When you think of fast players, you probably think NFL or college football. How couldn’t you? But you should stop…because speed kills in America’s favorite pastime sport, too. So much so that there’s several MLB players in the bigs for their speed (alright, their defense, too.) The Reds have one of them, Bubba Thompson. What isn’t exciting about a player stealing a bag? Or tagging up on a long fly-out to the outfield to give their teammate an RBI whilst they score a run? Speed has always killed, and the Cincinnati Reds have always had it, seemingly. Billy Hamilton. Drew Stubbs. A bunch of guys that never really panned out, but were quick as hell.
Would it come as a shock to hear they were one of the fastest teams in Major League Baseball in 2024? After all, the roster is built and fixated around speed. But are they the FASTEST team in Major League Baseball?
Statcast and the Reds love each other.
One of my favorite tools as a diehard baseball fan is Baseball Savant’s Statcast – a real gem when it comes to statistics and more, and packed inside Statcast is a measurable labeled “Running”, subtitled with Sprint Speed – who’d of guessed it. Inside this metric, you’d find several Cincinnati Reds players toward the top. One I bet you’ve heard of quite a few times, the household name Elly De La Cruz, who comes in the 99th percentile for sprint speed. If you’re unaware of analytics, that means he is top 1% in baseball. Just under him? Stuart Fairchild joins him as well.
Joining them in this category are some great players like Bobby Witt Jr, Jeremy Pena, Trea Turner, and a couple super young, but going to be super star players like Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford just to name a few. One of the more crazier things, at least to me, that statcast measures is the time it takes a player to get from home plate to 1st base. Bobby Witt Jr does it in 4.09 seconds. Just absolutely insane as a right handed hitter. And would you guess, as a Reds fan, that Jake Fraley would be…quicker than Elly homeplate to 1st? I bet not, but he is! Rake gets to 1st base from home in 4.22 seconds, which is 18th best in ALL of baseball, and Elly de La Cruz gets to 1st from home in 4.31 seconds, which is 48th best.
So what team is the fastest in Major League Baseball?
If you’ve read this far, you’d notice that I brought up quite a few Reds players all being in the top 20, but are they the fastest team in Major League Baseball? That answer is…YES. According to an MLB based statistic Twitter labeled BrooksGate – they sure are, if you’re looking at sprint speed, which is the main category of defining “speed” in MLB. The next closest is the Philidelphia Phillies, who are extremely fast in their own right. Just behind them, the Milwaukee Brewers.
Speed kills. And wins games.
The Cincinnati Reds are currently tied for 1st in Major League Baseball with the Washington Nationals with 52 stolen bases on the year. In 2023, the Reds lead the majors in stolen bases then, too. This has become a very big piece of identity for this “new age” Cincinnati Reds team – speed. Perhaps what’s just as impressive is their success rate in SB%, they’ve only been caught 11 times out of 63 tries.
Elly De La Cruz has been caught only 3 times, versus 18 stolenbases for him. Truly incredible stuff. To top it off, TJ Friedl is getting ready to come off the Injured List, and will be adding to the chaos on the basepaths. The Reds have won several games so far in 2024 based on the chaos Elly and others have created on the basepaths alone, and that’s backed up by their very low value for clutch %. Those boys are gonna keep runnin’.
 - only one of them can be the fastest. Which team is it? Hint: They play in the midwest.){kind=link}