The five-tool participant is the golden perfect of a baseball participant: the participant who can do every thing.
The traditional 5 instruments — contact hitting, energy, velocity, glove and arm — have been round for many years, and whereas uncommon, five-tool superstars have existed in each MLB period, from Willie Mays to Ken Griffey Jr. to Mookie Betts.
However what if we wished to create the very best five-tool participant out of in the present day’s large league stars? We will use Statcast information to establish 5 of the very best baseball gamers on this planet with essentially the most elite particular person expertise — and mix them into one super-five-tool participant. What would that participant appear to be? How good may that participant be?
Let’s do it. Let’s construct the last word five-tool star for Main League Baseball in 2024.
(Until in any other case famous, all stats are coming into the weekend.)
Key stats: .318 xBA, 7.2% whiff price, 4.9% Ok%
Arraez is the king of bat-to-ball ability.
He ranks on the prime of the Majors in each swing-and-miss price (7.1%) and strikeout price (4.8%). Take into consideration what which means: Arraez misses on just one out of each 14 swings. And he strikes out in lower than one out of each 20 plate appearances.
That is insane. The typical Main League hitter in 2024 whiffs on 25.1% of their swings and strikes out 22.4% of the time. So Arraez is greater than 3 times higher than a median large leaguer at placing the bat on the ball when he swings, and over 4 occasions higher at not placing out.
However you may’t be an incredible contact hitter until you may truly flip all these balls in play into hits. Arraez is elite at that, too. Specifically, he is elite by a trio of Statcast’s contact metrics.
Arraez leads MLB with a 43.1% squared-up price, which is a brand new Statcast bat monitoring stat that displays how typically he hits the ball on the candy spot of the bat when he swings. Making squared-up contact so typically means Arraez is nice at turning his bat velocity into precise exit velocity when he makes contact, which is principally on a regular basis.
Launch angle sweet-spot price
Arraez ranks third amongst MLB regulars with a 41.8% launch angle sweet-spot price, which is not in regards to the bodily candy spot of the bat, however how the ball comes off the bat. The launch angle sweet-spot zone is 8-32 levels, which encompasses each the road drives and fly balls which can be almost certainly to be hits. Solely Freddie Freeman and Taylor Ward have the next launch angle sweet-spot price than Arraez in 2024.
Based mostly on his high quality of contact, Arraez has a .318 anticipated batting common this season, fourth-best amongst qualifying hitters on Statcast’s leaderboard behind solely Bobby Witt Jr., Juan Soto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And over the past two seasons, Arraez has maintained a .324 xBA throughout over 1,000 plate appearances, the very best amongst any participant in that group.
In the event you’re constructing a celebrity five-tool participant, that is the muse you wish to begin with. Proper off the bat, our celebrity is a prime contender for the MLB batting title.
The one factor Arraez would not do is hit the ball onerous … however guess what? That does not matter for us. As a result of we’re about to present our super-player the exit velocity of the very best dwelling run hitter since Barry Bonds.
Honorable mentions: Steven Kwan, Juan Soto
Key stats: .745 xSLG, 88 barrels, 26 no-doubter HR
Give us the Judgian blasts. Nobody exemplifies light-tower energy just like the Yankees’ celebrity slugger.
Decide crushes sufficient dwelling runs on his personal. Think about what number of our five-tool super-player would hit with Decide’s energy mixed with Arraez’s bat-to-ball ability.
Decide is on tempo for 61 dwelling runs this season. If he had Arraez’s strikeout price as an alternative of his personal 23.9%, and maintained his regular dwelling run price over these additional plate appearances that had been not Ok’s, he’d be on the right track to blow previous 70. Our five-tool celebrity may need a shot at Bonds’ report 73-home run season.
Honorable mentions: Shohei Ohtani, Giancarlo Stanton
Key stats: 30.1 ft/sec dash velocity, 67 bolts
This can be a shut race, figuratively and actually, between De La Cruz and Bobby Witt Jr. In the long run, we’re going with the man who has 60 steals earlier than September.
Witt and De La Cruz are neck-and-neck for the title of quickest man in baseball. Witt has the smallest of edges on Statcast’s dash velocity leaderboard, with a median velocity of 30.4 ft/sec this season to De La Cruz’s 30.1 ft/sec. In addition they rank 1-2 in MLB amongst gamers with at the least 100 aggressive runs going again to the beginning of final season, with Witt at a 30.5 ft/sec dash velocity and De La Cruz at 30.3 ft/sec.
Each gamers have elite pure velocity — something 30 ft/sec or sooner is elite by MLB requirements. De La Cruz and Witt are two of simply 4 large league regulars averaging above that mark in 2024, and so they repeatedly report “bolts,” or particular person runs at 30-plus ft/sec.
However take into account how they flip their uncooked velocity into recreation velocity. The large instance: Witt and De La Cruz have been caught stealing the identical variety of occasions, 12. However De La Cruz has stolen practically 2 1/2 occasions extra bases than Witt (60 vs. 25).
For our five-tool star with Luis Arraez’s contact potential, Aaron Decide’s dwelling run energy and Elly De La Cruz’s stolen-base velocity, neglect the 30-30 or 40-40 membership. He is creating the 60-60 membership or the 70-70 membership.
We’re selecting De La Cruz for the velocity part of the participant we’re creating — however don’t fret, we’re not leaving Witt out of this five-tool megastar. Witt is a five-tool celebrity all by himself, which is how he can rival Decide within the AL MVP race even when Decide would possibly hit 60 homers once more. And he is developing subsequent right here.
Honorable mentions: Bobby Witt Jr., Corbin Carroll
Key stats: +16 Outs Above Common, +12 Fielding Run Worth
It is loopy to assume that Witt’s fielding has come this far, this quick. He is now one of many actually elite defenders in baseball, at a premier place, when simply two years in the past, as a rookie, he was one of many worst.
Witt went from the bottom percentile of MLB fielders in Statcast’s flagship defensive metric, Outs Above Common, as a rookie … to the 98th percentile of MLB fielders in 2023 … to the very prime percentile of MLB fielders in 2024. That is an unimaginable season-to-season turnaround.
Witt’s fielding development
Witt has been the very best defensive shortstop within the Majors this season, forward of Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson (+15 OAA), Francisco Lindor (+14 OAA) and Anthony Volpe (+13 OAA). The one fielders at any place with the next OAA complete is Nationals rookie middle fielder Jacob Younger at +18 OAA and Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien at +17 OAA.
Witt’s vary at shortstop has develop into actually elite. The signature Bobby Witt Jr. defensive gem is when he makes use of his insane velocity to vary over 100 toes to trace down a popup within the shallow outfield — like this play on Could 9 of this season when he lined 129 toes at a dash velocity of 30.0 ft/sec to make a sliding catch on the Angels’ Nolan Schanuel.
Honorable mentions: Daulton Varsho, Jacob Younger
Key stats: 95.7 mph avg. arm power, 98.6 mph max arm power
We may go a number of completely different routes right here — an outfielder with a rocket arm like Brenton Doyle or Fernando Tatis Jr., a catcher with a cannon like Patrick Bailey or J.T. Realmuto … or an infielder with a laser like Cruz.
We determined to go together with Cruz. Pair Cruz’s arm with Witt’s glove, and you’ve got the supreme all-around defensive shortstop in baseball.
The Pirates’ 6-foot-7 shortstop has the highest arm power of any infielder within the Majors this season, averaging 95.7 mph on his aggressive throws. That is robust sufficient to be the fifth-best arm of any fielder at any place, together with outfielders.
Cruz has reached a max arm power of 98.6 mph (on a relay throw to the plate) and as excessive as 97.4 mph on an infield help (on a bang-bang play to get the Blue Jays’ Ernie Clement at first base in a tie recreation within the 14th inning on Could 31).
With Witt and Cruz’s skills mixed, we have a Gold Glove defender — actually, a Platinum Glove defender — on our fingers.
Honorable mentions: Brenton Doyle, J.T. Realmuto
THE FINAL 5-TOOL SUPERSTAR
Luis Arraez’s contact, Aaron Decide’s energy, Elly De La Cruz’s velocity, Bobby Witt Jr.’s glove, Oneil Cruz’s arm
We’re carried out. We have got our five-tool celebrity.
How useful of a participant is he? Properly, our participant is a possible batting champion … with a traditionally nice power-speed combo … who’s additionally the very best defensive shortstop in baseball. Our five-tool super-duper-star would not simply be a runaway MVP, he may need the very best season of all time.
