DataBaseball
2026
Zach McKinstry headshot

Players · M · RF · 2026 regular season

Zach McKinstry

Age
31
B/T
L/R
Height
5' 11"
Weight
180 lb
Number
#39
Born
April 29, 1995 in Toledo, OH, United States
MLB debut
September 16, 2020
Drafted
2016, round 33
College
Central Michigan
High school
North Side
Salary, 2026
$4.2M

Compare with…vs Gleyber Torresvs Angel Genaovs Riley Greene

dbWAR
3.8
Regular season, 11 season(s)
PA
423
AVG
.199
OBP
.288
SLG
.294
wRC+
67
100 = avg

Zach McKinstry is a right fielder for the Detroit Tigers. In 2026 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 26 RBIs, notching 74 hits across 423 plate appearances in 125 games. His batting average was .199, 18.3% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .288 clip and slugged .294, for an OPS of .582, 19.1% lower than the league mark of .719 — 16th of 18 on his team, and 417th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 85.2 mph off the bat, hit 22.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 1.6% of them and made contact on 83.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 67 wRC+ puts his offence 33% below average. That comes to -0.5 dbWAR — -17.5 runs with the bat, +0.6 for the ballpark, -2.0 on the bases, +0.1 on double plays, +1.2 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+67
wOBA.268
ISO.094
BB%9.9%
WAR-.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to -4.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-17.5Ballpark+0.6Baserunning-2.0Double plays+0.1Position+1.2Replacement+13.0
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.01.2-0.520212223242526

Batting Regular season

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

Trend
2026DET1254237442634269.199.288.294.094.2339.9%16.3%.268-17.567-0.5
2025DET14251111712491946111.259.333.438.179.3149.0%21.7%.334+8.11113.0
2024DET11332564423162469.215.277.337.121.2657.4%21.2%.272-10.6720.7
2023DET1455181079351644113.231.302.351.121.2848.5%21.8%.291-12.6780.6
2022CHC/LAD541853351471652.199.273.361.163.2578.6%28.1%.282-4.5810.6
2021LAD571723472911050.215.263.405.190.2625.8%29.1%.284-4.878-0.1
2020LAD47200003.286.286.429.143.5000.0%42.9%.304-0.188-0.0

Pitching Regular season

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

Trend
2026DET202.0000340518.0018.604.000.022.5430445-0.3
2025DET100.100000000.003.140.000.00.00750.0
2024DET302.000012019.0011.171.000.04.5221274-0.2
2023DET101.0000320018.0016.263.000.00.0416375-0.1

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 batting

Postseason Zach McKinstry's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
SeasonTeamRoundGPAABRH2B3BHRRBIBBSOSBAVGOBPSLGOPS
2025 PostDETPostseason total834292500034101.172.273.172.445
Wild Card3128000001340.000.273.000.273
ALDS52221250002161.238.273.238.511
2024 PostDETPostseason total397132011100.429.5561.1431.698
Wild Card133011000000.333.333.6671.000
ALDS264121011100.500.6671.5002.167
CareerPostseason total · 2 Octobers1143363820145101.222.333.361.694

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 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 LHP8675110815.147.238.160.19917.4%
vs RHP3372966343454.213.301.328.28616.0%
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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHB651110.200.333.800.4580.0%
vs RHB942040.500.778.500.6030.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 307 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 306 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
1.6%
5 barrels
Exit velocity
85.2
mph average
Max exit velo
106.0
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
22.5%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.8%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
14.3°
average
Barrel rate1.6%
Exit velocity85.2 mph
Hard hit rate22.5%
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.

.167.091.067.195.18222 AB.29224 AB.15819 AB.14734 AB.17053 AB.34529 AB.20539 AB.20035 AB.33324 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 Zach McKinstry 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 situations423——————.199.288.294.268
Bases empty24722249122141.221.297.324.283
Runner on first89781438913.179.273.308.262
Runners on176149253242128.168.276.248.247
RISP8771110161215.155.279.183.232

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

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter
FastballEephus

Select a count to see exactly what Zach McKinstry throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Fastball55.9%3347.31,22733.3%25.0%4——
Eephus40.7%2437.594825.0%14.3%5——
Zach McKinstry'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 Zach McKinstry with…

Side by side with up to three others.

Compare with… add up to 3 more players
Zach McKinstry

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.