DataBaseball
2026
Taylor Ward headshot

LF · 2026

Taylor Ward

Age
33
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
205 lb
Number
#27
Born
December 14, 1993 in Dayton, OH, USA
MLB debut
August 14, 2018
Drafted
2012, round 31
College
Fresno State
High school
Shadow Hills
Salary, 2026
$12.2M
dbWAR
6.2
3 season(s)
PA
529
AVG
.242
OBP
.374
SLG
.342
wRC+
111
100 = avg

Taylor Ward is a left fielder for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2026 he hit 7 home runs and knocked in 30 RBIs, notching 105 hits across 529 plate appearances in 117 games. His batting average was .242, level with the league average of .244. He reached base at a .374 clip and slugged .342, for an OPS of .716, level with the league mark of .719 — 7th of 13 on his team, and 196th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.9 mph off the bat, hit 38.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better and made contact on 80.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 111 wRC+ puts his offence 11% above average. That comes to 1.5 dbWAR — +6.5 runs with the bat, -1.4 on the bases, -8.3 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+111
wOBA.333
ISO.099
BB%16.4%
WAR1.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +14.5 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+6.5Baserunning-1.4Position-8.3Replacement+17.6
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.71.40.0242526

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1501203142828.258.393.417.36218.7%
vs RHP3793137435980.236.367.313.32221.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 327 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.067.167.000.133.38731 AB.25735 AB.17423 AB.47236 AB.25866 AB.18643 AB.29434 AB.22050 AB.21347 AB
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.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026117529105730487108.242.374.342.099.30516.4%20.4%.333+6.51111.5
202515766313236103475175.228.317.475.247.25711.3%26.4%.341+14.01172.7
20241566631442575663163.246.323.426.179.2949.5%24.6%.328+8.41102.0

Head to head

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Taylor Ward

Similar players

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

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.