Jacob Wilson Doesn’t Hit It the Hardest. He Hits It Right.

By BK, Athletic Hitting Development
Complete Hitters Aren’t Born. They’re Built… and Earned.

Jacob Wilson rakes without elite exit velocity because he squares the ball up and almost never strikes out. In 2025 his average exit velo was 84.6 mph, down near the bottom of the league, and he still hit .311.

I love watching this kid hit. He swings, he puts it in play, he makes the defense work. In an era that grades hitters on how hard they hit it, Wilson keeps proving there’s another way to beat you. He is an EXCITING player.

But I’m a numbers guy too. So let’s look at what the numbers actually say: why it works, what happened when it stopped working in 2026, and what your hitter should steal from him.

1. What do Jacob Wilson’s numbers actually say?

Here’s his 2025 All-Star rookie season next to his injury-shortened 2026. Look at the exit velocity line first. It barely moved. Everything else did.

In 2025 that .311 was the third-highest average in baseball, behind only Aaron Judge and Bo Bichette. He started the All-Star Game and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting to teammate Nick Kurtz.

Early that season he was in the 9th percentile in average exit velocity, and his average bat speed was the slowest in the majors. Slowest. And he was hitting over .300.

Exit velo is how HARD. Squared-up is how WELL.

2. How do you hit .311 with an 84 mph exit velocity?

You hit the ball on the screws, over and over. In 2025 Wilson ranked in the 97th percentile in squared-up rate, which measures how close each swing comes to the best possible contact for his bat speed. He also ranked in the 100th percentile in strikeout rate. Nobody was harder to strike out.

His average launch angle in 2025 was 8.6 degrees. That’s a low, line-drive window: hard grounders through the middle, liners over the infield, balls that find grass. He isn’t trying to hit it over the fence. He’s trying to hit it where they ain’t.

• He puts it in play. More balls in play means more chances for the defense to boot it, and more chances to find a hole.
• He stays inside and above the ball. Those are the two core Mechanically Advantaged Angles (MAA) AHD hitters own, and they’re why his barrel finds the ball so often.
• He swings. Wilson is aggressive. Gotta swing it to hit it.
• He doesn’t give away two-strike at-bats. A strikeout is a guaranteed out. A ball in play is not.

One honest note: he can still sting it. His hardest-hit ball in 2025 left the bat at 108.5 mph. The ability is in there. He just doesn’t need it on every swing to beat you.

3. Was Jacob Wilson born with this, or did he build it?

Built. At Grand Canyon University he struck out in just 4.4% of his plate appearances, 31 strikeouts in 697 trips, while slashing .361/.419/.558. The A’s took him 6th overall in 2023.

That kind of bat-to-ball skill comes from thousands of reps where missing cost him something. I broke down his backyard training and his swing in Jacob Wilson’s Swing: Contact Hitting Lessons. The short version: the swing was built on purpose, a rep at a time.

Complete hitters aren’t born. They’re built.

4. What happened to Jacob Wilson in 2026?

Two things, and the second one is the lesson.

First, his body. He partially dislocated his left shoulder in May (a subluxation), re-hurt it in late June, and landed on the 60-day injured list in August with his season likely over. A hitter playing through a bad front shoulder is not the same hitter. Period.

Second, his decisions. His chase rate went from 32.1% to 42.3%. His strikeout rate climbed from 7.5% toward 12%. He walked only a dozen times in 337 plate appearances. And look at the table again: his hard-hit rate actually went UP. He was hitting it harder, but on worse pitches. Result: .266 with a .686 OPS.

My read: when you live on contact, your margin is thin. You don’t have the raw power to win on a pitcher’s pitch. Chase more and the contact gets weaker, the outs pile up, and the average falls. Wilson is 24 and just signed a seven-year extension. He’ll get healthy, and I’m betting on him.

That’s the other half of his game. A compact swing buys him time to decide late, and deciding late only pays when you decide well. I dig into that in The Value of Time: How Hitters Decide Later.

Harder contact on worse pitches is still worse contact.

5. What should your hitter copy from Jacob Wilson?

Not the stance. The priorities. Here’s how I’d train a 13–21-year-old to build Wilson’s edge without giving up on power.

1. Score squared-up, not just exit veloOn tee and front toss, a rep only counts if it’s a line drive back through the middle. Track the percentage every session.
2. Start rounds at 0–2Your only job is a hard ball in play. Learn to compete when the at-bat is on the line.
3. Train the zone dailySwing at your pitch, take theirs. Run the free Chase Tool and work the Hitting Processor every day.
4. Then add the horsepowerOnce the contact is real, get stronger so the same square contact comes off at 90-plus. See How to Increase Exit Velocity.

Is exit velocity overrated? No. It matters, and it matters more as you move up. Check where your hitter stands on our exit velocity by age chart. But Wilson is proof that exit velo is one measurement, not the definition of a hitter. Contact, decisions and competing count too. That’s the 4 Pillars: the swing, strength and explosiveness, the Hitting Processor and the mental approach.

Aggressive and athletic, with a plan. That’s the hitter. Not sure where yours is losing at-bats? Run SwingChecker™ free, then build the whole hitter in the Complete Hitter Masterclass.

AHD • BACKSPIN2/2

THELESSON.

• Square it up first.
• Compete with two strikes.
• Swing at your pitch.
• Then add the horsepower.

Complete Hitters Are Built…Earned.

AHDBackSpinAthletic Hitting Development

Want to go deeper? Read He Takes Strikeouts Personally: The Jacob Wilson Swing and How to Increase Exit Velocity: The 4-Pillar Plan.

Quick answers

Sources: Baseball Savant: Jacob Wilson Statcast page · FanGraphs: Jacob Wilson batting stats (Statcast table) · MLB.com: Jacob Wilson player page (2026 season stats) · RotoWire: Jacob Wilson profile (2025 percentiles, extension) · Newsweek: Athletics All-Star likely to miss rest of 2026 · RotoBaller: Wilson shoulder injury and 2026 strikeout rate · USA Today via AOL: Jacob Wilson’s strange 2025 start (bat speed, exit velo percentiles) · Razzball: Jacob Wilson college strikeout rate at Grand Canyon · MiLB.com: Jacob Wilson transactions (2026 injured list)

Don’t collect drills. Build a complete hitter.

Complete Hitters Aren’t Born. They’re Built… and Earned.