Giancarlo Stanton

On Sunday night, Major League Baseball unleashed a new avalanche of data on the baseball world.Having long since tracked and quantified numerous characteristics of ball flight, both as pitches and hits, MLB turned its Statcast system toward the movement of the bat itself. Baseball Savant now publishes eight new measurements, such as "bat speed," "swing length," and "blasts."But will the new data challenge existing beliefs or mostly march in lockstep with them? We explored some initial insights to understand just what this new content drop means for those who play, analyze, and enjoy the game.Bat speed is (almost) kingOne takeaway is much of the data lines up well with the scouting eye. Baseball is a game of physics. Power is the result of the mass of the bat times acceleration. Acceleration of the bat is important. We've known that since the days of Babe Ruth. Ted Williams also trumpeted the need for bat speed. Now fans have a way to know who has the fastest bat and how that impacts their production.Through play Sunday, hitters with an average bat speed one standard deviation (4.5 mph) or better from the MLB median of 71.3 mph averaged a wOBA of .321, which is 10 points higher than the MLB average.Hitters one standard deviation or more below the median swing speed had a wOBA of .260. Tim Warner / Getty ImagesGiancarlo Stanton, Oneil Cruz, Kyle Schwarber, Matt Chapman, Ronald Acu a Jr., Christopher Morel, and Aaron Judge are the only hitters with average swing speeds of 76.5 mph and above - two standard deviations better than the average.(To determine bat speed, MLB removes bunts and the slowest 10% of a hitter's swings for the calculation.)The list has some past MVPs (Acu a, Judge, Stanton), possible breakout hitters (Morel, Cruz), and, bafflingly, Chapman. Bettmann / Getty ImagesGood teams swing fastSome of the best-hitting teams have the quickest bats. The Atlanta Braves rank first in team bat speed; the Baltimore Orioles are third.Some of the worst have the slowest. The Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays rank 29th and 30th, respectively.The Pittsburgh Pirates represent a confounding outlier. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r

New York Yankees' slugger Giancarlo Stanton ripped a 114-MPH home run vs. the Minnesota Twins.

Major League Baseball debuted new statistical metrics on its Baseball Savant website on Monday, unveiling categories that measure some of the reasons that the game s best hitters are so darn good

It was the first time the three sluggers went yard in the same game, and Stanton's blast was nearly 120 mph

Giancarlo Stanton hit a 447-foot drive into the second deck in left field at Yankee Stadium in Tuesday's 10-3 win, the hardest-hit ball in the majors this season at 119.9 mph.