Josh Bell
2026
Grade
His season is in line with his established level.
Above average everywhere, with the bat-to-ball skill to match the thump.
A genuinely productive bat
Josh Bell creates bases at a near-elite clip — better than 89% of qualified hitters. No real holes either — the weakest mark (walk rate) sits right around the league average.
508 plate appearances · data through 2026-08-22.
How to read this chart
Plays like…
Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Josh Bell.
Hitter type
Hitter type
Above-average contact quality.
How to read this chart
| Josh Bell | League median | Percentile | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bases per ball in play(higher = better) | .571 | .508 | 89th |
| Walk rate(higher = better) | 8% | 8% | 52nd |
| Strikeout rate(lower = better) | 21% | 23% | 63rd |
100th percentile = best in MLB.
Platoon splits
Platoon splits (EB/PA)
Better vs RHP than vs LHP by 0.021 EB/PA (modeled).
50% probable range: +0.003 to +0.039
vs LHP: shrunk estimate 0.493 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.473 to 0.513, based on 161 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.456 EB/PA. League median vs LHP: 0.425 EB/PA.
vs RHP: shrunk estimate 0.514 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.498 to 0.532, based on 349 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.507 EB/PA. League median vs RHP: 0.436 EB/PA.
A wider split than the typical switch hitter's (median 0.015). He's above the league median against both hands, so the weaker side is still a strength — not a hole.
He sits in the league's top quarter vs both lefties and righties.
How to read this chart
- Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
- His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that hand — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
- “Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all hitters against that hand.
- Josh Bell switch-hits — he can choose the platoon-advantaged side almost every plate appearance, so a small gap here is expected. It is not missing data or a modeling error.
- Shrunk splits beat raw splits decisively at low PA counts and converge with them as playing time builds — individual platoon gaps need roughly 1,000+ PA vs a hand before the raw number alone can be trusted.
How he hits
He hits the ball to the pull side most often, and that's where his hardest contact goes.
Best batted balls
Luck check
Robbed 2 times — crushed balls the simulator scores as near-certain hits that died in a glove.
9 lucky hits — balls with a hit probability under 20% that found grass.
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Performance by pitch type
Bases he adds per 100 pitches of each type, against the league.
−3.8 bases per 100 · no single-type league comparison
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Earned vs. actual
Josh Bell's contact has earned about 9 more bases than he's actually been credited — his results have run unlucky so far.
over 360 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides
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Swing
Swing at a glance
Batting left
Swings about as fast as most hitters. His swing is longer than most hitters', with a typical attack angle. Shortens up more than most hitters with two strikes. Batting left, his bat travels on a fairly typical path; batting right, a steeper path than most.
- Attack angle
- 9.4°
- Lg median 9.4°
- Swing length
- 7.9 ft
- Lg median 7.3 ft
- Swing path tilt
- 32.7°
- Lg median 32.4°
How to read this chart
- Competitive swings: bunts and checked-type swings under 50 mph are excluded, so these numbers sit a touch below the bat speeds Savant publishes, which use a different cut.
- League tracking starts in 2024, and early 2024 has small gaps — about 93% of swings that season have a reading.
- Swing length — how far the sweet spot of the bat travels during the swing.
- Attack angle — the bat’s upward or downward tilt through the zone.
- Swing path tilt — how steep the bat’s path is.
- None of these is better or worse on its own — swing style trades power against contact (the fastest and slowest swings in the league both belong to stars).
His two swings
- Bat speed
- 71.7 mph batting left
- 69.7 mph batting right
- Lg median 71.1 mph
Batting left
- Attack angle
- 9.8°
- Lg median 9.4°
- Swing length
- 7.9 ft
- Lg median 7.3 ft
- Swing path tilt
- 32.7°
- Lg median 32.4°
Batting right
- Attack angle
- 8.4°
- Lg median 9.4°
- Swing length
- 7.8 ft
- Lg median 7.3 ft
- Swing path tilt
- 35.5°
- Lg median 31.6°
About 70% of switch hitters swing faster right-handed — 33 of them have enough swings from both sides to tell. His right-handed swing travels on a 2.7° steeper path.
How to read this chart
- Both sides need at least 100 competitive swings for this card — below that, the difference between them is mostly measurement noise.
- Each swing is compared against the league median for that batting side, so a left-handed swing is measured against other left-handed swings.
- We only name a difference when it is more than three times its own margin of error and big enough to matter. For a handful of switch hitters nothing clears that bar, and the two sides really are the same swing.
Timing
Timing at a glance
2026 · data through 2026-08-22Squares the ball up about as often as most hitters. When his timing is off, it's usually early — about 13 ms ahead of perfect timing. When he misses vertically, it's more often under the ball than over it. More of his mishits come from reaching at pitches away from him than from getting tied up inside.
How to read this chart
- Perfect contact — a swing that is centered (barrel within 4 inches of the ball horizontally), on time (within 7 milliseconds of ideal timing), and lined up (within 2 inches vertically), all at once. A swing missing any of the three counts as flawed.
- Miss distance — on swings and misses only: how far the barrel half of the bat passed from the ball, in inches.
- Timing numbers are Savant’s season-to-date figures. Switch hitters have both sides combined — no side-by-side timing split exists.
- League comparisons cover hitters with 100+ tracked swings this season. Tracking starts in July 2023.
How he sets up
How he sets up
A wide base — feet 38″ apart vs the 30″ league average.
Month by month this season, from his setup about a second before each pitch.
How to read this chart
- Overhead view of the batter’s box. The dots are his feet, reconstructed from Statcast’s stance measurements — hip position, foot separation, and stance angle — about one second before the pitch. It’s an approximation of his setup, not his stride or swing.
- Open means his front foot is pulled off the line to the plate; closed means it steps toward it. The average hitter sets up slightly open.
- The change line above only appears for a sustained month-over-month move that clears normal Statcast noise by a wide margin.
- The chart is his month-by-month average for whichever measure you pick, this season only. A month needs 25 tracked swings to appear, so an injured or platooned month can be missing. The shaded band and dashed line are where the middle half of hitters, and the median hitter, sat over their whole season.
- On the angle chart, below zero is an open stance and above zero is a closed one — hover a point (or drag on a phone) and it says which in words.
- Data through 2026-08-22.
Best games
Best games
His best games this season by bases above replacement.
- vs YankeesJul 4, 2026
3-5 · 2B, HR ×2
- Total bases
- 9.4
- Above replacement
- +7.5
- vs AstrosMay 18, 2026
3-4 · HR ×2
- Total bases
- 6.3
- Above replacement
- +4.8
- vs RoyalsAug 4, 2026
2-4 · HR
- Total bases
- 5.5
- Above replacement
- +4.0
- vs BravesAug 18, 2026
2-4 · HR
- Total bases
- 5.2
- Above replacement
- +3.7
- vs TigersApr 9, 2026
3-4 · HR
- Total bases
- 5.0
- Above replacement
- +3.5
Trends
Multi-season trends · Josh Bell
HR% down, BB% down, K% up, Barrel% down, Hard-hit% down vs last season
Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.