DataBaseball
2026
James McCann headshot

C · 2026

James McCann

Age
36
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
235 lb
Number
#8
Born
June 13, 1990 in Santa Barbara, CA, USA
MLB debut
September 1, 2014
Drafted
2008, round 31
College
Arkansas
High school
Dos Pueblos
dbWAR
2.3
5 season(s)
PA
109
AVG
.304
OBP
.336
SLG
.471
wRC+
122
100 = avg

James McCann is a catcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 2026 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 21 RBIs, notching 31 hits across 109 plate appearances in 31 games. His batting average was .304, 24.7% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .336 clip and slugged .471, for an OPS of .807, 12.2% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 70th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.1 mph off the bat, hit 41.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 6.5% of them and made contact on 70.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 122 wRC+ puts his offence 22% above average. That comes to 0.8 dbWAR — +3.0 runs with the bat, -0.2 on the bases, +1.9 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+122
wOBA.351
ISO.167
BB%3.7%
WAR.8

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +8.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+3.0Baserunning-0.2Position+1.9Replacement+3.6
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.90.40.0242526

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP454313029.302.333.349.30620.0%
vs RHP6459184218.305.339.559.38428.1%
Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB15125030.417.533.583.4910.0%
vs RHB874100.571.5001.000.5860.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 77 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 77 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
6.5%
5 barrels
Exit velocity
88.1
mph average
Max exit velo
109.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
41.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
32.5%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
7.5°
average
Barrel rate6.5%
Exit velocity88.1 mph
Hard hit rate41.6%
Contact rate70.9%

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.

.1255 AB7 AB5 AB6 AB.33312 AB.18211 AB5 AB7 AB.2229 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 James McCann 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 situations109.304.336.471.351
Bases empty60591411117.237.250.305.245
Runner on first · thin191741216.235.278.412.301
Runners on494317320310.395.447.698.488
RISP30261321824.500.552.885.604

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.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
EephusUnknown

Select a count to see exactly what James McCann throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2026.

Eephus87.3%5538.087021.8%8.3%
James McCann's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
202631109314210427.304.336.471.167.3803.7%24.8%.351+3.01220.8
202538137325170833.260.324.431.171.3145.8%24.1%.330+1.71100.9
2024642335083111356.234.279.388.154.2735.6%24.0%.290-4.3850.8

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026404.0000950311.258.593.000.06.8269206-0.2
2024101.0000220018.0016.172.000.00.0441396-0.1

Head to head

Put James McCann beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
James McCann

Similar players

Nearest 2026 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.