Players · M · DH · 2018 regular season

Victor Martinez

Detroit Tigers American League CentralDH

Age: 40
B/T: S/R
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 235 lb
Number: #41

Born: December 23, 1978 in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela
MLB debut: September 10, 2002

dbWAR: 30.8
PA: 508
AVG: .251
OBP: .297
SLG: .353
wRC+: 77

Victor Martinez was a designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers. In 2018 he hit 9 home runs and knocked in 54 RBIs, notching 117 hits across 508 plate appearances in 133 games. His batting average was .251, 1.0% higher than the league average of .248. He reached base at a .297 clip and slugged .353, for an OPS of .651, 10.6% lower than the league mark of .728 — 9th of 17 on his team, and 340th of 448 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.3 mph off the bat, hit 34.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.1% of them and made contact on 85.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 77 wRC+ puts his offence 23% below average. That comes to -1.6 dbWAR — -14.3 runs with the bat, +0.5 for the ballpark, -0.3 on the bases, -3.3 on double plays, -11.6 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, 2018 regular season.

wRC+77

wOBA.283

ISO.103

BB%6.3%

WAR-1.6

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2018. These terms sum to -15.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below. Seasons on file run 2005–2018; his career began in 2002, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2018	DET	133	508	117	9	54	0	32	49	.251	.297	.353	.103	.260	6.3%	9.6%	.283	-14.3	77	-1.6
2017	DET	107	435	100	10	47	0	36	63	.255	.324	.372	.117	.280	8.3%	14.5%	.306	-6.8	83	-0.8
2016	DET	154	610	160	27	86	0	50	90	.289	.351	.476	.186	.303	8.2%	14.8%	.354	+16.0	122	1.7
2015	DET	120	485	108	11	64	0	31	52	.245	.301	.366	.120	.253	6.4%	10.7%	.289	-10.7	83	-1.2
2014	DET	151	641	188	32	103	3	70	42	.335	.409	.565	.230	.316	10.9%	6.6%	.416	+49.8	172	5.7
2013	DET	159	668	182	14	83	0	54	62	.301	.355	.430	.129	.313	8.1%	9.3%	.344	+13.3	114	1.0
2011	DET	145	595	178	12	103	1	46	51	.330	.380	.470	.141	.343	7.7%	8.6%	.373	+24.1	134	3.0
2010	BOS	127	538	149	20	79	1	40	52	.302	.351	.493	.191	.303	7.4%	9.7%	.369	+18.6	127	4.0
2009	CLE/BOS	155	672	178	23	108	1	75	74	.303	.381	.480	.177	.312	11.2%	11.0%	.380	+25.9	139	5.1
2008	CLE	73	294	74	2	35	0	24	32	.278	.337	.365	.086	.306	8.2%	10.9%	.313	-4.9	86	0.3
2007	CLE	147	645	169	25	114	0	62	76	.301	.374	.505	.205	.305	9.6%	11.8%	.379	+23.1	124	4.4
2006	CLE	153	652	181	16	93	0	71	78	.316	.391	.465	.149	.341	10.9%	12.0%	.375	+21.0	128	4.4
2005	CLE	147	622	167	20	80	0	63	78	.305	.378	.475	.170	.322	10.1%	12.5%	.371	+20.9	133	4.8

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason batting

Postseason Victor Martinez's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2014 Post	DET	ALDS	3	12	12	3	4	2	0	1	3	0	4	.333	.333	.750	1.083
2013 Post	DET	Postseason total	11	44	42	9	17	4	0	1	5	1	3	.405	.432	.571	1.003
		ALDS	5	20	20	5	9	2	0	1	2	0	2	.450	.450	.700	1.150
		ALCS	6	24	22	4	8	2	0	0	3	1	1	.364	.417	.455	.871
2011 Post	DET	Postseason total	11	46	40	4	10	0	1	2	5	5	6	.250	.348	.450	.798
		ALDS	5	20	18	1	4	0	0	1	3	2	5	.222	.300	.389	.689
		ALCS	6	26	22	3	6	0	1	1	2	3	1	.273	.385	.500	.885
2009 Post	BOS	ALDS	3	12	11	0	2	0	0	0	2	1	2	.182	.250	.182	.432
2007 Post	CLE	Postseason total	11	49	44	6	14	2	0	2	7	4	8	.318	.388	.500	.888
		ALDS	4	19	17	2	6	1	0	1	4	1	3	.353	.421	.588	1.009
		ALCS	7	30	27	4	8	1	0	1	3	3	5	.296	.367	.444	.811
2005–2018		Postseason total · 5 Octobers	39	163	149	22	47	8	1	6	22	11	23	.315	.374	.503	.878

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2018. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	133	125	32	5	6	12	.256	.286	.400	.293	9.0%
vs RHP	375	342	85	4	26	37	.249	.301	.336	.280	9.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2018.

Loading 405 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 369 tracked batted balls in 2018. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 4.1%
Exit velocity: 88.3
Max exit velo: 107.6
Hard hit: 34.1%
Sweet spot: 42.5%
Launch angle: 14.1°

Barrel rate4.1%

Exit velocity88.3 mph

Hard hit rate34.1%

Contact rate85.7%

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, 2018.

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 .247.

Situational hitting

How Victor Martinez 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.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	508	—	—	—	—	—	—	.251	.297	.353	.283
Bases empty	251	237	61	4	4	12	27	.257	.299	.338	.283
Runner on first	105	102	27	4	10	3	11	.265	.286	.431	.309
Runners on	257	230	56	5	50	20	22	.243	.296	.370	.284
RISP	152	128	29	1	40	17	11	.227	.303	.320	.266

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2018.

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Victor Martinez

Similar players

Nearest 2018 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Joe PanikSF

wRC+: 75
HR: 4
AVG: .254
WAR: 0.1

Jonathan LucroyOAK

wRC+: 72
HR: 4
AVG: .241
WAR: 0.3

Miguel RojasMIA

wRC+: 82
HR: 11
AVG: .252
WAR: 0.1

José Miguel FernándezLAA

wRC+: 93
HR: 2
AVG: .267
WAR: 0.1

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.