DataBaseball
2026
Whit Merrifield headshot

2B · 2024

Whit Merrifield

Age
35
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
195 lb
Number
#15
Born
January 24, 1989 in Florence, SC, USA
MLB debut
May 18, 2016
Drafted
2010, round 9
College
South Carolina
High school
Davie County
Salary, 2024
$7M
dbWAR
.6
1 season(s)
PA
335
AVG
.222
OBP
.311
SLG
.314
wRC+
82
100 = avg

Whit Merrifield is a second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 2024 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 15 RBIs, notching 65 hits across 335 plate appearances in 94 games. His batting average was .222, 8.8% lower than the league average of .243. He reached base at a .311 clip and slugged .314, for an OPS of .625, 12.1% lower than the league mark of .711 — 11th of 14 on his team, and 341st of 455 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 82.9 mph off the bat, hit 21.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 1.6% of them and made contact on 81.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 82 wRC+ puts his offence 18% below average. That comes to 0.6 dbWAR — -7.1 runs with the bat, +1.5 on the bases, -0.1 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, 2024.

wRC+82
wOBA.286
ISO.092
BB%10.4%
WAR.6

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2024. These four terms sum to +5.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-7.1Baserunning+1.5Position-0.1Replacement+11.2
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2024. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1211072231315.206.292.318.27712.4%
vs RHP2141864312237.231.322.312.29117.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2024.

Loading 245 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 244 tracked batted balls in 2024. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
1.6%
4 barrels
Exit velocity
82.9
mph average
Max exit velo
104.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
21.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
35.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
12.8°
average
Barrel rate1.6%
Exit velocity82.9 mph
Hard hit rate21.7%
Contact rate81.3%

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, 2024.

.071.000.143.195.30813 AB.05319 AB.27311 AB.34823 AB.16736 AB.27333 AB.38918 AB.23126 AB.32128 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 .243.

Situational hitting

How Whit Merrifield 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 situations335.222.311.314.286
Bases empty18916639332131.235.324.361.309
Runner on first69581700710.293.379.328.326
Runners on146127261121421.205.294.252.257
RISP77699112711.130.221.188.198

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2024.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20249433565415173552.222.311.314.092.25710.4%15.5%.286-7.1820.6

Head to head

Put Whit Merrifield beside up to three others.

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Whit Merrifield

Similar players

Nearest 2024 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.