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Edwin Encarnación headshot

DH · 2020

Edwin Encarnación

Age
37
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
230 lb
Number
#10
Born
January 7, 1983 in La Romana, Dominican Republic
MLB debut
June 24, 2005
dbWAR
14.8
6 season(s)
PA
181
AVG
.157
OBP
.250
SLG
.377
wRC+
66
100 = avg

Edwin Encarnación is a designated hitter for the Chicago White Sox. In 2020 he hit 10 home runs and knocked in 19 RBIs, notching 25 hits across 181 plate appearances in 44 games. His batting average was .157, 35.7% lower than the league average of .245. He reached base at a .250 clip and slugged .377, for an OPS of .627, 15.2% lower than the league mark of .740 — the second worst on his team, and 262nd of 310 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 85.4 mph off the bat, hit 33.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.4% of them and made contact on 67.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 66 wRC+ puts his offence 34% below average. That comes to -0.7 dbWAR — -7.5 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -5.3 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, 2020.

wRC+66
wOBA.273
ISO.220
BB%8.8%
WAR-.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These four terms sum to -6.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-7.5Baserunning-0.1Position-5.3Replacement+6.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

4.62.0-0.7151617181920

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20204418125101901654.157.250.377.220.1568.8%29.8%.273-7.566-0.7
20191094861023486058103.244.344.531.287.23911.9%21.2%.366+18.01312.0
201813757912332107363132.246.336.474.228.26510.9%22.8%.349+14.71171.8
2017157669143381072104133.258.377.504.245.27115.5%19.9%.377+29.51373.2
201616070215842127287138.263.357.529.266.27012.4%19.7%.379+31.91333.8
20151466241463911137798.277.372.557.280.26712.3%15.7%.397+39.61614.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2020. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP413343612.121.275.424.30529.3%
vs RHP1401262171042.167.243.365.26430.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 105 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 106 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
10.4%
11 barrels
Exit velocity
85.4
mph average
Max exit velo
112.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
33.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
30.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
22.8°
average
Barrel rate10.4%
Exit velocity85.4 mph
Hard hit rate33.0%
Contact rate67.4%

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, 2020.

.0755 AB4 AB4 AB.3339 AB.07114 AB.23113 AB.11118 AB.27818 AB.13315 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 .244.

Situational hitting

How Edwin Encarnación 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 situations181.157.250.377.273
Bases empty95871477728.161.232.448.285
Runner on first3432724114.219.265.438.299
Runners on867211312926.153.271.292.259
RISP5240418812.100.275.175.233

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2020.

Head to head

Put Edwin Encarnación beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Edwin Encarnación

Similar players

Nearest 2020 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.