Players · P · C · 2021 regular season

Buster Posey

San Francisco Giants National League WestC

Age: 34
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 213 lb

Born: March 27, 1987 in Leesburg, GA, United States
MLB debut: September 11, 2009

dbWAR: 41.4
PA: 454
AVG: .304
OBP: .390
SLG: .499
wRC+: 146

Buster Posey was a catcher for the San Francisco Giants. In 2021 he hit 18 home runs and knocked in 56 RBIs, notching 120 hits across 454 plate appearances in 113 games. His batting average was .304, 24.6% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .390 clip and slugged .499, for an OPS of .889, 22.1% higher than the league mark of .728 — 4th of 17 on his team, and 35th of 463 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.5 mph off the bat, hit 39.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 8.1% of them and made contact on 76.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 146 wRC+ puts his offence 46% above average. That comes to 4.4 dbWAR — +24.7 runs with the bat, +0.2 for the ballpark, -0.4 on the bases, -2.3 on double plays, +7.3 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, 2021 regular season.

wRC+146

wOBA.382

ISO.195

BB%12.3%

WAR4.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These terms sum to +42.5 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.


2021	SF	113	454	120	18	56	0	56	87	.304	.390	.499	.195	.349	12.3%	19.2%	.382	+24.7	146	4.4
2019	SF	113	445	104	7	38	0	34	71	.257	.320	.368	.111	.296	7.6%	16.0%	.300	-8.6	90	0.8
2018	SF	105	448	113	5	41	3	45	53	.284	.359	.382	.098	.316	10.0%	11.8%	.329	+4.0	107	2.0
2017	SF	140	568	158	12	67	6	61	66	.320	.400	.462	.142	.347	10.7%	11.6%	.369	+21.2	137	4.2
2016	SF	145	614	155	14	80	6	64	68	.288	.362	.434	.147	.303	10.4%	11.1%	.344	+11.1	115	3.7
2015	SF	150	623	177	19	95	2	56	52	.318	.379	.470	.153	.320	9.0%	8.3%	.367	+24.6	142	4.8
2014	SF	147	605	170	22	89	0	47	69	.311	.364	.490	.179	.319	7.8%	11.4%	.375	+28.2	147	5.4
2013	SF	147	595	153	15	72	2	60	70	.294	.371	.450	.156	.312	10.1%	11.8%	.361	+19.8	136	4.7
2012	SF	148	610	178	24	103	1	69	96	.336	.408	.549	.213	.368	11.3%	15.7%	.412	+44.4	177	7.0
2011	SF	45	185	46	4	21	3	18	30	.284	.368	.389	.105	.326	9.7%	16.2%	.339	+2.6	122	1.1
2010	SF	108	443	124	18	67	0	30	55	.305	.357	.505	.200	.315	6.8%	12.4%	.376	+17.9	137	3.5
2009	SF	6	17	2	0	0	0	0	4	.118	.118	.118	.000	.154	0.0%	23.5%	.106	-3.1	-53	-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 batting

Postseason Buster Posey'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
2021 Post	SF	NLDS	5	20	20	1	6	2	1	2	0	6	0	.300	.300	.550	.850
2016 Post	SF	Postseason total	5	22	18	1	5	1	0	2	3	1	0	.278	.364	.333	.697
		Wild Card	1	4	3	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.000	.250	.000	.250
		NLDS	4	18	15	1	5	1	0	2	2	1	0	.333	.389	.400	.789
2014 Post	SF	Postseason total	17	77	69	5	17	0	0	7	6	7	0	.246	.312	.246	.558
		Wild Card	1	5	5	1	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	.400	.400	.400	.800
		NLDS	4	20	18	0	7	0	0	1	1	1	0	.389	.450	.389	.839
		NLCS	5	23	20	3	4	0	0	3	2	3	0	.200	.261	.200	.461
		World Series	7	29	26	1	4	0	0	2	3	3	0	.154	.241	.154	.395
2012 Post	SF	Postseason total	16	68	60	5	12	0	3	9	8	15	0	.200	.294	.350	.644
		NLDS	5	22	19	3	4	0	2	5	3	4	0	.211	.318	.526	.844
		NLCS	7	30	26	1	4	0	0	1	4	6	0	.154	.267	.154	.421
		World Series	4	16	15	1	4	0	1	3	1	5	0	.267	.313	.467	.779
2010 Post	SF	Postseason total	15	65	59	6	17	3	1	5	6	18	1	.288	.354	.390	.744
		NLDS	4	18	16	3	6	1	0	0	2	5	1	.375	.444	.438	.882
		NLCS	6	26	23	1	5	2	0	3	3	7	0	.217	.308	.304	.612
		World Series	5	21	20	2	6	0	1	2	1	6	0	.300	.333	.450	.783
Career		Postseason total · 5 Octobers	58	252	226	18	57	6	5	25	23	47	1	.252	.321	.345	.667

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, 2021. 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	119	106	39	6	12	22	.368	.429	.623	.432	18.5%
vs RHP	335	289	81	12	44	65	.280	.376	.453	.365	19.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 310 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 310 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 8.1%
Exit velocity: 88.5
Max exit velo: 109.2
Hard hit: 39.4%
Sweet spot: 40.0%
Launch angle: 8.7°

Barrel rate8.1%

Exit velocity88.5 mph

Hard hit rate39.4%

Contact rate76.1%

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, 2021.

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 .243.

Situational hitting

How Buster Posey 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	454	—	—	—	—	—	—	.304	.390	.499	.382
Bases empty	262	233	75	11	13	29	49	.322	.397	.515	.392
Runner on first	97	82	23	4	10	14	19	.280	.392	.463	.378
Runners on	192	162	45	7	43	27	38	.278	.380	.475	.368
RISP	95	80	22	3	33	13	19	.275	.368	.487	.357

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2021.

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Buster Posey

Similar players

Nearest 2021 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Bryan ReynoldsPIT

wRC+: 149
HR: 24
AVG: .302
WAR: 6.3

Very close

Corey SeagerLAD

wRC+: 155
HR: 16
AVG: .306
WAR: 4.4

Very close

Connor JoeCOL

wRC+: 127
HR: 8
AVG: .285
WAR: 1.2

Freddie FreemanATL

wRC+: 141
HR: 31
AVG: .300
WAR: 5.0

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.