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Carlos Beltrán headshot

DH · 2017

Carlos Beltrán

Age
40
B/T
S/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
215 lb
Number
#15
Born
April 24, 1977 in Manati, Puerto Rico
MLB debut
September 14, 1998
dbWAR
3.9
3 season(s)
PA
509
AVG
.231
OBP
.283
SLG
.383
wRC+
78
100 = avg

Carlos Beltrán is a designated hitter for the Houston Astros. In 2017 he hit 14 home runs and knocked in 51 RBIs, notching 108 hits across 509 plate appearances in 129 games. His batting average was .231, 9.3% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .283 clip and slugged .383, for an OPS of .666, 11.2% lower than the league mark of .750 — the second worst on his team, and 336th of 435 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 87.9 mph off the bat, hit 37.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.6% of them and made contact on 80.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 78 wRC+ puts his offence 22% below average. That comes to -1.3 dbWAR — -16.0 runs with the bat, -0.2 on the bases, -13.9 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2017.

wRC+78
wOBA.287
ISO.152
BB%6.5%
WAR-1.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to -13.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-16.0Baserunning-0.2Position-13.9Replacement+17.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.60.7-1.3151617

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20171295091081451033102.231.283.383.152.2636.5%20.0%.287-16.078-1.3
20161515931632993135101.295.337.513.217.3155.9%17.0%.363+19.41262.6
2015133531132196704585.276.337.471.195.2978.5%16.0%.351+14.21232.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP127119221634.185.228.277.22426.8%
vs RHP38234886132768.247.301.420.30817.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 358 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 307 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
4.6%
14 barrels
Exit velocity
87.9
mph average
Max exit velo
109.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
37.1%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
34.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
14.5°
average
Barrel rate4.6%
Exit velocity87.9 mph
Hard hit rate37.1%
Contact rate80.2%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2017.

.219.071.151.163.25012 AB.19021 AB.20010 AB.29544 AB.29341 AB.21428 AB.29857 AB.25044 AB.34335 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .254.

Situational hitting

How Carlos Beltrán hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations509.231.283.383.287
Bases empty2812626210101757.237.288.431.310
Runner on first100952339517.242.280.379.286
Runners on228205464411645.224.276.322.257
RISP128110231321128.209.273.273.234

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2017.

Head to head

Put Carlos Beltrán beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Carlos Beltrán

Similar players

Nearest 2017 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.