Players · K · Pitcher · 2026 regular season

Craig Kimbrel

Age: 38
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #26

Born: May 28, 1988 in Huntsville, AL, United States
MLB debut: May 7, 2010
Drafted: 2007, round 33
College: Wallace State CC
High school: Robert E. Lee

Compare with…vs Anthony Banda vs Sam Moll vs Shawn Armstrong

dbWAR: 19.7
IP: 46.0
ERA: 4.50
FIP: 4.12
K/9: 7.8
FIP−: 99

Craig Kimbrel is a relief pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2026 he struck out 40 batters over 46.0 innings across 46 appearances, going 1-5. His ERA of 4.50 was 7.6% higher than the league average of 4.18 — 12th of 16 on his team, and 345th of 539 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 4.12 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 23.1% of swings (11.1% of every pitch he threw), walked 11.2% of the batters he faced and struck out 20.4%. His 0.3 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2026 regular season.

FIP4.12

K/97.8

WHIP1.35

WAR.3

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2026	TB/NYM/KC	46	46.0	1	5	1	40	23	40	22	4.50	4.12	1.35	7.8	4.3	108	99	0.3
2025	HOU/ATL	14	12.0	0	1	0	10	3	17	7	2.25	4.22	1.42	12.8	5.3	54	101	0.1
2024	BAL	57	52.1	7	5	23	40	31	73	31	5.33	4.18	1.36	12.6	5.3	131	102	0.2
2023	PHI	71	69.0	8	6	23	44	25	94	28	3.26	3.81	1.04	12.3	3.7	75	88	0.8
2022	LAD	63	60.0	6	7	22	51	25	72	28	3.75	3.23	1.32	10.8	4.2	94	81	0.9
2021	CHC/CWS	63	59.2	4	5	24	31	15	100	23	2.26	2.43	0.91	15.1	3.5	53	57	1.7
2020	CHC	18	15.1	0	1	2	10	9	28	12	5.28	3.97	1.43	16.4	7.0	119	89	0.2
2019	CHC	23	20.2	0	4	13	21	15	30	12	6.53	8.00	1.60	13.1	5.2	145	178	-0.7
2018	BOS	63	62.1	5	1	42	31	19	96	31	2.74	3.13	0.99	13.9	4.5	66	75	1.1
2017	BOS	67	69.0	5	0	35	33	11	126	14	1.43	1.42	0.68	16.4	1.8	33	33	2.7
2016	BOS	57	53.0	2	6	31	28	20	83	30	3.40	2.92	1.09	14.1	5.1	81	70	1.2
2015	SD	61	59.1	4	2	39	40	17	87	22	2.58	2.68	1.04	13.2	3.3	65	68	1.2
2014	ATL	63	61.2	0	3	47	30	11	95	26	1.61	1.83	0.91	13.9	3.8	43	49	1.8
2013	ATL	68	67.0	4	3	50	39	9	98	20	1.21	1.93	0.88	13.2	2.7	31	50	2.0
2012	ATL	63	62.2	3	1	42	27	7	116	14	1.01	0.78	0.65	16.7	2.0	25	19	2.8
2011	ATL	79	77.0	4	3	46	48	18	127	32	2.10	1.52	1.04	14.8	3.7	53	39	2.6
2010	ATL	21	20.2	4	0	1	9	1	40	16	0.44	1.53	1.21	17.4	7.0	11	38	0.7

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.

																					Trend
2021	CHC	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.3	-118	-0.0
2015	SD	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.3	-125	-0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Craig Kimbrel's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	IP	L	SV	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2023 Post	PHI	Postseason total	7	6.0	2	3	6	4	1	5	5	6.00	1.83	7.5
		Wild Card	1	1.0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0.00	1.00	0.0
		NLDS	2	2.0	0	1	0	0	0	1	1	0.00	0.50	4.5
		NLCS	4	3.0	2	1	5	4	1	4	4	12.00	3.00	12.0
2021 Post	CWS	ALDS	3	2.0	0	0	3	2	1	1	0	9.00	2.00	0.0
2020 Post	CHC	Wild Card	1	1.1	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0.00	1.50	13.5
2018 Post	BOS	Postseason total	9	10.2	0	6	9	7	2	8	10	5.91	1.59	8.4
		ALDS	2	2.1	0	2	2	3	1	2	4	11.57	1.71	15.4
		ALCS	3	4.0	0	3	4	2	0	4	4	4.50	2.00	9.0
		World Series	4	4.1	0	1	3	2	1	2	2	4.15	1.15	4.2
2017 Post	BOS	ALDS	2	2.0	0	0	4	1	0	1	2	4.50	2.50	9.0
2016 Post	BOS	ALDS	2	1.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0.00	0.00	20.3
2013 Post	ATL	NLDS	1	1.1	0	1	0	0	0	2	2	0.00	1.50	13.5
2012 Post	ATL	Wild Card	1	1.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.00	9.0
2010 Post	ATL	NLDS	4	4.1	1	0	1	1	0	1	7	2.08	0.46	14.5
Career		Postseason total · 9 Octobers	30	30.0	3	10	23	15	4	20	32	4.50	1.43	9.6

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

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	102	85	23	3	14	18	.271	.376	.471	.370	17.6%
vs RHB	94	83	17	1	8	22	.205	.287	.277	.258	23.4%

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

Four-seamSweeperKnuckle curveSinkerChangeup

Select a count to see exactly what Craig Kimbrel throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	65.6%	509	93.6	2,275	47.0%	23.6%	115	.209	.682
Sweeper	13.7%	106	85.6	2,567	39.6%	33.3%	28	.286	.690
Knuckle Curve	9.8%	76	84.2	2,585	34.2%	7.4%	12	—	—
Sinker	7.9%	61	93.8	2,090	47.5%	10.7%	9	—	—
Changeup	3.1%	24	88.5	1,629	25.0%	42.9%	6	—	—

Craig Kimbrel'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. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Anthony BandaMIN

ERA: 4.46
FIP: 4.33
SO: 33
WAR: 0.1

Very close

Sam MollCIN

ERA: 4.79
FIP: 4.19
SO: 56
WAR: 0.3

Very close

Shawn ArmstrongCLE

ERA: 4.58
FIP: 4.43
SO: 34
WAR: 0.1

Very close

Riley O'BrienSTL

ERA: 4.08
FIP: 3.95
SO: 64
WAR: 0.5

Very close

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.