DataBaseball
2026
Josh Naylor headshot

Players · N · 1B · 2026

Josh Naylor

Age
29
B/T
L/L
Height
5' 10"
Weight
235 lb
Number
#12
Born
June 22, 1997 in Mississauga, ON, Canada
MLB debut
May 24, 2019
Drafted
2015, round 1
High school
Saint Joan of Arc
Salary, 2026
$11.3M
dbWAR
9.8
8 season(s)
PA
641
AVG
.263
OBP
.319
SLG
.351
wRC+
91
100 = avg

Josh Naylor is a first baseman for the Seattle Mariners. So far in 2026 he has hit 10 home runs and knocked in 55 RBIs, notching 155 hits across 641 plate appearances in 150 games. His batting average is .263, 7.9% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .319 clip and slugged .351, for an OPS of .670, 6.7% lower than the league mark of .719 — 8th of 15 on his team, and 292nd of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 86.9 mph off the bat, hit 36.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 4.1% of them and made contact on 83.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 91 wRC+ puts his offence 9% below average. That comes to 0.2 dbWAR — -9.7 runs with the bat, +1.5 for the ballpark, +1.1 on the bases, -2.7 on double plays, -8.0 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+91
wOBA.300
ISO.088
BB%6.9%
WAR.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +2.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-9.7Ballpark+1.5Baserunning+1.1Double plays-2.7Position-8.0Replacement+19.8
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.21.5-0.21920212223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026SEA1506411551055294479.263.319.351.088.2896.9%12.3%.300-9.7910.2
2025AZ/SEA1466041602092304883.295.353.462.168.3157.9%13.7%.353+18.81263.2
2024CLE15263313731108658105.243.320.456.213.2469.2%16.6%.333+10.91112.0
2023CLE1214951391797103368.308.354.489.181.3266.7%13.7%.355+14.51282.4
2022CLE122498115207963880.256.319.452.196.2687.6%16.1%.333+8.71171.6
2021CLE682505972111445.253.301.399.146.2875.6%18.0%.304-2.8920.1
2020CLE/SD4010424161512.247.291.330.082.2744.8%11.5%.276-4.068-0.2
2019SD942796383212564.249.315.403.154.3029.0%22.9%.309-3.3940.4

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 LHP218205573931.278.317.361.30314.2%
vs RHP4233849873548.255.320.346.29911.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 510 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 509 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
4.1%
21 barrels
Exit velocity
86.9
mph average
Max exit velo
111.5
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
36.1%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
36.3%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
10.6°
average
Barrel rate4.1%
Exit velocity86.9 mph
Hard hit rate36.1%
Contact rate83.0%

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.

.245.353.225.000.18438 AB.44747 AB.25040 AB.14947 AB.31470 AB.30826 AB.32540 AB.30243 AB.13315 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.

Situational hitting

How Josh Naylor 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.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations641——————.263.319.351.300
Bases empty35433398551840.294.334.375.316
Runner on first14212429161518.234.331.306.295
Runners on287256575502639.223.300.320.280
RISP145132284441121.212.269.333.266

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

Head to head

Put Josh Naylor beside up to three others.

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Josh Naylor

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.