The cool thing about baseball is there's a stat for everything. You name it, there's a number associated with it. It's actually becoming overwhelming.
But there's an interesting stat, according to MLB.com, for Giants pitcher Dereck Rodriguez that will get the team's fans super excited for his return in 2019: A 3.9 percent barrel rate.
A what?
A barrel rate.
Picture this: What does a hitter hope to do during his at-bat? Hit the ball, of course, but he also wants to hit it a particular way to ensure he doesn't get an easy out, ie., he wants to get a barrel on the ball. It's basically a well-hit ball, and what Rodriguez was able to do was limit batters making hard and accurate contact with the ball.
So, the barrel rate is (barrels/balls hit fair) for you math people out there. And Rodriguez's rate is extremely low. As a matter of fact, it's the third lowest in Major League Baseball with a minimum of 300 batted balls.
Fun, right? We all learned something today.
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The 26-year-old shares the same percentage as Joe Kelly and Carlos Martinez. And if you're curious to know which pitchers Rodriguez's barrel rate is better than? How do the names of Jacob deGrom, Trevor Bauer and Dallas Keuchel sound?
Not bad company to surround yourself with.
And we're pretty sure Rodriguez's dad is unbelievably proud. And perhaps a bit intimidated. Especially if he's recently struggled to catch a few foul balls.
