, and that’s very clearly what occurred right here.
It’s exhibiting a quadruple failure. That may’t occur; it’s bought to be instrumentation.
Not so for the precise softest contact of the previous decade. I offer you Christian Bethancourt, who on Could 14, 2022 laid down a sacrifice bunt that got here off the bat at 5.2 mph and -17 levels and traveled two toes within the air.
Speak about gentle fingers. This man shouldn’t be taking part in baseball, he ought to be baking wedding ceremony truffles or sculpting statues.
The toughest factor to do in sports activities is to hit a spherical ball with a spherical bat, and so forth. However to do it at 5 mph merely beggars perception. Stanton’s white-hot double play ball got here off the bat almost 25 instances as quick. Stanton’s grounder would’ve outrun most World Conflict I fighter planes. Bethancourt’s? Barely quicker than strolling tempo. Bethancourt’s bunt would run the mile in 11 and a half minutes.
Bunts below 10 mph aren’t exceptional; there have been 4 within the majors final 12 months, which is greater than I might’ve guessed. However how softly are you able to hit a ball if you’re attempting to hit it onerous?
The softest non-bunt ball in play within the Statcast period got here off the bat of Willi Castro (albeit solely barely) in 2019: 7.6 mph. However that was on a checked swing; Castro didn’t observe via, which as you realize is crucial to any reliable swing.
In truth… did this pitch bounce earlier than Castro hit it? That appears to be the case. Sachin Tendulkar (he’s considered one of three cricket gamers I can title, don’t be pedantic within the feedback) would’ve been proud.
Nonetheless, we wish a full swing on a pitch that’s nonetheless within the air.
Ty France adopted via right here, and it bought him solely an additional tenth of a mile an hour of exit velo. Principally all the softest hit groundballs appear like this: Chasing at a breaking ball within the grime and ticking it off the top of the bat and straight into the bottom. It’s the least quantity of contact a hitter could make with a baseball, so it is smart that these batted balls would have the bottom exit velocity.
Statcast’s Slowest Batted Balls
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
*Spring Coaching
You understand what else these batted balls have in widespread? All of them resulted in outs. Iglesias truly bumped into his personal weak grounder in truthful territory and bought known as out.
The softest grounder that resulted within the batter reaching got here in 2021, off the bat of Adam Eaton at 13.7 mph. It was an ideal deadened swinging bunt in entrance of Salvador Perez, who bought out of his crouch like a reluctant grandpa who’s been summoned from his recliner.
I’m not 100% certain that Eaton beat this throw, however the name on the sphere stands, I suppose. Nonetheless, the result’s totally different however the path there is similar: one other pitch with downward break that glanced off the top of the bat.
One final query, having distributed with the preliminary premise of utilizing the Blue Jays’ fancy new toy for silliness. How softly are you able to hit a ball within the air?
In earlier searches, I’d set the filter for exit velocity at 20 mph. Baseball Savant has one batted ball since 2015 with a sort of fly ball, line drive, or popup and an exit velo that low. I’m inclined to discard it for a number of causes: First, it got here in spring coaching, with a very puzzling mixture of information: 14.3 mph EV, -77 diploma launch angle, however a line drive single. Additionally, it got here off the bat of somebody named Wagner Lagrange, who is unquestionably a ballplayer I’d heard of earlier than and never Ben Foster’s gunslinger from 3:10 to Yuma.
Lastly, there’s no visible proof. The video that comes up within the search is six seconds of a picture-in-picture interview with Dylan Carlson. Poppycock, says I.
The subsequent contender was a 2017 single by Jason Castro off Josh Tomlin at 23.9 mph. Additionally an information glitch, I feel. Not solely was this nonetheless Statcast’s teething interval, there’s a video for this play, and it reveals Castro lining the ball off the right-center area wall.
The winner, then, takes us again to the unique setting: A Blue Jays spring coaching recreation in Dunedin. Toronto lefty Brendon Little is available in to face Akil Baddoo with two on and one out within the high of the eighth — these video games don’t depend, but it surely’s good to follow successful habits in high-pressure conditions.
Little’s first pitch is a depraved sinker in on Baddoo’s fingers, and it completely saws him off. You possibly can hear the pleasant crack of Baddoo’s bat deal with exploding — it seems like a straw broom smacking towards a concrete sidewalk — because the ball blorps towards the second baseman at 26.9 mph.
Given the absurdly low exit velocity, Little is tasked with making the play himself, and he doesn’t. It’s a troublesome play; the lefty is falling off the mound towards third base, and Baddoo is reserving it down the road. Moderately than fielding the ball cleanly, Little journeys and goes to his knees within the common neighborhood of the ball. (He appears like Matt Martell attempting to catch a punt.) Actually, Little does properly to even make it shut from that place.
Yeah, I instructed you it was going to be ugly pic.twitter.com/A8KucSqa6x
— ByMattMartell (@ByMattMartell) April 22, 2017
However the result’s the softest-hit ball within the air ever tracked by Statcast in a serious league recreation. In order that’s the benchmark: 5.2 mph for a bunt, 7.6 mph for a full swing, 26.9 mph for a ball within the air. Everybody ante up $20, and whoever beats these benchmarks in batting follow takes residence the pot. What do you say?
