SS · 2026

Tyler Tolbert

Kansas City Royals American League CentralSS

Age: 28
B/T: R/R
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 185 lb
Number: #2

Born: January 27, 1998 in Birmingham, AL, USA
MLB debut: March 31, 2025
Drafted: 2019, round 13
College: Alabama-Birmingham

dbWAR: .7
PA: 98
AVG: .314
OBP: .362
SLG: .465
wRC+: 128

Tyler Tolbert is a shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. In 2026 he hit 3 home runs and knocked in 6 RBIs, notching 27 hits across 98 plate appearances in 45 games. His batting average was .314, 28.8% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .362 clip and slugged .465, for an OPS of .827, 14.9% higher than the league mark of .719. He averaged 78.7 mph off the bat, hit 29.3% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.0% of them and made contact on 73.6% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 128 wRC+ puts his offence 28% above average. That comes to 0.9 dbWAR — +3.5 runs with the bat, +1.6 on the bases, +0.4 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+128

wOBA.361

ISO.151

BB%7.1%

WAR.9

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +8.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

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.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	52	45	13	1	5	6	.289	.360	.422	.349	11.5%
vs RHP	46	41	14	2	2	10	.341	.364	.512	.376	21.7%

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	19	18	11	1	1	0	.611	.632	.833	.633	0.0%
vs RHB	14	11	6	3	2	0	.545	.643	1.364	.779	0.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 75 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 75 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 4.0%
Exit velocity: 78.7
Max exit velo: 106.8
Hard hit: 29.3%
Sweet spot: 34.7%
Launch angle: 6.8°

Barrel rate4.0%

Exit velocity78.7 mph

Hard hit rate29.3%

Contact rate73.6%

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.

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 Tyler Tolbert 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.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	98	—	—	—	—	—	—	.314	.362	.465	.361
Bases empty	49	46	17	2	2	3	10	.370	.408	.565	.422
Runner on first · thin	21	17	4	1	2	2	4	.235	.316	.412	.323
Runners on	49	40	10	1	4	4	6	.250	.311	.350	.296
RISP	28	23	6	0	2	2	2	.261	.308	.304	.276

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Rows under 25 plate appearances are marked thin — at that size a rate moves several dozen points on one hit. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Pitch sequencing

What Tyler Tolbert throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

EephusFastball

Select a count to see exactly what Tyler Tolbert throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, and how often it misses in 2026.


Eephus	64.2%	68	46.6	1,198	32.4%	0.0%
Fastball	35.8%	38	46.5	1,154	23.7%	8.3%

Tyler Tolbert's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

																				Trend
2026	45	98	27	3	6	15	7	16	.314	.362	.465	.151	.353	7.1%	16.3%	.361	+3.5	128	0.9
2025	50	57	14	1	6	21	1	11	.280	.321	.380	.100	.325	1.8%	19.3%	.307	-0.4	97	0.5

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.

																			Trend
2026	5	0	4.2	0	0	0	17	13	0	3	25.07	16.80	4.29	0.0	5.8	600	402	-0.6	—

Head to head

Put Tyler Tolbert beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players

Tyler Tolbert

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.