Players · W · LF · 2026 regular season

Taylor Ward

Baltimore Orioles American League EastLF

Age: 33
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 205 lb
Number: #27

Born: December 14, 1993 in Dayton, OH, United States
MLB debut: August 14, 2018
Drafted: 2012, round 31
College: Fresno State
High school: Shadow Hills
Salary, 2026: $12.2M

Compare with…vs Zach Neto vs Gleyber Torres vs Jo Adell

dbWAR: 11.7
PA: 607
AVG: .225
OBP: .359
SLG: .311
wRC+: 102

Taylor Ward is a left fielder for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2026 he hit 7 home runs and knocked in 37 RBIs, notching 112 hits across 607 plate appearances in 143 games. His batting average was .225, 7.8% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .359 clip and slugged .311, for an OPS of .670, 6.8% lower than the league mark of .719 — 11th of 14 on his team, and 296th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.7 mph off the bat, hit 38.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.3% of them and made contact on 80.5% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 102 wRC+ puts his offence 2% above average. That comes to 1.2 dbWAR — -1.1 runs with the bat, +1.1 for the ballpark, -1.9 on the bases, +1.1 on double plays, -6.9 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 regular season.

wRC+102

wOBA.316

ISO.086

BB%16.3%

WAR1.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +11.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only.


2026	BAL/SEA	143	607	112	7	37	4	99	130	.225	.359	.311	.086	.288	16.3%	21.4%	.316	-1.1	102	1.2
2025	LAA	157	663	132	36	103	4	75	175	.228	.317	.475	.247	.257	11.3%	26.4%	.341	+14.0	117	2.8
2024	LAA	156	663	144	25	75	6	63	163	.246	.323	.426	.179	.294	9.5%	24.6%	.328	+8.4	110	2.0
2023	LAA	97	409	90	14	47	4	39	80	.253	.335	.421	.169	.284	9.5%	19.6%	.331	+3.6	108	1.2
2022	LAA	135	564	139	23	65	5	60	120	.281	.360	.473	.192	.325	10.6%	21.3%	.364	+23.8	134	3.7
2021	LAA	62	237	52	8	33	1	20	55	.250	.332	.438	.188	.301	8.4%	23.2%	.337	+3.9	112	0.8
2020	LAA	30	102	26	0	5	2	8	28	.277	.333	.383	.106	.394	7.8%	27.5%	.317	-0.4	94	0.3
2019	LAA	18	48	8	1	2	0	6	23	.190	.292	.333	.143	.389	12.5%	47.9%	.278	-1.8	69	-0.1
2018	LAA	40	147	24	6	15	2	9	45	.178	.245	.333	.156	.214	6.1%	30.6%	.257	-7.3	58	-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	194	158	35	4	34	41	.222	.356	.342	.320	21.1%
vs RHP	413	340	77	3	65	89	.226	.361	.297	.314	21.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 370 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 369 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 4.3%
Exit velocity: 88.7
Max exit velo: 109.5
Hard hit: 38.5%
Sweet spot: 37.4%
Launch angle: 14.8°

Barrel rate4.3%

Exit velocity88.7 mph

Hard hit rate38.5%

Contact rate80.5%

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 Taylor Ward 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	607	—	—	—	—	—	—	.225	.359	.311	.316
Bases empty	386	316	75	4	4	64	83	.237	.376	.323	.330
Runner on first	116	101	20	0	3	15	29	.198	.302	.238	.260
Runners on	221	182	37	3	33	35	47	.203	.330	.291	.292
RISP	105	81	17	3	30	20	18	.210	.362	.358	.329

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

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Similar players

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

Gleyber TorresDET

wRC+: 111
HR: 8
AVG: .260
WAR: 1.8

Alex CallLAD

wRC+: 94
HR: 1
AVG: .233
WAR: 0.3

Comparable

Edouard JulienCOL

wRC+: 77
HR: 3
AVG: .208
WAR: 0.1

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Lars NootbaarSTL

wRC+: 108
HR: 8
AVG: .239
WAR: 0.9

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.