DataBaseball
2026
David Ross headshot

C · 2016

David Ross

Age
39
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
230 lb
Number
#8
Born
March 19, 1977 in Bainbridge, GA, USA
MLB debut
June 29, 2002
dbWAR
.8
3 season(s)
PA
205
AVG
.229
OBP
.338
SLG
.446
wRC+
110
100 = avg

David Ross is a catcher for the Chicago Cubs. In 2016 he hit 10 home runs and knocked in 32 RBIs, notching 38 hits across 205 plate appearances in 66 games. His batting average was .229, 10.4% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .338 clip and slugged .446, for an OPS of .784, 6.1% higher than the league mark of .739 — 6th of 14 on his team, and 140th of 438 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 86.1 mph off the bat, hit 37.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 11.5% of them and made contact on 68.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 110 wRC+ puts his offence 10% above average. That comes to 1.2 dbWAR — +1.4 runs with the bat, -0.5 on the bases, +3.8 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, 2016.

wRC+110
wOBA.330
ISO.217
BB%14.6%
WAR1.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2016. These four terms sum to +11.5 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+1.4Baserunning-0.5Position+3.8Replacement+6.8
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.20.4-0.41516

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20166620538103203054.229.338.446.217.26214.6%26.3%.330+1.41101.2
201567182281912061.176.267.252.075.27611.0%33.5%.224-13.435-0.4

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2015202.000000000.003.130.000.00.00790.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2016. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP69531541317.283.418.528.40024.6%
vs RHP1361132361737.204.299.407.29527.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2016.

Loading 119 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 104 tracked batted balls in 2016. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
11.5%
12 barrels
Exit velocity
86.1
mph average
Max exit velo
106.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
37.5%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
50.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
16.3°
average
Barrel rate11.5%
Exit velocity86.1 mph
Hard hit rate37.5%
Contact rate68.9%

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, 2016.

.200.2383 AB.1258 AB7 AB.1119 AB.37516 AB.15020 AB.33312 AB.35020 AB.20025 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 .255.

Situational hitting

How David Ross 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 situations205.229.338.446.330
Bases empty1059420771135.213.295.468.331
Runner on first4132712810.219.375.344.323
Runners on10072183251919.250.385.417.329
RISP594011223119.275.393.475.333

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2016.

Head to head

Put David Ross beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
David Ross

Similar players

Nearest 2016 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.