This week at BP Boston I wrote the Red Sox’s offense from the perspective of a metric derived from the new (and exciting) Statcast data: barrels. A barrel is a batted ball with an exit velocity and launch angle that has tended to result in extra-base hits. In 2016, the Red Sox as a group were not outstanding in their ability to barrel-up the ball, but a few players were above average. Having a lineup full of barrelers is one path to a successful offense, but as the 2016 Red Sox showed, stringing together singles, doubles and walks in front of just a few barrelers will also work out just fine.
Head over to BP Boston and read my work: The Red Sox’s Barrel Blast.
This work was featured in Alex Speier’s 108 Stitches Newsletter. Speier is an excellent Red Sox beat writer for The Boston Globe, so it is nice to have his recognition. Here is what he wrote about my article:
BARREL BONANZA: Chris Teeter of Baseball Prospectus examines the quality of contact made by members of the Red Sox in 2016. While David Ortiz produced consistently great contact that will be hard to replace, Teeter finds that Moreland showed a reliable ability to produce “barrels” – a Statcast measurement of balls with a launch angle and exit velocity likely to result in extra-base hits.