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Austin Hays

2026
Padres· LF · bats R · throws R· 87 PA
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
C+better than 58% of hitters at creating bases

His season is in line with his established level.

Aggressive Power

Big pop, rarely takes a walk.

A free swinger who rarely walks

Austin Hays makes solid contact more often than 59% of qualified hitters. Walks are scarce, though — only 10% of qualified hitters draw them less often. Early-season read — only 87 plate appearances so far.

87 plate appearances · data through 2026-09-11.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size — not raw season stats — so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. The middle ring marks the league median and the outer ring the league best. Percentiles vs. 519 qualified hitters — 50+ plate appearances.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Austin Hays.

Ryan ViladeRaysJake BurgerRangersChristian Encarnacion-StrandOriolesDanny JansenRangers

Hitter type

What kind of hitter he is, next to the league

Hitter type

Very free-swinging hitter with above-average pop.

League best:BB% − K% Nick Madrigal (7.3%)Hard-hit% Leo Bernal (66.7%)

How to read this chart
Two skills separate hitting styles: not giving away at-bats (walk rate minus strikeout rate) and squaring the ball up when he does put it in play (hard-hit rate). Every dot is a qualified hitter this season; dot size tracks plate appearances. Click any dot to open that hitter's page.
 Austin HaysLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(higher = better).539.51058th
Walk rate(higher = better)3%8%10th
Strikeout rate(lower = better)28%23%31st

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA)

Better vs LHP than vs RHP by 0.045 EB/PA (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.021 to +0.070

vs LHP43 PA0.480

vs LHP: shrunk estimate 0.480 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.452 to 0.509, based on 43 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.506 EB/PA. League median vs LHP: 0.426 EB/PA.

vs RHP44 PA0.435

vs RHP: shrunk estimate 0.435 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.411 to 0.461, based on 44 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.309 EB/PA. League median vs RHP: 0.435 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHP rate (0.309) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.3990.4290.4600.4900.521
← worsebetter →
Above league medianBelow50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

A wider split than the typical righty bat's (median 0.034).

He sits in the league's top quarter vs lefties and the league's middle half vs 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 simulator pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • “Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all hitters against that hand.
  • 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

What happens when he puts a ball in play

He hits the ball to the pull side most often, but does his most damage to the opposite field.

Best batted balls

Where every ball Austin Hays put in play landed this season.
hit · out
EBlowhigh
vs Bryan KingHome run
EV 99 mph · LA 29° · EB 3.7
08/09 vs Astros
vs Chris PaddackHome run
EV 101 mph · LA 33° · EB 2.7
03/30 vs Marlins
vs Brandon WilliamsonDouble
EV 95 mph · LA 10° · EB 1.5
09/02 vs Reds
vs Angel ZerpaDouble
EV 112 mph · LA 11° · EB 1.5
03/28 vs Brewers
vs Wandy PeraltaOut
EV 91 mph · LA 12° · EB 1.4
05/01 vs Padres

Luck check

1 lucky hit — a ball with a hit probability under 20% that found grass.

vs Connor PrielippSingleLucky
EV 76 mph · LA -44° · EB 0.2 · xBA .177
08/21 vs Twins
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball that got caught. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Performance by pitch type

2026 · 336 pitches

Bases he adds per 100 pitches of each type, against the league.

← below leagueabove league →
Slider (63 pitches)
−3.4
Lg median −0.4Lg best +11.3
Four-Seam Fastball (57 pitches)
+2.5
Lg median −0.3Lg best +11.4
Other (216 pitches)

−1.8 bases per 100 · no single-type league comparison

Above league medianBelowMiddle half of the leagueLg medianLg best
How to read this chart
Bases added per 100 pitches of each type — the same scale as the pitcher pages’ “saved/cost per 100”, from the hitter’s side. Every pitch counts: taking a ball adds value, whiffing loses it, and the pitch that ends the plate appearance scores its outcome against the count’s expectation. Values are bases vs the league count-average: +3.5 means his results against that pitch have been worth about 3.5 extra bases per 100 seen. Types with fewer than 50 pitches seen pool into “Other”.

Earned vs. actual

Results have matched his contact quality — Austin Hays has been credited about what his contact has earned so far.

Earned off his own contact32
Actually credited to him28

over 60 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball he puts in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases he was actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

Swing

How fast he swings, and what he changes with two strikes. League tracking starts in 2024.

Swing at a glance

2026 · data through 2026-09-11
Bat speed · 163 swings
72.4 mph
Lg median 71.1 mph
Slowest: S. Kwan (61.8 mph)Fastest: J. Caminero (78.5 mph)
Lg median

Swings about as fast as most hitters. His swing length is typical, but his attack angle is steeper than most. Cuts his swing down about as much as most hitters with two strikes. His bat travels on a fairly typical path. His swing length is 4.3 inches longer since April — a real change, not day-to-day noise.

Attack angle
15.6°
Lg median 9.6°
Swing length
7.2 ft
Lg median 7.3 ft
Swing path tilt
31.4°
Lg median 31.6°
Middle half of the league
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.
  • “A real change” means the move from his first full month to his latest one is more than three times its own margin of error, and big enough to matter, after subtracting the league’s own drift — bat speed rises about half a mile an hour across the league every spring, and that is not a swing change.
  • 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).

How he sets up

Where he stands in the box and how his feet are set, next to the league-average setup.

How he sets up

Stands 13.8″ from the front of the box — farther up than 99% of hitters.

Top-down batting stance vs league averagePitcher ↑

Month by month this season, from his setup about a second before each pitch.

Middle half of the leagueLg median
His feetLg avg
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 2026-09-11.

Best games

His biggest games this year

Best games

His best games this season by bases above replacement.

Multi-season trends · Austin Hays

HR% down, BB% down, Barrel% down, GB% up vs last season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.