Sprint Speed (SS)

Definition

Introduced during the 2017 season, Sprint Speed is a Statcast metric that aims to more precisely quantify speed by measuring how many feet per second a player runs in his fastest one-second window.

In 2018, the metric was updated for hitters/runners to include the top home-to-first times as well as the previously qualified two-base runs, in an attempt to include more useful information and get to a meaningful number more quickly.

Currently, the metric includes "qualified runs" from these two categories:

? Runs of two bases or more on non-homers, excluding runs from second base when an extra-base hit happens.
? Home-to-first runs on "topped" or "weakly hit" balls.

The best of these runs, approximately two-thirds, are averaged for a player's seasonal average.

Any run with a Sprint Speed of at least 30 ft/sec is known as a Bolt.

Why it's useful

Approximately seven full-effort strides can be captured over the course of a one-second window, so Sprint Speed rewards those who can sustain their speed over a longer period of time.

The following leaderboard is the Top 10 of the more than 500 players who had at least 10 qualified runs in the 2018 season.

Top 2018 Sprint Speed by baserunners (min. 10 qualified runs)
30.5 feet per second -- Byron Buxton
30.2 feet per second -- Roman Quinn/Magneuris Sierra
30.1 feet per second -- Adam Engel/Billy Hamilton/Trea Turner
30.0 feet per second -- Delino DeShields/Garrett Hampson
29.9 feet per second -- Harrison Bader/Socrates Brito/Adalberto Mondesi/Isaac Galloway
View full leaderboard

Additional resources

? Statcast introduces Sprint Speed metric
? Sprint Speed updated to track baserunners
? 2018 Sprint Speed update