Players · M · Pitcher · 2026 regular season

Lance McCullers Jr.

Age: 33
B/T: L/R
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 200 lb
Number: #50

Born: October 2, 1993 in Tampa, FL, United States
MLB debut: May 18, 2015
Drafted: 2012, round C-A
High school: Jesuit
Salary, 2026: $17.7M

Compare with…vs Brandon Sproat vs Trey Gibson vs Spencer Arrighetti

dbWAR: 14.7
IP: 44.0
ERA: 6.55
FIP: 4.97
K/9: 9.8
FIP−: 119

Lance McCullers Jr. is a starting pitcher for the Houston Astros. In 2026 he struck out 48 batters over 44.0 innings across 10 appearances, 8 of them starts, going 2-3. His ERA of 6.55 was 56.5% higher than the league average of 4.18 — 18th of 20 on his team, and 512th of 539 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 4.97 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 27.9% of swings (11.6% of every pitch he threw), walked 13.8% of the batters he faced and struck out 24.6%. His 0.1 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.

FIP4.97

K/99.8

WHIP1.55

WAR.1

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

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


2026	HOU/MIL	10	8	44.0	2	3	41	32	48	27	6.55	4.97	1.55	9.8	5.5	157	119	0.1
2025	HOU	16	13	55.1	2	5	61	40	61	39	6.51	5.77	1.81	9.9	6.3	156	139	-0.4
2022	HOU	8	8	47.2	4	2	37	12	50	22	2.27	3.49	1.24	9.4	4.2	57	88	0.8
2021	HOU	28	28	162.1	13	5	122	57	185	76	3.16	3.52	1.22	10.3	4.2	74	83	3.4
2020	HOU	11	11	55.0	3	3	44	24	56	20	3.93	3.70	1.16	9.2	3.3	88	83	1.1
2018	HOU	25	22	128.1	10	6	100	55	142	50	3.86	3.50	1.17	10.0	3.5	93	84	2.4
2017	HOU	22	22	118.2	7	4	114	56	132	40	4.25	3.10	1.30	10.0	3.0	97	71	3.0
2016	HOU	14	14	81.0	6	5	80	29	106	45	3.22	3.00	1.54	11.8	5.0	77	72	2.0
2015	HOU	22	22	125.2	6	7	106	45	129	43	3.22	3.26	1.19	9.2	3.1	81	82	2.5

Batting Regular season

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


2021	HOU	2	4	0	3	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	75.0%	.000	-1.1	-121	-0.1
2018	HOU	1	2	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	50.0%	.000	-0.5	-121	-0.0
2017	HOU	1	3	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	0.0%	.000	-0.8	-128	-0.0
2016	HOU	1	3	1	0	.333	.333	.333	.000	.333	0.0%	0.0%	.292	-0.1	85	0.1
2015	HOU	1	2	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	50.0%	.000	-0.5	-126	-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 Lance McCullers Jr.'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	SV	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2022 Post	HOU	Postseason total	3	3	15.1	0	1	0	16	10	5	4	18	5.87	1.30	10.6
		ALDS	1	1	6.0	0	0	0	2	0	0	2	7	0.00	0.67	10.5
		ALCS	1	1	5.0	0	0	0	8	3	0	1	6	5.40	1.80	10.8
		World Series	1	1	4.1	0	1	0	6	7	5	1	5	14.54	1.62	10.4
2021 Post	HOU	ALDS	2	2	10.2	1	0	0	9	1	1	3	9	0.84	1.13	7.6
2020 Post	HOU	Postseason total	3	3	14.2	0	2	0	16	8	7	2	23	4.91	1.23	14.1
		ALDS	1	1	4.0	0	0	0	8	4	3	1	5	9.00	2.25	11.3
		ALCS	2	2	10.2	0	2	0	8	4	4	1	18	3.38	0.84	15.2
2018 Post	HOU	Postseason total	5	0	5.0	0	0	0	4	1	0	2	4	1.80	1.20	7.2
		ALDS	2	0	2.0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0.00	1.00	0.0
		ALCS	3	0	3.0	0	0	0	2	1	0	2	4	3.00	1.33	12.0
2017 Post	HOU	Postseason total	5	3	20.2	1	0	1	13	6	1	9	19	2.61	1.06	8.3
		ALDS	1	0	3.0	0	0	0	3	2	0	2	4	6.00	1.67	12.0
		ALCS	2	1	10.0	0	0	1	3	1	1	3	9	0.90	0.60	8.1
		World Series	2	2	7.2	1	0	0	7	3	0	4	6	3.52	1.43	7.0
2015 Post	HOU	ALDS	1	1	6.1	0	0	0	2	2	1	2	7	2.84	0.63	9.9
Career		Postseason total · 6 Octobers	19	12	72.2	2	3	1	60	28	15	22	80	3.47	1.13	9.9

Postseason batting

Postseason Lance McCullers Jr.'s postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2017 Post	HOU	World Series	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	.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	118	101	25	5	16	34	.248	.356	.475	.366	28.8%
vs RHB	77	65	16	2	11	14	.246	.364	.431	.356	18.2%

Pitch sequencing

What Lance McCullers Jr. throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

CutterSinkerSweeperChangeupKnuckle curveFour-seam

Select a count to see exactly what Lance McCullers Jr. throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Season


Cutter	27.6%	219	89.0	2,335	49.3%	21.7%	40	.275	.833
Sinker	21.9%	174	91.2	2,069	48.3%	11.6%	36	.222	.793
Sweeper	17.3%	137	82.3	2,701	40.9%	30.2%	35	.229	.800
Changeup	14.9%	118	85.4	1,709	33.1%	38.3%	23	.261	.726
Knuckle Curve	14.6%	116	81.6	2,817	43.1%	45.6%	28	.214	.741
Four-Seam Fastball	3.7%	29	91.6	2,138	31.0%	33.3%	5	—	—

Lance McCullers Jr.'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.

Compare Lance McCullers Jr. with…

Side by side with up to three others.

Compare with… add up to 3 more players

Lance McCullers Jr.

Or read one already written — Lance McCullers Jr. against:

Similar players

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

Brandon SproatMIL

ERA: 5.57
FIP: 5.22
SO: 101
WAR: -0.0

Trey GibsonBAL

ERA: 6.13
FIP: 5.65
SO: 37
WAR: -0.2

Spencer ArrighettiHOU

ERA: 4.96
FIP: 5.44
SO: 106
WAR: -0.5

Comparable

Cody BoltonHOU

ERA: 5.40
FIP: 5.10
SO: 22
WAR: -0.1

Comparable

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.