Justin Morneau
The big Canadian first baseman's career tells the story of two very different halves. Morneau was developing into one of baseball's premier sluggers when a devastating concussion in 2010 derailed everything — he hit .345 with a 1.055 OPS that season before the injury essentially ended his MVP-caliber production.
Before the concussion, Morneau was a legitimate middle-of-the-order force for the Twins, combining gap power with solid contact skills. His 2006 MVP season showcased a player hitting .321 with elite run production. After 2010, he never again posted an OPS+ above 110, managing just 65 home runs over his final six seasons.
Morneau's tale serves as a sobering reminder of how quickly careers can change. He finished with respectable counting stats — 247 homers and 985 RBI — but those numbers only hint at what might have been without that fateful collision at home plate.
Career · Batting
14 seasons| Year | Team | G | AB | HR | RBI | AVG | OPS | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | MIN | 40 | 106 | 4 | 16 | .226 | .664 | 88 |
| 2004 | MIN | 74 | 280 | 19 | 58 | .271 | .875 | 115 |
| 2005 | MIN | 141 | 490 | 22 | 79 | .239 | .741 | 99 |
| 2006 | MIN | 157 | 592 | 34 | 130 | .321 | .934 | 122 |
| 2007 | MIN | 157 | 590 | 31 | 111 | .271 | .834 | 110 |
| 2008 | MIN | 163 | 623 | 23 | 129 | .300 | .873 | 117 |
| 2009 | MIN | 135 | 508 | 30 | 100 | .274 | .878 | 117 |
| 2010 | MIN | 81 | 296 | 18 | 56 | .345 | 1.055 | 145 |
| 2011 | MIN | 69 | 264 | 4 | 30 | .227 | .618 | 86 |
| 2012 | MIN | 134 | 505 | 19 | 77 | .267 | .773 | 107 |
| 2013 | MIN | 152 | 572 | 17 | 77 | .259 | .734 | 103 |
| 2014 | COL | 135 | 502 | 17 | 82 | .319 | .860 | 123 |
| 2015 | COL | 49 | 168 | 3 | 15 | .310 | .821 | 114 |
| 2016 | CWS | 58 | 203 | 6 | 25 | .261 | .731 | 99 |
| Career | 1545 | 5699 | 247 | 985 | .281 | — | — | |
Every ball this hitter has put in play — how hard it left the bat, and at what angle. The red field behind the dots shows how much damage that kind of contact does, league-wide: the darker the red, the better things go for the hitter.
The field — league-average xwOBA (what a batted ball is typically worth: 0.0 is a sure out, ~2.0 a sure home run) for every exit-velocity × launch-angle combination, measured from 1.3 million regular-season balls in play since 2015. The dark ridge — balls hit 105+ mph at 25–30° — is the barrel zone, where contact becomes near-automatic extra bases.
The dots — this hitter’s career regular-season balls in play, grouped to a fine grid; a bigger dot means more batted balls at that exact combination. Dots piled onto the red ridge are damage; dots low on the pale field are weak or mishit contact. Spring training and the postseason are excluded.
Matchups, projections, comps — grounded in Lahman, Retrosheet, and Statcast.