While the San Francisco Giants might be cursed by the release of a new Mission: Impossible film, that doesn’t mean we should stop linking the two franchises on this site. On the eve of the release for the latest (and final?) film of the Mission series, I thought it’d be fun to look at one of its most famous qualities and compare it to our favorite team.
I’m talking about Tom Cruise (aka Ethan Hunt) running. Yes, he does it in most of his movies, but his most elaborate ones have come in this long-running film series.
A few years ago, ESPN wondered if Cruise was actually any good as a runner or if it was all just movie magic. The conclusion?
Believe it or not, Tom Cruise might actually be fast. Like, really fast.
[…]
[Three-time Olympic gold medalist Jackie] Joyner-Kersee thinks Cruise could be a good 100-meter runner, and she says he looks like he might be in the 12-second range right now. “That’s really fast for people who don’t train to race,” she says.
And what would happen if Cruise did train? Well, first of all, Cruise should know that he has an open invitation to come work with Joyner-Kersee and her husband, former U.S. track coach Bob Kersee. “I believe we could work with him, see what he’s got,” Joyner-Kersee says. “We could probably get him to 11.5 with ease.”
On the lower end of the expert spectrum, this intrepid YouTuber took it upon himself to see 1) how fast Tom Cruise can run (on screen, anyway) and 2) if he could match Cruise. He could, because he’s taller and, therefore, has a longer stride than Cruise (who’s, famously, in the range of 5’6” tall) and on the first note, just by watching Mission: Impossible-III determined he runs top speed at about 6.85 meters/second (22.47 feet/second), which would be about a 14.6-second 100 meter dash.
The YouTuber’s emphasis of the M:I-III run probably skews the sample here. The best run in the series — by far — is Ethan Hunt’s pursuit of August Walker in Mission: Impossible — Fallout. Earlier in the movie, the two teamed up for the world-historic bathroom fight scene, and here, after Walker has been exposed as being the bad guy, Hunt (Cruise) must chase him down over the rooftops of London. You watch this one and you can see what Joyner-Kerser has clocked: Cruise is fast — and in jeans! So, let’s go with 8.33 m/s (27.33 ft/sec).
Which San Francisco Giant could best recreate Tom Cruise running?
Obviously, we’ll figure out the speed dimension using Statcast’s Sprint Speed tracking, but there’s an aesthetic quality to this as well. Which Giant is both Tom Cruise-fast and Tom Cruise-aesthetic at running?
Speed matches
Now, Statcast measures sprints, and that could very well skew this entire endeavor because while Tom Cruise is very fast and Olympic sprinters think he could be a good one, he’s doing a bit more than sprint in these Mission: Impossibles. So, I might have to draw some separate conclusions from this list.
Statcast has an involved definition of Sprint Speed:
Sprint Speed is Statcast’s foot speed metric, defined as “feet per second in a player’s fastest one-second window” on individual plays. For a player’s seasonal average, the following two types of plays currently qualify for inclusion in Sprint Speed. The best of these runs, approximately two-thirds, are averaged for a player’s seasonal average.
* Runs of two bases or more on non-homers, excluding being a runner on second base when an extra base hit happens
* Home to first on “topped” or “weakly hit” balls.
The Major League average on a “competitive” play is 27 ft/sec, and the competitive range is roughly from 23 ft/sec (poor) to 30 ft/sec (elite).
The fastest player in baseball right now is Bobby Witt Jr. with an average of 30.3 ft/sec. That’s 9.25 meters/sec. The first Giant to appear on the leaderboard is Tyler Fitzgerald at 29.3 ft/sec (8.93 m/s), good enough for 21st in MLB. The rest of the league average or better runners are:
Christian Koss, 28.6 ft/sec (8.71 m/s)
Jung Hoo Lee, 28.0 ft/sec (8.53 m/s)
Matt Chapman, 27.9 ft/sec (8.50 m/s)
Casey Schmitt, 27.9 ft/sec (8.50 m/s)
Willy Adames, 27.7 ft/sec (8.44 m/s)
Heliot Ramos, 27.7 ft/sec (8.44 m/s)
Luis Matos, 27.4 ft/sec (8.35 m/s)
(That means Mike Yastrzemski, David Villar, LaMonte Wade Jr., Patrick Bailey, Wilmer Flores, and Sam Huff don’t qualify for this list because they’re under 27 ft/sec on average.)
All eight of these guys are literally faster, on average, than Tom Cruise — which, again, makes total sense as they’re all taller with longer strides. But Cruise as Ethan Hunt usually has to maintain top speed for far longer than a typical baseball play. The Statcast rankings do contain some subtleties for players, too.
Some players are quicker running from home plate to first base because they have to run out more weak grounders, for example. So, you have a situation where Tampa Bay’s Chandler Simpson actually comes out a bit faster than Witt Jr. in a 90-feet sprint. This is laid out in Statcast with its 90-foot running splits leaderboard. There’s even a fun widget where you can select four programs from the leaderboard and race them.
Fitzgerald’s 3.88 seconds over 90 feet is 43rd. That would be a 14.1-second 100 meter dash, slower than what Cruise/Ethan Hunt can do. In fact, nobody on the 90-feet split chart could match our fictional secret agent, so let’s adjust with a basic idea: who has demonstrated the most speed?
To do that, we’ll look at Statcast’s “Bolts” (any run over 30.0 ft/sec)/ Fitzgerald led the team last year with 47. Grant McCray was second with 16, and the only other two players to hit that figure were Matt Chapman and Heliot Ramos, who both did it once. This season, Fitzgerald has 9 Bolts to Koss’s 1 and nobody else has any.
So, without question, Tyler Fitzgerald is the fastest guy on the team right now and the only one who could hope to keep pace with Cruise. If Grant McCray gets a callup soon, then it’d at least be a two-horse race. I was hoping to see Matt Chapman pop up in the analysis, as I’ve been very impressed by his foot speed, but he’s only good rather than exceptional.
Aesthetic matches
Does Tyler Fitzgerald look the best?
Well, he’s got the open palm running style going for him, which according to Olympic runners is best. Somebody might have to ask him if he’s modeled his running style after Olympic runners or Tom Cruise. But! He’s wearing those mittens. And his clenched jaw evokes Popeye more than it does Ethan Hunt. Aesthetically, not cool. In fact, he looks pretty dorky on the run.
Ah well. I was hoping for a spectacular result here, but there’s only one Tom Cruise. It’s not surprising to find that the Giants aren’t really a fast team. Their 20th-ranked team sprint speed even feels a little generous watching them day after day, but it just goes to show how much Fitzgerald pulls up the average.
Speed isn’t everything in baseball just as in spycraft Ethan needs someone in his ear telling him where to run. The Giants have managed to use their average-at-best speed to decent use, with +0.8 Baserunning Runs per FanGraphs, 13th in MLB. So, they’re at least not hurting themselves when they get on base.
Just don’t count on any Giants to run and save the world.