Since their public release just a few weeks ago, I have been obsessed with Statcast’s new attack angle and bat path metrics. Having the ability to analyze a player’s swing path tilt, attack angle, and contact/intercept point, in addition to existing bat tracking metrics such as bat speed and squared-up rate allows the public to have a better understanding of the factors that contribute to the process of generating offensive production. Here in the Going Deep section, there have already been two articles published that have displayed the additional value to offensive analysis these metrics provide: Spencer Torkelson is Lifting Off by myself, and On the Right Path: Looking into Hitters’ Swing Paths by Kyle McCarthy.
Most of the attention regarding swing path tilt has been either identifying players with steep swing paths who have good swings or analyzing players who have increased their swing path tilts to hit the ball in the air more frequently, generating more production in the process. While there is an apparent benefit to possessing a swing with a steeper swing path tilt (players with high bat speed and steep tilt tend to be among the best players in the game), there can also be a benefit to a player flattening their swing path tilt. Swings with flatter tilts tend to result in fewer whiffs, and if a player has above-average bat speed and a tendency to swing and miss too often, perhaps flattening their swing path tilt could lead to better offensive results.
This leads us to Addison Barger of the Toronto Blue Jays. Graduating from prospect status last season as the 4th-best prospect in Toronto’s system, Barger had a slow start to his Major League career, producing a 70 wRC+ over 225 plate appearances in 2024. Known as a prospect for possessing above-average raw power and a tendency to swing and miss, Barger’s tendency to take “high-effort” swings continued at the Major League level, resulting in an inability to tap into his impressive raw power in-game. Over the offseason, Barger made a few notable adjustments to his offensive approach, which has led him to start the 2025 season with a 137 wRC+ over his first 136 plate appearances. This article will take a look at the changes Barger made to his offensive approach over the offseason, and attempt to identify whether Barger will be able to sustain this level of offensive production over the remainder of the season.
Overview
As mentioned earlier, Barger was ranked as the 4th best prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays organization by FanGraphs upon graduation from prospect status last season. Widely regarded as a prospect with above-average raw power with some swing-and-miss concerns, Barger manifested these prognostications during his first taste of Major League action in 2024 and needed to adjust his offensive approach to raise his ceiling of offensive production.
Barger struggled offensively over his first 225 plate appearances at the Major League level last season, producing a 70 wRC+ with a 6.2% walk rate, 26.7% strikeout rate, and .154 ISO. These results underscored the concerns that evaluators had about his swing decisions and contact consistency translating to the Major League level. To begin the 2025 season, Barger has dramatically increased his level of offensive production, producing a 136 wRC+, 8.1% walk rate, 20.6% strikeout rate, and .234 ISO over his first 132 plate appearances of the season. This increase in offensive output has raised his overall level of production, producing 1.5 fWAR so far this season, compared to the -0.3 fWAR he produced last season.
The table above depicts Barger’s Process+ metrics over each of the past two seasons. In 2024, Barger was able to produce average Contact and Power grades, with a 100 Contact+ and 101 Power+. Barger struggled mightily with swing decisions, producing a 79 Decision+, which was likely a major contributor to the 93 Process+ he produced last season. This below-average swing decision ability likely hampened Barger’s ability to tap into his raw power in-game, as hitting for power requires possessing selective aggression at the plate, frequently swinging at pitches that the batter has confidence they can consistently drive for power. Making bad swing decisions by frequently swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone reduces the probability of that pitch being driven for power, even if contact is made.
As indicated by these metrics, the plan for Barger to improve his offensive production in 2025 was easily apparent, with an improvement in swing decision ability likely being the primary focus, along with further development in contact and power ability. So far this season, Barger has dramatically increased his Process+ grade from 93 to 121, which has been driven by an increase in nearly every component of his offensive approach. Barger’s Decision+ has improved from 79 to 96, his Contact+ has improved from 100 to 106, and his Power+ has improved from 101 to 117. These significant improvements in offensive production are likely the result of three adjustments Barger has made to his offensive approach this season: increased bat speed, flatter swing path tilt, improved contact point, and (potentially) a batting stance change.
Adjustments
The first notable change that Barger has made to his offensive approach is that he has added bat speed this season. Bat speed is an incredibly valuable metric to use to measure a player’s offensive performance, because it is able to become reliable very quickly, and is highly predictive of itself year-to-year, making the metric an ideal measure of a hitter’s “true talent” level. Exit velocity is generated through a combination of exit velocity and collision efficiency, and Barger’s improvements in average bat speed and squared-up rate have directly led to his improvement in EV50 from 100.6 in 2024 to 105.5 in 2025 (7th highest among Major League hitters with at least 50 batted ball events).
As shown by the table above, Barger has improved his average bat speed from 74.3 MPH in 2024 to 76.0 MPH in 2025, while his squared-up rate has improved from 23.7% in 2024 to 27.5% in 2025, indicating that he is both swinging the bat faster and making more frequent contact on the “sweet-spot” of the bat this season. The table above also depicts Barger’s average swing path tilt, which measures the angle of the hitter’s swing path over the 40 milliseconds prior to contact. After displaying a swing that was slightly steeper than average in 2024, Barger has “flattened out” his swing to an average 27-degree swing path tilt this season.
Why did Barger flatten his swing path tilt from 33 to 27 degrees? As mentioned earlier, Barger displayed throughout his first stint in the Major Leagues an inability to tap into his raw power in-game due to poor swing decisions and a tendency to swing and miss. As shown by the heat maps above, Barger displayed a tendency to swing and miss on pitches up and away last season, and since Barger was also generally passive against pitches located on the outer third, this allowed opposing pitchers to easily exploit this area of the zone against Barger, as the result would likely be a called strike or swing and miss. Strikeouts are not evil, and hitters who possess above-average raw power can afford to swing-and-miss more frequently (as long as they possess good swing decision ability), but it appeared imperative for Barger to make an adjustment to cover this part of the zone to improve his contact ability and overall offensive production.
By flattening his swing path tilt, Barger has now displayed an improved contact rate against pitches located up and away. Perhaps this trade-off has come at the expense of some contact ability on pitches located at the bottom of the zone, however, the results indicate that this has been a valuable trade-off for Barger, with his Contact% increasing from 75.8% to 78.5% and his Zone Contact% increasing from 84.6% to 87.2%.
When bucketing by bat speed and swing path tilt, players who possess both above-average bat speed and above-average swing path tilt tend to produce higher barrel rates, as their swings are more geared for hitting the ball hard and in the air at optimal launch angles. Despite flattening his swing, Barger has increased his barrel rate from 8.7% in 2024 to 14.6% in 2025, and his air rate from 57.0% to 62.5%.
This increase in barrel rate can likely be attributed to Barger’s increase in average attack angle, from 8 degrees in 2024 to 10 degrees in 2025. Attack angle measures the vertical direction of a player’s bat at the moment of contact (or estimated point of contact), and is heavily influenced by intercept point (the estimated point of contact relative to a hitter’s center of mass), as the bat travels more upward throughout a player’s swing. Despite flattening the angle of his swing path, Barger’s bat is making contact with the baseball at a higher angle than in 2024, due to Barger moving his point of contact closer to the pitcher this season.
In 2024, Barger’s intercept point was 25.2 inches away (towards the pitcher) from his center of mass, while in 2025, Barger increased his intercept point to 33.8 inches away from his center of mass. Power lives out in front of the plate, and since Barger is now making contact during a phase in his swing where the bat is travelling on a more upward plane, he has been able to hit the ball in the air more frequently, in turn increasing his barrel rate. While barrel rate does not include spray angle in its calculation, Barger has also improved his pull air rate from 18.8% to 24.0% due to his change in contact point, resulting in more valuable batted ball outcomes as a whole. Statcast’s swing path and attack angle data are still very new, and I am still taking some time to process how to use these metrics most effectively, however, Barger’s strategy of flattening his swing path tilt while increasing his attack angle is an intriguing development strategy, and perhaps reveals a “goldilocks zone” for improving a hitter’s batted ball quality and improving their contact ability, if they already possess above-average bat speed.
As mentioned earlier, Barger has displayed an improved swing decision ability this season, with his Decision+ grade improving from 79 to 96. It is difficult to conclusively determine the factors that have contributed to his improved plate discipline, however, I believe that a noteworthy batting stance adjustment could provide an explanation. The tables above depict Barger’s batting stance position from the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Barger has noticeably displayed a more open stance this season, with his stance angle increasing from 15 degrees in 2024 to 49 degrees in 2025. Perhaps this stance adjustment has allowed Barger to see incoming pitches better, improving his ability to discern whether to swing at a pitch or not. Either way, Barger’s swing decision ability has markedly improved this season, with a 24.8% O-Swing and 66.8% Z-Swing over his first 136 plate appearances of the season.
Concluding Thoughts
Addison Barger has made a few notable adjustments to his offensive approach in 2025, which has led him to produce a 137 wRC+ over his first 136 plate appearances of the season. Flattening his swing path tilt has allowed him to make more contact, altering his intercept point to make more contact “out in front” has allowed him to hit the ball in the air more frequently, while an improved swing decision ability has tied his offensive profile together, allowing Barger to tap into his plus raw power in-game more frequently.
Perhaps there’s some small sample size noise in his contact and swing decision data from last season which caused him to underperform in 2024, however, bat tracking data becomes reliable quickly, and Barger has made significant changes to his swing that makes him a very intriguing offensive player looking forward. Expected metrics indicate that Barger is performing at an “expected” level, with Barger currently running a .311 BABIP, and his .392 xwOBA is higher than his current wOBA of .362. In terms of projections, THE BAT X has Barger projected for a 110 wRC+ over the rest of the season while OOPSY has Barger projected for a rest-of-season 111 wRC+. I’m willing to ballpark Barger’s rest of season wRC+ somewhere between 111 and 120, as I believe the changes he’s made to his offensive approach will allow him to run an ISO closer to .200.
It will be interesting to see how opposing pitchers adjust back to Barger’s hot start to the 2025 season, and his increased whiff rate on pitches low in the zone could open up a new opportunity for opposing pitchers to generate swing-and-miss. In conclusion, Addison Barger’s transformation offers a compelling case on how slight mechanical and strategic changes, such as adjusting contact/intercept point or swing path tilt, can meaningfully impact offensive performance. If he can maintain his improved discipline and continue making hard contact out “in front”, Barger could solidify himself as a significant contributor in the Blue Jays lineup for the foreseeable future.
Statistics as of the end of play on June 3rd, 2025.
Adapted by Kurt Wasemiller (@kurt_player02 on Instagram & Threads
@kuwasemiller.bksy.social on BlueSky)
