Players · V · 1B · 2014 regular season
Chris Valaika
- Age
- 29
- B/T
- R/R
- Height
- 5' 11"
- Weight
- 205 lb
- Number
- #3
- Born
- August 14, 1985 in Santa Monica, CA, United States
- MLB debut
- August 24, 2010
- dbWAR
- -.1 Regular season, 4 season(s)
- PA
- 131
- AVG
- .231
- OBP
- .282
- SLG
- .339
- wRC+
- 77 100 = avg
Chris Valaika was a first baseman for the Chicago Cubs. In 2014 he hit 3 home runs and knocked in 13 RBIs, notching 28 hits across 131 plate appearances in 44 games. His batting average was .231, 7.9% lower than the league average of .251. He reached base at a .282 clip and slugged .339, for an OPS of .621, 11.3% lower than the league mark of .700 — 11th of 17 on his team, and 335th of 443 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He made contact on 79.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 77 wRC+ puts his offence 23% below average. That comes to -0.1 dbWAR — -3.5 runs with the bat, +0.1 for the ballpark, +0.1 on the bases, -0.9 on double plays, -0.5 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, 2014 regular season.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2014. These terms sum to -1.3 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 | 40 | 38 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 11 | .263 | .275 | .316 | .262 | 27.5% |
| vs RHP | 91 | 83 | 18 | 3 | 6 | 24 | .217 | .286 | .349 | .286 | 26.4% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2014.
Loading 87 batted balls…
Hot and cold zones
Batting average by pitch location, 2014.
Situational hitting
How Chris Valaika 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 | 131 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .231 | .282 | .339 | .279 |
| Bases empty | 73 | 70 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 19 | .229 | .260 | .329 | .265 |
| Runner on first | 28 | 25 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 8 | .200 | .286 | .320 | .283 |
| Runners on | 58 | 51 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 16 | .235 | .310 | .353 | .296 |
| RISP | 30 | 26 | 7 | 1 | 10 | 3 | 8 | .269 | .333 | .385 | .309 |
Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2014.
Not in the 2014 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 Chris Valaika with…
Side by side with up to three others.
Similar players
Nearest 2014 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.