DataBaseball
2026
Francisco Alvarez headshot

C · 2026

Francisco Alvarez

Age
25
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
233 lb
Number
#4
Born
November 19, 2001 in Guatire, Venezuela
MLB debut
September 30, 2022
Salary, 2026
$2.4M
dbWAR
5.8
3 season(s)
PA
300
AVG
.253
OBP
.342
SLG
.441
wRC+
118
100 = avg

Francisco Alvarez is a catcher for the New York Mets. In 2026 he hit 13 home runs and knocked in 29 RBIs, notching 66 hits across 300 plate appearances in 81 games. His batting average was .253, 3.8% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .342 clip and slugged .441, for an OPS of .783, 8.8% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 100th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.1 mph off the bat, hit 44.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 16.6% of them and made contact on 66.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 118 wRC+ puts his offence 18% above average. That comes to 1.9 dbWAR — +6.7 runs with the bat, -0.4 on the bases, +2.6 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+118
wOBA.345
ISO.188
BB%10.7%
WAR1.9

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +18.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+6.7Baserunning-0.4Position+2.6Replacement+10.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.11.10.0242526

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 LHP78671521024.224.333.328.30230.8%
vs RHP22219451112257.263.345.479.36025.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 181 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 181 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
16.6%
30 barrels
Exit velocity
90.1
mph average
Max exit velo
112.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
44.2%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.3°
average
Barrel rate16.6%
Exit velocity90.1 mph
Hard hit rate44.2%
Contact rate66.4%

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.

.105.333.048.121.36411 AB.38526 AB.21414 AB.36819 AB.32128 AB.25020 AB.46213 AB.30423 AB.12516 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 Francisco Alvarez 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 situations300.253.342.441.345
Bases empty1771574012121948.255.339.529.374
Runner on first62551413414.255.328.327.301
Runners on123104261171333.250.347.308.303
RISP614912014919.245.367.286.305

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
20268130066132903281.253.342.441.188.31510.7%27.0%.345+6.71181.9
20257427763113202773.256.339.447.191.3219.7%26.4%.345+6.91212.1
20249134273114713086.237.307.403.166.2918.8%25.1%.312-0.11011.7

Head to head

Put Francisco Alvarez beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Francisco Alvarez

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.