2B · 2019

Daniel Descalso

Age: 33
B/T: L/R
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 190 lb
Number: #33

Born: October 19, 1986 in Redwood City, CA, USA
MLB debut: September 18, 2010

dbWAR: 3.1
PA: 194
AVG: .173
OBP: .271
SLG: .250
wRC+: 45

Daniel Descalso is a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. In 2019 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 15 RBIs, notching 29 hits across 194 plate appearances in 79 games. His batting average was .173, 31.6% lower than the league average of .252. He reached base at a .271 clip and slugged .250, for an OPS of .521, 31.2% lower than the league mark of .758 — the worst on his team, and 437th of 451 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.1 mph off the bat, hit 35.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 2.1% of them and made contact on 71.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 45 wRC+ puts his offence 55% below average. That comes to -0.7 dbWAR — -13.6 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -0.3 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, 2019.

wRC+45

wOBA.241

ISO.077

BB%11.9%

WAR-.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2019. These four terms sum to -7.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2019	79	194	29	2	15	2	23	57	.173	.271	.250	.077	.245	11.9%	29.4%	.241	-13.6	45	-0.7
2018	138	423	83	13	57	0	64	110	.238	.353	.436	.198	.300	15.1%	26.0%	.346	+9.6	117	2.2
2017	129	398	80	10	51	4	48	89	.233	.332	.395	.163	.283	12.1%	22.4%	.322	-0.8	93	1.0
2016	98	289	66	8	38	3	34	56	.264	.349	.424	.160	.305	11.8%	19.4%	.335	+3.2	99	1.2
2015	95	209	38	5	22	1	20	45	.205	.283	.324	.119	.244	9.6%	21.5%	.262	-9.1	55	-0.3

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.


2019	1	1.0	2	2	0	0	18.00	16.21	2.00	0.0	0.0	400	360	-0.1
2018	2	3.1	4	3	2	1	8.10	10.66	1.50	5.4	2.7	195	257	-0.2
2017	2	2.0	0	0	0	0	0.00	3.16	0.00	0.0	0.0	0	72	0.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2019. 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	22	18	3	0	2	4	.167	.238	.222	.209	18.2%
vs RHP	172	150	26	2	21	53	.173	.275	.253	.245	30.8%

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2019. 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 LHB	3	3	1	0	0	0	.333	.333	.667	.405	0.0%
vs RHB	2	2	1	1	0	0	.500	.500	2.000	.976	0.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2019.

Loading 109 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 95 tracked batted balls in 2019. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 2.1%
Exit velocity: 89.1
Max exit velo: 105.7
Hard hit: 35.8%
Sweet spot: 36.8%
Launch angle: 12.9°

Barrel rate2.1%

Exit velocity89.1 mph

Hard hit rate35.8%

Contact rate71.2%

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, 2019.

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 .252.

Situational hitting

How Daniel Descalso 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	194	—	—	—	—	—	—	.173	.271	.250	.241
Bases empty	120	107	14	1	1	12	36	.131	.218	.187	.192
Runner on first	32	25	5	0	1	7	9	.200	.375	.200	.292
Runners on	74	61	15	1	14	11	21	.246	.356	.361	.320
RISP	42	36	10	1	13	4	12	.278	.341	.472	.342

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2019.

Pitch sequencing

What Daniel Descalso throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Slider

Select a count to see exactly what Daniel Descalso throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2019.


Slider	85.7%	12	77.9	1,985	33.3%	0.0%

Daniel Descalso's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters.

Head to head

Put Daniel Descalso beside up to three others.

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Daniel Descalso

Similar players

Nearest 2019 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Carlos GonzálezCLE

wRC+: 56
HR: 3
AVG: .200
WAR: -0.7

Travis ShawMIL

wRC+: 52
HR: 7
AVG: .157
WAR: -0.7

Comparable

Mac WilliamsonSEA

wRC+: 40
HR: 4
AVG: .156
WAR: -0.8

Comparable

Isan DíazMIA

wRC+: 50
HR: 5
AVG: .173
WAR: -0.6

Comparable

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.