DataBaseball
2026
Sam Travis headshot

1B · 2019

Sam Travis

Age
26
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
220 lb
Born
August 27, 1993 in Chicago, IL, USA
MLB debut
May 24, 2017
dbWAR
-.5
3 season(s)
PA
157
AVG
.215
OBP
.274
SLG
.382
wRC+
67
100 = avg

Sam Travis is a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox. In 2019 he hit 6 home runs and knocked in 16 RBIs, notching 31 hits across 157 plate appearances in 57 games. His batting average was .215, 14.7% lower than the league average of .252. He reached base at a .274 clip and slugged .382, for an OPS of .656, 13.4% lower than the league mark of .758 — 11th of 14 on his team, and 360th of 451 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.7 mph off the bat, hit 43.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 6.9% of them and made contact on 77.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 67 wRC+ puts his offence 33% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -6.3 runs with the bat, +0.3 on the bases, -3.0 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, 2019.

wRC+67
wOBA.276
ISO.167
BB%7.0%
WAR-.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2019. These four terms sum to -3.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-6.3Baserunning+0.3Position-3.0Replacement+5.2
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.0-0.2-0.3171819

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2019571573161621136.215.274.382.167.2437.0%22.9%.276-6.367-0.3
201817388170210.222.263.389.167.2805.3%26.3%.284-1.075-0.1
2017318320011623.263.325.342.079.3777.2%27.7%.299-1.782-0.1

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2019. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP10495215821.221.279.400.28120.2%
vs RHP5349101315.204.264.347.26528.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2019.

Loading 109 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 101 tracked batted balls in 2019. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
6.9%
7 barrels
Exit velocity
89.7
mph average
Max exit velo
110.4
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
43.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
30.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
7.6°
average
Barrel rate6.9%
Exit velocity89.7 mph
Hard hit rate43.6%
Contact rate77.8%

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, 2019.

.158.188.2508 AB7 AB5 AB.40010 AB.33318 AB.38513 AB.15413 AB.20010 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 .252.

Situational hitting

How Sam Travis 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 situations157.215.274.382.276
Bases empty79741633416.216.266.392.280
Runner on first3735624210.171.216.371.248
Runners on787015313720.214.282.371.271
RISP4135919510.257.341.371.292

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2019.

Head to head

Put Sam Travis beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Sam Travis

Similar players

Nearest 2019 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.