Daniel Palencia

2026

Cubs· RHP · throws R· 16.2 IP· 2.70 ERA· 1.38 WHIP· 71 BF

Grade

How good he's been, and at what

B65th percentile run prevention

RelieverStill Searching

Below league average across the board.

Palencia sits right around league average

The simulator expects 0.434 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 65th percentile of qualified pitchers. His standout tool is Strikeouts (81st percentile). The soft spot is HR Suppression (19th percentile). Short relief stints inflate strikeout rates a touch, so read the Strikeouts spoke with that in mind.

Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size (not raw season stats), so farther out = better.
Percentiles vs. 424 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled. He hasn't reached that bar himself, so he is measured against them rather than counted among them.
71 batters faced · data through 2026-07-29.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — the pitchers whose profile looks most like this one.

Cam BooserRays

William KempnerMarlins

Lake BacharMarlins

Michael RuckerMariners

Pitcher type

What kind of pitcher he is, next to the league

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Daniel Palencia leans on his four-seam fastball (66% of pitches). His best pitch has been the four-seam fastball, saving 3.2 bases per 100 thrown vs average, and his four-seam fastball runs 4.3 mph above the league norm.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

What they throw, how hard, and what misses bats — from pitch tracking, regular season only.

+5 bases better than a replacement arm this season

allowed 30 bases vs a replacement arm's 36 over the same batters faced

Results

All pitches

saved 2.5 per 1006.6 saved across 264

Four-Seam Fastball

66% −5 pts vs '25

99.4 mph · lg 95.1 −0.2 mph vs '25

20% whiffs · lg 18%

saved 3.2 per 1006.1 saved across 191

Slider

25% +2 pts vs '25

90.5 mph · lg 86.9 +2.0 mph vs '25

50% whiffs · lg 32%

saved 0.7 per 1000.5 saved across 73

Splitter

6% +2 pts vs '25

89.6 mph · lg 86.8 +1.3 mph vs '25

—

Rarely used: sinker (2%)

Mix by batter side

How the mix shifts against lefty and righty bats. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Four-Seam Fastball

72% vs LHH

60% vs RHH

Slider

17% vs LHH

35% vs RHH

By appearance

How the stuff has held up outing to outing

One point per outing — how his velocity, movement, and pitch mix have moved across the season, with league context for scale. Each pitch keeps the same color in every chart.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Dot = shrunk true-talent estimate; bar = 50% probable range. Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
Faint diamond = his raw, unshrunk rate against that side — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls the dot toward a more trustworthy estimate.
These are bases allowed, so lower is better. Weighted by how often he faces each side, the two splits average back to his modeled overall EB/PA allowed — not the xEB/PA headline at the top of the page, which folds in strikeouts and walks differently.
Gray tick (marked “lg”) = league median vs that side; the faint gray band behind it spans the middle half of the league (25th–75th percentile).
Shrunk splits beat raw splits on held-out seasons, most decisively at low batters-faced counts (relievers especially), and converge with the raw numbers as exposure builds.

vs LHB37 PA0.411

Raw vs LHB rate (0.579) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHB34 PA0.369

Raw vs RHB rate (0.241) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.3360.3630.3910.4180.445

← better (fewer bases allowed)worse →

Better vs RHB than vs LHB by 0.042 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.034 to +0.050

About the typical split for a righty arm (median 0.041). He allows less than the league median against both sides, so his weaker side is still a strength — not a hole.

Contact allowed

What hitters do when they connect

Batters go to the pull side off him most often, and that's where the hardest contact comes from.

Pull and oppo are relative to each batter's stance, so this pools all the hitters he faced.

Batted balls allowed

Where every ball hit off Daniel Palencia landed this season.
Dots are colored by estimated bases (EB) — pale slate (easy out) to dark teal (home-run territory).
Filled dots are hits; hollow rings are outs — a dark ring in the outfield is a crushed ball his defense ran down.
Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two; use the ▶ links below to watch on Baseball Savant.

hit · out

EBlowhigh

vs Spencer HorwitzHome run

EV 98 mph · LA 30° · EB 3.8

05/26 vs Pirates

vs Evan CarterHome run

EV 99 mph · LA 38° · EB 2.7

05/10 vs Rangers

vs Jordan WalkerOut

EV 99 mph · LA 19° · EB 1.4

05/30 vs Cardinals

vs David HamiltonSingle

EV 88 mph · LA 16° · EB 1.0

05/20 vs Brewers

vs Jung Hoo LeeSingle

EV 98 mph · LA 12° · EB 1.0

06/06 vs Giants

Luck check

Burned 3 times — balls with a hit probability under 20% that found grass anyway.

vs Munetaka MurakamiDoubleCheap hit

EV 90 mph · LA 27° · EB 0.1 · xBA .034

05/17 vs White Sox

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

His best outings this season by bases saved vs a replacement arm.

Date	Opponent	Result	Bases allowed	Above replacement
Jun 7, 2026	Giants	3 BF · 1 K	0.1	+1.4
May 17, 2026	White Sox	5 BF · 0 K, 1 BB, 1 H	1.3	+1.3
Jun 3, 2026	Athletics	3 BF · 1 K	0.3	+1.2
May 14, 2026	Braves	4 BF · 2 K, 1 H	0.8	+1.2
Jun 2, 2026	Athletics	3 BF · 1 K	0.5	+1.0