DataBaseball
2026
Jordan Walker headshot

RF · 2026

Jordan Walker

Age
24
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 6"
Weight
250 lb
Number
#18
Born
May 22, 2002 in Stone Mountain, GA, USA
MLB debut
March 30, 2023
Drafted
2020, round 1
High school
Decatur
dbWAR
1.5
3 season(s)
PA
488
AVG
.285
OBP
.342
SLG
.492
wRC+
134
100 = avg

Jordan Walker is a right fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 23 home runs and knocked in 83 RBIs, notching 127 hits across 488 plate appearances in 114 games. His batting average was .285, 17.1% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .342 clip and slugged .492, for an OPS of .834, 16.0% higher than the league mark of .719 — the best on his team, and 39th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 92.7 mph off the bat, hit 47.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.8% of them and made contact on 69.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 134 wRC+ puts his offence 34% above average. That comes to 2.7 dbWAR — +17.3 runs with the bat, +0.1 on the bases, -6.6 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+134
wOBA.361
ISO.207
BB%7.6%
WAR2.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +27.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+17.3Baserunning+0.1Position-6.6Replacement+16.3
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.70.9-0.9242526

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 LHP1271113371626.297.386.541.40020.5%
vs RHP36133494162193.281.327.476.34825.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 328 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 329 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
12.8%
42 barrels
Exit velocity
92.7
mph average
Max exit velo
116.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
47.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
35.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
12.2°
average
Barrel rate12.8%
Exit velocity92.7 mph
Hard hit rate47.4%
Contact rate69.1%

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.

.273.231.152.205.30020 AB.38121 AB.33318 AB.42540 AB.38347 AB.17047 AB.29031 AB.30649 AB.27943 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 Jordan Walker 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 situations488.285.342.492.361
Bases empty2602366810102361.288.354.462.359
Runner on first91872038326.230.264.391.280
Runners on2282095913731458.282.329.526.364
RISP1371223910651132.320.372.623.418

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
202611448812723831437119.285.342.492.207.3407.6%24.4%.361+17.31342.7
2025108396786411029126.215.278.306.091.3107.3%31.8%.263-17.365-0.9
2024501783352011050.201.253.366.165.2525.6%28.1%.269-6.370-0.3

Head to head

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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.