The 15 most extreme Statcast plays of the year

Another year in baseball is in the books, so let's look back at the best of the best plays from this past season.

These are the annual Statcast superlatives -- the longest home run, the fastest strikeout, the speediest inside-the-park home run, the toughest catch and more.

Here are 15 of MLB's top plays of the year from 2025.

Hardest-hit ball / hardest home run
Oneil Cruz -- 122.9 mph (May 25)

Cruz had the hardest-hit ball of the 2024 season, too, a 121.5 mph double … and the 2022 season, a 122.4 mph single. But this time he even outdid himself. Cruz set the Statcast era record for exit velocity with a 122.9 mph home run against the Brewers. Yes, in the 11 seasons of Statcast tracking, which goes back to 2015, no one has ever hit a ball as hard as Cruz did this year, let alone over the fence.

Longest home run
Nick Kurtz -- 493 feet (Sept. 13)

Last year's longest home run was "only" 480 feet (by Jesús Sánchez). This year we got three home runs longer than that -- two by Mike Trout at 484 and 485 feet … and the longest home run of the year by Kurtz at 493 feet. It was a grand slam that the A's rookie sensation crushed clear out of the ballpark to dead center field at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.

Fastest pitch / fastest strikeout
Mason Miller -- 104.5 mph (NL Wild Card Series Game 2)

Miller might be MLB's most overpowering reliever since prime Aroldis Chapman, and he showed it during the Padres' postseason series against the Cubs. Miller dialed it up to over 104 mph to strike out Carson Kelly in the Wild Card Series -- the fastest pitch of the 2025 MLB season and the fastest postseason pitch of the entire pitch tracking era, which dates back to 2008.

Slowest pitch
Garrett Crochet -- 21.7 mph (Sept. 14)

Yes, really. Garrett Crochet -- Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet, AL Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet -- threw a 21.7 mph pitch in a real-life Major League Baseball game. It is the slowest pitch on record in the pitch tracking era. So what happened? You should just watch it for yourself. Crochet slipped off the mound in the middle of his delivery, and as he fell, he managed to release the ball, which popped out of his hand and trickled into foul territory on the first-base side. And it just counted as a regular old pitch.

Slowest pitch for a strikeout
Scott Kingery -- 32.5 mph (Sept. 6)

There are plenty of blowouts where a position player comes into pitch and just throws lobs. Those are usually boring … until they strike someone out. That's what happened here. And Kingery didn't strike out just anybody -- he struck out Kurtz. Yes, the same Kurtz who hit the longest home run of the entire season and was the AL Rookie of the Year.

Kingery made him look silly. He got Kurtz to swing and miss three times in a row at pitches slower than 33 mph -- first a 32.7 mph eephus for Strike 1, then a 32.2 mph eephus for Strike 2, and finally a 32.5 mph eephus for Strike 3. That's the slowest strikeout pitch on record in the pitch tracking era.

Most glove-side horizontal break on a strikeout
Joe Ryan -- 30 inches (April 27)

Ryan threw the sweepiest sweeper you can imagine to strike out the Angels' Kyren Paris. It broke two and a half feet, a truly insane amount. When you see a pitch take off like that, it's almost always because the wind is juicing up the movement, which is what happened here. But that's probably not much solace to Paris, who had to try to hit an impossible Wiffle ball pitch.

Most arm-side horizontal break on a strikeout
Bailey Ober -- 27 inches (May 19)

Another Twin, another wind-blown K, but in the opposite direction. Ober got the strikeout with the most arm-side run of the year against Carlos Santana, bringing the slugger to his knees with an absolutely filthy changeup. Keep in mind the width of home plate is 17 inches. Ober's changeup broke 10 inches more than that, starting off the plate inside and ending up off the plate outside.

Fastest inside-the-park home run
Jarren Duran -- 14.71 seconds (Aug. 31)

Inside-the-park home runs are some of the most exciting plays in baseball, and the most exciting inside-the-parker of 2025 belonged to Duran. The Red Sox speedster circled the bases at Fenway Park in well under 15 seconds. It wasn't quite as fast as last year's fastest inside-the-parker, 14.08 seconds by Pete Crow-Armstrong, but that's still really, really fast.

Slowest home run trot
Josh Naylor -- 37.10 seconds (June 9)

On the other end of things … it's also fun to watch a player celebrate a monster home run with a slow, slow trot around the bases. Naylor does that with the best of them, and the big slugger saved his best one for the walk-off grand slam he crushed against his future team, the Mariners, in June when he was still with the D-backs. Naylor took more than two and a half times as long to circle the bases on his slam as Duran on his inside-the-park home run.

Fastest triple
Corbin Carroll -- 10.87 seconds (April 27)

Carroll is the master of the triple. The D-backs speedster has led the league three years in a row, including a career-high 17 triples in 2025. Those included the fastest triple of the year against the Braves in April (part of a two-triple game) … and actually, Carroll had the nine fastest triples of the year. That's just what we expect from Carroll, who had the fastest triple of the year last year, too.

Biggest lead on a stolen base
José Caballero -- 86.9 feet (Aug. 26)

Stolen bases are usually decided by fractions of a second. Not this one. Here, Caballero had second base stolen by the time the pitcher let the ball go. That pitcher was Clayton Beeter of the Nationals, who was standing dead still on the mound when Caballero took off … and didn't react in the slightest. Beeter simply delivered the pitch, blissfully unbothered, as Caballero swiped the bag completely uncontested, arriving at second base just as Beeter was releasing the pitch. That resulted in a preposterous 86.9-foot lead distance tracked by Statcast.

Honorable mention to Duran here, who got a 59.4-foot lead on a much more dramatic steal of home on April 26 and needed every bit of that lead to beat the pitch from the Guardians' Doug Nikhazy.

Fastest pop time to second base on a caught stealing
Patrick Bailey -- 1.72 seconds (Sept. 23)

This is the third season in a row that the Giants backstop has had the fastest pop time in the Majors on a caught stealing at second base. Bailey's 1.72-second pop time to catch Cardinals speedster Victor Scott II in September was just enough to edge out the other king of pop time, J.T. Realmuto, who had a caught stealing at 1.74 seconds in July.

Hardest outfield assist
Oneil Cruz -- 102.9 mph (July 6)

Cruz had the hardest hit of 2025, and he had the hardest throw of 2025 to nail a runner for an outfield assist. That throw was nearly 103 mph out of his hand -- not quite as hard as the near-123 mph home run off his bat, but also pretty good. Cruz fired the ball from center field to the plate to get the Mariners' J.P. Crawford just in time.

Hardest infielder assist
Elly De La Cruz -- 98.3 mph (June 14)

When it comes to infielders, De La Cruz is the gold standard of arm strength. This throw was a relay to the plate to catch Javier Báez trying to score for the Tigers. But even if you're just looking for the hardest throw on a "normal" infield play -- aka, a groundout -- that's also De La Cruz, who had a 95.9 mph throw from shortstop to first base to retire Jose Iglesias on Sept. 8.

Best catch (by catch probability)
Denzel Clarke -- 5% catch probability (June 6)

The 5% catch probability mark is the most difficult grade Statcast assigns, and there are usually a handful of those plays to choose from every season. In 2025, our pick for the most ridiculous 5% catch probability gem goes to Clarke, the A's sensational young center fielder. On this play, Clarke covered 123 feet deep into the left-center-field gap and crashed into the wall at a full sprint to make an incredible catch to rob the Orioles' Jorge Mateo of an extra-base hit.