DataBaseball
2026
Brett Gardner headshot

CF · 2021

Brett Gardner

Age
38
B/T
L/L
Height
5' 11"
Weight
195 lb
Born
August 24, 1983 in Holly Hill, SC, USA
MLB debut
June 30, 2008
dbWAR
12.5
7 season(s)
PA
461
AVG
.222
OBP
.327
SLG
.362
wRC+
95
100 = avg

Brett Gardner is a center fielder for the New York Yankees. In 2021 he hit 10 home runs and knocked in 39 RBIs, notching 86 hits across 461 plate appearances in 132 games. His batting average was .222, 8.9% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .327 clip and slugged .362, for an OPS of .689, 5.4% lower than the league mark of .728 — 8th of 14 on his team, and 292nd of 463 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 85.7 mph off the bat, hit 33.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.1% of them and made contact on 81.6% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 95 wRC+ puts his offence 5% below average. That comes to 1.3 dbWAR — -2.9 runs with the bat, +0.4 on the bases, +0.1 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+95
wOBA.309
ISO.140
BB%13.0%
WAR1.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to +12.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-2.9Baserunning+0.4Position+0.1Replacement+15.4
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.81.40.015161718192021

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2021132461861039460100.222.327.362.140.26913.0%21.7%.309-2.9951.3
2020431582951532635.223.354.392.169.26416.5%22.2%.335+1.81070.5
201913955012328741052108.251.325.503.253.2659.5%19.6%.348+11.71232.8
201814060912512451665107.236.322.368.132.27210.7%17.6%.309-4.4911.3
201715068215721632372122.264.350.428.163.30010.6%17.9%.340+8.91102.5
20161466341437411670106.261.351.362.101.31011.0%16.7%.320-1.0981.4
201514965614816662068135.259.343.399.140.31210.4%20.6%.331+7.51092.7

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP115952411230.253.345.305.30126.1%
vs RHP3462926294870.212.321.380.31220.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 297 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 293 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.1%
9 barrels
Exit velocity
85.7
mph average
Max exit velo
108.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
33.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
30.4%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.3°
average
Barrel rate3.1%
Exit velocity85.7 mph
Hard hit rate33.4%
Contact rate81.6%

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.

.231.063.088.25016 AB.25024 AB.16718 AB.22631 AB.39538 AB.22540 AB.12241 AB.36760 AB.17229 AB
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 Brett Gardner 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.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations461.222.327.362.309
Bases empty27022950663959.218.335.354.313
Runner on first1018321271723.253.386.434.367
Runners on191158364332141.228.316.373.304
RISP907515226418.200.233.307.230

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

Head to head

Put Brett Gardner beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Brett Gardner

Similar players

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

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.