DH · 2020

José A. Martínez

Age: 32
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 6"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #53

Born: July 25, 1988 in La Guaira, Venezuela
MLB debut: September 6, 2016

dbWAR: 5.0
PA: 98
AVG: .182
OBP: .265
SLG: .295
wRC+: 51

José A. Martínez is a designated hitter for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2020 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 10 RBIs, notching 16 hits across 98 plate appearances in 34 games. His batting average was .182, 25.7% lower than the league average of .245. He reached base at a .265 clip and slugged .295, for an OPS of .561, 24.2% lower than the league mark of .740. He averaged 87.9 mph off the bat, hit 32.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.9% of them and made contact on 71.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 51 wRC+ puts his offence 49% below average. That comes to -0.5 dbWAR — -6.1 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -2.7 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+51

wOBA.250

ISO.114

BB%10.2%

WAR-.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These four terms sum to -5.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2020	34	98	16	2	10	0	10	27	.182	.265	.295	.114	.237	10.2%	27.6%	.250	-6.1	51	-0.5
2019	128	373	90	10	42	3	35	82	.269	.340	.410	.141	.328	9.4%	22.0%	.326	+1.0	105	0.7
2018	152	590	163	17	83	0	49	104	.305	.364	.457	.152	.351	8.3%	17.6%	.359	+19.4	131	2.7
2017	105	307	84	14	46	4	32	60	.309	.379	.518	.210	.350	10.4%	19.5%	.383	+14.9	144	1.9
2016	12	18	7	0	1	0	2	1	.438	.500	.500	.063	.467	11.1%	5.6%	.440	+1.7	184	0.2

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	50	46	8	1	4	17	.174	.240	.326	.249	34.0%
vs RHP	48	42	8	1	6	10	.190	.292	.262	.250	20.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 61 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 61 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 4.9%
Exit velocity: 87.9
Max exit velo: 107.0
Hard hit: 32.8%
Sweet spot: 32.8%
Launch angle: 6.1°

Barrel rate4.9%

Exit velocity87.9 mph

Hard hit rate32.8%

Contact rate71.8%

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 José A. Martínez 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	98	—	—	—	—	—	—	.182	.265	.295	.250
Bases empty	55	49	8	1	1	6	17	.163	.255	.286	.246
Runner on first · thin	19	18	2	0	0	1	6	.111	.158	.111	.131
Runners on	43	39	8	1	9	4	10	.205	.279	.308	.254
RISP · thin	24	21	6	1	9	3	4	.286	.375	.476	.356

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 José A. Martínez beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

José A. Martínez

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.