DataBaseball
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Kendrys Morales headshot

1B · 2019

Kendrys Morales

Age
36
B/T
S/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
242 lb
Number
#8
Born
June 20, 1983 in Fomento, Cuba
MLB debut
May 23, 2006
dbWAR
4.5
7 season(s)
PA
201
AVG
.194
OBP
.313
SLG
.253
wRC+
65
100 = avg

Kendrys Morales is a first baseman for the Oakland Athletics. In 2019 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 12 RBIs, notching 33 hits across 201 plate appearances in 53 games. His batting average was .194, 23.0% lower than the league average of .252. He reached base at a .313 clip and slugged .253, for an OPS of .566, 25.2% lower than the league mark of .758 — the worst on his team, and 424th of 451 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 92.0 mph off the bat, hit 48.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.6% of them and made contact on 82.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 65 wRC+ puts his offence 35% below average. That comes to -0.7 dbWAR — -9.5 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -4.7 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, 2019.

wRC+65
wOBA.267
ISO.059
BB%12.9%
WAR-.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2019. These four terms sum to -7.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-9.5Baserunning-0.1Position-4.7Replacement+6.7
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.01.2-0.71516171819

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2019532013321202626.194.313.253.059.21712.9%12.9%.267-9.565-0.7
2018130471103215725095.249.331.438.189.27210.6%20.2%.332+5.41110.7
20171506081392885043132.250.308.445.196.2787.1%21.7%.323-0.91000.2
20161546181473093048120.263.327.468.204.2837.8%19.4%.343+10.61091.3
201515863916522106058103.290.362.485.195.3199.1%16.1%.368+26.01353.0

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2019101.000011029.0012.213.000.018.0200271-0.1
2018101.000000010.006.161.000.09.00148-0.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2019. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP33255065.200.364.200.28415.2%
vs RHP1681452822021.193.304.262.26412.5%
Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2019. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB531010.333.400.333.3170.0%
vs RHB2000101.000.7210.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2019.

Loading 143 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 132 tracked batted balls in 2019. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
7.6%
10 barrels
Exit velocity
92.0
mph average
Max exit velo
111.2
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
48.5%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
32.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
9.6°
average
Barrel rate7.6%
Exit velocity92.0 mph
Hard hit rate48.5%
Contact rate82.1%

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, 2019.

.125.0676 AB.20010 AB5 AB.18211 AB.21119 AB.2229 AB.11118 AB.33330 AB.2229 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 .252.

Situational hitting

How Kendrys Morales 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 situations201.194.313.253.267
Bases empty12310620221317.189.301.264.264
Runner on first363070163.233.361.300.307
Runners on786413010139.203.333.234.273
RISP423460976.176.310.176.243

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2019.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
Fastball

Select a count to see exactly what Kendrys Morales throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2019.

Fastball95.2%2083.02,20130.0%11.1%
Kendrys Morales'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.

Head to head

Put Kendrys Morales beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Kendrys Morales

Similar players

Nearest 2019 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.