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Will Smith's 2026 chase rate is 21.3%. That sits third leaguewide, ranked #3 of 4 qualified hitters. Source: Baseball Savant Statcast, refreshed nightly by Legends Deck.
Chase rate (O-Chase%) is the percentage of pitches a pitcher throws OUTSIDE the strike zone that the hitter swings at. It measures a pitcher's ability to entice hitters to expand the zone — breaking balls that look like strikes before diving off the plate, two-seamers that run off the inside edge. League average sits around 28-31%; elite zone-manipulators push hitters past 35%. Unlike whiff rate, which rewards pure miss-bats, chase rate rewards pitch design and tunneling — the deception that makes a hitter commit to a pitch he should take.
Chase rate complements whiff rate: a pitcher with a high chase rate but modest whiff rate is often one sequencing tweak away from a strikeout spike (the swings are already there, they just need to miss). It is one of the stickiest pitcher skills year-over-year and a leading indicator for breakout relievers.