DataBaseball
2026
Ali Sánchez headshot

C · 2026

Ali Sánchez

Age
29
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
200 lb
Number
#39
Born
January 20, 1997 in Carora, Venezuela
MLB debut
August 10, 2020
dbWAR
-.4
4 season(s)
PA
60
AVG
.268
OBP
.300
SLG
.357
wRC+
78
100 = avg

Ali Sánchez is a catcher for the New York Yankees. In 2026 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 7 RBIs, notching 15 hits across 60 plate appearances in 25 games. His batting average was .268, 9.9% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .300 clip and slugged .357, for an OPS of .657, 8.7% lower than the league mark of .719. He averaged 81.6 mph off the bat, hit 26.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 2.4% of them and made contact on 79.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 78 wRC+ puts his offence 22% below average. That comes to 0.1 dbWAR — -1.4 runs with the bat, -0.5 on the bases, +1.3 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+78
wOBA.291
ISO.089
BB%1.7%
WAR.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +1.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-1.4Baserunning-0.5Position+1.3Replacement+2.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.1-0.2-0.5242526

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 LHP343311108.333.353.485.36523.5%
vs RHP26234017.174.231.174.19426.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 42 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 42 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
2.4%
1 barrels
Exit velocity
81.6
mph average
Max exit velo
106.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
26.2%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
35.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
16.8°
average
Barrel rate2.4%
Exit velocity81.6 mph
Hard hit rate26.2%
Contact rate79.0%

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.

.5005 AB3 AB3 AB5 AB.6258 AB5 AB2 AB6 AB3 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 Ali Sánchez 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 situations60.268.300.357.291
Bases empty323180007.258.281.258.246
Runner on first · thin161650204.313.313.438.325
Runners on282571718.280.321.480.342
RISP · thin12921514.222.333.556.365

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.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026256015170115.268.300.357.089.3411.7%25.0%.291-1.4780.1
2025923500006.217.217.304.087.2940.0%26.1%.225-1.737-0.1
2024309614042424.167.211.190.024.2304.2%25.0%.186-10.010-0.5

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2025101.0000321018.001.143.009.00.0433270.0

Head to head

Put Ali Sánchez beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Ali Sánchez
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.