Players · M · Pitcher · 2013 regular season

James McDonald

Pittsburgh Pirates National League Central

Age: 29
B/T: L/R
Height: 6' 5"
Weight: 205 lb
Number: #53

Born: October 19, 1984 in Long Beach, CA, United States
MLB debut: September 17, 2008

dbWAR: 3.6
IP: 29.2
ERA: 5.76
FIP: 4.13
K/9: 7.6
FIP−: 107

James McDonald was a starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2013 he struck out 25 batters over 29.2 innings across 6 appearances, 6 of them starts, going 2-2. His ERA of 5.76 was 49.1% higher than the league average of 3.87 — the worst on his team, and 448th of 496 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 4.13 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 20.6% of swings (8.2% of every pitch he threw), walked 14.5% of the batters he faced and struck out 18.1%. His 0.2 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2013 regular season.

FIP4.13

K/97.6

WHIP1.65

WAR.2

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

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


2013	PIT	6	6	29.2	2	2	29	19	25	20	5.76	4.13	1.65	7.6	6.1	149	107	0.2
2012	PIT	30	29	171.0	12	8	147	80	151	69	4.21	4.21	1.26	7.9	3.6	105	105	1.3
2011	PIT	31	31	171.0	9	9	176	80	142	78	4.21	4.68	1.49	7.5	4.1	107	119	0.4
2010	PIT/LAD	15	12	71.2	4	6	70	32	68	29	4.02	3.12	1.38	8.5	3.6	99	76	1.6
2009	LAD	45	4	63.0	5	5	60	28	54	34	4.00	4.48	1.49	7.7	4.9	93	104	0.2
2008	LAD	4	0	6.0	0	0	5	0	2	1	0.00	2.97	1.00	3.0	1.5	0	69	0.1

Batting Regular season

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


2013	PIT	7	12	3	0	1	5	.273	.333	.273	.000	.500	8.3%	41.7%	.282	-0.3	77	0.1
2012	PIT	30	63	7	1	8	23	.143	.263	.143	.000	.269	12.7%	36.5%	.207	-5.5	25	0.3
2011	PIT	31	63	5	3	3	29	.091	.138	.109	.018	.192	4.8%	46.0%	.121	-9.7	-38	-0.3
2010	PIT/LAD	12	23	1	0	1	12	.048	.091	.095	.048	.111	4.3%	52.2%	.092	-4.3	-61	-0.1
2009	LAD	7	10	0	0	0	6	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	60.0%	.000	-2.7	-131	-0.2

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 pitching

Postseason James McDonald's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	SV	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2008 Post	LAD	NLCS	2	0	5.1	0	0	0	3	0	0	2	7	0.00	0.94	11.8

Postseason batting

Postseason James McDonald'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	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2008 Post	LAD	NLCS	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000

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 left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2013. 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	65	57	13	1	8	15	.228	.323	.368	.315	23.1%
vs RHB	73	58	16	0	12	10	.276	.425	.414	.381	13.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2013.

Loading 6 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2013.

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 .253.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

Four-seamCurveballSinkerSliderChangeup

Select a count to see exactly what James McDonald throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	37.2%	191	90.4	2,081	39.3%	14.8%	48	.229	.706
Curveball	26.9%	138	75.3	1,438	46.4%	34.8%	27	.185	.563
Sinker	23.6%	121	90.5	2,543	33.9%	2.4%	26	.423	1.247
Slider	6.4%	33	77.8	409	51.5%	38.9%	8	—	—
Changeup	5.1%	26	81.7	1,359	42.3%	45.5%	6	—	—

James McDonald'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. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

Compare James McDonald with…

Side by side with up to three others.

Compare with… add up to 3 more players

James McDonald

Similar players

Nearest 2013 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Edinson VolquezSD

ERA: 5.71
FIP: 4.24
SO: 142
WAR: 1.0

Comparable

J.A. HappTOR

ERA: 4.56
FIP: 4.31
SO: 77
WAR: 0.6

Comparable

Jeff LockePIT

ERA: 3.52
FIP: 4.03
SO: 125
WAR: 1.5

Comparable

Erik BedardHOU

ERA: 4.59
FIP: 4.38
SO: 138
WAR: 0.7

Comparable

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.