C · 2021

Ryan Lavarnway

Cleveland Indians American League CentralC

Age: 34
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 239 lb
Number: #20

Born: August 7, 1987 in Woodland Hills, CA, USA
MLB debut: August 18, 2011

dbWAR: .8
PA: 30
AVG: .250
OBP: .276
SLG: .357
wRC+: 72

Ryan Lavarnway is a catcher for the Cleveland Indians. In 2021 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 0 RBIs, notching 7 hits across 30 plate appearances in 9 games. His batting average was .250, 2.5% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .276 clip and slugged .357, for an OPS of .633, 13.0% lower than the league mark of .728. He averaged 83.2 mph off the bat, hit 21.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.5% of them and made contact on 67.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 72 wRC+ puts his offence 28% below average. That comes to 0.1 dbWAR — -1.1 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, +0.6 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.

wRC+72

wOBA.275

ISO.107

BB%3.3%

WAR.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to +0.5 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2021	9	30	7	0	0	1	10	.250	.276	.357	.107	.389	3.3%	33.3%	.275	-1.1	72	0.1
2020	4	11	4	0	0	0	2	.364	.364	.364	.000	.444	0.0%	18.2%	.322	+0.0	103	0.1
2019	5	19	5	2	7	1	5	.278	.316	.722	.444	.273	5.3%	26.3%	.417	+1.5	162	0.2
2018	6	6	4	0	1	0	1	.667	.667	.833	.167	.800	0.0%	16.7%	.652	+1.6	343	0.2
2017	6	13	3	0	2	1	3	.273	.385	.364	.091	.375	7.7%	23.1%	.343	+0.2	109	0.1
2015	35	106	18	2	6	12	28	.191	.283	.319	.128	.250	11.3%	26.4%	.271	-3.8	69	0.2

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2021. 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	8	7	2	0	1	2	.286	.375	.429	.357	25.0%
vs RHP	22	21	5	0	0	8	.238	.238	.333	.244	36.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 19 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 19 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 10.5%
Exit velocity: 83.2
Max exit velo: 107.2
Hard hit: 21.1%
Sweet spot: 42.1%
Launch angle: 16.6°

Barrel rate10.5%

Exit velocity83.2 mph

Hard hit rate21.1%

Contact rate67.9%

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.

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 .243.

Situational hitting

How Ryan Lavarnway 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	30	—	—	—	—	—	—	.250	.276	.357	.275
Bases empty · thin	23	23	7	0	0	0	8	.304	.304	.435	.316
Runner on first · thin	4	2	0	0	0	1	1	.000	.333	.000	.242
Runners on · thin	7	5	0	0	0	1	2	.000	.167	.000	.121
RISP · thin	3	3	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000

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 Ryan Lavarnway beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Ryan Lavarnway

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.