Players · W · Pitcher · 2026 regular season

Michael Wacha

Kansas City Royals American League Central

Age: 35
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 6"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #52

Born: July 1, 1991 in Iowa City, IA, United States
MLB debut: May 30, 2013
Drafted: 2012, round 1
College: Texas A&M
High school: Pleasant Grove
Salary, 2026: $18M

Compare with…vs Cristopher Sánchez vs Noah Cameron vs Zac Thornton

dbWAR: 23.4
IP: 200.2
ERA: 3.32
FIP: 4.38
K/9: 7.1
FIP−: 105

Michael Wacha is a starting pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. In 2026 he struck out 158 batters over 200.2 innings across 32 appearances, 32 of them starts, going 9-10. His ERA of 3.32 was 20.6% lower than the league average of 4.18 — the third best on his team, and 135th of 539 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 4.38 FIP suggests that his ERA had some help behind him. He missed bats on 21.6% of swings (10.6% of every pitch he threw), walked 6.7% of the batters he faced and struck out 19.5%. His 2.2 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.

FIP4.38

K/97.1

WHIP1.11

WAR2.2

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

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


2026	KC	32	32	200.2	9	10	168	74	158	54	3.32	4.38	1.11	7.1	2.4	79	105	2.2
2025	KC	31	31	172.2	10	13	166	74	126	45	3.86	3.66	1.22	6.6	2.3	93	88	3.0
2024	KC	29	29	166.2	13	8	154	62	145	45	3.35	3.65	1.19	7.8	2.4	82	90	3.0
2023	SD	24	24	134.1	14	4	113	48	124	43	3.22	3.89	1.16	8.3	2.9	74	90	2.2
2022	BOS	23	23	127.1	11	2	111	47	104	31	3.32	4.14	1.12	7.4	2.2	84	104	1.4
2021	TB	29	23	124.2	3	5	132	70	121	31	5.05	4.47	1.31	8.7	2.2	118	105	0.9
2020	NYM	8	7	34.0	1	4	46	25	37	7	6.62	5.25	1.56	9.8	1.9	149	118	0.1
2019	STL	29	24	126.2	6	7	143	67	104	55	4.76	5.61	1.56	7.4	3.9	106	125	-0.2
2018	STL	15	15	84.1	8	2	68	30	71	36	3.20	4.22	1.23	7.6	3.8	77	102	0.9
2017	STL	30	30	165.2	12	9	170	76	158	55	4.13	3.63	1.36	8.6	3.0	95	83	3.2
2016	STL	27	24	138.0	7	7	159	78	114	45	5.09	3.91	1.48	7.4	2.9	121	93	1.9
2015	STL	30	30	181.1	17	7	162	68	153	58	3.38	3.87	1.21	7.6	2.9	85	98	2.2
2014	STL	19	19	107.0	5	6	95	38	94	33	3.20	3.17	1.20	7.9	2.8	85	85	2.1
2013	STL	15	9	64.2	4	1	52	20	65	19	2.78	2.92	1.10	9.0	2.6	72	76	1.3

Batting Regular season

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


2021	TB	2	3	0	0	0	0	3	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.8	-128	-0.0
2019	STL	22	39	6	3	0	0	21	.167	.167	.194	.028	.400	0.0%	53.8%	.155	-5.6	-14	0.0
2018	STL	15	32	2	1	0	1	9	.080	.115	.080	.000	.125	3.1%	28.1%	.095	-5.8	-56	-0.1
2017	STL	28	55	2	3	0	1	22	.043	.063	.043	.000	.080	1.8%	40.0%	.051	-12.5	-90	-0.4
2016	STL	23	45	1	0	0	3	22	.026	.095	.026	.000	.059	6.7%	48.9%	.071	-9.0	-71	-0.3
2015	STL	27	62	8	4	1	4	20	.154	.214	.173	.019	.250	6.5%	32.3%	.184	-6.5	7	0.3
2014	STL	17	32	1	2	0	0	18	.034	.034	.034	.000	.091	0.0%	56.3%	.031	-6.9	-97	-0.3
2013	STL	10	22	3	3	0	0	10	.143	.143	.143	.000	.273	0.0%	45.5%	.128	-3.2	-34	-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 Michael Wacha's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2024 Post	KC	ALDS	2	2	8.2	0	1	10	5	1	4	5	5.19	1.62	5.2
2021 Post	TB	ALDS	1	0	2.2	0	0	9	6	1	0	4	20.25	3.38	13.5
2015 Post	STL	NLDS	1	1	4.1	0	1	6	4	3	3	5	8.31	2.08	10.4
2014 Post	STL	NLCS	1	0	0.1	0	1	2	3	1	1	0	81.00	9.00	0.0
2013 Post	STL	Postseason total	5	5	30.2	4	1	16	9	3	12	33	2.64	0.91	9.7
		NLDS	1	1	7.1	1	0	1	1	1	2	9	1.23	0.41	11.0
		NLCS	2	2	13.2	2	0	7	0	0	2	13	0.00	0.66	8.6
		World Series	2	2	9.2	1	1	8	8	2	8	11	7.45	1.66	10.2
Career		Postseason total · 5 Octobers	10	8	46.2	4	4	43	27	9	20	47	5.21	1.35	9.1

Postseason batting

Postseason Michael Wacha's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	RBI	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2015 Post	STL	NLDS	1	2	2	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
2013 Post	STL	Postseason total	3	8	7	1	1	5	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLDS	1	3	2	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLCS	2	5	5	1	1	3	.000	.000	.000	.000
Career		Postseason total · 2 Octobers	4	10	9	1	1	7	.000	.000	.000	.000

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	479	439	96	12	34	100	.219	.278	.364	.284	20.9%
vs RHB	333	306	72	18	20	58	.235	.290	.490	.335	17.4%

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

Four-seamChangeupCutterSinkerCurveballSlider

Select a count to see exactly what Michael Wacha throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	27.7%	840	93.2	2,152	49.4%	20.5%	191	.225	.660
Changeup	25.2%	762	80.6	1,532	47.5%	27.5%	218	.188	.549
Cutter	14.8%	449	89.5	2,152	45.4%	14.5%	119	.261	.861
Sinker	13.6%	413	93.2	2,063	43.1%	12.9%	114	.219	.783
Curveball	9.9%	301	75.9	2,266	42.2%	25.8%	41	.244	.834
Slider	8.7%	263	85.0	2,016	36.1%	29.9%	62	.290	.780

Michael Wacha'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.

Zac ThorntonNYM

ERA: 3.42
FIP: 4.51
SO: 63
WAR: 0.7

Very close

Emerson HancockSEA

ERA: 3.57
FIP: 4.00
SO: 126
WAR: 1.9

Very close

Justin WrobleskiLAD

ERA: 3.66
FIP: 4.14
SO: 118
WAR: 1.6

Very close

Foster GriffinWSH

ERA: 3.60
FIP: 3.96
SO: 158
WAR: 2.8

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.