What is a Bloop Single? Definition and Examples
A bloop single is a weakly-hit baseball that drops in for a hit between infielders and outfielders, usually with an exit velocity under 70 mph and a launch angle between 25 and 45 degrees.
What is a Bloop Single?
A bloop single is a base hit that results from a batted ball with low exit velocity and a high, arcing trajectory that lands in the shallow outfield or no-man's-land between the infield dirt and the outfield grass. These hits are the opposite of line drives or hard ground balls — the ball carries just enough to clear the infielders' heads but not enough to reach an outfielder on the fly. Bloop singles are frequently called "flares," "dying quails," or "Texas Leaguers," and they are almost always the product of luck or defensive mispositioning rather than squared-up contact.
How is a Bloop Single Measured?
Statcast classifies batted balls by exit velocity and launch angle. While there is no official "bloop" tag in the public Statcast dataset, analysts define bloop singles operationally as batted balls with:
- Exit velocity under 70 mph
- Launch angle between 25 and 45 degrees
- Resulting in a base hit
For context, a typical major league batted ball has an exit velocity around 89 mph. A bloop at 60-65 mph off the bat is barely faster than a tossed ball. The launch angle matters because a ball hit at 30 degrees with 65 mph exit velocity has a hang time of roughly 3.5 to 4.5 seconds — enough for infielders to track it but not enough for outfielders to cover the gap.
Statcast also tracks a metric called xBA (expected batting average) that uses exit velocity and launch angle to estimate the probability of a hit. Bloop singles almost always have xBA values between .200 and .400 — meaning the hit was far from certain. A bloop single with a .150 xBA is a "lucky" hit by definition.
Worked Example
Consider a real example: In a 2024 game, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts hit a ball at 58.3 mph off the bat with a launch angle of 38 degrees. The ball landed 140 feet from home plate, just beyond the infield dirt, and dropped in front of the left fielder for a single. The xBA on that batted ball was .180 — meaning Statcast estimated an 18% chance of a hit. Betts reached base, but the hit was a textbook bloop.
Compare that to a line drive single at 102 mph with a 12-degree launch angle — that ball had an xBA of .720. Both are singles, but the line drive is repeatable skill; the bloop is mostly fortune.
Why It Matters
Bloop singles matter for several reasons:
- Hitting evaluation: A hitter who collects many bloop singles has a batting average that overstates his true contact quality. Fantasy players and front offices use xBA and hard-hit rate to separate skill from luck.
- Pitching evaluation: A pitcher who allows a bloop single should not be penalized in advanced metrics. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) ignores all balls in play, including bloop singles, because they are not under the pitcher's control.
- Defensive positioning: The shift ban and modern defensive alignments leave specific zones open. A bloop single often lands exactly where a defender would have stood had the shift not been in place.
- Legends Deck card ratings: Bloop singles do not boost a hitter's power rating. A card with high contact but low power will generate bloop singles in the simulation, while a power hitter's singles come off the bat harder.
Limitations and Common Misconceptions
Bloop singles are frequently confused with "flares" or "soft line drives." A flare is typically hit at 70-85 mph with a lower launch angle — it still has some pace. A bloop is genuinely soft.
The biggest misconception is that bloop singles are "lucky" in every case. Some hitters — particularly those with elite bat control like Luis Arraez or Ichiro Suzuki — intentionally shorten their swing and place the ball over the infield. For those hitters, the bloop is a skill. For most hitters, it is variance.
Bloop singles also inflate batting average but do nothing for slugging percentage. A hitter with a .300 average built on bloop singles has less offensive value than a .250 hitter who hits 30 home runs. This is why OPS and wOBA weight extra-base hits more heavily.
Related Terms
In Legends Deck
Legends Deck assigns each hitter a Contact rating and a Power rating. Bloop singles occur most often when a high-Contact, low-Power card puts the ball in play. The simulation uses Statcast-derived probabilities, so a bloop single is more likely from a contact hitter than from a slugger. When you draft a card with elite Contact but middling Power, expect a batting average built on bloop singles — not home runs. That profile is valuable in points leagues that reward hits, but less so in categories leagues that reward slugging.