There is no single metric that can project power potential better than bat speed. It does not always guarantee in-game power, and there are skills to outperform limited bat speed, but how hard a hitter swings a bat is the biggest predictor of overall raw power. Since Baseball Savant’s introduction of Bat Speed during the 2023 season, it has become one of the most important metrics when evaluating a hitter. Similar to the pitch velocity arms race, the majority of hitters and organizations are spending the offseason finding ways to maximize bat speed, and the results have changed player development across the sport.
One of the limiting factors of bat speed is that it is solely an MLB tracked metric. There is no reliable true College Baseball bat speed metric, and evaluating raw power still comes from a combination of batted ball data, statistical evaluation, and the eye test. But what if there was a way to use batted ball data to create a bat speed metric? That metric is inferred bat speed.
What is Inferred Bat Speed?
Bat speed is sticky. No different than how a hard pitcher throws a fastball, a hitter’s bat speed is going to be in a consistent range every time they swing the bat. With that knowledge, inferred bat speed works backward from the one thing college baseball does track: the baseball coming off the bat.
Every batted ball is a collision, and physics is strict about what happens in it. The speed of the ball leaving the bat is set almost entirely by three things: how fast the bat was moving, how fast the pitch was moving, and how flush the contact was. Two of those already live in college batted ball data, exit velocity and pitch velocity. The third, the quality of contact, is the one we can control, by looking only at a hitter’s hardest, best-struck balls, where contact is close to perfect, we can infer bat speed capabilities.
Once we have those best struck balls, contact quality drops out of the equation, and exit velocity comes down to bat speed and pitch speed alone. Subtract out the effect of pitch velocity, and what remains is bat speed. Do this across a hitter’s top exit velocities across a career, and a clear picture emerges: a hitter’s inferred bat speed.
Inferred Bat Speed = (Exit Velocity − 0.242 × Pitch Speed) ÷ 1.242
Using that equation, you can get an inferred bat speed for every batted ball. To ensure quality of contact is flush, we use the 95th percentile of those readings across a full season, and that becomes the hitter’s inferred bat speed.
Because metal and wood do not perform the same, the equation needs a coefficient that accounts for the bat. BBCOR was built to behave much closer to wood at the sweet spot, which caps peak exit velocity capabilities. To pin down how much to adjust, and how accurate our equation was, we needed to evaluate prospects with both college batted ball data, and MLB confirmed bat speed. Here are all the 2023/2024 draft players with both college data, and MLB confirmed bat speeds.
For this exercise we used debut season, to find the closest signal to their college data. The longer the gap between college and pro, the more possible developmental changes. Also the smaller the sample size, the more unreliable the signal.
The data is telling, and paints a very important post-draft clarity on tracked players. Caglianone and Kurtz have arguably the best raw power in all of Major League Baseball. Langford was one of the most exciting prospects in his debut season, and the raw tools have never been a question. Cam Smith added 3 mph between 2025 and 2026 bringing his bat speed up to 77 mph, but bat speed has never been a question for him, and the same for Dylan Crews. Schanuel has never shown any semblance of being a power hitter at any point, and would we really be surprised if the Angels suggested he shouldn’t swing hard? Benge was one of the 2024 draft’s biggest steals, and skyrocketed through the Mets system. Bazzana has been more bat-to-ball and hit tool in pro ball than his bonkers 2024 college season implied. The reads all hold up, and for the players with clean samples and a short jump to pro ball, the inferred bat speed lands within about a mile per hour of their MLB-confirmed number.
2026 Draft Class Inferred Bat Speed
With a better understanding on how inferred bat speed is calculated, let’s now look at how the top 2026 draft prospects stack up.
This list is filtered for hitters who are either top 100 prospects, or have > 70 mph inferred bat speed. For reference MLB average bat speed is 71.7 mph. When looking at some of the top prospects, Drew Burress leads the top group with 72.6 mph. Roch Cholowsky and Vahn Lackey are eerily similar with Cholowsky at 71.4, and Lackey at 71.3. As their scouting reports show, it is mostly hit over power at premium positions for both of them, but to ever tap into above-average MLB power, there might need to be some development ahead of them.
As for the top of the inferred bat speed leaderboard, this is where evaluating the combination of inferred bat speed with bat-to-ball skills is very important. Between Bailey, Carrier, Bennett, and Bogenpohl, the power has never been in question. Every hitter above 73 has hit for above-average power in college baseball. But the main question is their hit tool. Evaluating bat speed is important, but how often a hitter gets to the peak of their bat speed in games is even more important. That’s where squared-up% comes into play.
Importance of Squared-Up%
Statcast defines squared-up% as, “how much exit velocity did you get as a share of how much exit velocity was possible based on your swing speed and the speed of the pitch.” With this in mind, we were able to see the how often hitters got to 80% of their bat speeds capabilities consistently. In my opinion, this is the most quantifiable way to evaluate “Barrel Awareness.” How often a hitter can make flush contact is an elite feel for the barrel. Here are how those same hitters compare with their bat speed, and squared-up% side by side.
I felt it was important to include Contact% as well because Squared-up% is only tracked for batted balls in play. So hitters who swing and miss a lot, but make flush contact when they connect, are still going to grade highly, but that doesn’t mean their hit tool grades out as elite. But it does give some context to some of the top players.
For this exercise, the ideal combination we are looking for is >70 mph bat speed, >35% squared-up rate, and >78% contact rate. Those players are as follows.
| Player | School | Draft Rank | Inferred Bat Speed | Squared-up% | Contact% | Chase% | |
| Vahn Lackey | Georgia Tech | 2 | 71.3 | 37 | 82.7 | 17.1 | |
| Chase Brunson | TCU | 31 | 71.5 | 37 | 78.8 | 22 | |
| Logan Hughes | Texas Tech | 38 | 70.7 | 47 | 80.8 | 20.2 | |
| Caden Ferraro | Texas Tech | 147 | 72.5 | 40 | 84.5 | 20 | |
| Nu’u Contrades | Arizona State | 286 | 71.6 | 41 | 78.9 | 27.6 | |
| Hudson Brown | Kentucky | 337 | 71.1 | 37 | 84.6 | 17.4 | |
| Michael Anderson | Penn State | 371 | 73 | 38 | 79.1 | 25.1 | |
| Mikey Bell | Gonzaga | 459 | 70.1 | 43 | 78.3 | 28.3 | |
| Tommy Harrison | Miami (OH) | 483 | 70.1 | 43 | 78.7 | 20.8 |
This list clarifies why Lackey has skyrocketed up boards this spring. He combines elite bat-to-ball skills, above-average plate discipline skills, and the bat speed and power output has really improved over the offseason. Caden Ferraro is one of my model’s favorite prospects due to the contact, chase, and power combo. Brown is another model darling with elite plate discipline and contact rate. The power output doesn’t match the contact quality due to a low GB%, but he shows the necessary traits to tap into power at the next level. Anderson is a senior, but the power and contact combo is legit one of the best combos in the class. If the plate discipline improves, that’s a big leaguer.
For players who just missed, Carson Kerce has been a favorite of my model due to high average exit velocities, contact rates, and chase%. His bat speed does not grade out above the threshold just 69.4 mph, but he has an elite feel for the barrel as evidenced by his insane 53% squared-up rate. Cholowsky just missed the threshold with a 33% squared-up rate, which is right behind Lackey 37% rate.
Key Takeaways
The Race for Number 1 Overall
The feel has been that the number 1 overall selection is a true flip of the coin, and the data validates it. Neither blows the other out of the water, and both feel like safe bats to hit at the next level, but will each need to develop power to reach their ceiling. While they both hit for power, they do not have the inferred bat speed to dream on 30 home runs. Could that open up the door for Grady Emerson to take the top spot? I think Emerson might be the best combination of power potential and present hit tool out of the three.
This is not the 2024 Class
I spent many parts of this season comparing this class to the loaded 2024 draft class. That analysis might have been overblown. The 2024 class combined elite power profiles with above-average contact rates and plate discipline. That class was historic. This class feels safe.
While the 2026 class has good data, the bat speed metrics show that the ceilings are limited. For players with higher bat speed numbers, there are major contact concerns. Kurtz, Caglianone, Condon, Benge, Smith, and Bazzana showed more of a combined power/contact potential in college.
The Depth of this Class is Worrisome
10-50 in this class is going to be interesting. Players with high bat speed, lack contact skills. Players with contact skills, lack bat speed. Players that have some semblance of both, swing at everything. Players with athleticism, can’t hit. That creates a major opportunity for a lot of prep players to be selected after the top 10. Where this class is college dominant in the top 10, the rest will be a little unstructured due to the lack of depth.
