DataBaseball
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Josh Hamilton headshot

LF · 2015

Josh Hamilton

Age
34
B/T
L/L
Height
6' 4"
Weight
240 lb
Number
#32
Born
May 21, 1981 in Raleigh, NC, USA
MLB debut
April 2, 2007
dbWAR
.4
1 season(s)
PA
182
AVG
.253
OBP
.291
SLG
.441
wRC+
97
100 = avg

Josh Hamilton is a left fielder for the Texas Rangers. In 2015 he hit 8 home runs and knocked in 25 RBIs, notching 43 hits across 182 plate appearances in 50 games. His batting average was .253, 0.6% lower than the league average of .254. He reached base at a .291 clip and slugged .441, for an OPS of .732, 1.5% higher than the league mark of .721 — 8th of 16 on his team, and 202nd of 445 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.6 mph off the bat, hit 41.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.1% of them and made contact on 63.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 97 wRC+ puts his offence 3% below average. That comes to 0.4 dbWAR — +0.1 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -2.5 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, 2015.

wRC+97
wOBA.318
ISO.188
BB%5.5%
WAR.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2015. These four terms sum to +3.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+0.1Baserunning-0.1Position-2.5Replacement+6.1
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2015501824382501052.253.291.441.188.3135.5%28.6%.318+0.1970.4

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2015. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP6056133317.232.267.446.30628.3%
vs RHP123115305735.261.301.435.32028.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2015.

Loading 120 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 113 tracked batted balls in 2015. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
7.1%
8 barrels
Exit velocity
88.6
mph average
Max exit velo
112.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
41.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
8.5°
average
Barrel rate7.1%
Exit velocity88.6 mph
Hard hit rate41.6%
Contact rate63.8%

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, 2015.

.091.184.1117 AB7 AB4 AB.14314 AB.62516 AB7 AB.16724 AB.42914 AB7 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 Josh Hamilton 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 situations182.253.291.441.318
Bases empty93912466227.264.280.505.337
Runner on first3633914312.273.333.455.346
Runners on908019219825.237.300.362.294
RISP544710115513.213.278.298.259

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2015.

Head to head

Put Josh Hamilton beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Josh Hamilton

Similar players

Nearest 2015 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.