DataBaseball
2026
César Hernández headshot

2B · 2022

César Hernández

Age
32
B/T
S/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
183 lb
Number
#1
Born
May 23, 1990 in Valencia, Venezuela
MLB debut
May 29, 2013
dbWAR
16.7
8 season(s)
PA
617
AVG
.248
OBP
.311
SLG
.318
wRC+
81
100 = avg

César Hernández is a second baseman for the Washington Nationals. In 2022 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 34 RBIs, notching 139 hits across 617 plate appearances in 147 games. His batting average was .248, 2.3% higher than the league average of .243. He reached base at a .311 clip and slugged .318, for an OPS of .629, 11.0% lower than the league mark of .706 — 11th of 17 on his team, and 346th of 469 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 83.0 mph off the bat, hit 29.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 2.2% of them and made contact on 79.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 81 wRC+ puts his offence 19% below average. That comes to 0.9 dbWAR — -13.5 runs with the bat, -0.2 on the bases, +1.9 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, 2022.

wRC+81
wOBA.284
ISO.070
BB%7.3%
WAR.9

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2022. These four terms sum to +8.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-13.5Baserunning-0.2Position+1.9Replacement+20.6
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.31.70.01516171819202122

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20221476171391341045114.248.311.318.070.3097.3%18.5%.284-13.5810.9
20211496371322162159135.232.308.386.154.2669.3%21.2%.305-6.7931.5
2020582616632002457.283.355.408.124.3649.2%21.8%.338+3.61091.3
20191616671711471945100.279.333.408.129.3136.7%15.0%.318-3.0952.1
201816170815315601995155.253.356.362.109.31513.4%21.9%.324+3.11033.0
20171285771509341561104.294.373.421.127.35310.6%18.0%.350+12.21153.3
20161546221616391766116.294.371.393.099.36310.6%18.6%.337+7.71162.9
2015125452110135194086.272.339.348.077.3428.8%19.0%.309-2.7941.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2022. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1951775001538.282.340.350.31019.5%
vs RHP4223838913076.232.298.303.27318.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2022.

Loading 450 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 448 tracked batted balls in 2022. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
2.2%
10 barrels
Exit velocity
83.0
mph average
Max exit velo
110.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
29.9%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
8.1°
average
Barrel rate2.2%
Exit velocity83.0 mph
Hard hit rate29.9%
Contact rate79.2%

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, 2022.

.179.125.171.231.25020 AB.31029 AB.24025 AB.30366 AB.33372 AB.26745 AB.24661 AB.25060 AB.17229 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 .242.

Situational hitting

How César Hernández 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 situations617.248.311.318.284
Bases empty41137589003376.237.304.301.276
Runner on first100902316715.256.323.344.301
Runners on206185501341238.270.325.351.302
RISP1069527028523.284.327.358.304

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2022.

Head to head

Put César Hernández beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
César Hernández

Similar players

Nearest 2022 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.