DataBaseball
2026
Kelby Tomlinson headshot

2B · 2018

Kelby Tomlinson

Age
28
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
175 lb
Born
June 16, 1990 in Chickasha, OK, USA
MLB debut
August 3, 2015
dbWAR
1.1
4 season(s)
PA
152
AVG
.207
OBP
.265
SLG
.264
wRC+
47
100 = avg

Kelby Tomlinson is a second baseman for the San Francisco Giants. In 2018 he hit 0 home runs and knocked in 10 RBIs, notching 29 hits across 152 plate appearances in 61 games. His batting average was .207, 16.5% lower than the league average of .248. He reached base at a .265 clip and slugged .264, for an OPS of .529, 27.3% lower than the league mark of .728 — the worst on his team, and 431st of 448 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 81.4 mph off the bat, hit 16.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 1.1% of them and made contact on 74.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 47 wRC+ puts his offence 53% below average. That comes to -0.5 dbWAR — -9.4 runs with the bat, -0.9 on the bases, +0.5 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, 2018.

wRC+47
wOBA.242
ISO.057
BB%5.9%
WAR-.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2018. These four terms sum to -4.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-9.4Baserunning-0.9Position+0.5Replacement+5.1
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.00.3-0.515161718

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
201861152290100935.207.265.264.057.2765.9%23.0%.242-9.447-0.5
20171002225011192346.258.332.314.057.32710.4%20.7%.288-6.7790.1
201648120310651218.292.370.330.038.35210.0%15.0%.315-0.7950.4
2015531935422051440.303.358.404.101.3827.3%20.7%.338+3.31201.0

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2018. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP7871140618.197.269.254.24223.1%
vs RHP7469150317.217.260.275.24223.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2018.

Loading 103 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 91 tracked batted balls in 2018. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
1.1%
1 barrels
Exit velocity
81.4
mph average
Max exit velo
102.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
16.5%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
31.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
3.4°
average
Barrel rate1.1%
Exit velocity81.4 mph
Hard hit rate16.5%
Contact rate74.9%

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, 2018.

.000.111.167.1258 AB6 AB3 AB.38513 AB.22218 AB.26715 AB.43816 AB.16712 AB.08312 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 .247.

Situational hitting

How Kelby Tomlinson 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 situations152.207.265.264.242
Bases empty92831100725.133.217.169.188
Runner on first3129100016.345.367.414.343
Runners on605718010210.316.339.404.326
RISP2928801014.286.310.393.309

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2018.

Head to head

Put Kelby Tomlinson beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Kelby Tomlinson

Similar players

Nearest 2018 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.