Michael Conforto the king of hard hitting

10:42 AM ET

Hard-hit balls are Michael Conforto’s legacy, dating back to his days as a Little Leaguer, scholastic star and college All-American at Oregon State, so it’s not really that surprising that he’s atop the leaderboard for hard-hit rate near the end of the first month of the season.

Michael Conforto

Since being moved up to 3/4 in lineup

BA.390OBP.447Slug pct.756Games11

Conforto has been credited with a 30.6 percent hard-hit rate to this point in the season. Bryce Harper ranks second with a 28.8 percent rate.

The Conforto swing is the best-looking one on the New York Mets and perhaps in time will be known as one of the best in the majors. Conforto has thrived since being moved to the No. 3 spot and may be the sweetest swinging No. 3 hitter for the Mets since fellow native Washingtonian John Olerud, or going back a little further, Keith Hernandez.

“Michael Conforto has a quick, short swing that stays in the zone a long time,” said Baseball Tonight analyst Doug Glanville. “He has a mature sense of what he is trying to do with each at-bat. He has ‘batting title’ tools with an approach to match.”

It’s a swing that allows him to overpower the ball at the bottom of the strike zone, which many lefties do, but not many with the dominance of Conforto. He hits the ball hard on the ground, on a line or in the air. He’s also hitting it wherever it’s pitched — he’s hitting .310 or better in all four quadrants of the strike zone (upper half, lower half, inner half and outer half). Almost all of this has …

continue reading in source espn.go.com