MLB’s 4 hardest hitters are all in the World Series

The eye test would tell you that all by itself. Just watch the home runs those four superstars have been hitting all year — especially in the playoffs — and you’ll know they can crush baseballs like nobody else in the game.

But we have the stats to back it up, too. By basically every power-hitting metric Statcast has, the quartet of Judge, Soto, Stanton and Ohtani top the charts. So the 2024 Fall Classic should be an embarrassment of home run riches.

Let’s start with Barrels — Statcast’s flagship slugging stat. Barrels are balls hit with the ideal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. It’s the most dangerous category of contact. Barrels are the batted balls that are by far the most likely to be home runs.

And no one barrels the baseball more often than Judge, Ohtani, Stanton and Soto — who rank No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the Majors in barrel rate this season, in that order.

Highest barrel rate in MLB, 2024
Regular + postseason (min. 300 batted balls)

1. Aaron Judge: 26.3%
2. Shohei Ohtani: 21.6%
3. Giancarlo Stanton: 21.1%
4. Juan Soto: 19.9%
5. Brent Rooker: 16.6%

Soto, Stanton and Ohtani all barrel the ball one out of every five times they put the ball in play. Judge does it one out of every four. So much of their contact is loud contact. When you hear the crack of one of those four player’s bats, there’s a great chance the ball is leaving the yard. And not just leaving the yard — leaving the yard in dramatic fashion.

Ohtani, Judge, Stanton and Soto have combined to hit 33 home runs 440 feet or longer in 2024. Judge’s longest of the year is 477 feet; Ohtani’s is 476 feet; Stanton’s is 451 feet; Soto’s is 447 feet. Their home runs don’t just go out, they go way out, to every part of the field.

In the 10 years of Statcast tracking, which began in 2015, there’s never been a World Series like this. None of the other World Series in the Statcast era have even featured four of the top 10 hitters in the Majors by barrel rate, let alone four of the top five.

The closest was the 2022 World Series between the Astros and Phillies, which pitted Houston’s Yordan Alvarez (second in MLB in barrel rate that season) against Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber (fourth) and Bryce Harper (10th).

Ohtani and Judge, the two MVP favorites, stand out in particular. They’ve both amassed over 100 barrels this season, between the regular season and playoffs, and are only one apart for the MLB lead entering the World Series. Soto’s not too far behind, at 97, and he could easily break the 100-barrel mark during the Fall Classic if he has a series anything like the one he had for the Nationals in 2019. And while Stanton has “only” 64 total barrels, ninth-most in MLB, he’s played over 40 fewer games than the other three; if he’d played a full season, he’d be right there next to his fellow World Series sluggers.

Most barrels, 2024
Regular + postseason

1. Shohei Ohtani: 109
2. Aaron Judge: 108
3. Juan Soto: 97
4. Bobby Witt Jr.: 81
5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 72
9-T. Giancarlo Stanton: 64

It’s cool that the two MLB barrel leaders, Judge and Ohtani, are facing off against each other, which hasn’t happened in any World Series over the last decade. And over 100 barrels is a lot of barrels. It’s a “50-home-run hitter” level of barrels.

In fact, Ohtani and Judge this year have two of the three highest single-season barrel totals in Statcast history. And Soto could join them soon. Judge was the only hitter who’d ever broken 100 before this year — he had 112 in his historic 62-homer season in 2022.

We can go even simpler than barrels, too. Judge, Ohtani, Soto and Stanton are also the top four 2024 leaders in plain old hard-hit rate (the percentage of their batted balls that are hit 95 mph or harder), and four of the top five hitters in average exit velocity.

Highest hard-hit rate, 2024
Regular + postseason (min. 300 batted balls)

1. Aaron Judge: 61.2%
2. Shohei Ohtani: 59.3%
3. Juan Soto: 57.6%
4. Giancarlo Stanton: 56.8%
5. Fernando Tatis Jr.: 56.6%

Highest avg. exit velocity, 2024
Regular + postseason (min. 300 batted balls)

1. Aaron Judge: 96.3 mph
2-T. Shohei Ohtani: 95.5 mph
2-T. Oneil Cruz: 95.5 mph
4. Giancarlo Stanton: 94.7 mph
5. Juan Soto: 94.5 mph

The more you hit the ball hard, the more likely you are to get hits. If you can lift it in the air, too (that’s what barrels are), the more likely you are to hit home runs. Ohtani, Judge, Stanton and Soto all do that with authority, even facing the best pitchers in the world in the postseason.

But with those four, you’re not just here for the home runs. You’re here for the BIG home runs.

You’re here for the home runs like Ohtani’s 117.8 mph leadoff rocket against the Mets in Game 4 of the NLCS, or Stanton’s 117.5 mph, 446-foot game-tying blast against the Guardians in the Yankees’ ALCS Game 5 clincher.

Ohtani, Stanton, Judge and Soto hit home runs like that more than anyone else. Let’s call 110-plus mph the extreme end of exit velocity. Who do you think leads MLB in the number of home runs hit that hard?

Most HR hit 110+ mph, 2024
Regular + postseason

1. Shohei Ohtani: 29 (51% of total HR)
2. Aaron Judge: 28 (47% of total HR)
3. Giancarlo Stanton: 23 (72% of total HR)
4. Juan Soto: 17 (39% of total HR)
5. Kyle Schwarber: 14

They’ve all contributed to that total during the postseason. Ohtani and Stanton have hit three 110-plus mph home runs apiece; Judge and Soto have each hit one. Between them, they have eight of the 13 total home runs hit that hard by all players during the 2024 postseason.

And here’s a similar fun fact: All of MLB combined has hit 492 home runs 110 mph or harder this year, including the playoffs. Ohtani, Judge, Stanton and Soto have 97 of those. That means four hitters — four of the very best hitters in the Majors, but still, just four hitters — have accounted for 20% of the total home runs hit 110-plus mph across the entire Major Leagues.

Ohtani, Judge, Stanton and Soto’s hardest HR of 2024

The Yankees and Dodgers stars simply have unrivaled light-tower power. Let’s look at one more Statcast leaderboard that reflects that: no-doubter home runs.

A “no-doubter” home run is pretty simple — it’s a homer that would be gone in all 30 MLB ballparks. A no-doubter isn’t worth any more than a regular home run … but it’s a lot more fun to watch.

These are the home runs you want to see in the World Series. And it should be no surprise that the sluggers in this World Series are the ones most likely to hit them.

Ohtani, Judge and Soto have more no-doubters than anyone else this season. And Stanton, despite his limited playing time compared to the rest, is still in the top 10, thanks to his high rate of Stantonian blasts.

Most no-doubter HR, 2024
Regular + postseason

1. Shohei Ohtani: 33
2. Aaron Judge: 30
3. Juan Soto: 25
4. Brent Rooker: 24
5. Kyle Schwarber: 23
9-T. Giancarlo Stanton: 19

Ohtani’s 117.8 mph rocket in the NLCS, the hardest homer of the postseason, was a no-doubter. So are four of Stanton’s five home runs in these playoffs — all but the wall-scraper he hit off Emmanuel Clase to dramatically go back-to-back with Judge in Game 3 of the ALCS.

There should be more in the World Series. Ohtani, Judge, Soto and Stanton are the perfect four hitters to put on a show.