About ever since Billy Hamilton skedaddled for 155 stolen bases as a minor-leaguer in 2012 to set the professional baseball standard, he has been widely perceived as the fastest man in baseball.
Even at the fossilized age of 28, he remains among them now with a top speed of 30.1 feet per second in 2018, per Baseball Savant’s Statcast sprint analysis. And no one in baseball has more stolen bases in the last four seasons than his 264.
Yet … Hamilton hit all of .236 last season, when he stole just 34 bases after averaging 57 over the previous four years.