This new metric shows why the Cubs have so much faith in Christopher Morel

Statcast is already tracking some of the most interesting pieces of data in the game of baseball but they’ve recently begun tracking average bat speed for the first time and a Chicago Cubs player has easily made his way into the top five of that category.

Christopher Morel brings elite bat speed to every at-bat

Christopher Morel has an average bat speed of 76.7 miles per hour, tying him with Ronald Acuna Jr. for the fifth-highest average bat speed in the league, and leaves him behind only such sluggers as Giancarlo Stanton (80.6), Oneil Cruz (77.7), Kyle Schwarber (77.0) and Matt Chapman (76.9).

In the article by David Adler, he references the fact that Morel is currently fourth in the NL in homers with nine, trailing only Marcell Ozuna and two of the Los Angeles Dodgers' pricey offseason acquisitions, Teoscar Hernandez and Shohei Ohtani. 

Morel has always drawn comparisons to Javier Baez due to the infectious smile and style of play, but now that we have a recordable statistic to point to with bat speed the comparison has only become more apparent. Thankfully, while Baez's career goes into a tailspin, Morel is showing signs of being a more well-rounded hitter, cutting down on the strikeouts and drawing more walks - while maintaining his power.

The Cubs are much more of a contact-oriented team overall

Unfortunately, the Cubs' next-best hitter in terms of average bat speed is Ian Happ with a 72.0 mile per hour average. That nets out to be barely better than the league average at #100 on the leaderboard. 

Cody Bellinger (70.3), Michael Busch (69.3), Nico Hoerner (692.) and Mike Tauchman (68.8) each rank below league average in bat speed as the other Cubs players with enough at-bats to yield credible data. Of course, that was a big offseason story during Bellinger's free agency - with teams pointing out his lack of hard-hit balls as a detractor as Scott Boras looked for a long-term pact.

This statistic is brand new and could be indicative of absolutely nothing, but with the increase in velocity from pitchers it only makes sense that batters will need to swing faster to keep up with them as well and the Cubs appear to have one of the best in the league at doing just that.