DataBaseball
2026
Gunnar Henderson headshot

SS · 2026

Gunnar Henderson

Age
25
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 3"
Weight
230 lb
Number
#2
Born
June 29, 2001 in Montgomery, AL, USA
MLB debut
August 31, 2022
Drafted
2019, round 2
High school
Morgan
Salary, 2026
$8.5M
dbWAR
13.8
3 season(s)
PA
531
AVG
.213
OBP
.294
SLG
.384
wRC+
88
100 = avg

Gunnar Henderson is a shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2026 he hit 18 home runs and knocked in 47 RBIs, notching 101 hits across 531 plate appearances in 117 games. His batting average was .213, 12.6% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .294 clip and slugged .384, for an OPS of .678, 5.8% lower than the league mark of .719 — 9th of 13 on his team, and 259th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.6 mph off the bat, hit 44.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 5.4% of them and made contact on 75.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 88 wRC+ puts his offence 12% below average. That comes to 1.4 dbWAR — -7.9 runs with the bat, -0.5 on the bases, +5.0 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+88
wOBA.300
ISO.171
BB%8.7%
WAR1.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +14.3 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-7.9Baserunning-0.5Position+5.0Replacement+17.7
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

7.83.90.0242526

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 LHP1651483361434.223.303.432.32420.6%
vs RHP36632668123288.209.290.362.29024.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 352 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 354 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
5.4%
19 barrels
Exit velocity
89.6
mph average
Max exit velo
111.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
44.9%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
32.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
12.2°
average
Barrel rate5.4%
Exit velocity89.6 mph
Hard hit rate44.9%
Contact rate75.7%

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.

.000.167.125.105.20025 AB.22227 AB.20030 AB.27540 AB.33351 AB.33330 AB.20449 AB.20060 AB.34432 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 Gunnar Henderson 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 situations531.213.294.384.300
Bases empty3052745413132570.197.279.380.293
Runner on first12411526412929.226.282.426.309
Runners on226200475342152.235.314.390.310
RISP10285211221223.247.353.341.312

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
20261175311011847946122.213.294.384.171.2478.7%23.0%.300-7.9881.4
202515465115817683062137.274.349.438.165.3299.5%21.0%.342+14.31174.6
202415971917737922178159.281.364.529.248.32010.8%22.1%.384+42.41527.8

Head to head

Put Gunnar Henderson beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Gunnar Henderson

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.