Players · V · Pitcher · 2008 regular season

Oscar Villarreal

Age: 27
B/T: L/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 195 lb

Born: November 22, 1981 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
MLB debut: March 31, 2003

dbWAR: -.5
IP: 37.2
ERA: 5.02
FIP: 7.67
K/9: 5.0
FIP−: 177

Oscar Villarreal was a relief pitcher for the Houston Astros. In 2008 he struck out 21 batters over 37.2 innings across 35 appearances, going 1-3. His ERA of 5.02 was 16.0% higher than the league average of 4.32 — 10th of 14 on his team, and 336th of 482 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 7.67 FIP suggests that his ERA had some help behind him. He missed bats on 19.8% of swings (8.8% of every pitch he threw), walked 10.1% of the batters he faced and struck out 12.5%. His -1.2 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2008 regular season.

FIP7.67

K/95.0

WHIP1.57

WAR-1.2

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only. Seasons on file run 2005–2008; his career began in 2003, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2008	HOU	35	0	37.2	1	3	0	42	21	21	17	5.02	7.67	1.57	5.0	4.1	116	177	-1.2
2007	ATL	51	0	76.1	2	2	1	75	36	58	32	4.24	4.16	1.40	6.8	3.8	95	93	0.7
2006	ATL	58	4	92.1	9	1	0	93	37	55	27	3.61	4.83	1.30	5.4	2.6	80	107	0.2
2005	AZ	11	0	13.2	2	0	0	11	8	5	6	5.27	5.73	1.24	3.3	4.0	123	133	-0.1

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only. Seasons on file run 2005–2008; his career began in 2003, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2008	HOU	1	1	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.3	-126	-0.0
2007	ATL	5	5	1	1	.250	.250	.250	.000	.333	0.0%	20.0%	.225	-0.5	26	0.0
2006	ATL	6	9	0	3	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	33.3%	.000	-2.5	-127	-0.1

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2008. 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 LHB	69	63	16	6	4	7	.254	.309	.540	.368	10.1%
vs RHB	99	84	26	6	13	14	.310	.404	.619	.440	14.1%

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2008.

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 .263.

Pitch sequencing

What Oscar Villarreal throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

SinkerSliderChangeupCurveballFour-seamUnknown

Select a count to see exactly what Oscar Villarreal throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Sinker	48.5%	297	90.2	2,223	40.4%	7.7%	76	.316	1.148
Slider	28.4%	174	85.0	912	36.2%	44.0%	40	.225	.711
Changeup	11.1%	68	83.9	1,931	48.5%	20.0%	13	—	—
Curveball	5.2%	32	78.9	761	43.8%	18.2%	7	—	—
Four-Seam Fastball	3.8%	23	90.3	1,614	26.1%	16.7%	5	—	—
Unknown	2.9%	18	—	—	22.2%	11.1%	7	—	—

Oscar Villarreal's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Oscar Villarreal

Similar players

Nearest 2008 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Jamie WalkerBAL

ERA: 6.87
FIP: 6.92
SO: 24
WAR: -0.9

Comparable

Joel PeraltaKC

ERA: 5.98
FIP: 6.30
SO: 38
WAR: -0.9

Comparable

Eric GagneMIL

ERA: 5.44
FIP: 6.13
SO: 38
WAR: -0.7

Loosely similar

Fernando CabreraBAL

ERA: 5.40
FIP: 6.87
SO: 31
WAR: -0.6

Loosely similar

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.