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Lucas Spence

2026
Astros· CF · bats L · throws L· 41 PA

Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Fbetter than 29% of hitters at creating bases
Still Searching

Below league average across the board.

Strikeouts are holding this bat back

Lucas Spence walks at a league-average clip — better than 55% of qualified hitters. The strikeouts pile up, though — only 4% of qualified hitters whiff more often. Early-season read — only 41 plate appearances so far.

41 plate appearances · data through 2026-09-01.

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. 515 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.

Kevin AlcántaraCubsTyler BlackBrewersKahlil WatsonGuardiansRodolfo DuránPadres

Hitter type

What kind of hitter he is, next to the league

Hitter type

Very free-swinging hitter.

League best:BB% − K% Nick Madrigal (7.7%)Hard-hit% Nelson Velázquez (62.1%)

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.
 Lucas SpenceLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(higher = better).329.51129th
Walk rate(higher = better)7%8%55th
Strikeout rate(lower = better)37%23%4th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA)

Better vs RHP than vs LHP by 0.075 EB/PA (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.054 to +0.097

vs LHP13 PA0.356

vs LHP: shrunk estimate 0.356 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.325 to 0.386, based on 13 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.330 EB/PA. League median vs LHP: 0.427 EB/PA.

vs RHP29 PA0.431

vs RHP: shrunk estimate 0.431 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.404 to 0.457, based on 29 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.240 EB/PA. League median vs RHP: 0.434 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHP rate (0.240) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.3090.3500.3910.4320.473
← worsebetter →
Above league medianBelow50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a lefty bat (median 0.077). Against lefties he sits below the league median — a genuine platoon vulnerability.

He sits in the league's bottom 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 up the middle.

Best batted balls

Where every ball Lucas Spence put in play landed this season.
hit · out
EBlowhigh
vs Davis MartinSingle
EV 91 mph · LA 12° · EB 1.0
07/24 vs White Sox
vs Trevor RogersSingle
EV 80 mph · LA 18° · EB 0.9
07/18 vs Orioles
vs Trevor RogersSingle
EV 107 mph · LA 7° · EB 0.9
07/18 vs Orioles
vs Dax FultonOut
EV 101 mph · LA 33° · EB 0.7
07/20 vs Marlins
vs Janson JunkOut
EV 107 mph · LA 6° · EB 0.6
07/20 vs Marlins

Luck check

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

vs Tyler PhillipsDoubleLucky
EV 98 mph · LA 22° · EB 0.5 · xBA .195
07/21 vs Marlins
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.

Swing

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

Swing at a glance

2026 · data through 2026-09-01
Bat speed · 74 swings
72.1 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 length and attack angle both sit in the league's middle range. Changes his swing less than most hitters with two strikes. His bat travels on a fairly typical path.

Attack angle
9.8°
Lg median 9.5°
Swing length
7.0 ft
Lg median 7.3 ft
Swing path tilt
31.5°
Lg median 32.4°
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.