Players · H · C · 2026

Austin Hedges

Cleveland Guardians American League CentralC

Age: 34
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 220 lb
Number: #27

Born: August 18, 1992 in San Juan Capistrano, CA, United States
MLB debut: May 4, 2015
Drafted: 2011, round 2
High school: Junipero Serra
Salary, 2026: $4M

dbWAR: -3.5
PA: 245
AVG: .249
OBP: .328
SLG: .380
wRC+: 98

Austin Hedges is a catcher for the Cleveland Guardians. So far in 2026 he has hit 6 home runs and knocked in 25 RBIs, notching 53 hits across 245 plate appearances in 73 games. His batting average is .249, 2.0% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .328 clip and slugged .380, for an OPS of .708, 1.5% lower than the league mark of .719 — 6th of 16 on his team, and 222nd of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 84.2 mph off the bat, hit 32.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.6% of them and made contact on 76.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 98 wRC+ puts his offence 2% below average. That comes to 1.1 dbWAR — -0.1 runs with the bat, -0.2 for the ballpark, -0.6 on the bases, -0.6 on double plays, +4.5 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+98

wOBA.318

ISO.131

BB%10.2%

WAR1.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +10.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2026	CLE	73	245	53	6	25	1	25	44	.249	.328	.380	.131	.285	10.2%	18.0%	.318	-0.1	98	1.1
2025	CLE	58	180	25	5	10	1	18	43	.161	.250	.277	.116	.183	10.0%	23.9%	.242	-10.9	49	-0.3
2024	CLE	51	146	20	2	15	2	6	50	.152	.203	.220	.068	.220	4.1%	34.2%	.193	-14.3	16	-0.8
2023	PIT/TEX	72	212	34	1	16	1	11	47	.184	.234	.227	.043	.236	5.2%	22.2%	.210	-19.5	24	-0.9
2022	CLE	99	338	48	7	30	2	25	78	.163	.241	.248	.085	.193	7.4%	23.1%	.227	-23.1	41	-0.9
2021	CLE	88	312	51	10	31	1	15	87	.178	.220	.308	.129	.214	4.8%	27.9%	.228	-23.3	39	-1.0
2020	SD/CLE	33	83	10	3	6	1	6	23	.145	.231	.290	.145	.159	7.2%	27.7%	.234	-6.2	41	-0.3
2019	SD	102	347	55	11	36	1	27	109	.176	.252	.311	.135	.228	7.8%	31.4%	.245	-23.1	49	-0.7
2018	SD	91	326	70	14	37	3	21	90	.231	.282	.429	.198	.280	6.4%	27.6%	.305	-3.5	90	1.0
2017	SD	119	417	83	18	55	4	23	122	.214	.262	.398	.183	.260	5.5%	29.3%	.280	-15.3	74	0.3
2016	SD	8	26	3	0	1	0	0	7	.125	.154	.167	.042	.167	0.0%	26.9%	.144	-3.7	-20	-0.3
2015	SD	55	152	23	3	11	0	8	38	.168	.215	.248	.080	.202	5.3%	25.0%	.205	-13.4	22	-0.7

Pitching

Standard and advanced, by season.


2026	CLE	4	4.1	7	3	1	0	6.23	2.64	1.62	2.1	0.0	149	63	0.1
2025	CLE	3	3.0	6	2	1	1	6.00	3.47	2.33	3.0	3.0	144	83	0.0
2024	CLE	1	2.0	0	0	0	1	0.00	4.67	0.50	0.0	4.5	0	114	-0.0
2023	TEX	4	3.2	5	2	1	0	4.91	7.07	1.36	2.5	0.0	113	163	-0.1

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

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	128	106	27	3	17	15	.255	.355	.406	.342	11.7%
vs RHP	117	107	26	3	8	29	.243	.299	.355	.293	24.8%

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	9	9	4	0	0	0	.444	.444	.444	.397	0.0%
vs RHB	11	11	3	0	0	1	.273	.273	.273	.244	9.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 174 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 175 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 4.6%
Exit velocity: 84.2
Max exit velo: 109.6
Hard hit: 32.6%
Sweet spot: 28.0%
Launch angle: 11.0°

Barrel rate4.6%

Exit velocity84.2 mph

Hard hit rate32.6%

Contact rate76.2%

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 Austin Hedges 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	245	—	—	—	—	—	—	.249	.328	.380	.318
Bases empty	139	122	27	3	3	17	29	.221	.317	.336	.300
Runner on first	45	41	16	3	7	4	7	.390	.444	.683	.482
Runners on	106	91	26	3	22	8	15	.286	.343	.440	.343
RISP	61	50	10	0	15	4	8	.200	.263	.240	.233

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

FastballChangeupEephus

Select a count to see exactly what Austin Hedges throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Season


Fastball	61.8%	34	70.6	1,797	47.1%	11.1%	10	—	—
Changeup	27.3%	15	70.4	1,719	33.3%	0.0%	6	—	—

Austin Hedges'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.

Head to head

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Carson KellyCHC

wRC+: 102
HR: 10
AVG: .258
WAR: 1.8

Very close

Nick LoftinKC

wRC+: 95
HR: 8
AVG: .240
WAR: 1.5

Very close

Drew GilbertSF

wRC+: 105
HR: 11
AVG: .240
WAR: 1.2

Very close

Spencer HorwitzPIT

wRC+: 101
HR: 10
AVG: .248
WAR: 0.7

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.