Fantasy Baseball: It may be time to sell high on Munetaka Murakami, plus more skill vs. luck verdicts for key hitters

Last week, we debuted the weekly hitter skills and luck factors examination , covering Jordan Walker, Cam Smith and more. To identify the players to discuss, we’ll use the Yahoo player rater for the past two weeks to provide a small sample to choose from. Besides those hot hitters on the player rater, we’ll discuss other hitters generating plenty of buzz throughout the fantasy baseball community.

Most of my analysis focuses on hitter skills, luck factors and other underlying metrics that could be contributing to the player’s outcomes. Our first hitter leaderboard involves bat speed and fast-swing percentage risers. Statcast defines fast swing percentage as the percentage of swings at 75 mph or more.

Think of fast swing rate as something similar to hard hit percentage. However, I like that the bat speed metrics provide the inputs for potential exit velocity outputs. Bat Speed and Fast Swing Percentage Risers We filtered by hitters with 100 plate appearances in 2025 and 10 plate appearances in 2026 to provide a wider sample.

Then we examined hitters who had an above-average bat speed at 73 mph or more, with a 25% fast-swing percentage or higher in 2026. That said, here’s a look at the hitters who met those thresholds while showing a 1 mph bat speed increase in 2026. Hitters with an increase in bat speed and fast-swing rate in 2026.