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Brandon Moss headshot

DH · 2017

Brandon Moss

Age
34
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
210 lb
Number
#37
Born
September 16, 1983 in Monroe, GA, USA
MLB debut
August 6, 2007
dbWAR
1.5
3 season(s)
PA
401
AVG
.207
OBP
.279
SLG
.428
wRC+
88
100 = avg

Brandon Moss is a designated hitter for the Kansas City Royals. In 2017 he hit 22 home runs and knocked in 50 RBIs, notching 75 hits across 401 plate appearances in 116 games. His batting average was .207, 18.7% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .279 clip and slugged .428, for an OPS of .707, 5.7% lower than the league mark of .750 — 7th of 12 on his team, and 289th of 435 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.0 mph off the bat, hit 44.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 13.0% of them and made contact on 64.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 88 wRC+ puts his offence 12% below average. That comes to -0.4 dbWAR — -6.7 runs with the bat, +0.2 on the bases, -11.1 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, 2017.

wRC+88
wOBA.304
ISO.221
BB%9.2%
WAR-.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to -4.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-6.7Baserunning+0.2Position-11.1Replacement+13.4
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.20.4-0.4151617

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2017116401752250237128.207.279.428.221.2489.2%31.9%.304-6.788-0.4
2016127464932867139141.225.300.484.259.2618.4%30.4%.334+4.71111.2
20151455261061958049148.226.304.407.181.2859.3%28.1%.312-1.9900.7

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP7970193928.271.354.457.35435.4%
vs RHP322292561928100.192.261.421.29231.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 221 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 208 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
13.0%
27 barrels
Exit velocity
90.0
mph average
Max exit velo
112.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
44.2%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
18.1°
average
Barrel rate13.0%
Exit velocity90.0 mph
Hard hit rate44.2%
Contact rate64.4%

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, 2017.

.063.125.140.065.21723 AB.20020 AB.27311 AB.11834 AB.30040 AB.30636 AB.19042 AB.32437 AB.28621 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 .254.

Situational hitting

How Brandon Moss 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 situations401.207.279.428.304
Bases empty2161964516162063.230.301.505.342
Runner on first93881437534.159.204.284.214
Runners on185166306341765.181.254.337.260
RISP9278163271231.205.304.397.307

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2017.

Head to head

Put Brandon Moss beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Brandon Moss

Similar players

Nearest 2017 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.