The best plays of 2024 for each of the 5 tools

In baseball, we talk about five-tool players all the time. They’re the players who can do it all — hit for contact and power, with the speed, glove and arm to be the ultimate all-around stars.

But what do those tools look like in action?

With the regular season wrapping up and the playoffs about to begin, let’s find the best plays of the year that show off each of baseball’s five tools.

Here’s one highlight-reel selection from 2024 for every tool: one each for power, contact, speed, defense and arm strength.

Exit velocity: 117.5 mph / Launch angle: 28 degrees / Distance: 477 feet

If there’s one swing this season that looks like the perfect ideal of a home run, this is it. Fittingly, it came off the bat of Judge, baseball’s preeminent power hitter and MLB’s home run leader.

Judge crushed this home run off Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman deep into the left-center-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 2. At 477 feet, it’s the third-longest home run of his career — Judge’s longest since his career-best 496-footer on Sept. 30, 2017 — and the third-longest in the Majors in 2024.

It was a milestone home run, too — Judge’s 40th of the season, giving the Yankees superstar the third 40-homer season of his career.

Honorable mention: Shohei Ohtani‘s 473-foot home run out of Dodger Stadium on July 21

Pitch height: 0.70 feet / Slider velocity: 92.4 mph / Swing length: 7.0 feet

Arraez is MLB’s contact king. He ranks at the top of the league in both swing-and-miss rate (6.8%) and strikeout rate (4.2%) this season, and he has the shortest swing of any hitter (6.0 feet long on average). And this swing — during Arraez’s historic 30-game streak without a strikeout that lasted over a month from Aug. 11 to Sept. 15 — is his most impressive of the year.

Arraez faced the Cardinals closer Helsley, who leads the Majors with 48 saves this season, in a tie game in the ninth inning on Aug. 28. The Padres star went down in the count 1-2. Helsley threw a nasty 92.4 mph slider that dropped sharply below the strike zone. It was barely eight inches off the ground when it got to Arraez.

A mortal hitter would have struck out. Arraez? He didn’t just put his bat on the ball, he flared a double to the opposite field … on a swing where his bat literally scraped the dirt in front of home plate. Even going down to get that pitch, Arraez’s swing length was just 7.0 feet — shorter than the Major League average of 7.3 feet. That’s why he’s the best bat-to-ball hitter in the world.

Honorable mention: Juan Soto‘s base hit off a 3.58-foot high, 94.1 mph Justin Verlander 4-seamer on May 7

Home-to-home time: 14.08 seconds / Sprint speed: 30.4 feet per second

Crow-Armstrong is one of the fastest players in the big leagues. You can tell when the Cubs rookie flies across the outfield to track down a fly ball, and when he flies around the bases.

Crow-Armstrong is tied for third on Statcast’s sprint speed leaderboard for 2024, with an average speed of 30.0 ft/sec this season — the same as, for example, Elly De La Cruz, who leads MLB with 65 steals. Anything 30 ft/sec or faster is elite MLB speed.

And the 22-year-old had the fastest play of the year on the bases: his inside-the-park home run against the Marlins on Aug. 23. When Crow-Armstrong’s line drive to right field got past Jesús Sánchez and kicked off the wall away from the Miami outfielder, Crow-Armstrong circled the bases in just 14.08 seconds. He reached a top sprint speed of 30.4 ft/sec, and he needed every bit of that speed — Crow-Armstrong dove home safely just barely ahead of the relay throw from second baseman Otto Lopez.

That’s not just the fastest home-to-home time in MLB this year, it’s the fastest inside-the-park home run since Byron Buxton’s 13.85-second inside-the-parker for the Twins on Aug. 18, 2017, which is the Statcast era record (going back to 2015).

Honorable mention: Elly De La Cruz‘s 14.96-second inside-the-park home run vs. the Brewers on April 8

Catch probability: 5% / Distance needed: 122 feet / Opportunity time: 6.2 seconds / Sprint speed: 29.4 ft/sec

Varsho is an elite outfield defender, and he turned in a candidate for catch of the year on July 5 in Seattle.

The Blue Jays outfielder, who was in left field during the game in question (Varsho also plays a Gold Glove-caliber center field), had to cover 122 feet in 6.2 seconds to get to Raley’s drive to the left-center-field fence in the first inning. Varsho reached a near-elite sprint speed of 29.4 ft/sec and got there just in time, crashing into the wall while making the catch.

Varsho’s catch probability was just 5% on the play — as difficult as a catch can get — based on how far he needed to run, how much time he had to get to the ball and the fact that he needed to make the catch at the wall. He ended the inning and saved multiple runs, as the Mariners had two runners on and two outs. Both would have scored if Varsho hadn’t made the incredible grab.

Very few outfielders can make a play like that. Varsho is one of the best outfielders in the Major Leagues by Statcast’s Outs Above Average, and this is his best catch of the season.

Honorable mention: Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s 5% jumping catch at the center-field wall to rob Andrew Vaughn at Marlins Park on July 7

Arm strength: 99.0 mph / Throw exchange time: 0.93 seconds

Kiermaier, a four-time Gold Glover, might be one of the best defensive center fielders of all time. He can catch anything — but on this play, it was his elite arm that made the difference.

The Brewers had the bases loaded and nobody out against the Dodgers in the first inning on Aug. 14 in Milwaukee. Kiermaier was in center field, and when William Contereras hit a line drive to him, 301 feet from home plate, Brewers speedster Brice Turang, on third base, decided to test Kiermaier’s arm.

Turang tried to tag up and score. And Kiermaier nailed him at the plate with a 99 mph laser throw.

He got rid of the ball in just under a second. The throw was perfect, and just in time. Turang reached a borderline-elite sprint speed of 29.8 ft/sec coming home, but the ball arrived right on the money and Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes slapped the tag on Turang just as he dove in. The Brewers scored zero runs in the inning.

Honorable mention: Nolan Jones‘ season-best 101.3 mph outfield assist to second base for the Rockies on July 1