DataBaseball
2026
Brandon Lowe headshot

Players · L · 2B · 2026

Brandon Lowe

Age
32
B/T
L/R
Height
5' 9"
Weight
181 lb
Number
#5
Born
July 6, 1994 in Suffolk, VA, United States
MLB debut
August 5, 2018
Drafted
2015, round 3
College
Maryland
Salary, 2026
$500,000
dbWAR
23.7
9 season(s)
PA
652
AVG
.260
OBP
.331
SLG
.490
wRC+
121
100 = avg

Brandon Lowe is a second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. So far in 2026 he has hit 34 home runs and knocked in 95 RBIs, notching 151 hits across 652 plate appearances in 149 games. His batting average is .260, 6.7% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .331 clip and slugged .490, for an OPS of .821, 14.3% higher than the league mark of .719 — 5th of 18 on his team, and 51st of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 91.0 mph off the bat, hit 45.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 11.6% of them and made contact on 64.5% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 121 wRC+ puts his offence 21% above average. That comes to 4.5 dbWAR — +19.6 runs with the bat, -1.5 for the ballpark, -0.5 on the bases, +1.4 on double plays, +4.0 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+121
wOBA.355
ISO.229
BB%9.5%
WAR4.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +43.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+19.6Ballpark-1.5Baserunning-0.5Double plays+1.4Position+4.0Replacement+20.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

5.12.60.0181920212223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026PIT1496521513495262189.260.331.490.229.3219.5%29.0%.355+19.61214.5
2025TB1345531303183338149.256.307.477.221.2976.9%26.9%.335+9.21133.1
2024TB107425942158533112.244.311.473.229.2877.8%26.4%.336+8.41172.0
2023TB108436872168750119.231.328.443.212.27511.5%27.3%.335+5.61122.5
2022TB652665282512761.221.308.383.162.26310.2%22.9%.308-0.71001.1
2021TB1496151323999768167.247.340.523.277.28011.1%27.2%.366+25.41435.1
2020TB5622452143732558.269.362.554.285.30911.2%25.9%.387+12.51452.2
2019TB82327801751525113.270.336.514.243.3777.6%34.6%.357+9.61272.4
2018TB421483062521638.233.324.450.217.27910.8%25.7%.339+2.51170.7

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 LHP2101924381378.224.271.380.28537.1%
vs RHP4413871082649110.279.361.545.38924.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 398 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 398 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
11.6%
46 barrels
Exit velocity
91.0
mph average
Max exit velo
111.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
45.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
36.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
15.6°
average
Barrel rate11.6%
Exit velocity91.0 mph
Hard hit rate45.7%
Contact rate64.5%

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.

.094.261.108.136.23330 AB.33336 AB.42921 AB.35368 AB.33874 AB.41039 AB.19656 AB.30955 AB.25028 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 Brandon Lowe 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 situations652——————.260.331.490.355
Bases empty35832394202035101.291.360.548.392
Runner on first147130215141652.162.259.292.255
Runners on2932565714752787.223.297.418.311
RISP146126369611135.286.336.548.368

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

Head to head

Put Brandon Lowe beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Brandon Lowe

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.