Over the off-season, Alex Chamberlain introduced a new concept at RotoGraphs. You’ve probably heard by now that not all barrels are created the same. Chamberlain took that concept to a new level and discovered a subset of barrels that he calls “blasts.” It’s not as neat and tidy as, say, the Hard Hit designation from Statcast, which is anything above 95 mph exit velocity. Chamberlain’s metric identifies barrels that specifically are hit at launch angles and exit velocities that procure the most damage. All other barrels are what he calls “weak barrels” while the optimal barrels are “blasts.
On Blasts, Barrels, and the Cardinals
