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Shohei Ohtani leads MLB in whiff rate in 2026 at 31.5%. The top three are Shohei Ohtani, Jake Bauers, Kyle Farmer, based on Statcast data refreshed nightly from Baseball Savant.
Whiff rate is the percentage of swings that a pitcher generates without contact (swinging strikes divided by total swings, not total pitches). It isolates a pitcher's pure "miss-bats" ability independent of whether hitters chase out of the zone. League average hovers around 24-25%; elite swing-and-miss pitchers clear 30%, and the unicorns exceed 35%.
Judge, Soto, and Ohtani lead off vs. a Cy Young CPU pitcher. Three outs or three runs — whichever comes first. Real Statcast pitch-by-pitch sim, ~30 seconds. No download, no signup, no card pack to open.
| # | Whiff Rate | Player | Team | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 31.5% | Shohei Ohtani | Dodgers | SP | 100 |
| 2 | 28.9% | Jake Bauers | Brewers | 1B | 89 |
| 3 | 28.1% | Kyle Farmer | Braves | 2B | 46 |
| 4 | 26.3% | Jake Rogers | White Sox | C | 53 |
| 5 | 23.2% | Austin Hedges | Guardians | C | 53 |
| 6 | 21.8% | Reese McGuire | White Sox | C | 49 |
| 7 | 21.7% | Jose Trevino | Reds | C | 43 |
| 8 | 16.5% | Will Smith | Dodgers | C | 83 |
| 9 | 13.7% | José Fermín | Cardinals | SP | 59 |
Whiff rate is highly predictive of strikeout rate and tends to stabilize early in a season. Pitchers with elite whiff rates but modest strikeout totals are often called-ball-dependent arms about to break out once command catches up to their stuff.
Data source: MLB Statcast via Baseball Savant, refreshed nightly into the Legends Deck card database. Minimum sample-size filters are applied so small-sample outliers don't distort the top of the ranking.
New to the metric? What is whiff rate? → Read the definition, formula, and a worked example.
See the mainstream rankings: What Counts as a Good Whiff Rate? →