Luis Lara looked like he had solved the biggest question surrounding his prospect profile.<\/p>\n
Through May 6, the recently extended outfield prospect had already hit seven home runs, shattering his previous career-high of four. It looked like he\u2019d finally unlocked his power.<\/p>\n
Nearly two months later, he still has exactly seven home runs.<\/p>\n
March 27\u2013May 6: 7 HR, 4 2B, 1 3B<\/p>\n
May 7\u2013June 27: 0 HR, 5 2B, 1 3B<\/p>\n
The initial surge vaulted Lara up prospect rankings. Baseball America now ranks him No. 52 in all of baseball, while MLB Pipeline has him No. 89. Yet Pipeline still grades his power as just a 40 on the 20\u201380 scouting scale, well behind his 70-grade defense and 60-grade arm and speed.<\/p>\n
So which version of Lara should Brewers fans believe? Was his early-season power surge real? To answer that question, we need to look beyond the home run totals and into Lara\u2019s underlying Statcast data.<\/p>\n
As the Brewers saw during their recent series in Las Vegas, Triple-A environments can be considerably more favorable for hitters than major league parks. Home run totals alone don\u2019t necessarily tell the whole story. To determine whether Lara\u2019s early power surge represented a legitimate change in skill, we need to look beneath the results.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the recent expansion of Statcast to Triple-A, we can do exactly that. Lara\u2019s batted-ball data provides four useful indicators of raw power: average exit velocity, maximum exit velocity, 90th-percentile exit velocity, and hard-hit rate.<\/p>\n
Average Exit Velocity: 80.68 mph<\/p>\n
90th Percentile Exit Velocity: 99.4 mph<\/p>\n
Maximum Exit Velocity: 109 mph<\/p>\n
At first glance, Lara\u2019s Statcast profile doesn\u2019t scream plus raw power. His average exit velocity is below average, and his 90th-percentile exit velocity is solid rather than elite. On the other hand, his 109-mph maximum exit velocity shows the raw strength is there when he squares the ball up.<\/p>\n
The disconnect is consistency. Lara\u2019s 20.7% hard-hit rate is well below the roughly 33% major league average, suggesting he currently doesn\u2019t produce loud contact often enough to project as a true power hitter.<\/p>\n
Statcast defines a hard-hit ball as one struck at least 95 mph because that\u2019s where offensive production begins to spike. Leaguewide, balls hit at least 95 mph produce dramatically better results than those hit below that threshold. In 2023, hitters batted .506 on hard-hit balls compared to just .221 on all other balls, which is why hard-hit rate has become one of the most useful indicators of a hitter\u2019s ability to consistently drive the baseball.<\/p>\n
Lara\u2019s hard-hit rate sits at just 20.7%, well below the roughly 33% mark that represents a typical major league average. In other words, while Lara has demonstrated that he can hit the ball exceptionally hard, he simply hasn\u2019t done so often enough for the data to suggest a meaningful change in his underlying power profile.<\/p>\n
The ideal comparison would be Lara\u2019s Statcast profile this season versus last season. Unfortunately, he spent all of last year in Double-A, and Statcast data from that level isn\u2019t publicly available.<\/p>\n
Instead, we can compare the two very different halves of Lara\u2019s 2026 season: the six-week stretch in which he hit seven home runs and the seven-week drought that followed. That split offers the clearest window into whether anything actually changed beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
Average Exit Velocity: 83 mph<\/p>\n
90th Percentile Exit Velocity: 100.2 mph<\/p>\n
Maximum Exit Velocity: 109 mph<\/p>\n
Average Exit Velocity: 80.05 mph<\/p>\n
90th Percentile Exit Velocity: 98.9 mph<\/p>\n
Maximum Exit Velocity: 108.5 mph<\/p>\n
Lara\u2019s average, 90th-percentile, and maximum exit velocities didn\u2019t change drastically.<\/p>\n
What jumps out is his hard-hit rate, which dropped by roughly one-third. Combined with his average exit velocity falling nearly three mph, it suggests that while the shape of Lara\u2019s contact remained largely unchanged, the quality of that contact declined. But why?<\/p>\n
My first thought was that perhaps Lara\u2019s launch angle had changed. It hadn\u2019t. His average launch angle fell from 19 degrees before May 7 to just 18 degrees afterward \u2014 a negligible difference.<\/p>\n
Next, I wondered whether Lara had changed his approach at the plate, sacrificing power for contact. The numbers don\u2019t support that idea either. Through May 6, he struck out 18 times in 123 plate appearances (14.6%). Since then, he\u2019s struck out 25 times in 172 plate appearances (14.5%). His batting average also remained remarkably consistent, dropping only from .333 to .324.<\/p>\n
Finally, I considered whether the power outage could simply be the product of bad luck. If that were the case, one would expect fewer balls in play to fall for hits. Instead, the opposite happened. Lara\u2019s BABIP actually increased from .347 before May 7 to .391 afterward, suggesting that balls in play were becoming hits more often, not less.<\/p>\n
The biggest change appears to be in Lara\u2019s approach at the plate. His first-pitch strike rate \u2014 the percentage of plate appearances that began with an 0-1 count \u2014 rose from 38.9% to 44.8%, almost exactly mirroring the increase in his overall swing rate (38.3% to 43.2%). His chase rate climbed slightly, his contact rate dipped slightly, and his in-zone swing rate jumped from 57.6% to 63.9%.<\/p>\n
All things considered, those numbers suggest Lara became more aggressive after his power surge. Pitchers weren\u2019t attacking the strike zone any more frequently, and aside from a modest decrease in fastballs, they weren\u2019t pitching him that differently. Instead, Lara appears to have expanded his swing decisions. Because he\u2019s such a good contact hitter, that added aggression didn\u2019t translate into more strikeouts or a lower batting average. It may, however, have led him to swing at pitches he was less likely to drive.<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s the case, the issue isn\u2019t that Lara\u2019s raw power disappeared. It\u2019s that he stopped getting to it as consistently. The underlying strength is still there; the challenge now is being selective enough to access it more often.<\/p>\n