“Romy.”
Even though Romy Gonzalez’s nine home runs this season don’t scream “slugger,” hitting coach Peter Fatse and assistant Dillon Lawson both pointed to Gonzalez, as well.
“Romy hits the ball really hard,” Fatse said.
Gonzalez was the first name to come to Marcelo Mayer’s mind, and he added some obvious logic.
“He’s jacked,” Mayer said.
Gonzalez put more than 200 balls in play this season and the average launch speed was 93.3 miles per hour. No one put a more consistent hurting on the ball . . . until Anthony arrived in June.
“Oh, yeah, he’s clearly second,” Anthony said, sarcastically.
Anthony was immediately inserted into the middle of the lineup and almost instantly was the Sox’ hardest hitter, with pitches flying off his bat at an average of 94.5 m.p.h. How it happens, Anthony explained, is a matter of all the preparation before he steps on the field, let alone into the batter’s box.
“For me, I think it’s everything leading up to it,” Anthony said. “It’s more about getting a pitch to hit and getting a pitch I can really do damage on and just maximizing that. The weight room stuff, the stuff about maintaining and making sure I’m up to par. Everything else kind of takes care of itself.”
While the highest average launch speeds belong to Gonzalez and Anthony, top-end exit velocity is all Jarren Duran. Whether it’s a homer screaming into the stands or an out so loud it still echoes as he walks back to the dugout, all of the Sox’ hardest-hit balls this season came off Duran’s bat.
His 117.7-m.p.h. line-drive double off Brewers rookie Chad Patrick in May was the Sox’ hardest-hit ball this season. His 113-m.p.h. three-run homer off Rockies reliever Seth Halvorsen was the hardest home run. The hardest single, double, and triple all also belong to Duran, and so does the loudest out.
But launch speed goes beyond bragging rights. It’s a tool that has guided hitters up and down the organization in recent years.
“Obviously, we’re trying to hit the ball hard — in the air, on a line,” Fatse said. “I think it’s good for objective evaluation. It’s kind of a good starting point for us. Especially, for us, we’re trying to look for, ‘Is this a guy that can get the ball in the air more? Is this a guy that can hit the ball consistently hard?’ It’s just something we use as a reference point.”
Refsnyder has carved out an 11-year career, but said, “The last couple years, it’s a lot more important.”
“I think you’re always trying to raise the floor of how hard you’re trying to hit the ball and also press the limits of how hard your best balls are,” he said. “I know it’s really important for front offices.”
It’s no coincidence that once they broke into the big leagues, Anthony and Meyer were almost immediately among the Sox’ hardest hitters.
“Definitely in this organization, they’ve been working on that,” Lawson said. “There’s a priority to hit the ball hard. It’s also something that they were already pretty damn good at, which is why they were top draft picks. I would say now, the baseball community feels pretty confident about being able to develop velocity on the mound and exit velocity at the plate.”
Launch speed is more than an ego boost, it’s a resource. Often after at-bats, Mayer will grab an iPad to get the details on his last swing.
“It’s nice to be able to go back to the iPad and see how hard you hit it, because sometimes you can’t really tell just because you’re in a game,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t even feel it.”
There are still plenty of times when hitters might not get all of a pitch, but still get enough to get results.
For instance, the softest-hit home run this season was Alex Bregman’s 91.2-m.p.h. fly ball in September against the Yankees that took a hot-air balloon ride down the right-field line and dinged the Pesky Pole for his 17th of 18 home runs.
“I think there’s guys that when you look at their top-end exit velos — Bregman’s a case, right — he’s not hitting the ball 114 miles an hour, but he consistently hits the ball hard and consistently spins the ball well, so he’s going to put himself in a position to maximize his balls in play,” Fatse said.
While not everyone hits the cover off the ball, Fatse said that doesn’t mean they aren’t hitting the ball hard and effectively.
“There are definitely guys that are more bat-to-ball oriented that get a lot of hits and may not impact the ball super hard relative to other players,” he said. “But I think when you’re looking at those things, I always find it best to compare the player to themselves, if that makes sense. Because you’re looking at a player — maybe an undersized player — who’s more bat-to-ball specific and comparing him to a Shohei Ohtani may not make the most sense, right?”
The same way pitchers chase velocity, though, Lawson said it’s fair for hitters to do the same.
“It could be, statistically speaking, that a pitcher that throws harder is more likely to get the guy out. It’s also more likely to get them paid. Give them more opportunities,” Lawson said. “Let’s just say they’re lucky enough for 10 years. If you start out throwing 100, you’re more likely to stay longer.
”So there’s a lot of benefits to it. And it’s the same thing on the exit velo side of it. The harder you hit the ball, the more interesting you may end up being to organizations. Not to mention more successful in the game.”
There are still times when the numbers don’t line up with the feel for hitters.
“A lot of times I think the ones that are my hardest aren’t my hardest,” Anthony said. “And then the ones that are my hardest, I’m like, ‘Eh, I hit it well, but I don’t think that was my hardest.’ Then I look and it is.”
But players are using exit velocity as a tangible guide for how they’re swinging the bat. What Lawson would like to see next, though, is a little more radical.
“I wish we would create all ballparks in a way that a ball hit at 105 [m.p.h.] and 25 [degree launch angle] is a home run,” Lawson said. “The hitter beat the pitcher. He should be rewarded for it.”
Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com.
