DataBaseball
2026
Alcides Escobar headshot

SS · 2022

Alcides Escobar

Age
36
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
205 lb
Number
#2
Born
December 16, 1986 in La Sabana, Venezuela
MLB debut
September 3, 2008
dbWAR
3.4
7 season(s)
PA
131
AVG
.218
OBP
.260
SLG
.282
wRC+
51
100 = avg

Alcides Escobar is a shortstop for the Washington Nationals. In 2022 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 8 RBIs, notching 27 hits across 131 plate appearances in 37 games. His batting average was .218, 10.3% lower than the league average of .243. He reached base at a .260 clip and slugged .282, for an OPS of .542, 23.3% lower than the league mark of .706 — the second worst on his team, and 437th of 469 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 81.8 mph off the bat, hit 17.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 1.1% of them and made contact on 78.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 51 wRC+ puts his offence 49% below average. That comes to -0.2 dbWAR — -7.3 runs with the bat, -0.3 on the bases, +1.6 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, 2022.

wRC+51
wOBA.243
ISO.065
BB%3.8%
WAR-.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2022. These four terms sum to -1.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-7.3Baserunning-0.3Position+1.6Replacement+4.4
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.90.8-0.2151617182122

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20223713127081532.218.260.282.065.2933.8%24.4%.243-7.351-0.2
2021753499242831756.288.340.404.116.3374.9%16.0%.327+2.91091.9
201813953111243482974.231.279.313.082.2635.5%13.9%.264-23.4610.0
2017162629150654415102.250.272.357.107.2912.4%16.2%.272-27.765-0.1
2016162682166755172796.261.292.350.089.2954.0%14.1%.280-22.8681.0
2015148662157347172675.257.293.320.064.2863.9%11.3%.273-23.1690.9

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2022201.2000320110.806.712.400.05.4272169-0.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2022. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP454390212.209.244.256.22326.7%
vs RHP8782180320.220.264.293.25023.0%
Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2022. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB540010.000.200.000.1420.0%
vs RHB543000.750.8001.000.7560.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2022.

Loading 91 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 92 tracked batted balls in 2022. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
1.1%
1 barrels
Exit velocity
81.8
mph average
Max exit velo
108.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
17.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
40.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
15.1°
average
Barrel rate1.1%
Exit velocity81.8 mph
Hard hit rate17.4%
Contact rate78.0%

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, 2022.

.444.1294 AB.18211 AB6 AB.15413 AB6 AB.18211 AB4 AB.10010 AB.3339 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 .242.

Situational hitting

How Alcides Escobar 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 situations131.218.260.282.243
Bases empty7368900418.132.192.191.176
Runner on first272680106.308.333.423.333
Runners on59571808114.316.339.386.320
RISP3231100718.323.344.355.310

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2022.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
CurveballEephus

Select a count to see exactly what Alcides Escobar throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2022.

Curveball50.0%1348.01,35623.1%0.0%
Alcides Escobar'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 Alcides Escobar beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Alcides Escobar

Similar players

Nearest 2022 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.