Blast Off: Which Batters Are Hitting the Most Impactful Barrels?

Last week I read a great article by John LaRue breaking down Alex Chamberlain's offensive stat known as Blast Rate. As John pointed out, Alex took the barrel stat we know and love and split it into a subset known as "Weak Barrels" and "Blasts."

This may seem like a knit-picky exercise to some, but I believe it is incredibly important, especially for this year since the new ball has exit velocities up around the league. If more hitters are hitting the ball hard, we need to be able to differentiate between who is doing that at a meaningful level and who isn't.

John's article dug into this specifically for St. Louis Cardinals' hitters, so I thought I would expand it out to the league at large (even though a few Cardinals did make the list).

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What a Blast! What's a Blast?

Before we dive in, it's important to clarify that a "Barrel" measures how often a hitter hits a ball on the barrel (the "sweet spot"). The Statcast glossary breaks it down into more technical terms: "To be Barreled, a batted ball requires an exit velocity of at least 98 mph. At that speed, balls struck with a launch angle between 26-30 degrees always garner Barreled classification. For every mph over 98, the range of launch angles expands. 

For example: A ball traveling 99 mph always earns 'Barreled' status when struck between 25-31 degrees. Add one more mph -- to reach 100 -- and the range grows another three degrees, to 24-33."

Huh. OK, there are a lot of moving pieces there. What Alex did was test the theory of whether or not all Barrels are equal. As almost anybody who played the game can tell you, they certainly are not. So what makes some barrels "better" than others?

Here is where I'll pull a Sparknotes and simplify what Alex explains in far more detail in the article linked earlier. By condensing the launch angle to 28° and increasing the lowest exit velocity threshold from 97.5 mph to 100 mph, he noticed a massive difference:

"Blasts" = 1.744 wOBAcon, 82% HR/BBE, and .919 AVG.

"Weak Barrels" = 1.140 wOBAcon, 38% HR/BBE, and .707 AVG.

Those are both good, but clearly Blasts result in far more impactful offensive production. We want Blasts, so let's find some Blasts. Below is the leaderboard for all hitters with 60 or more batted ball events (BBE) who have a Blast Rate of 7.5% or higher. Since barrel rate stabilizes after 50 BBE, this gives us a meaningful sample size without overloading us with too many names.

Below the chart, I'll give some short pieces of analysis about some interesting names on the list so make sure to keep scrolling.

2021 Blast Leaderboard

(All Stats are as of the morning of May 9th)

Notable Names

Tyler O'Neill, St. Louis Cardinals

I feel like we do this dance with O'Neill all the time. Power is never an issue for him; he flat out crushes the ball. So if 50 batted balls is the stabilization point and O'Neill is fourth in the league in Blasts, then we should be excited, right? Well, not so fast.

O'Neill's K% is actually up to 32.1% and his BB% is down to 2.4%. His O-Swing% is up from last year and is in line with his 2019 numbers, and his O-Contact% is down 10% from last year. Basically, I see this as the same Tyler O'Neill. The power-speed combination is great, but he hasn't taken another step in his development, so expect an average around .230-.240, which, let's be honest, isn't really that bad for a 2021 offense.

Mitch Garver, Minnesota Twins

Like O'Neill, Garver was one of the guys I lowered the threshold for because catcher is a bit of a wasteland this year. Garver may only be hitting .200 on the season, but his early K% and O-Swing% issues have started to correct themselves, and he's been hitting the ball hard all year with a .280 ISO and 16% barrel rate. I think Garver will eventually be a guy you can hold in 12-team leagues, so if somebody isn't buying into him yet, you should take advantage.

Gregory Polanco, Pittsburgh Pirates

Polanco is another guy who fell below the 60-batted ball event mark, but who has reached a stabilization point. What intrigues me about Polanco is that his K% is at its lowest mark since 2018 and his BB% is at its highest mark since 2018. In 2018 he hit .254 with 23 HR and 12 SB. Polanco's max exit velocity is the highest of his career, so we don't have to worry about lingering effects of his previous shoulder injuries, and if he's settled in with the same discipline he had in his best year, I'm willing to buy-in for the time being. He was placed on the COVID-IL last week for violating protocols, but when he's activated I expect to see him back in the lineup since it's not like the Pirates have anyone to push him out.

Bobby Dalbec, Boston Red Sox

Dalbec is an interesting case. We know he has swing-and-miss in his game, and his current 32.4% rate suggests that. However, that is also an improvement from his 42.4% rate last year. His O-Swing% is also down 4% from last year while his O-Contact% is up 18% and his contact rate is up 9% overall. So, he is striking out less, swinging less at pitches outside of the zone, and making more contact overall. Those are all good things and make me think that Dalbec has some positive regression in the future. I don't expect him to fix all his strikeout issues, but I still think a .240 average is feasible and he clearly has the power to be an impact bat. Don't give up on him yet.

Javier Baez, Chicago Cubs

Everybody wants to talk about Baez's contact rates and share GIFs of him swinging and missing wildly. However, he's also hitting .255 with eight HR and six SB. His O-Swing% is pretty consistent with his career numbers, his Z-Swing% is up from years past, and his Z-Contact% is trending back up. If you can make sure people in your league see video of Baez's worst strikeouts, then you can float some trade offers as well.

Brandon Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays

I know there are many disgruntled Lowe owners who are staring at his .195 average and trying to get rid of him. Consider me an interested trading party. Lowe's K% is up almost 5%, but there are no noticeable changes in his swing metrics, and he's actually making more contact outside of the zone. He has a top-20 Blast Rate and over 87% of his barrels are blasts, which means his barrel rate isn't propped up by "weak" contact. At the beginning of the season, his launch angle was around 20-degrees, which would be a career-high, and has recently trended down to just under 14-degrees. I think he's still working to find the rhythm with his swing and his .239 BABIP is well under the .309 mark from 2020 and .377 mark from 2019, so I would expect some regression there as well.

Eugenio Suarez, Cincinnati Reds

Suarez was the biggest surprise for me on this list. We all know that he has been struggling to start the year, hitting .130/.223/.296. We also know that the shoulder injury has sapped a bit of his power, starting with last season and continuing into this year. His HardHit% is down almost 16%, his K% is at a career-high, and his average exit velocity is a career-low 85.8 in a season where exit velocity is up across the league. I know he makes this list, but this is not somebody I'm looking to buy low on unless the price is really down.

The move to shortstop has taken a lot of his attention, but he also just doesn't seem like the same hitter he was pre-shoulder injury. He's missing a lot more pitches in the zone and has the lowest Pull% he's had since 2018, which tells me that he isn't able to get around on the pitch like he has been the last few years. You're holding strong if you drafted him, but I'm not actively seeking him out if the manager is my league is shopping him around.

Paul DeJong, St. Louis Cardinals

DeJong is consistently undervalued and it's sad. He may only be hitting .186 to start the year, but I think this is the perfect opportunity to try and make a move for him or scoop him off your waiver wires. A few things stand out to me. For starters, he has a career-high barrel rate, while also lowering his K% by 5% and upping his BB% to a career-high 11.2%. That tells me the plate discipline is improving, and he's seeing better pitches. That's supported by a 3.1% increase in O-Swing% but a 15.7% increase in O-Contact%, meaning that DeJong is being a little more aggressive on pitches out of the zone, but is currently doing so with pitches that he can hit.

He has also lowered his launch angle to 14.4-degrees, which is more optimal for a player like him who has good power but not Tyler O'Neill type raw power. A launch angle in that area means the fly balls that he's hitting are not towering ones but ones where the backspin can more often carry them out of the park. This is part of the reason his HR/FB% has jumped from 6.4% to 18.9%. His .188 BABIP is going to start to correct itself, and I like to bank on a guy hitting the ball harder and seeing the ball better.

Nate Lowe, Texas Rangers

This is why you don't overreact to Spring Training. Nate Lowe was a popular breakout pick heading into spring after being traded to Texas. Then he looked bad in spring and Ronald Guzman seemed to usurp him. Now it's the middle of May and Lowe is hitting .287/.374/.478 with seven HR, 25 RBI, and four SB. This is real; don't sell him unless somebody is buying really high.

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