The All or Nothing Luke Raley

Luke Raley took a giant hack. Then he took one other.

Raley has struck out 36.6% of the time to start 2026, third most amongst batters with a minimum of 100 plate appearances. He’s walked simply 5.9% of the time, effectively under the median. His 0.16 Okay/BB ratio is among the 10 worst in baseball this 12 months. That’s sometimes not a recipe for achievement.

However that is:

Raley has six homers to date in 2026, carrying him to a 132 wRC+. He’s hitting the ball onerous (51.8%), to the pull facet (50.0%), and within the air (60.7%). His .595 xwOBA on contact is third within the majors. The one batters who’ve made higher contact are Aaron Decide and James Wooden, placing Raley forward of Ben Rice, Munetaka Murakami, Mike Trout, and Yordan Alvarez. It’s spectacular firm to maintain.

However Raley additionally has the league’s highest whiff charge, and by so much. He’s missed on 46.9% of his swings this 12 months, over three share factors larger than the second-most whiff-prone participant, Murakami. That’s partially as a result of Raley typically chases out of the zone, however it’s largely as a result of he additionally struggles to make contact on hittable pitches. His 39.3% whiff charge within the zone is highest within the league, clearing Murakami, once more in second, by about 5 share factors.

This whiff-for-contact tradeoff makes Raley probably the most excessive participant within the majors this 12 months:

Now, I’m clearly not the primary to level out the connection between whiff charge and make contact with high quality. That’s one of many central tenants of latest baseball: Residence runs are good, and to go yard, it’s essential to swing onerous, however swinging onerous additionally results in extra whiffs. However I’m inquisitive about how excessive Raley may get and nonetheless be a net-positive together with his swings.

I arrange a crude research. I assumed any swing that doesn’t lead to a ball in play (whiffs and fouls) is price -.066 runs. Subsequent, I transformed xwOBACON to runs above common, to place it on the identical scale. Lastly, I created a breakeven curve to find out the xwOBACON essential to justify every BIP charge.

That offers us the next plot, with BIP charge on the x-axis and xwOBACON on the y-axis:

And yeah, Raley is effectively away from the breakeven line. His contact high quality relative to frequency continues to be one of many 10 finest within the majors. He’d want to chop his BIP charge in half earlier than discovering himself on the dropping finish of that tradeoff; or within the different route, he’d want to chop his contact high quality to about .425.

The plot additionally gives additional justification for why hitters are likely to promote out for barrels and the like. The slope is pretty shallow, and never too far faraway from the typical xwOBACON line. Extra energy is sort of all the time price much less contact, by way of an general swing profile. All people makes outs, however not everyone hits the ball far — that’s the place worth above common lies.

Let’s run via a sequence of tables. The primary is the most effective and worst contact high quality relative to BIP charge (the gap from the road within the plot above):

The highest of the record is as you’d anticipate. It’s neat to see Wooden within the first spot, as he’s typically dinged for his excessive whiff charges. However the contact he’s made to date in 2026 is so good that it doesn’t actually matter. Additional including to the intrigue is most of that high-quality contact goes to the alternative area, as I identified in final week’s Mailbag column. He’s the most effective slugger within the league, and he’s doing it in a manner few gamers ever have.

Then there’s Decide and Rice sparring for the Yankees. However actually it’s Alvarez who stands out on this record, as he’s making each plenty of contact and elite contact. He leads the leads the league with a .357 xBA due to it.

The caboose right here is Raley’s teammate, Rivas. This a enjoyable coincidence as a result of, as Matthew Trueblood just lately identified for Baseball Prospectus, Rivas is infamous for not swinging. His profession 35.2% swing charge is the bottom within the majors since 2024, and that’s most likely for the most effective: No participant is extra justified in leaving the bat on his shoulder by this evaluation.

Let’s get on the mushy center of this chart. The subsequent tables exhibits the batters with the very best xwOBACON to fall under the breakeven threshold:

One other Raley teammate tops this record. Raleigh is among the premier three true final result hitters within the league, identified for making this precise tradeoff. Final 12 months, it labored high-quality and he set all types of residence run data regardless of a 31.5% whiff charge. This 12 months, his timing appears a bit off, and he’s but to seek out constant barrels. He’ll doubtless be OK in the long term, however with out final 12 months’s energy, his wRC+ is right down to 81. Such is the character of all or nothing.

Neto is having a bizarre season. Like Raleigh, the Angels shortstop appeared to nail this stability in 2025, growing his strikeout charge whereas additionally lifting his xwOBACON to a powerful .447. This 12 months he’s struck out much more and misplaced a lot of his energy. However the place he was as soon as totally reliant on this dynamic, he’s now doubled his stroll charge (13.6%), so he’s nonetheless operating a 107 wRC+ regardless of his worse contact high quality. All or nothing isn’t all the time the whole lot.

Lastly, let’s take a look at the batters with the bottom xwOBACON to put above the breakeven threshold:

The principle takeaway is that the bottom xwOBACON to lead to a net-positive is .372, which is actually common. Few if any gamers are able to placing the ball in play at excessive sufficient charges to get away with poor contact. High quality is the secret.

Now, once more, that is fairly crude. I’m making all types of assumptions to simplify a dynamic that’s fairly complicated. I’m not contemplating the sport state or pitch location or batter method; nor am I even acknowledging that whiffs and fouls produce two very totally different values. This evaluation depends on the murky idea of “relative to common,” or what makes a superb swing profile, somewhat than what makes a superb swing. Even Rivas ought to swing at a middle-middle fastball in a two-strike rely.

However actually what that is meant to indicate is that gamers like Raley, with large whiff totals and great contact high quality, are justified in such an method. It’s a function, even when it might probably appear to be a bug at instances.

I wasn’t happy with only one crude metric, so I made one other. I z-scored stroll charge, strikeout charge, and xwOBACON, then added all of them collectively to seek out the gamers whose profile most depends on contact high quality. As you would possibly guess, Raley is having one of many 5 most excessive seasons of the Statcast period.

However what amuses me about Raley shouldn’t be solely is he all energy on the plate, he’s additionally a platoon outfielder with poor vary and just-fine baserunning. His energy is, actually, the one place on the sphere he contributes in any measurable sense. So I tossed Fielding Run Worth and Baserunning Run Worth into the rating as effectively. (Notice that I organized the z-scores to isolate xwOBACON, so larger scores got to gamers with worse protection and baserunning.)

Raley technically ranked second to 2021 Salvador Perez by this measure. However the preliminary record was in opposition to the spirit of my question. (Some gamers weren’t sluggers and had been simply actually unhealthy at the whole lot.) The desk under as an alternative exhibits the very best scores for gamers a minimum of two customary deviations above the imply in xOBACON. In different phrases, listed below are the true all or nothing gamers of the final decade:

We simply haven’t seen a participant achieve this a lot and so little as Raley thus far in 2026.

Now, it’s early — the road that undercuts any freewheeling evaluation in Might. This most likely received’t proceed. Raley will doubtless make worse contact sooner or later, and he’ll doubtless make extra contact, too. That’s high-quality. He posted a 129 wRC+ for the Rays in 2023, then was dealt to the Mariners for José Caballero and posted an equivalent a 129 wRC+ in 2024. He wasn’t fairly as excessive in both season, and his general line was simply pretty much as good. Final 12 months was a little bit of a step again, however as Kate Preusser at Lookout Touchdown identified final month, Raley’s energy was sapped by a nagging indirect damage. He actually appears wholesome now.

Raley is way from an ideal participant. He’s restricted, unrefined, and runs like a giraffe. There’s a complete record of issues he can’t do on the sphere, however he’s merely powered via, staking his declare because the league’s subsequent pure slugger. Raley is all or nothing. Isn’t that one thing.