LF · 2026

Nelson Velázquez

St. Louis Cardinals National League CentralLF

Age: 28
B/T: R/R
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 190 lb
Number: #38

Born: December 26, 1998 in Carolina, Puerto Rico
MLB debut: May 30, 2022
Drafted: 2017, round 5
College: P.J. Education (PR) HS

dbWAR: -.3
PA: 83
AVG: .216
OBP: .289
SLG: .432
wRC+: 100

Nelson Velázquez is a left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 12 RBIs, notching 16 hits across 83 plate appearances in 33 games. His batting average was .216, 11.3% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .289 clip and slugged .432, for an OPS of .722, level with the league mark of .719. He averaged 94.6 mph off the bat, hit 64.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.0% of them and made contact on 62.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 100 wRC+ puts his offence 0% above average. That comes to 0.1 dbWAR — -0.3 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, -1.5 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, 2026.

wRC+100

wOBA.314

ISO.216

BB%8.4%

WAR.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +0.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. 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	63	55	11	4	6	19	.200	.286	.473	.325	30.2%
vs RHP	20	19	5	0	1	6	.263	.300	.316	.277	30.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 50 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 50 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 10.0%
Exit velocity: 94.6
Max exit velo: 110.4
Hard hit: 64.0%
Sweet spot: 44.0%
Launch angle: 16.0°

Barrel rate10.0%

Exit velocity94.6 mph

Hard hit rate64.0%

Contact rate62.2%

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, 2026.

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 Nelson Velázquez 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	83	—	—	—	—	—	—	.216	.289	.432	.314
Bases empty	36	34	9	1	1	2	13	.265	.306	.441	.325
Runner on first · thin	24	23	6	2	5	1	4	.261	.292	.565	.362
Runners on	47	40	7	3	11	5	12	.175	.277	.425	.305
RISP · thin	23	17	1	1	6	4	8	.059	.261	.235	.246

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Rows under 25 plate appearances are marked thin — at that size a rate moves several dozen points on one hit. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

																				Trend
2026	33	83	16	4	12	0	7	25	.216	.289	.432	.216	.261	8.4%	30.1%	.314	-0.3	100	0.1
2024	64	230	41	8	27	2	19	61	.200	.274	.366	.166	.237	8.3%	26.5%	.282	-5.7	76	-0.4

Head to head

Put Nelson Velázquez beside up to three others.

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Nelson Velázquez

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.