Baseball's fastest team plays in San Diego
As we continue to roll out Sprint Speed, our Statcast™ metric for sharing a player's max speed, we've introduced how it works, pointed out the fastest players at each position, praised the athleticism of J.T. Realmuto, and looked at just how hard it is to maintain speed as players age.It's
As we continue to roll out Sprint Speed, our Statcast™ metric for sharing a player's max speed, we've introduced how it works, pointed out the fastest players at each position, praised the athleticism of J.T. Realmuto, and looked at just how hard it is to maintain speed as players age.
It's that last one, that speed peaks early and declines quickly afterward, that's going to be extremely important to keep in mind here as we finish off the week by looking at baseball's speediest teams. The fastest team is also the youngest. The slowest team is also the oldest. In no way are these facts unrelated, so say hello to the San Diego Padres, the fastest team in baseball -- if only by a small amount over Miami.
Sprint Speed, as we defined it, is a player's feet per second in his fastest one-second window, and the Major League average is 27 ft/sec. The elite players, like
Are you surprised that the Padres have the most team speed? Perhaps you shouldn't be. In the midst of a complete rebuild, they've accumulated baseball's youngest roster, with an average of 26.2 years, as compared to the Major League average of 28.5 years. (These age numbers, from Baseball-Reference, have been weighted for playing time.) Of the 15 Padres to accumulate at least 50 plate appearances this year, just one (shortstop
Age, as we said, correlates pretty strongly to speed, and while it's not always this stark, it does hold true year to year. In 2015, the fastest team (Marlins, 27.8 ft/sec) was fifth-youngest, and the slowest team (the Reds, somehow, despite Hamilton, were at just 26.6 ft/sec) were third-oldest, thanks to
But it's not entirely about age, and only one of this year's fastest three teams are actually very young. So how did they get there? Let's find out.
1. PADRES (27.9 ft/sec)
Well, OK, this one is about age, as we've outlined, because only two qualified Padres are below average, and even
But wait, there's more. The Padres are full of guys you've never heard of who have outstanding speed. Here's center fielder
And while we could point out
For as much speed as the Padres have, it could have been more. This doesn't count the injured
2. MARLINS (27.8 ft/sec)
There really isn't much of a difference in 0.1 ft/sec -- 0.5 ft/sec seems meaningful, and 1.0 ft/sec definitely is -- so while we have the Marlins second here for purposes of ranking, they're essentially tied for first. Like everyone else in the top here, the Marlins have someone elite. They have Gordon (29.3 ft/sec, seventh-best overall).
They have Realmuto, too, who stands out above all catchers on both sides of the ball.
Like the Padres, just about every Marlin is above average, excepting mainly slugging first baseman
3. RAYS (27.6 ft/sec)
The Rays have two truly elite speedsters, outfielders
Brad Miller,
Now, does speed correlate exactly to baserunning success? Of course not; you'll notice that
Mike Petriello is an analyst for MLB.com and the host of the Statcast podcast. He has previously written for ESPN Insider and FanGraphs.