DataBaseball
2026
John Ryan Murphy headshot

C · 2020

John Ryan Murphy

Age
29
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 11"
Weight
200 lb
Born
May 13, 1991 in Bradenton, FL, USA
MLB debut
September 2, 2013
dbWAR
.0
8 season(s)
PA
63
AVG
.172
OBP
.226
SLG
.207
wRC+
17
100 = avg

John Ryan Murphy was a catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2020 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 2 RBIs, notching 10 hits across 63 plate appearances in 22 games. His batting average was .172, 29.5% lower than the league average of .245. He reached base at a .226 clip and slugged .207, for an OPS of .433, 41.5% lower than the league mark of .740. He averaged 81.0 mph off the bat, hit 38.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.2% of them and made contact on 55.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 17 wRC+ puts his offence 83% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -6.5 runs with the bat, -0.0 on the bases, +1.2 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, 2020.

wRC+17
wOBA.201
ISO.034
BB%6.3%
WAR-.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2020. These four terms sum to -3.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-6.5Baserunning-0.0Position+1.2Replacement+2.1
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.10.3-0.5151617181920

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2020226310020428.172.226.207.034.3336.3%44.4%.201-6.517-0.3
2019267011470628.175.246.413.238.2268.6%40.0%.278-2.6700.1
2018772234292401171.202.244.375.173.2564.9%31.8%.267-9.2630.2
201727101001.143.143.286.143.1670.0%14.3%.181-0.82-0.0
2016259012130519.146.193.220.073.1755.6%21.1%.186-9.78-0.5
2015541724331401243.277.327.406.129.3577.0%25.0%.322+0.71031.1

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2020101.000000000.003.190.000.00.00720.0
2019203.00001090327.0019.214.330.09.0599426-0.4

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP773003.429.429.429.37942.9%
vs RHP565170425.137.200.176.17844.6%
Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2020. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB110000.000.000.000.0000.0%
vs RHB220000.000.000.000.0000.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2020.

Loading 31 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 31 tracked batted balls in 2020. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.2%
1 barrels
Exit velocity
81.0
mph average
Max exit velo
105.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
38.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
7.0°
average
Barrel rate3.2%
Exit velocity81.0 mph
Hard hit rate38.7%
Contact rate55.4%

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.

.0713 AB3 AB5 AB3 AB7 AB6 AB1 AB5 AB5 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 .244.

Situational hitting

How John Ryan Murphy 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 situations63.172.226.207.201
Bases empty4138600321.158.220.211.200
Runner on first · thin6630001.500.500.500.443
Runners on · thin222040217.200.238.200.203
RISP · thin161410216.071.133.071.107

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.

Pitch sequencing

What John Ryan Murphy throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter
Fastball

Select a count to see exactly what John Ryan Murphy throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2020.

Head to head

Put John Ryan Murphy beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
John Ryan Murphy
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.