DataBaseball
2026
Juan Soto headshot

LF · 2026

Juan Soto

Age
28
B/T
L/L
Height
6' 1"
Weight
224 lb
Number
#22
Born
October 25, 1998 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
MLB debut
May 15, 2018
Salary, 2026
$51.9M
dbWAR
17.7
3 season(s)
PA
359
AVG
.283
OBP
.408
SLG
.539
wRC+
159
100 = avg

Juan Soto is a left fielder for the New York Mets. In 2026 he hit 21 home runs and knocked in 52 RBIs, notching 83 hits across 359 plate appearances in 84 games. His batting average was .283, 16.3% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .408 clip and slugged .539, for an OPS of .947, 31.6% higher than the league mark of .719 — the best on his team, and the second best among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 92.0 mph off the bat, hit 49.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 13.5% of them and made contact on 79.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 159 wRC+ puts his offence 59% above average. That comes to 3.0 dbWAR — +25.6 runs with the bat, -0.4 on the bases, -6.9 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+159
wOBA.404
ISO.256
BB%17.5%
WAR3.0

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +30.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+25.6Baserunning-0.4Position-6.9Replacement+12.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

8.04.00.0242526

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 LHP1201052941416.276.361.448.35913.3%
vs RHP23918854174932.287.431.590.42813.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 246 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 245 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
13.5%
33 barrels
Exit velocity
92.0
mph average
Max exit velo
114.2
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
49.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.5%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
16.3°
average
Barrel rate13.5%
Exit velocity92.0 mph
Hard hit rate49.0%
Contact rate79.4%

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.

.267.200.120.071.3758 AB.35020 AB.2229 AB.25028 AB.22935 AB.23330 AB.44738 AB.36136 AB.40020 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 Juan Soto 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 situations359.283.408.539.404
Bases empty2071784613132930.258.362.522.384
Runner on first7867255121110.373.462.657.479
Runners on152115378393418.322.470.565.434
RISP744812327238.250.479.438.378

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
20268435983215276348.283.408.539.256.27417.5%13.4%.404+25.61593.0
20251607151524310538127137.263.396.525.262.27017.8%19.2%.393+46.21556.6
2024157713166411097129119.288.419.569.281.29818.1%16.7%.424+65.71788.0

Head to head

Put Juan Soto beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Juan Soto

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.