DataBaseball
2026
JJ Bleday headshot

Players · B · LF · 2026 regular season

JJ Bleday

Cincinnati RedsNational League CentralLF
Age
29
B/T
L/L
Height
6' 2"
Weight
205 lb
Number
#22
Born
November 10, 1997 in Danville, PA, United States
MLB debut
July 23, 2022
Drafted
2016, round 39
College
Vanderbilt
High school
A. Crawford Mosley
Salary, 2026
$1.4M

Compare with…vs Gary Sánchezvs Trent Grishamvs Gavin Sheets

dbWAR
6.4
Regular season, 5 season(s)
PA
545
AVG
.217
OBP
.324
SLG
.416
wRC+
110
100 = avg

JJ Bleday is a left fielder for the Cincinnati Reds. In 2026 he hit 24 home runs and knocked in 58 RBIs, notching 101 hits across 545 plate appearances in 133 games. His batting average was .217, 11.2% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .324 clip and slugged .416, for an OPS of .740, 2.9% higher than the league mark of .719 — 5th of 18 on his team, and 156th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.1 mph off the bat, hit 39.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 8.1% of them and made contact on 73.5% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 110 wRC+ puts his offence 10% above average. That comes to 1.8 dbWAR — +4.7 runs with the bat, +0.9 for the ballpark, -1.6 on the bases, +1.3 on double plays, -4.9 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+110
wOBA.329
ISO.200
BB%13.2%
WAR1.8

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +17.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+4.7Ballpark+0.9Baserunning-1.6Double plays+1.3Position-4.9Replacement+16.9
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.71.7-0.22223242526

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only.

Trend
2026CIN1335451012458672121.217.324.416.200.23813.2%22.2%.329+4.71101.8
2025ATH9734465143913691.212.294.404.192.25110.5%26.5%.304-3.1900.6
2024OAK1586421392060267125.243.324.437.194.27910.4%19.5%.332+10.51143.7
2023OAK8130350102754272.195.310.355.160.22613.9%23.8%.299-5.4880.4
2022MIA642383451643067.167.277.309.142.21612.6%28.2%.269-8.269-0.2

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 LHP1531352761736.200.288.356.29023.5%
vs RHP39233174185585.224.338.441.34521.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 346 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 346 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
8.1%
28 barrels
Exit velocity
88.1
mph average
Max exit velo
112.6
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
39.9%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
41.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
22.8°
average
Barrel rate8.1%
Exit velocity88.1 mph
Hard hit rate39.9%
Contact rate73.5%

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.

.111.176.073.045.14827 AB.22540 AB.20824 AB.08635 AB.29671 AB.29248 AB.25547 AB.32749 AB.22236 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 JJ Bleday 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 situations545——————.217.324.416.329
Bases empty3042656417173762.242.339.472.356
Runner on first124108205141533.185.285.380.297
Runners on241201377413559.184.304.343.294
RISP11793172272026.183.325.301.291

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

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Similar players

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

Gavin SheetsSD
wRC+
103
HR
17
AVG
.212
WAR
0.6
Very close
Manny MachadoSD
wRC+
99
HR
30
AVG
.217
WAR
1.7
Close
Corey SeagerTEX
wRC+
105
HR
20
AVG
.227
WAR
1.9
Close
Francisco LindorNYM
wRC+
105
HR
21
AVG
.225
WAR
2.5
Close
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.