DataBaseball
2026
Kirk Nieuwenhuis headshot

CF · 2017

Kirk Nieuwenhuis

Age
30
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 3"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#9
Born
August 7, 1987 in Santa Monica, CA, USA
MLB debut
April 7, 2012
dbWAR
.7
3 season(s)
PA
31
AVG
.115
OBP
.258
SLG
.269
wRC+
47
100 = avg

Kirk Nieuwenhuis is a center fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers. In 2017 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 1 RBI, notching 3 hits across 31 plate appearances in 15 games. His batting average was .115, 54.7% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .258 clip and slugged .269, for an OPS of .527, 29.7% lower than the league mark of .750. He averaged 94.8 mph off the bat, hit 50.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 30.0% of them and made contact on 56.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 47 wRC+ puts his offence 53% below average. That comes to -0.1 dbWAR — -2.0 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, -0.2 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, 2017.

wRC+47
wOBA.249
ISO.154
BB%12.9%
WAR-.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to -1.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-2.0Baserunning-0.0Position-0.2Replacement+1.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.90.4-0.1151617

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
201715313110415.115.258.269.154.20012.9%48.4%.249-2.047-0.1
2016122392701344856133.209.324.385.176.30214.3%33.9%.317-1.6970.9
2015611412541421049.195.270.375.180.2807.1%34.8%.287-3.382-0.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1000101.000.7100.0%
vs RHP302631315.115.233.269.23350.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 10 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 10 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
30.0%
3 barrels
Exit velocity
94.8
mph average
Max exit velo
108.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
50.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
40.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
10.5°
average
Barrel rate30.0%
Exit velocity94.8 mph
Hard hit rate50.0%
Contact rate56.7%

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, 2017.

.1112 AB3 AB2 AB1 AB1 AB3 AB1 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 .254.

Situational hitting

How Kirk Nieuwenhuis 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 situations31.115.258.269.249
Bases empty · thin2320311312.150.261.350.273
Runner on first · thin4300012.000.250.000.178
Runners on · thin8600013.000.250.000.180
RISP · thin4300001.000.250.000.182

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, 2017.

Head to head

Put Kirk Nieuwenhuis beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Kirk Nieuwenhuis
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.