DataBaseball
2026
Pat Valaika headshot

2B · 2021

Pat Valaika

Age
29
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
200 lb
Born
September 9, 1992 in Valencia, CA, USA
MLB debut
September 6, 2016
dbWAR
-.5
7 season(s)
PA
281
AVG
.201
OBP
.250
SLG
.290
wRC+
44
100 = avg

Pat Valaika is a second baseman for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2021 he hit 5 home runs and knocked in 25 RBIs, notching 52 hits across 281 plate appearances in 87 games. His batting average was .201, 17.7% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .250 clip and slugged .290, for an OPS of .540, 25.9% lower than the league mark of .728 — the second worst on his team, and 442nd of 463 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 86.3 mph off the bat, hit 32.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.2% of them and made contact on 72.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 44 wRC+ puts his offence 56% below average. That comes to -0.8 dbWAR — -18.2 runs with the bat, -0.4 on the bases, +0.8 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+44
wOBA.240
ISO.089
BB%5.7%
WAR-.8

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to -8.5 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-18.2Baserunning-0.4Position+0.8Replacement+9.4
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.8-0.0-0.9161718192021

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2021872815252511676.201.250.290.089.2605.7%27.0%.240-18.244-0.8
202051150398160834.277.315.475.199.3135.3%22.7%.337+2.01130.6
2019388615140734.190.256.316.127.3188.1%39.5%.251-5.346-0.3
20186313319250930.156.214.246.090.1896.8%22.6%.209-11.823-0.9
20171051954713400753.258.284.533.275.2913.6%27.2%.342+2.81020.8
20161119512008.263.263.474.211.4000.0%42.1%.314-0.1860.1

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2021201.100000000.003.170.000.00.00740.0

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 LHP113103222824.214.265.291.24821.2%
vs RHP168156303852.192.240.288.23531.0%
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 LHB110000.000.000.000.0000.0%
vs RHB440000.000.000.000.0000.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 185 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 187 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.2%
6 barrels
Exit velocity
86.3
mph average
Max exit velo
109.7
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
32.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
43.3%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
19.7°
average
Barrel rate3.2%
Exit velocity86.3 mph
Hard hit rate32.6%
Contact rate72.7%

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.

.091.292.1567 AB.00011 AB.08312 AB.31316 AB.20824 AB.06316 AB.36819 AB.17135 AB.24233 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 Pat Valaika 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 situations281.201.250.290.240
Bases empty16315130441045.199.253.305.248
Runner on first57561113118.196.211.268.208
Runners on11810822121631.204.246.269.229
RISP615211018513.212.279.269.248

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

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
Fastball

Select a count to see exactly what Pat Valaika throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Head to head

Put Pat Valaika beside up to three others.

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Pat Valaika

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.