This weekend, we’re focusing on Statcast™ Exit Velocity,and nobody in baseball at the moment is hitting the ball harder than Minnesota’s Miguel Sano. He is hitting crazy rockets all over the field. And for the first time in his big league career, Sano is looking a bit like an MVP candidate. He’s hitting .299/.426/.622, is fifth in the American League in WAR and leads a Minnesota team that is somehow in first place in the American League Central.

The legend of Sano began in 2009, in the Dominican Republic, when Twins scout John Wilson watched him take batting practice. Wilson had that scout moment, the rarest kind, a moment where he said, “Oh man, I am watching a kid who is going to be a superstar.” He quickly took out his phone to video the BP session, in part for posterity, and in part to convince the Twins that whatever it cost they had to have this guy.

There were questions about Sano — mostly questions about his age — but he promptly went to the minor leagues and crushed baseballs. As a 20-year-old he mashed 35 home runs in high A Fort Myers and double A New Britain. The power was mind boggling. There were people in baseball who felt like the Twins had the two best prospects in the game with Sano and Byron Buxton. Baseball American ranked then №1 (Buxton) and №6 (Sano). The future in Minnesota looked impossibly bright.

But it hasn’t been a smooth transition from future to present in Minnesota. Buxton has battled injuries and for various reasons (some inexplicable, really) his bat just hasn’t come around. And the Twins have had trouble finding Sano a position. He is, almost by default, a third baseman. He’s probably better suited athletically as a first baseman, but the Twins already have one of those in Joe Mauer. He’s probably better suited by defensive skill as a designated hitter, but the Twins seem unwilling to put him there.

In any case, he’s been a sporadic hitter — lots of power, heavy on the strikeouts. Last year, he struck out 178 times in fewer than 500 plate appearances. That’s insane. Chris Davis led the league in strikeouts last year with 219; Sano struck out at a significantly higher rate than Davis. In fact, he struck out a significantly higher rate than Mark Reynolds did when he set the record with 223 strikeouts in a season.

Sano’s strikeouts are not down all that much this year — he’s still ahead of the pace of Davis and Reynolds. But he’s hitting the ball so absurdly hard when he puts the ball in play, that he’s overcoming the strikeouts. Sano has put the ball in play 74 times. He has 38 hits (yes, he’s hitting .513 on balls in play) and that includes 19 extra base hits, including 10 home runs.

Statcast™ tells the story. Right now, Sano is averaging — AVERAGING — an exit velocity of 98.1 mph on balls in play. That’s just loony exit velocity. The next highest on the list, the BFG Aaron Judge, is averaging about four mph less. Nobody in the three-or-so year history of Statcast™ has even approached Sano’s average exit velocity this year.

And the thing is, Sano is hitting EVERYTHING hard. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fly ball, a ground ball, a line drive, everything coming off his bat is a missile.

Here are the Top 5 in average exit velocity:

Miguel Sano, 98.1 mph Aaron Judge, 94.5 mph (tie) Alex Avila, 94.5 mph Adam Lind, 94.0 mph Gary Sanchez, 93.6 mph

OK, now here are the Top 5 in exit velocity on balls hit in the air:

Miguel Sano, 101.9 mph Joey Gallo, 101.3 mph (tie) Aaron Judge, 101.3 mph Khris Davis, 101.0 mph Tommy Pham, 1003. mph

And here are the Top 5 in exit velocity on ground balls:

Adam Lind, 93.1 mph Miguel Sano, 92.8 mph Mark Trumbo, 92.5 mph Justin Bour, 92.3 mph Gary Sancez, 92.2 mph

Did you notice that the only person in the Top 5 in both categories is Miguel Sano? Most of the fly balls guys, if they hit a ground ball it’s because they topped it — Gallo is averaging just 82.5 mph on his ground balls, Judge just 87.4 mph. If they hit it on the ground, they’re out.

And most of the ground ball guys, generally, don’t have that same oomph when hitting the ball in the air.

Sano just torches the ball no matter where — even when he hits into double plays:

That’s 107.8 mph if you’re interested. Then again, so is this one:

And this one:

This one is 111 mph. That’s another crazy thing about Sano’s immense power — it’s usually to center or right field:

There are basically two ways a Sano at-bat can go for pitchers at the moment. You can fool him enough to strike him out. Or else he’s going to hit some kind of projectile that will put your fielder’s in harm’s way.