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Buddy Kennedy

2026
Giants· 3B · bats R · throws R· 42 PA

Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Fbetter than 11% of hitters at creating bases

His season is in line with his established level.

Patient Contact

Works counts and puts the ball in play; modest slug.

Gets on base by working the count

Buddy Kennedy walks at a near-elite clip — better than 75% of qualified hitters. The overall production lags, though — only 11% of qualified hitters create fewer estimated bases per plate appearance. Early-season read — only 42 plate appearances so far.

42 plate appearances · data through 2026-08-22.

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. Percentiles vs. 499 qualified hitters — 50+ plate appearances. He hasn't reached that bar himself, so he is measured against them rather than counted among them.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — the hitters whose profile looks most like this one.

Ha-Seong KimBravesParker MeadowsTigersDrew MillasNationalsAnthony VolpeYankees

Hitter type

What kind of hitter he is, next to the league

Hitter type

Below-average contact quality; strikes out more than most.

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.
 Buddy KennedyLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(higher = better).343.50811th
Walk rate(higher = better)12%8%75th
Strikeout rate(lower = better)31%23%24th

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 0.030 EB/PA (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.008 to +0.049

vs LHP26 PA0.406

vs LHP: shrunk estimate 0.406 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.376 to 0.434, based on 26 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.296 EB/PA. League median vs LHP: 0.425 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHP rate (0.296) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHP17 PA0.376

vs RHP: shrunk estimate 0.376 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.351 to 0.404, based on 17 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.382 EB/PA. League median vs RHP: 0.436 EB/PA.

0.3410.3670.3940.4200.446
← worsebetter →
Above league medianBelow50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a righty bat (median 0.034). He sits below the league median against both hands.

He sits in the league's middle half vs lefties and the league's bottom quarter 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 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.
  • 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, and that's where his hardest contact goes.

Best batted balls

Where every ball Buddy Kennedy put in play landed this season.
hit · out
EBlowhigh
vs Foster GriffinSingle
EV 60 mph · LA 34° · EB 1.3
08/18 vs Guardians
vs Craig KimbrelDouble
EV 100 mph · LA 4° · EB 1.2
07/12 vs Rays
vs Tanner GordonSingle
EV 106 mph · LA 11° · EB 1.1
08/15 vs Rockies
vs Cody BradfordOut
EV 96 mph · LA 36° · EB 0.8
08/05 vs Rangers
vs Gabriel HughesSingle
EV 94 mph · LA 9° · EB 0.7
08/16 vs Rockies

Luck check

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

vs Tyron GuerreroSingleLucky
EV 82 mph · LA -17° · EB 0.1 · xBA .058
08/23 vs Red Sox
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 · 186 pitches

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

← below leagueabove league →
Four-Seam Fastball (64 pitches)
−1.6
Lg median −0.4Lg best +12.9
Other (122 pitches)

−3.1 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”.

Swing

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

Swing at a glance

2026 · data through 2026-08-22
Bat speed · 83 swings
71.4 mph
Lg median 71.1 mph
Slowest: S. Kwan (61.9 mph)Fastest: J. Caminero (78.7 mph)
Lg median

Swings about as fast as most hitters. His swing is shorter than most hitters', with a typical attack angle. Changes his swing less than most hitters with two strikes. His bat travels on a steeper path than most.

Attack angle
8.6°
Lg median 9.4°
Swing length
6.7 ft
Lg median 7.3 ft
Swing path tilt
34.3°
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.
  • 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).

Best games

His biggest games this year

Best games

His best games this season by bases above replacement.

Multi-season trends · Buddy Kennedy

BB% up, K% up vs last season

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