C · 2020

Francisco Cervelli

Age: 34
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 220 lb
Number: #17

Born: March 6, 1986 in Valencia, Venezuela
MLB debut: September 18, 2008

dbWAR: 11.5
PA: 62
AVG: .245
OBP: .355
SLG: .453
wRC+: 125

Francisco Cervelli is a catcher for the Miami Marlins. In 2020 he hit 3 home runs and knocked in 7 RBIs, notching 13 hits across 62 plate appearances in 16 games. His batting average was .245, level with the league average of .245. He reached base at a .355 clip and slugged .453, for an OPS of .808, 9.2% higher than the league mark of .740. He averaged 89.0 mph off the bat, hit 39.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.9% of them and made contact on 70.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 125 wRC+ puts his offence 25% above average. That comes to 0.5 dbWAR — +1.7 runs with the bat, +0.1 on the bases, +1.3 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, 2020.

wRC+125

wOBA.354

ISO.208

BB%12.9%

WAR.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These four terms sum to +5.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2020	16	62	13	3	7	1	8	14	.245	.355	.453	.208	.278	12.9%	22.6%	.354	+1.7	125	0.5
2019	48	160	30	3	12	1	13	41	.213	.302	.348	.135	.278	8.1%	25.6%	.288	-4.8	76	0.3
2018	104	404	86	12	57	2	51	84	.259	.378	.431	.172	.308	12.6%	20.8%	.359	+13.5	133	3.3
2017	81	304	66	5	31	0	32	65	.249	.342	.370	.121	.311	10.5%	21.4%	.319	-1.3	98	1.3
2016	101	393	86	1	33	6	56	72	.264	.377	.322	.058	.329	14.2%	18.3%	.320	-0.4	99	2.0
2015	129	510	133	7	43	1	46	94	.295	.370	.401	.106	.359	9.0%	18.4%	.344	+11.2	122	4.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2020. 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	19	19	4	1	0	7	.211	.211	.421	.262	36.8%
vs RHP	43	34	9	2	8	7	.265	.419	.471	.395	16.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 39 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 38 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 7.9%
Exit velocity: 89.0
Max exit velo: 108.3
Hard hit: 39.5%
Sweet spot: 39.5%
Launch angle: 13.3°

Barrel rate7.9%

Exit velocity89.0 mph

Hard hit rate39.5%

Contact rate70.3%

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, 2020.

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 .244.

Situational hitting

How Francisco Cervelli 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	62	—	—	—	—	—	—	.245	.355	.453	.354
Bases empty	40	35	9	1	1	5	10	.257	.350	.400	.334
Runner on first · thin	8	7	2	0	0	0	1	.286	.375	.286	.315
Runners on · thin	22	18	4	2	6	3	4	.222	.364	.556	.391
RISP · thin	14	11	2	2	6	3	3	.182	.357	.727	.434

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, 2020.

Head to head

Put Francisco Cervelli beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Francisco Cervelli

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.