Photos: Melissa Tamez, Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire

Happy holidays and Happy New Year!

Every year at this time we do some supplemental, statistically-driven MLB awards. These will salute some of the leaders in specific areas of our recordkeeping as our way of putting a bow on the season. Here are the 2024 winners:

The Hard Hitter Award

Sports Info Solutions charts every batted ball as hard-, medium- or soft-hit, based specifically on the ball’s location, velocity and batted-ball type (note that this differs from how Statcast tracks hard-hit rate).

The winner of the Hard-Hitter Award is the player who had the highest percentage of batted balls that were hard-hit among batters with a minimum of 350 plate appearances in 2024.

Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge won the award for the 3rd straight year, recording a hard-hit ball on 48% of his batted balls. The runner-up is someone you probably didn’t expect. Michael Toglia of the Rockies had a hard-hit ball on 45% of his batted balls. The leading team was the Braves, who had a hard-hit ball in 35% of their batted balls, a smidge ahead of the Orioles, Phillies, and Rockies, all at 34%.

You can see the full player leaderboard here and team leaderboard here.

The Contact Minimizer Award

The Contact Minimizer goes to the pitcher who most limited hard contact in 2024 (minimum 100 innings pitched). The winner was Astros pitcher Hunter Brown, who limited batters to a hard-hit ball in 22% of the batted balls against him. Brown also made last week’s Stat of the Week as the pitcher whose expected OPS was furthest below his actual OPS.

Reds pitcher Nick Martinez ranked second, at 23%. Perhaps that’s why the Reds extended a qualifying offer to him this offseason (which Martinez accepted rather than pursue free agency).

Martinez and Hunter Greene (11th, 27%) helped make the Reds the team leader in this stat (29%), ahead of a surprise squad, the A’s (29.5%), and the team you might have expected to be No. 1, the Mariners (29.5%).

You can see the full pitcher leaderboard here and team leaderboard here.

The Flat Bat Award

The Flat Bat Award is given annually to the best bunter of the year. To determine the winner, we look at run value–run expectancy gained or lost–for both successful and unsuccessful sacrifice bunt and bunt-for-hit attempts for each player.

This year’s leader was Nationals rookie center fielder Jacob Young, who had 9 successful sacrifices and an MLB-best 11 bunt hits against only 1 failed sacrifice and 5 failed bunt hit attempts. The runner-up was Jake McCarthy of the Diamondbacks, who had 5 sacrifices (no failed attempts) and 10 bunt hits (5 failed attempts). 

Click here to read about the methodology behind the Flat Bat Award.

The Vacuum Cleaner Award

SIS Video Scouts also track what are known as “Good Fielding Plays,” which are often those that lead to the unlikely recording of an out. Those can be broken up into different subtypes, including one just for ground balls. The leader in Good Fielding Plays on ground balls is the winner of our Vacuum Cleaner Award.

This year’s winner is Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, who had 21 such Good Fielding Plays. Volpe won a Gold Glove in 2023 but was not honored for his defense in 2024. Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon and Rays and Cubs third baseman Isaac Paredes each had 18.

The Fly Swatter Award

The Fly Swatter Award is a similar award to The Vacuum Cleaner, except it’s for Good Fielding Plays resulting in outs on fly balls and line drives.

This year’s winner was Blue Jays outfielder (and SIS Defensive Player of the Year) Daulton Varsho, with 19. Varsho also led the majors with 6 Good Fielding Plays involving collisions with the outfield wall. The runner-up in Good Fielding Plays on flies and liners was Marlins and Yankees utility man Jazz Chisholm Jr. with 17. Chisholm and Stuart Fairchild of the Reds had the second-most Good Fielding Plays involving colliding with an outfield wall with 4.

Stolen Base Stopper

The award for the Stolen Base Stopper goes to the catcher and pitcher who had the most Stolen Base Runs Saved in 2024. This year’s winners were Dodgers catcher Will Smith (8 Stolen Base Runs Saved) and a five-way tie among pitchers between Tanner Bibee of the Guardians, Griffin Canning of the Angels, Chris Flexen of the White Sox, Charlie Morton of the Braves, and Shota Imanaga of the Cubs (3 Stolen Base Runs Saved apiece).

Smith threw out 28% of potential basestealers, had 25 caught stealing and 1 catcher pickoff and allowed 64 stolen bases. The MLB caught stealing rate for catchers this season was 17%. 

Bibee won the Fielding Bible Award for pitchers in 2024. He allowed 6 stolen bases but had 6 caught stealing and 4 successful pickoffs. Of the other pitchers who tied, Imanaga had the best numbers: 3 stolen bases allowed, 2 caught stealing, and 2 pickoffs.

You can see the leaderboards for catchers and pitchers here.

The Hall of Framer

The Hall of Framer award goes to the catcher who had the best pitch-framing numbers in 2024. In our world, that means the catcher who had the most called strikes above expectations (we call this stat Strike Zone Plus-Minus).

The runaway leader in this stat was Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, who had 123 more called strikes than expected, the most for a catcher since Austin Hedges had 150 in 2019. Bailey won this year’s Fielding Bible Award at catcher after nearly winning it in 2023. He was the leader both in total and if you measured performance on a per-pitch basis.

Most Called Strikes Above Expectations (Strike Zone Plus-Minus)

2024 Season