A Different Take on Hard Hit Rate
Twins Video
Statcast keeps track of hard hits and Joey Gallo makes his living on his hard hit rate. It is a whopping .583. That is 100 points better than the next Twin (>100 ABs) Ryan Jeffers at .481. Of course he strikes out a ton. Many of his outs are whiffs and have no exit velocity. Should those be factored in? I wondered what the data would look like if the denominator was at bats instead of balls in play.
The new leader is Ryan Jeffers. That was unexpected. Add in the strike outs and Jeffers is at .325. Gallo now ranks 5th among Twins with a hard hit average of .311. I was not surprised to see Donovan Solano near the top. He ranks second at .323. I was surprised to see the 3rd and 4th ranked Twins. Jose Miranda is at .318 and Max Kepler at .314. The only other Twins with a hard hit average above .300 is Carlos Correa at .308. The top three have less than 100 at bats and in Wallner's and Garlick's case far less than 100 ABs.
I don't know if it is meaningful or more meaningful but I like the look of the number. It is more in the batting average range. It takes into account all of a player's outs including the strike outs. I don't know if it has a name so I called it hard hit average. They should consider giving that Wallner kid another look.
Hard Hit Average through June 29
| .474 | Matt Wallner |
| .357 | Kyle Garlick |
| .330 | Nick Gordon |
| .325 | Ryan Jeffers |
| .323 | Donovan Solano |
| .318 | Jose Miranda |
| .314 | Max Kepler |
| .311 | Joey Gallo |
| .308 | Carlos Correa |
| .289 | Trevor Larnach |
| .283 | Jorge Polanco |
| .282 | Christian Vazquez |
| .272 | Edouard Julien |
| .269 | Byron Buxton |
| .259 | Alex Kirilloff |
| .250 | Royce Lewis |
| .250 | Kyle Farmer |
| .239 | Willi Castro |
| .232 | Michael A. Taylor |


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