DataBaseball
2026
Kelly Johnson headshot

2B · 2016

Kelly Johnson

Age
34
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
200 lb
Number
#2
Born
February 22, 1982 in Austin, TX, USA
MLB debut
May 29, 2005
dbWAR
1.7
2 season(s)
PA
333
AVG
.247
OBP
.306
SLG
.391
wRC+
89
100 = avg

Kelly Johnson is a second baseman for the New York Mets. In 2016 he hit 10 home runs and knocked in 34 RBIs, notching 75 hits across 333 plate appearances in 128 games. His batting average was .247, 3.4% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .306 clip and slugged .391, for an OPS of .698, 5.6% lower than the league mark of .739 — 12th of 17 on his team, and 284th of 438 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.1 mph off the bat, hit 38.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 5.8% of them and made contact on 78.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 89 wRC+ puts his offence 11% below average. That comes to 0.6 dbWAR — -4.6 runs with the bat, +0.6 on the bases, -0.8 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+89
wOBA.304
ISO.145
BB%7.5%
WAR.6

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2016. These four terms sum to +6.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-4.6Baserunning+0.6Position-0.8Replacement+11.1
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.10.60.01516

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
201612833375103442565.247.306.391.145.2817.5%19.5%.304-4.6890.6
201510733582144722381.265.314.435.171.3156.9%24.2%.327+2.61091.1

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 LHP5553133110.245.273.434.30618.2%
vs RHP2782516272455.247.313.382.30419.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2016.

Loading 238 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 208 tracked batted balls in 2016. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
5.8%
12 barrels
Exit velocity
88.1
mph average
Max exit velo
109.0
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
38.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
37.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.6°
average
Barrel rate5.8%
Exit velocity88.1 mph
Hard hit rate38.0%
Contact rate78.3%

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.

.150.186.158.60010 AB.20015 AB5 AB.41943 AB.28132 AB.18816 AB.15439 AB.27333 AB.27311 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 Kelly Johnson 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 situations333.247.306.391.304
Bases empty18417342551033.243.288.382.294
Runner on first61561337513.232.295.429.316
Runners on149131335291532.252.329.405.317
RISP8875202221019.267.352.387.319

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

Head to head

Put Kelly Johnson beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Kelly Johnson

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.