P · 2021

J.A. Happ

St. Louis Cardinals National League CentralP

Age: 39
B/T: L/L
Height: 6' 5"
Weight: 205 lb

Born: October 19, 1982 in Peru, IL, USA
MLB debut: June 30, 2007

dbWAR: 9.8
PA: 15
AVG: .000
OBP: .067
SLG: .000
wRC+: -91

J.A. Happ is a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2021 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 0 RBIs, notching 0 hits across 15 plate appearances in 9 games. His batting average was .000, 100.0% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .067 clip and slugged .000, for an OPS of .067, 90.8% lower than the league mark of .728. He averaged 77.7 mph off the bat, hit 22.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better and made contact on 80.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his -91 wRC+ puts his offence 191% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -3.4 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, +0.0 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, 2021.

wRC+-91

wOBA.048

ISO.000

BB%6.7%

WAR-.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to -2.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2021	9	15	0	1	5	.000	.067	.000	.000	.000	6.7%	33.3%	.048	-3.4	-91	-0.3
2019	2	4	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	0.0%	.000	-1.1	-126	-0.1
2018	2	7	2	1	3	.333	.429	.333	.000	.667	14.3%	42.9%	.352	+0.2	125	0.0
2017	1	2	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	50.0%	.000	-0.5	-124	-0.0
2016	3	10	2	0	3	.286	.286	.286	.000	.500	0.0%	30.0%	.251	-0.6	50	-0.0
2015	12	27	2	1	13	.087	.125	.087	.000	.200	3.7%	48.1%	.103	-4.6	-51	-0.4

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.


2021	30	30	152.1	10	8	177	98	122	48	5.79	5.13	1.48	7.2	2.8	136	120	0.1
2020	9	9	49.1	2	2	37	19	42	15	3.47	4.57	1.05	7.7	2.7	78	103	0.4
2019	31	30	161.1	12	8	160	88	140	49	4.91	5.22	1.30	7.8	2.7	109	116	0.3
2018	31	31	177.2	17	6	150	72	193	51	3.65	3.98	1.13	9.8	2.6	88	96	2.1
2017	25	25	145.1	10	11	145	57	142	46	3.53	3.76	1.31	8.8	2.8	81	86	2.3
2016	32	32	195.0	20	4	168	69	163	60	3.18	3.96	1.17	7.5	2.8	76	94	2.5
2015	32	31	172.0	11	8	173	69	151	45	3.61	3.41	1.27	7.9	2.4	91	86	2.9

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	11	10	0	0	1	4	.000	.091	.000	.066	36.4%
vs RHP	4	4	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	25.0%

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 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 LHB	142	132	33	3	8	33	.250	.298	.371	.294	23.2%
vs RHB	530	484	144	27	40	89	.298	.352	.548	.381	16.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 9 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 9 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 0.0%
Exit velocity: 77.7
Max exit velo: 101.0
Hard hit: 22.2%
Sweet spot: 33.3%
Launch angle: 6.3°

Barrel rate0.0%

Exit velocity77.7 mph

Hard hit rate22.2%

Contact rate80.8%

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 J.A. Happ 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	15	—	—	—	—	—	—	.000	.067	.000	.048
Bases empty · thin	9	8	0	0	0	1	3	.000	.111	.000	.081
Runner on first · thin	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
Runners on · thin	6	6	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
RISP · thin	4	4	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000

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, 2021.

Pitch sequencing

What J.A. Happ throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamSinkerSliderChangeupCurveball

Select a count to see exactly what J.A. Happ throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2021.


Four-Seam Fastball	54.0%	1,443	91.0	2,297	50.8%	20.4%
Sinker	17.7%	472	89.1	2,077	38.6%	15.3%
Slider	15.1%	403	83.0	2,227	39.5%	22.8%
Changeup	12.0%	322	86.1	1,653	28.9%	18.7%
Curveball	1.3%	34	76.2	2,230	35.3%	20.0%

J.A. Happ'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.

Head to head

Put J.A. Happ beside up to three others.

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J.A. Happ

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.