DataBaseball
2026
Will Smith headshot

C · 2026

Will Smith

Age
31
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
195 lb
Number
#16
Born
March 28, 1995 in Louisville, KY, USA
MLB debut
May 28, 2019
Drafted
2016, round 1
College
Louisville
Salary, 2026
$16M
dbWAR
9.6
3 season(s)
PA
201
AVG
.249
OBP
.338
SLG
.382
wRC+
105
100 = avg

Will Smith is a catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2026 he hit 6 home runs and knocked in 23 RBIs, notching 43 hits across 201 plate appearances in 52 games. His batting average was .249, 2.0% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .338 clip and slugged .382, for an OPS of .720, level with the league mark of .719 — 9th of 14 on his team, and 186th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.0 mph off the bat, hit 39.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.7% of them and made contact on 83.6% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 105 wRC+ puts his offence 5% above average. That comes to 1.1 dbWAR — +0.9 runs with the bat, -0.3 on the bases, +3.7 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+105
wOBA.324
ISO.133
BB%11.4%
WAR1.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +10.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+0.9Baserunning-0.3Position+3.7Replacement+6.7
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

5.02.50.0242526

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 LHP514470714.159.275.159.22227.5%
vs RHP1501293661620.279.360.457.35813.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 142 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 142 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
12.7%
18 barrels
Exit velocity
90.0
mph average
Max exit velo
110.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
39.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
45.1%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
19.9°
average
Barrel rate12.7%
Exit velocity90.0 mph
Hard hit rate39.4%
Contact rate83.6%

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.

.231.313.1258 AB.31822 AB.2229 AB.17617 AB.30020 AB.28621 AB4 AB.25024 AB.1258 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 Will Smith 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 situations201.249.338.382.324
Bases empty11610124221521.238.336.317.304
Runner on first312673741.269.387.731.463
Runners on857219421813.264.341.472.351
RISP544612114412.261.315.326.286

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
2026522014362302334.249.338.382.133.27211.4%16.9%.324+0.91051.1
2025110436107176126489.296.404.497.202.34514.7%20.4%.393+28.21495.0
20241285441182075151105.248.327.433.185.2739.4%19.3%.328+7.01133.5

Head to head

Put Will Smith beside up to three others.

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Will Smith

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.