DataBaseball
2026
John Nogowski headshot

1B · 2021

John Nogowski

Age
28
B/T
R/L
Height
6' 0"
Weight
245 lb
Born
January 5, 1993 in Tallahassee, FL, USA
MLB debut
August 16, 2020
dbWAR
-.3
3 season(s)
PA
143
AVG
.233
OBP
.301
SLG
.310
wRC+
71
100 = avg

John Nogowski is a first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2021 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 14 RBIs, notching 30 hits across 143 plate appearances in 52 games. His batting average was .233, 4.6% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .301 clip and slugged .310, for an OPS of .611, 16.1% lower than the league mark of .728 — 14th of 18 on his team, and 398th of 463 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.1 mph off the bat, hit 28.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better and made contact on 86.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 71 wRC+ puts his offence 29% below average. That comes to -0.4 dbWAR — -4.9 runs with the bat, -0.5 on the bases, -2.9 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+71
wOBA.276
ISO.078
BB%8.4%
WAR-.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to -3.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-4.9Baserunning-0.5Position-2.9Replacement+4.8
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.0-0.2-0.42021

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2021521433011401222.233.301.310.078.2718.4%15.4%.276-4.971-0.4
202014100001.250.250.250.000.3330.0%25.0%.221-0.332-0.0

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2021303.0000850015.003.172.670.00.0352740.1

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP464211047.262.326.333.29715.2%
vs RHP9787191815.218.289.299.26615.5%
Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2021. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB551000.200.200.200.1750.0%
vs RHB11117000.636.636.909.6600.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 108 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 108 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
0.0%
0 barrels
Exit velocity
88.1
mph average
Max exit velo
108.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
28.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
15.6°
average
Barrel rate0.0%
Exit velocity88.1 mph
Hard hit rate28.7%
Contact rate86.7%

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, 2021.

.0917 AB.2508 AB7 AB.25016 AB.32128 AB.18816 AB6 AB.23517 AB6 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 John Nogowski 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 situations143.233.301.310.276
Bases empty70651600511.246.300.277.263
Runner on first322861337.214.313.393.314
Runners on736414114711.219.301.344.289
RISP4136801144.222.293.306.269

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2021.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
FastballCurveball

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

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2021.

Fastball71.4%2562.61,59036.0%5.6%
Curveball28.6%1047.91,39750.0%0.0%
John Nogowski'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 John Nogowski beside up to three others.

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John Nogowski

Similar players

Nearest 2021 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.