PH · 2021
Pablo Sandoval
- Age
- 35
- B/T
- S/R
- Height
- 5' 10"
- Weight
- 268 lb
- Born
- August 11, 1986 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
- MLB debut
- August 14, 2008
- dbWAR
- 1.5 9 season(s)
- PA
- 86
- AVG
- .178
- OBP
- .302
- SLG
- .342
- wRC+
- 82 100 = avg
Pablo Sandoval is a position player for the Atlanta Braves. In 2021 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 11 RBIs, notching 13 hits across 86 plate appearances in 68 games. His batting average was .178, 27.0% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .302 clip and slugged .342, for an OPS of .645, 11.4% lower than the league mark of .728. He averaged 91.5 mph off the bat, hit 47.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.4% of them and made contact on 68.5% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 82 wRC+ puts his offence 18% below average. That comes to -0.1 dbWAR — -1.6 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -2.5 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.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to -1.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.
WAR by season
Batting
Standard and advanced, by season.
| Trend | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 68 | 86 | 13 | 4 | 11 | 0 | 11 | 25 | .178 | .302 | .342 | .164 | .205 | 12.8% | 29.1% | .294 | -1.6 | 82 | -0.1 | |
| 2020 | 32 | 94 | 18 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 8 | 19 | .214 | .287 | .262 | .048 | .262 | 8.5% | 20.2% | .254 | -5.5 | 53 | -0.4 | |
| 2019 | 108 | 296 | 73 | 14 | 41 | 1 | 18 | 67 | .268 | .313 | .507 | .239 | .304 | 6.1% | 22.6% | .338 | +4.0 | 117 | 1.1 | |
| 2018 | 90 | 252 | 57 | 9 | 40 | 0 | 19 | 52 | .248 | .310 | .417 | .170 | .282 | 7.5% | 20.6% | .315 | -0.6 | 98 | 0.5 | |
| 2017 | 77 | 279 | 57 | 9 | 32 | 0 | 16 | 53 | .220 | .265 | .367 | .147 | .240 | 5.7% | 19.0% | .274 | -11.8 | 68 | -0.3 | |
| 2016 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .000 | .143 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 14.3% | 57.1% | .100 | -1.2 | -47 | -0.1 | |
| 2015 | 126 | 505 | 115 | 10 | 47 | 0 | 25 | 73 | .245 | .292 | .366 | .121 | .270 | 5.0% | 14.5% | .291 | -10.5 | 77 | 0.9 |
Pitching
Standard and advanced, by season.
| Trend | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 1 | 0 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 6.21 | 0.00 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 | 138 | -0.0 | |
| 2018 | 1 | 0 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 3.16 | 0.00 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 | 76 | 0.0 |
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 8 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .167 | .375 | .167 | .294 | 37.5% |
| vs RHP | 78 | 67 | 12 | 4 | 10 | 22 | .179 | .295 | .358 | .294 | 28.2% |
No pitching splits recorded for 2021.
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.
Loading 48 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 48 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 10.4% 5 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 91.5 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 111.5 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 47.9% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 41.7% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 14.1° average
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.
Situational hitting
How Pablo Sandoval hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 86 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .178 | .302 | .342 | .294 |
| Bases empty | 38 | 33 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 11 | .152 | .263 | .152 | .211 |
| Runner on first · thin | 19 | 17 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 7 | .294 | .368 | .647 | .424 |
| Runners on | 48 | 40 | 8 | 4 | 11 | 7 | 14 | .200 | .333 | .500 | .360 |
| RISP | 29 | 23 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 7 | .130 | .310 | .391 | .318 |
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.
Head to head
Put Pablo Sandoval beside up to three others.
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.