Players · V · LF · 2026 regular season
Nelson Velázquez
- Age
- 28
- B/T
- R/R
- Height
- 5' 11"
- Weight
- 190 lb
- Number
- #30
- Born
- December 26, 1998 in Carolina, Puerto Rico
- MLB debut
- May 30, 2022
- Drafted
- 2017, round 5
- College
- P.J. Education (PR) HS
Compare with…vs Brent Rookervs Kerry Carpentervs Colson Montgomery
- dbWAR
- .8 Regular season, 4 season(s)
- PA
- 113
- AVG
- .188
- OBP
- .257
- SLG
- .406
- wRC+
- 81 100 = avg
Nelson Velázquez is a left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 6 home runs and knocked in 18 RBIs, notching 19 hits across 113 plate appearances in 50 games. His batting average was .188, 22.9% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .257 clip and slugged .406, for an OPS of .663, 7.8% lower than the league mark of .719 — 9th of 19 on his team, and 314th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 94.8 mph off the bat, hit 61.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.3% of them and made contact on 60.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 81 wRC+ puts his offence 19% below average. That comes to -0.0 dbWAR — -2.9 runs with the bat, +0.3 for the ballpark, -0.1 on the bases, +0.7 on double plays, -1.4 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 regular season.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to -0.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
WAR by season
Batting Regular season
Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.
Separate from the regular season
Postseason Postseason
Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.
Postseason batting
| Season | Team | Round | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Post | HOU | Wild Card · through Sep 29 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .333 | .333 | 1.333 | 1.667 |
Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 81 | 72 | 13 | 5 | 7 | 26 | .181 | .259 | .431 | .298 | 32.1% |
| vs RHP | 32 | 29 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 12 | .207 | .250 | .345 | .259 | 37.5% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.
Loading 65 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 65 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 12.3% 8 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 94.8 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 110.4 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 61.5% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 43.1% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 21.4° average
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.
Situational hitting
How Nelson Velázquez hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 113 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .188 | .257 | .406 | .287 |
| Bases empty | 50 | 47 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 19 | .213 | .260 | .404 | .289 |
| Runner on first | 29 | 27 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 | .222 | .276 | .481 | .325 |
| Runners on | 63 | 54 | 9 | 4 | 16 | 6 | 19 | .167 | .254 | .407 | .286 |
| RISP | 34 | 27 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 4 | 14 | .111 | .235 | .333 | .253 |
Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.
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Similar players
Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.
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.