DataBaseball
2026
José Fermín headshot

3B · 2026

José Fermín

Age
27
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
198 lb
Number
#15
Born
March 29, 1999 in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
MLB debut
July 7, 2023
dbWAR
.3
3 season(s)
PA
245
AVG
.240
OBP
.307
SLG
.359
wRC+
89
100 = avg

José Fermín is a third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 5 home runs and knocked in 26 RBIs, notching 52 hits across 245 plate appearances in 79 games. His batting average was .240, 1.7% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .307 clip and slugged .359, for an OPS of .667, 7.4% lower than the league mark of .719 — 7th of 14 on his team, and 277th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 86.3 mph off the bat, hit 32.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 2.1% of them and made contact on 86.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 89 wRC+ puts his offence 11% below average. That comes to 0.4 dbWAR — -4.0 runs with the bat, +0.5 on the bases, -0.7 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+89
wOBA.299
ISO.120
BB%8.6%
WAR.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +4.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-4.0Baserunning+0.5Position-0.7Replacement+8.2
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.4-0.0-0.5242526

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 LHP1161002731413.270.357.430.34911.2%
vs RHP129117252718.214.262.299.25214.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 188 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 190 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
2.1%
4 barrels
Exit velocity
86.3
mph average
Max exit velo
109.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
32.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
15.8°
average
Barrel rate2.1%
Exit velocity86.3 mph
Hard hit rate32.6%
Contact rate86.1%

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.

.263.091.26715 AB.20025 AB.0008 AB.14314 AB.55627 AB.27037 AB7 AB.28621 AB.12516 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 José Fermín 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 situations245.240.307.359.299
Bases empty13812731551023.244.299.409.312
Runner on first423990324.231.286.282.261
Runners on1079021021118.233.317.289.281
RISP65511201894.235.339.294.295

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

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026792455252642131.240.307.359.120.2578.6%12.7%.299-4.0890.4
2025307017192810.283.377.417.133.32711.4%14.3%.356+2.41320.4
2024397911042711.155.241.197.042.1838.9%13.9%.210-6.728-0.5

Head to head

Put José Fermín beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
José Fermín

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.