P · 2018

Brandon McCarthy

Age: 35
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 8"
Weight: 225 lb

Born: July 7, 1983 in Glendale, CA, USA
MLB debut: May 22, 2005

dbWAR: 1.2
PA: 31
AVG: .103
OBP: .103
SLG: .172
wRC+: -37

Brandon McCarthy is a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. In 2018 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 2 RBIs, notching 3 hits across 31 plate appearances in 15 games. His batting average was .103, 58.3% lower than the league average of .248. He reached base at a .103 clip and slugged .172, for an OPS of .276, 62.1% lower than the league mark of .728. He averaged 82.9 mph off the bat, hit 40.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.0% of them and made contact on 70.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his -37 wRC+ puts his offence 137% below average. That comes to -0.4 dbWAR — -5.0 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, +0.0 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, 2018.

wRC+-37

wOBA.118

ISO.069

BB%0.0%

WAR-.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2018. These four terms sum to -4.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2018	15	31	3	2	0	19	.103	.103	.172	.069	.300	0.0%	61.3%	.118	-5.0	-37	-0.4
2017	15	28	1	0	3	16	.043	.154	.043	.000	.143	10.7%	57.1%	.116	-4.9	-43	-0.4
2016	8	15	0	1	2	6	.000	.133	.000	.000	.000	13.3%	40.0%	.093	-2.7	-58	-0.2
2015	4	9	0	1	1	5	.000	.143	.000	.000	.000	11.1%	55.6%	.102	-1.5	-53	-0.1

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.


2018	15	15	78.2	6	3	94	43	65	21	4.92	4.79	1.46	7.4	2.4	119	115	0.2
2017	19	16	92.2	6	4	89	41	72	27	3.98	3.28	1.25	7.0	2.6	91	75	1.9
2016	10	9	40.0	2	3	29	22	44	26	4.95	3.70	1.38	9.9	5.8	118	88	0.6
2015	4	4	23.0	3	0	24	15	29	4	5.87	6.22	1.22	11.3	1.6	148	157	-0.4

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2018. 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 LHP	6	6	1	0	0	4	.167	.167	.167	.146	66.7%
vs RHP	25	23	2	0	0	15	.087	.087	.174	.111	60.0%

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2018. 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	155	139	38	8	15	31	.273	.342	.496	.362	20.0%
vs RHB	185	175	56	7	6	34	.320	.343	.497	.362	18.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2018.

Loading 12 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 10 tracked batted balls in 2018. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 10.0%
Exit velocity: 82.9
Max exit velo: 105.2
Hard hit: 40.0%
Sweet spot: 60.0%
Launch angle: 2.5°

Barrel rate10.0%

Exit velocity82.9 mph

Hard hit rate40.0%

Contact rate70.7%

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, 2018.

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 .247.

Situational hitting

How Brandon McCarthy 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.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	31	—	—	—	—	—	—	.103	.103	.172	.118
Bases empty · thin	20	20	1	0	0	0	14	.050	.050	.100	.064
Runner on first · thin	3	2	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000
Runners on · thin	11	9	2	0	2	0	5	.222	.222	.333	.240
RISP · thin	8	7	2	0	2	0	4	.286	.286	.429	.308

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Rows under 25 plate appearances are marked thin — at that size a rate moves several dozen points on one hit. Counted from play-by-play, 2018.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

SinkerCutterCurveballSliderFour-seam

Select a count to see exactly what Brandon McCarthy throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2018.


Sinker	37.0%	449	92.5	2,115	47.4%	12.6%
Cutter	31.4%	382	91.4	2,206	46.9%	18.4%
Curveball	23.5%	286	80.2	2,620	45.1%	18.9%
Slider	7.0%	85	85.4	2,350	38.8%	25.5%
Four-Seam Fastball	0.8%	10	91.9	2,145	50.0%	0.0%

Brandon McCarthy'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 Brandon McCarthy beside up to three others.

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Brandon McCarthy

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.