There are professional hitters and then there are Professional Hitters™.
Michael Brantley might be chief among the latter. In 2022, at the age of 35, he finds himself alone in an impressive, specialized category.
Of the 158 qualified hitters in baseball, only eight have accrued more walks than strikeouts.
Brantley is one of them.
But when it comes to also making hard contact, only one of those eight players has a Hard-hit rate of at least 45 percent: Brantley.
There is another name who falls just shy of inclusion: Nationals superstar Juan Soto, whose Hard-hit rate is 44.