3B · 2017

T.J. Rivera

Age: 29
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 203 lb

Born: October 27, 1988 in Bronx, NY, USA
MLB debut: August 10, 2016

dbWAR: 1.3
PA: 231
AVG: .290
OBP: .330
SLG: .430
wRC+: 108

T.J. Rivera is a third baseman for the New York Mets. In 2017 he hit 5 home runs and knocked in 27 RBIs, notching 62 hits across 231 plate appearances in 72 games. His batting average was .290, 13.6% higher than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .330 clip and slugged .430, for an OPS of .760, 1.3% higher than the league mark of .750 — 11th of 18 on his team, and 182nd of 435 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 84.4 mph off the bat, hit 26.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 0.6% of them and made contact on 79.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 108 wRC+ puts his offence 8% above average. That comes to 0.7 dbWAR — +0.9 runs with the bat, +0.1 on the bases, -1.6 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, 2017.

wRC+108

wOBA.329

ISO.140

BB%3.9%

WAR.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to +7.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

																				Trend
2017	72	231	62	5	27	1	9	32	.290	.330	.430	.140	.318	3.9%	13.9%	.329	+0.9	108	0.7
2016	33	113	35	3	16	0	3	17	.333	.345	.476	.143	.360	2.7%	15.0%	.349	+2.4	119	0.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	54	50	13	2	3	13	.260	.296	.400	.299	24.1%
vs RHP	177	164	49	3	6	19	.299	.341	.439	.339	10.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 177 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 161 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 0.6%
Exit velocity: 84.4
Max exit velo: 105.5
Hard hit: 26.1%
Sweet spot: 43.5%
Launch angle: 15.2°

Barrel rate0.6%

Exit velocity84.4 mph

Hard hit rate26.1%

Contact rate79.3%

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, 2017.

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 .254.

Situational hitting

How T.J. Rivera 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.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	231	—	—	—	—	—	—	.290	.330	.430	.329
Bases empty	132	126	30	4	4	4	22	.238	.273	.349	.271
Runner on first	49	43	19	0	2	4	3	.442	.500	.628	.485
Runners on	99	88	32	1	23	5	10	.364	.408	.545	.407
RISP	50	45	13	1	21	1	7	.289	.320	.467	.333

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2017.

Head to head

Put T.J. Rivera beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

T.J. Rivera

Similar players

Nearest 2017 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Gerardo ParraCOL

wRC+: 101
HR: 10
AVG: .309
WAR: 1.2

Very close

Melky CabreraCWS

wRC+: 98
HR: 17
AVG: .285
WAR: 1.0

Very close

Albert Almora Jr.CHC

wRC+: 104
HR: 8
AVG: .298
WAR: 1.4

Very close

Brandon PhillipsATL

wRC+: 96
HR: 13
AVG: .285
WAR: 1.7

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.