DataBaseball
2026
Lawrence Butler headshot

RF · 2026

Lawrence Butler

Age
26
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 3"
Weight
210 lb
Number
#4
Born
July 10, 2000 in Burlington, NJ, USA
MLB debut
August 11, 2023
Drafted
2018, round 6
High school
Westlake
Salary, 2026
$3.43M
dbWAR
3.9
3 season(s)
PA
351
AVG
.202
OBP
.297
SLG
.319
wRC+
67
100 = avg

Lawrence Butler is a right fielder for the Athletics. In 2026 he hit 7 home runs and knocked in 30 RBIs, notching 62 hits across 351 plate appearances in 106 games. His batting average was .202, 17.1% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .297 clip and slugged .319, for an OPS of .616, 14.3% lower than the league mark of .719 — 13th of 15 on his team, and 346th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.8 mph off the bat, hit 45.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 6.0% of them and made contact on 72.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 67 wRC+ puts his offence 33% below average. That comes to -0.2 dbWAR — -10.6 runs with the bat, +0.1 on the bases, -3.6 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+67
wOBA.282
ISO.117
BB%11.7%
WAR-.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to -2.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-10.6Baserunning+0.1Position-3.6Replacement+11.7
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.51.2-0.2242526

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 LHP93811511024.185.283.272.26125.8%
vs RHP2592274763166.207.301.335.28825.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 220 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 217 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
6.0%
13 barrels
Exit velocity
88.8
mph average
Max exit velo
112.7
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
45.2%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
4.5°
average
Barrel rate6.0%
Exit velocity88.8 mph
Hard hit rate45.2%
Contact rate72.7%

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.

.154.077.095.086.15413 AB.27322 AB.31316 AB.23330 AB.21233 AB.20824 AB.11127 AB.39041 AB.14321 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 Lawrence Butler 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 situations351.202.297.319.282
Bases empty20618836441854.191.262.309.259
Runner on first806414031420.219.367.266.304
Runners on146120263262336.217.345.333.313
RISP665612323916.214.318.411.323

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
20261063516273094189.202.297.319.117.25911.7%25.4%.282-10.667-0.2
202515063013321632259179.234.306.404.170.3049.4%28.4%.313-1.4951.6
202412045110822571835108.262.317.490.228.3017.8%23.9%.346+12.51242.5

Head to head

Put Lawrence Butler beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Lawrence Butler

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.