Players · W · 1B · 2009 regular season
Josh Whitesell
- Age
- 27
- B/T
- L/L
- Height
- 6' 3"
- Weight
- 220 lb
- Number
- #29
- Born
- April 14, 1982 in Durham, NC, United States
- MLB debut
- September 2, 2008
- dbWAR
- -.2 Regular season, 2 season(s)
- PA
- 133
- AVG
- .194
- OBP
- .346
- SLG
- .287
- wRC+
- 70 100 = avg
Josh Whitesell was a first baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 2009 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 14 RBIs, notching 21 hits across 133 plate appearances in 46 games. His batting average was .194, 25.9% lower than the league average of .262. He reached base at a .346 clip and slugged .287, for an OPS of .633, 15.7% lower than the league mark of .751 — the second worst on his team, and 375th of 432 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He made contact on 78.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 70 wRC+ puts his offence 30% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -4.2 runs with the bat, -0.4 for the ballpark, -0.1 on the bases, -0.3 on double plays, -2.0 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, 2009 regular season.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2009. These terms sum to -3.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
WAR by season
Batting Regular season
Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only.
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 29 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 7 | .208 | .345 | .208 | .264 | 24.1% |
| vs RHP | 104 | 84 | 16 | 1 | 19 | 22 | .190 | .346 | .310 | .302 | 21.2% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2009.
Loading 78 batted balls…
Hot and cold zones
Batting average by pitch location, 2009.
Situational hitting
How Josh Whitesell hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 133 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .194 | .346 | .287 | .294 |
| Bases empty | 70 | 59 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 18 | .119 | .257 | .203 | .224 |
| Runner on first · thin | 24 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 4 | .250 | .500 | .313 | .392 |
| Runners on | 63 | 49 | 14 | 0 | 13 | 14 | 11 | .286 | .444 | .388 | .374 |
| RISP | 39 | 33 | 10 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | .303 | .410 | .424 | .363 |
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, 2009.
Not in the 2009 data: exit velocity and launch angle, first recorded in 2015. The play-by-play goes back to 2005, but the measurements on each pitch and batted ball arrived later, so the panels built from them are left off this season.
Compare Josh Whitesell with…
Side by side with up to three others.
Similar players
Nearest 2009 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.
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.