DataBaseball
2026
Dansby Swanson headshot

SS · 2026

Dansby Swanson

Age
32
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
190 lb
Number
#7
Born
February 11, 1994 in Kennesaw, GA, USA
MLB debut
August 17, 2016
Drafted
2015, round 1
College
Vanderbilt
High school
Marietta
Salary, 2026
$28M
dbWAR
7.4
3 season(s)
PA
443
AVG
.214
OBP
.292
SLG
.397
wRC+
90
100 = avg

Dansby Swanson is a shortstop for the Chicago Cubs. In 2026 he hit 17 home runs and knocked in 63 RBIs, notching 84 hits across 443 plate appearances in 114 games. His batting average was .214, 12.3% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .292 clip and slugged .397, for an OPS of .689, 4.3% lower than the league mark of .719 — 11th of 13 on his team, and 241st of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.2 mph off the bat, hit 40.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 5.4% of them and made contact on 69.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 90 wRC+ puts his offence 10% below average. That comes to 1.7 dbWAR — -5.2 runs with the bat, +2.3 on the bases, +5.4 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.

wRC+90
wOBA.304
ISO.183
BB%9.9%
WAR1.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +17.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-5.2Baserunning+2.3Position+5.4Replacement+14.8
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.91.50.0242526

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 LHP126114276838.237.280.465.31730.2%
vs RHP31727957113664.204.297.369.29920.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 296 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 294 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
5.4%
16 barrels
Exit velocity
89.2
mph average
Max exit velo
110.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
40.8%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
30.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
16.0°
average
Barrel rate5.4%
Exit velocity89.2 mph
Hard hit rate40.8%
Contact rate69.7%

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.

.056.050.056.051.30020 AB.16131 AB.28025 AB.21723 AB.34367 AB.24337 AB.23517 AB.31145 AB.17135 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 Dansby Swanson 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 situations443.214.292.397.304
Bases empty22420242552156.208.286.347.285
Runner on first10190216141120.233.317.444.334
Runners on2191914212582346.220.298.450.324
RISP118101216441226.208.282.455.315

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20261144438417631644102.214.292.397.183.2419.9%23.0%.304-5.2901.7
202515964514424772047168.244.300.417.173.2987.3%26.0%.311-2.3972.9
202414859312916661954144.242.312.390.148.3009.1%24.3%.309-1.71062.8

Head to head

Put Dansby Swanson beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Dansby Swanson

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.