DataBaseball
2026
Yordan Alvarez headshot

Players · A · DH · 2026

Yordan Alvarez

Age
29
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 4"
Weight
237 lb
Number
#44
Born
June 27, 1997 in Las Tunas, Cuba
MLB debut
June 9, 2019
Salary, 2026
$26.8M
dbWAR
31.8
8 season(s)
PA
682
AVG
.315
OBP
.433
SLG
.599
wRC+
181
100 = avg

Yordan Alvarez is a designated hitter for the Houston Astros. So far in 2026 he has hit 41 home runs and knocked in 102 RBIs, notching 176 hits across 682 plate appearances in 156 games. His batting average is .315, 29.3% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .433 clip and slugged .599, for an OPS of 1.031, 43.5% higher than the league mark of .719 — the best on his team, and the best among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 94.3 mph off the bat, hit 54.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 14.6% of them and made contact on 80.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 181 wRC+ puts his offence 81% above average. That comes to 7.4 dbWAR — +62.6 runs with the bat, +0.9 for the ballpark, -0.9 on the bases, +0.1 on double plays, -13.3 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+181
wOBA.430
ISO.283
BB%16.0%
WAR7.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +70.6 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+62.6Ballpark+0.9Baserunning-0.9Double plays+0.1Position-13.3Replacement+21.1
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

7.43.70.01920212223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026HOU156682176411021109117.315.433.599.283.33316.0%17.2%.430+62.61817.4
2025HOU481994562712833.273.367.430.158.29514.1%16.6%.341+4.31190.7
2024HOU147635170358666995.308.392.567.259.31710.9%15.0%.403+47.61625.8
2023HOU114496120319706992.293.407.583.290.30613.9%18.5%.417+40.41694.8
2022HOU1355611443797178106.306.406.613.306.32013.9%18.9%.429+53.21846.3
2021HOU14459814933104150145.277.346.531.253.3208.4%24.2%.372+27.41393.2
2020HOU29214001.250.333.625.375.1670.0%11.1%.399+0.61570.0
2019HOU8736998277805294.313.412.655.342.36614.1%25.5%.436+35.71733.6

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 LHP18216143101528.267.335.491.34715.4%
vs RHP499396133319488.336.469.644.46217.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 446 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 444 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
14.6%
65 barrels
Exit velocity
94.3
mph average
Max exit velo
118.5
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
54.1%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
41.7%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
18.9°
average
Barrel rate14.6%
Exit velocity94.3 mph
Hard hit rate54.1%
Contact rate80.3%

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.

.150.333.227.293.09521 AB.36641 AB.28628 AB.29544 AB.30865 AB.34050 AB.33339 AB.40664 AB.57135 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 Yordan Alvarez 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 situations682——————.315.433.599.430
Bases empty40235510624254178.299.381.552.402
Runner on first152123429242628.341.467.634.469
Runners on2792027017776838.347.509.683.476
RISP12779288534210.354.559.759.486

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

Head to head

Put Yordan Alvarez beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Yordan Alvarez

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.