DH · 2020

Yoenis Cespedes

Age: 35
B/T: R/R
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 225 lb
Number: #52

Born: October 18, 1985 in Granma, Cuba
MLB debut: March 28, 2012

dbWAR: 10.7
PA: 34
AVG: .161
OBP: .235
SLG: .387
wRC+: 64

Yoenis Cespedes is a designated hitter for the New York Mets. In 2020 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 4 RBIs, notching 5 hits across 34 plate appearances in 8 games. His batting average was .161, 34.1% lower than the league average of .245. He reached base at a .235 clip and slugged .387, for an OPS of .622, 15.8% lower than the league mark of .740. He averaged 86.0 mph off the bat, hit 50.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.5% of them and made contact on 66.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 64 wRC+ puts his offence 36% below average. That comes to -0.1 dbWAR — -1.6 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, -1.0 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, 2020.

wRC+64

wOBA.268

ISO.226

BB%5.9%

WAR-.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These four terms sum to -1.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2020	8	34	5	2	4	0	2	15	.161	.235	.387	.226	.214	5.9%	44.1%	.268	-1.6	64	-0.1
2018	38	157	37	9	29	3	13	50	.262	.325	.496	.234	.333	8.3%	31.8%	.347	+3.7	130	0.7
2017	81	321	85	17	42	0	26	61	.292	.352	.540	.247	.316	8.1%	19.0%	.373	+13.0	139	1.8
2016	132	543	134	31	86	3	51	108	.280	.354	.530	.251	.298	9.4%	19.9%	.374	+22.7	136	3.7
2015	158	676	184	35	105	7	33	141	.291	.328	.542	.251	.323	4.9%	20.9%	.371	+29.0	142	4.6

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	12	10	0	0	1	5	.000	.167	.000	.123	41.7%
vs RHP	22	21	5	2	1	10	.238	.273	.571	.348	45.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 15 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 16 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 12.5%
Exit velocity: 86.0
Max exit velo: 106.9
Hard hit: 50.0%
Sweet spot: 50.0%
Launch angle: 17.4°

Barrel rate12.5%

Exit velocity86.0 mph

Hard hit rate50.0%

Contact rate66.7%

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 Yoenis Cespedes 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	34	—	—	—	—	—	—	.161	.235	.387	.268
Bases empty · thin	17	16	3	2	2	1	6	.188	.235	.563	.325
Runner on first · thin	9	8	1	0	0	0	5	.125	.222	.125	.182
Runners on · thin	17	15	2	0	2	1	9	.133	.235	.200	.212
RISP · thin	8	7	1	0	2	1	4	.143	.250	.286	.245

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 Yoenis Cespedes beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Yoenis Cespedes

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.