The two top contenders for the MLB batting title are about to clash. And the most fun part is, they're polar opposites.
On one side, there's Aaron Judge, behemoth slugger. On the other, there's Jacob Wilson, contact hitter extraordinaire.
As the Yankees and A's face off at Yankee Stadium this weekend, Judge leads the Majors with a .361 batting average. Wilson is second at .345. But they rack up their hits in completely different ways.
Let's take a look at the beautiful contrast between Judge and Wilson. Here are the three biggest differences.
#1
Judge: Extreme bat speed
Wilson: Perfect contact
Judge, as you might expect from a 6-foot-7 strongman, can ramp his swing up to the highest echelon of bat speed. He has one of the fastest swings in the Majors. Wilson, on the other hand, has one of the slowest.
There are 225 hitters who qualify for Statcast's 2025 bat speed leaderboard right now. Judge is in the top five … Wilson is in the bottom five. The full spectrum of MLB bat speed is, essentially, Aaron Judge to Jacob Wilson.
Highest bat speed in MLB in 2025
- Oneil Cruz: 78.5 mph
- Junior Caminero: 78.1 mph
- Jordan Walker: 77.6 mph
- Jo Adell: 77.4 mph
- Aaron Judge: 76.8 mph
Lowest bat speed in MLB in 2025
- Luis Arraez: 62.5 mph
- Steven Kwan: 63.6 mph
- Jacob Wilson: 63.7 mph
- Nick Allen: 64.5 mph
- Wilmer Flores: 65.6 mph
It's easy to follow how Judge's bat speed translates to hits. The higher your bat speed, the harder you can hit the ball, and the harder you hit the ball, the more likely that ball is to be a hit. There you have it.
But the lowest bat speed hitters in the Majors -- Arraez, Kwan and Wilson -- are three of the best contact hitters in the sport. That's because what they lack in raw bat speed, they make up for in squared-up contact on the sweet spot of the bat.
Wilson ranks right at the top of the league in squared-up rate, which essentially shows you which hitters get the most out of their bat speed by hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Over 40% of his swings this season have produced squared-up contact.
Highest % of swings squared up in 2025
- Luis Arraez: 44.1%
- Jacob Wilson: 40.7%
- Mookie Betts: 40.3%
- Keibert Ruiz: 39.9%
- Ernie Clement: 38.3%
Judge has way more bat speed to turn into exit velocity, but what Wilson is great at is turning the bat speed that he has into as much exit velocity as possible. Making solid contact on the barrel of the bat can get you tons of hits, too.
#2
Judge: Long fly-ball swing
Wilson: Short line-drive swing
Let's take a closer look at Judge's swing vs. Wilson's. There's more to see in the swings that illustrates their contrasting approaches to hitting.
Judge has a prototypical power hitter swing: A long, Ruthian hack. Wilson has a prototypical contact hitter swing: A short, compact cut.
Judge's average swing length this season is 8.1 feet -- that's how far his bat travels from the start of his swing up to the point of contact. He's one of 12 qualifying hitters with a swing eight feet or longer.
Wilson's average swing length this season is 6.0 feet. Only he and Arraez have a swing that's six feet or shorter. The average big league hitter has a swing length of 7.3 feet.
By the time Judge's swing gets to the ball, it's also traveling at the steep direction needed to drive the ball in the air. His average attack angle of 15 degrees -- that's the vertical angle the sweet spot of the bat is moving at the moment it hits the baseball -- is on the higher side of Major League hitters. A high attack angle swing is a fly-ball swing. And when Judge hits fly balls, they're homers, because he's so strong. Home runs count toward batting average, too.
Wilson's swing, on the other hand, is level at contact. His average attack angle is only two degrees, one of baseball's lowest. A low attack angle swing is a ground-ball and line-drive swing. Wilson doesn't have the raw power Judge does, so he needs to rely on balls in play for his hits. If he hits too many fly balls, he'll just fly out. So he doesn't. Wilson has the seventh-most total line drives this season. Line drives are hits.
Judge's long fly-ball swing lets him generate those high bat speeds, exit velocities and air contact to crush balls over the fence to any part of the ballpark. Wilson's short line-drive swing helps him be direct to the ball, make lots of square contact and collect his base hits.
#3
Judge: Crush it or miss it
Wilson: Spray it but always hit it
The last big difference, and probably the most obvious difference, between Judge and Wilson is "dangerous contact" vs. "amount of contact."
Judge swings and misses and strikes out a lot. More than most hitters. But that doesn't matter. Because he crushes the ball way more.
Judge's bombs far outweigh his whiffs. Even though his swing-and-miss rate ranks near the bottom of the league, he ranks at the top of the league in all the quality of contact stats that matter -- exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate (balls he hits with both ideal exit velocity and ideal launch angle, which are likely to go for extra-base hits and home runs), to name a few of the big ones.
Wilson has an approach completely counter to that. He just never whiffs, puts tons of balls in play, and relies on his elite bat-to-ball skill to turn those balls in play into hits for his batting average.
Wilson ranks near the bottom of the league in Statcast's hard-hit metrics, but he ranks among the very best in the Majors in swing-and-miss rate and strikeout rate. He can put his bat on the ball successfully no matter what the pitcher throws at him: Wilson is batting .339 against fastballs, .322 against breaking balls and .441 against offspeed pitches.
It's rare for a hitter to be able to cover every pitch type so well -- only a few big leaguers post .300-plus batting averages against all three pitch groups. Even Judge is more fastball-heavy, batting .467 against fastballs compared to .292 against breaking balls and .176 against offspeed pitches.
It just goes to show you, there's more than one way to be a batting champion. Hits are hits, and Judge and Wilson are the best at getting them right now, no matter how different they are.
David Adler is a reporter for MLB.com based in New York.