Players · P · DH · 2020 regular season

Hunter Pence

San Francisco Giants National League WestDH

Age: 37
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 216 lb

Born: April 13, 1983 in Fort Worth, TX, United States
MLB debut: April 28, 2007

dbWAR: 29.4
PA: 56
AVG: .096
OBP: .161
SLG: .250
wRC+: 5

Hunter Pence was a designated hitter for the San Francisco Giants. In 2020 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 6 RBIs, notching 5 hits across 56 plate appearances in 16 games. His batting average was .096, 60.7% lower than the league average of .245. He reached base at a .161 clip and slugged .250, for an OPS of .411, 44.5% lower than the league mark of .740. He averaged 87.6 mph off the bat, hit 47.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 8.3% of them and made contact on 67.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 5 wRC+ puts his offence 95% below average. That comes to -0.6 dbWAR — -6.7 runs with the bat, -0.0 for the ballpark, -0.0 on the bases, -0.7 on double plays, -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, 2020 regular season.

wRC+5

wOBA.182

ISO.154

BB%5.4%

WAR-.6

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These terms sum to -6.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2020	SF	16	56	5	2	6	0	3	15	.096	.161	.250	.154	.086	5.4%	26.8%	.182	-6.7	5	-0.6
2019	TEX	83	316	85	18	59	6	26	69	.297	.358	.552	.255	.333	8.2%	21.8%	.380	+15.5	130	1.9
2018	SF	97	248	53	4	24	5	11	59	.226	.258	.332	.106	.282	4.4%	23.8%	.257	-12.3	57	-0.8
2017	SF	133	539	128	13	67	2	40	102	.260	.315	.385	.126	.301	7.4%	18.9%	.306	-8.4	91	0.5
2016	SF	106	442	114	13	57	1	43	95	.289	.357	.451	.162	.348	9.7%	21.5%	.352	+10.7	120	2.0
2015	SF	52	223	57	9	40	4	16	48	.275	.327	.478	.203	.320	7.2%	21.5%	.351	+6.1	130	1.1
2014	SF	162	708	180	20	74	13	52	130	.277	.332	.445	.168	.318	7.3%	18.4%	.345	+16.9	125	3.6
2013	SF	162	687	178	27	99	22	52	115	.283	.339	.483	.200	.308	7.6%	16.7%	.361	+22.8	135	4.4
2012	PHI/SF	160	688	156	24	104	5	56	145	.253	.319	.425	.172	.290	8.1%	21.1%	.327	+4.2	106	1.9
2011	HOU/PHI	154	668	190	22	97	8	56	124	.314	.370	.502	.188	.361	8.4%	18.6%	.383	+32.3	139	4.8
2010	HOU	156	658	173	25	91	18	41	105	.282	.325	.461	.179	.304	6.2%	16.0%	.347	+11.2	120	2.8
2009	HOU	159	647	165	25	72	14	58	109	.282	.346	.472	.190	.308	9.0%	16.8%	.360	+14.4	121	2.2
2008	HOU	156	642	160	25	83	11	40	124	.269	.318	.466	.197	.301	6.2%	19.3%	.343	+5.4	106	1.7
2007	HOU	108	484	147	17	69	11	26	95	.322	.360	.539	.217	.377	5.4%	19.6%	.391	+22.5	142	4.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason batting

Postseason Hunter Pence's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2016 Post	SF	Postseason total	5	22	22	1	4	0	0	0	0	5	0	.182	.182	.182	.364
		Wild Card	1	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLDS	4	18	18	1	4	0	0	0	0	3	0	.222	.222	.222	.444
2014 Post	SF	Postseason total	17	74	66	12	22	6	1	8	8	9	2	.333	.405	.470	.875
		Wild Card	1	5	4	2	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	.250	.400	.250	.650
		NLDS	4	19	18	1	5	2	0	0	1	3	1	.278	.316	.389	.705
		NLCS	5	20	17	2	4	1	0	3	3	4	1	.235	.350	.294	.644
		World Series	7	30	27	7	12	3	1	5	3	2	0	.444	.500	.667	1.167
2012 Post	SF	Postseason total	16	65	62	7	13	2	1	4	2	17	2	.210	.231	.290	.521
		NLDS	5	20	20	0	4	0	0	0	0	3	1	.200	.200	.200	.400
		NLCS	7	29	28	4	5	1	1	3	1	8	0	.179	.207	.321	.528
		World Series	4	16	14	3	4	1	0	1	1	6	1	.286	.313	.357	.670
2011 Post	PHI	NLDS	5	21	19	3	4	0	0	4	2	2	0	.211	.286	.211	.496
Career		Postseason total · 4 Octobers	43	182	169	23	43	8	2	16	12	33	4	.254	.302	.337	.639

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2020. 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	30	28	3	2	2	8	.107	.167	.393	.232	26.7%
vs RHP	26	24	2	0	1	7	.083	.154	.083	.125	26.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 36 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 36 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 8.3%
Exit velocity: 87.6
Max exit velo: 108.0
Hard hit: 47.2%
Sweet spot: 33.3%
Launch angle: 4.1°

Barrel rate8.3%

Exit velocity87.6 mph

Hard hit rate47.2%

Contact rate67.9%

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, 2020.

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 .244.

Situational hitting

How Hunter Pence 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	56	—	—	—	—	—	—	.096	.161	.250	.182
Bases empty	25	22	2	0	0	2	7	.091	.200	.182	.187
Runner on first · thin	17	16	1	0	0	1	6	.063	.118	.063	.094
Runners on	31	30	3	2	6	1	8	.100	.129	.300	.178
RISP · thin	14	14	2	2	6	0	2	.143	.143	.571	.280

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, 2020.

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Hunter Pence

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.