A barrel is a batted ball hit at least 98 mph at a launch angle built for extra bases. Statcast drew the category so that balls hit at those speeds and angles have batted at least .500 and slugged at least 1.500 since its league-wide debut in 2015, per MLB.com's glossary. Barrel rate is the share of a hitter's batted balls that are barrels. If you want to know whether a hitter's power is real, it's the first number to check.
A barrel starts at 98 mph and 26 to 30 degrees
At exactly 98 mph, only launch angles from 26 to 30 degrees count. Each extra mile per hour widens the window: 25 to 31 degrees at 99 mph, 24 to 33 at 100, then two or three more degrees for every mph after that. At 116 mph, anything from 8 to 50 degrees is a barrel (MLB.com).
In 2016, barreled balls hit .822 and slugged 2.386, according to the same glossary, which works out to more than two total bases per barrel. Barrel rate is barrels divided by batted balls. Baseball Savant also lists barrels per plate appearance, which puts strikeouts and walks in the denominator too, and that's the version to use when you're sizing up a single game.
Four numbers describe a hitter's contact
Barrel rate has three close relatives. The leaders listed are among Savant's qualified hitters.
| Stat | What it counts | 2025 MLB | 2025 leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average exit velocity | Speed off the bat, averaged over batted balls | 89.4 mph | Oneil Cruz, 95.8 mph |
| Hard-hit rate | Share of batted balls hit 95 mph or harder | 40.9% | Kyle Schwarber, 59.6% |
| Barrel rate | Share of batted balls that are barrels | 8.6% | Aaron Judge, 24.7% |
| ISO (isolated power) | Extra bases per at-bat: slugging minus average | .159 | Aaron Judge, .357 |
The leaders come from Baseball Savant's 2025 exit velocity and barrels leaderboard. The MLB figures total the 30 team lines on Savant's 2025 league page, which add up to 10,737 barrels on 124,888 batted balls. League ISO and Judge's ISO are from FanGraphs.
Exit velocity is the raw ingredient
Exit velocity is the speed of the ball the instant it leaves the bat. Statcast measures it on every batted ball, hits and outs alike. Average exit velocity is the total divided by the number of batted balls (MLB.com). A ball hit 95 mph or harder counts as hard-hit, because that's where results jump. In 2018, hard-hit balls produced a .524 batting average and a 1.047 slugging percentage, while everything softer hit .219 and slugged .259 (MLB.com).
Speed alone won't make a power hitter. Oneil Cruz had the hardest average contact on Savant's 2025 leaderboard at 95.8 mph, and he finished with 20 home runs and a .200 average. His average launch angle was 8.1 degrees, less than half of Judge's 19. He also struck out 174 times in 544 plate appearances, so only 302 of his trips ended with a batted ball (Baseball Savant). A barrel needs the speed and the angle at the same time, so barrel rate catches what average exit velocity misses about power.
The 2025 barrel leaders were the home run leaders
Only four players reached 50 home runs in 2025, and they were the same four hitters at the top of Savant's barrel-rate leaderboard.
| Hitter | Barrel rate | Barrels | Home runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Judge | 24.7% | 96 | 53 |
| Shohei Ohtani | 23.5% | 100 | 55 |
| Kyle Schwarber | 20.8% | 85 | 56 |
| Cal Raleigh | 19.5% | 80 | 60 |
Barrel figures are from the Statcast leaderboard, and home runs from Savant's custom leaderboard. Eugenio Suárez was next with 49.
Earlier seasons line up the same way. In 2021, Shohei Ohtani barreled 22.3% of his batted balls, 78 barrels on 350, and those 78 led the majors on his way to 46 home runs (Savant, 2021). In 2022, Yordan Alvarez barreled 21.0%, 78 on 371, and slugged .613 with 37 homers. Judge led that year's leaderboard at 26.5% and hit 62 (Savant, 2022).
For one game, count barrels per plate appearance
Barrel rate divides by batted balls, so a strikeout never counts against it. That's a fair way to grade contact over a season, but a single game counts every trip, and a strikeout is a trip with zero bases. Cruz's 17.9% barrel rate ranked ninth on the 2025 leaderboard, but he struck out in 32% of his plate appearances, and per trip he barreled 9.9% of the time. Judge barreled on 14.1% of his trips. The whole league came in at 5.9%: 10,737 barrels in 182,926 plate appearances, from the same team totals.
Tonight's pitcher counts too, because Savant tracks barrels allowed the same way. Among pitchers who allowed at least 450 batted balls in 2025, Ranger Suárez gave up barrels on 5.5% of them and Miles Mikolas on 12.7% (Savant). A slugger facing a starter who rarely allows barrels has fewer chances to square one up. For the pitcher's side of the game, see why FIP predicts pitchers better than ERA.
A week of barrels is a small sample, and a hot stretch can flatter anyone. Before you trust a hitter's last ten days, check how many batted balls sit behind the number. How many at-bats before you can trust a stat covers where that line sits.
ISO counts the extra bases
ISO, short for isolated power, is slugging percentage minus batting average. Written out, it's (doubles + 2 × triples + 3 × home runs) ÷ at-bats, so a single adds nothing (MLB.com). FanGraphs' rule of thumb puts .140 at average, .200 at great and .250 at excellent (FanGraphs library). The 2025 league mark was .159.
ISO credits power that a home run total hides. Bobby Witt Jr. hit 23 home runs in 2025, far off the leaders, but his 47 doubles were the most in baseball (FanGraphs) and his ISO was .206 (Savant). Home run totals also carry the ballpark with them, and some parks add far more homers than others. Park factors has the numbers.
ISO is a results stat, so it can trail the contact for a while. When a hitter's barrel rate is high and their ISO lags, look up their expected slugging (xSLG) on Savant, which prices each batted ball by its speed and angle instead of where it landed. xwOBA vs wOBA covers that gap between contact and results.
Barrel rate changes a total-bases pick
Say tonight's menu in GAGE has a slugger at Total bases 2+, and the odds give it a 35% chance, so YES scores +6.5 if they get to two bases and loses 3.5 if they don't.
Two bases means at least a double, unless they string two singles together, and one barrel averaged more than two bases in that 2016 data. So the pick mostly comes down to whether they square one up. Now say their last two weeks look quiet in the box score: a handful of singles and no extra-base hits. Meanwhile their barrels per plate appearance over those two weeks sit near their season rate, and their strikeouts haven't climbed. The contact that produces doubles and homers is still there. If you think their real chance is closer to 40%, YES is your pick.
How scoring and lock-in work has the full rules, and you can make picks like this in GAGE on the App Store.