3 spring training Pittsburgh Pirates Statcast standouts ahead of Opening Day

Statcast is going into its eleventh season of use in Major League Baseball. Since 2015, every pitch, batted ball, and play made has been tracked by Statcast, ranging from pitch velocity, spin rate, how hard the player hit the ball, how much ground a fielder needed to cover to get to a field a ball, how fast the runner was running, and so much more. Now, most A-Ball (and Triple-A) stadiums have Statcast data, which also means that there is a lot of data available for Pirates fans (and MLB fans, in general) to glean from spring training games.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are wrapping up spring training and heading into the regular season. Since Statcast metrics can tell us more about a player’s ability than their bottom line, especially in spring training, let’s take a look at some Pirates players who are standing out, in terms of Statcast metrics.

(Note that not only are we looking at a small sample size, but this does not measure the entirety of spring training. Not every stadium has the luxury of Statcast capabilities, so publicly available data for batted balls/pitches are inaccessible.)

3 Statcast darlings to keep an eye on from Pittsburgh Pirates spring training

3. Ke’Bryan Hayes

Ke’Bryan Hayes’ 2024 campaign was very disappointing. After a promising 2023 season, when it looked like he was making the improvements he needed to make, Hayes regressed in multiple ways. Many of his problems likely stemmed from back issues that plagued him for most of the season, including a herniated disc.

Hayes is having an unusually mediocre spring training, on the surface. He posted seven hits through his first 31 plate appearances, but on the plus side, he has struck out just four times with four walks (12.9% rate) during that span. For reference, Hayes ranked top 15 among all batters in spring training with at least 150 plate appearances since 2006 in OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ to begin camp. But Hayes’ Statcast numbers are much better than his bottom line this year.

One promising sign is that Hayes is hitting the ball hard again. He has a 94.7 MPH exit velocity in spring training. Hayes’ average exit velo from 2020 through 2023 was a strong 91.3 MPH mark. This was one of the best marks in baseball throughout these four seasons. He ranked 23rd among the 126 batters with at least 1500 plate appearances in this timeframe.

However, that number fell to just 88.9 MPH in 2024, likely being influenced by his back issues. Another positive is that his launch angle is currently sitting at nine degrees. Hayes has had problems lifting the ball in the past. Despite well above-average raw power, his launch angle in ‘20-’22 was just 4.4 degrees. So far, his best season also coincides with his highest single-season launch angle in 2023 at 13.3 degrees. 

While Hayes has not reached his 2023 mark, a nine-degree launch angle is still a massive improvement from his previous seasons, prior to 2023, or last season, when he sat at 4.4 degrees. For those still skeptical and chalking it up to just a small sample size in spring training, Hayes’ launch angle in spring training during 2021 and 2022 was only four degrees.