Your eyes don't deceive

Numbers show the Blue Jays have the slowest average bat speed in the majors

- GREGOR CHISHOLM

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is 15th in the majors with an average bat speed of 75.6 miles per hour but he is squaring up just 21.3 per cent of his swings and 27.3 per cent of his contact.

Analytics used to be a scary word in Major League Baseball but these days the information is provided in such a way that it’s relatable to even the most casual fans.

Some might have required a degree in mathematics to properly understand how wins above replacement were calculated. Only the diehards fully grasped the concept of weighted runs created plus or ultimate zone rating.

But the recent rise of Statcast has made things simpler. It’s easy to show how many outs above average a specific fielder has, how often a hitter chases pitches out of the strike zone or how much movement there is on a breaking ball.

Some of the information isn’t all that new. For decades, coaches could tell when a hitter might be about to break out of a slump by how hard he was hitting the ball. The only difference now is that instead of relying on an eye test, there’s a radar reading that goes with it.

More data is being made available to the public each year. The latest arrived this week when Statcast unveiled bat-tracking categories. It’s now possible to measure everything from bat speed to swing length and the number of times a hitter used the sweet spot of his bat.