DataBaseball
2026
Gavin Sheets headshot

1B · 2026

Gavin Sheets

Age
30
B/T
L/L
Height
6' 3"
Weight
235 lb
Number
#30
Born
April 23, 1996 in Lutherville, MD, USA
MLB debut
June 29, 2021
Drafted
2014, round 37
College
Wake Forest
High school
Gilman School
Salary, 2026
$4.5M
dbWAR
1.3
3 season(s)
PA
378
AVG
.214
OBP
.315
SLG
.398
wRC+
104
100 = avg

Gavin Sheets is a first baseman for the San Diego Padres. In 2026 he hit 15 home runs and knocked in 44 RBIs, notching 70 hits across 378 plate appearances in 109 games. His batting average was .214, 12.1% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .315 clip and slugged .398, for an OPS of .712, 1.0% lower than the league mark of .719 — 7th of 14 on his team, and 203rd of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 87.5 mph off the bat, hit 39.3% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 6.3% of them and made contact on 79.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 104 wRC+ puts his offence 4% above average. That comes to 0.5 dbWAR — -0.0 runs with the bat, +0.3 on the bases, -7.4 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+104
wOBA.318
ISO.183
BB%11.9%
WAR.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +5.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-0.0Baserunning+0.3Position-7.4Replacement+12.6
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.10.4-0.3242526

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 LHP7165110620.169.239.215.21528.2%
vs RHP30726259153957.225.332.443.34218.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 248 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 252 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
6.3%
16 barrels
Exit velocity
87.5
mph average
Max exit velo
110.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
39.3%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
32.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
12.6°
average
Barrel rate6.3%
Exit velocity87.5 mph
Hard hit rate39.3%
Contact rate79.8%

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.

.200.000.100.148.04821 AB.36422 AB.40010 AB.16025 AB.44829 AB.37516 AB.09731 AB.29434 AB.31619 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 Gavin Sheets 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 situations378.214.315.398.318
Bases empty21819437992449.191.280.371.291
Runner on first836512121615.185.361.262.309
Runners on160133336352128.248.362.436.356
RISP776821533513.309.364.603.406

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
202610937870154444577.214.315.398.183.23211.9%20.4%.318-0.01040.5
20251445451241971244107.252.317.429.177.2848.1%19.6%.325+4.51091.1
20241395011051045243106.233.303.357.124.2818.6%21.2%.293-8.088-0.3

Head to head

Put Gavin Sheets beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Gavin Sheets

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.