DataBaseball
2026
Lawrence Butler headshot

Players · B · RF · 2026 regular season

Lawrence Butler

AthleticsAmerican League WestRF
Age
26
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 3"
Weight
210 lb
Number
#4
Born
July 10, 2000 in Burlington, NJ, United States
MLB debut
August 11, 2023
Drafted
2018, round 6
High school
Westlake
Salary, 2026
$3.43M

Compare with…vs Lane Thomasvs Brandon Valenzuelavs Christian Yelich

dbWAR
5.3
Regular season, 4 season(s)
PA
539
AVG
.237
OBP
.326
SLG
.394
wRC+
91
100 = avg

Lawrence Butler is a right fielder for the Athletics. In 2026 he hit 17 home runs and knocked in 62 RBIs, notching 112 hits across 539 plate appearances in 150 games. His batting average was .237, 2.8% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .326 clip and slugged .394, for an OPS of .720, level with the league mark of .719 — 8th of 17 on his team, and 198th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.3 mph off the bat, hit 45.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.5% of them and made contact on 73.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 91 wRC+ puts his offence 9% below average. That comes to 1.3 dbWAR — +1.6 runs with the bat, -3.8 for the ballpark, -1.7 on the bases, +3.7 on double plays, -3.8 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+91
wOBA.322
ISO.157
BB%11.3%
WAR1.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +12.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+1.6Ballpark-3.8Baserunning-1.7Double plays+3.7Position-3.8Replacement+16.7
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.61.1-0.423242526

Batting Regular season

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

Trend
2026ATH15053911217621061138.237.326.394.157.29811.3%25.6%.322+1.6911.3
2025ATH15063013321632259179.234.306.404.170.3049.4%28.4%.313-1.4951.7
2024OAK12045110822571835108.262.317.490.228.3017.8%23.9%.346+12.51242.6
2023OAK41129264100435.211.240.341.130.2593.1%27.1%.252-7.455-0.4

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 LHP1491313041539.229.313.366.30726.2%
vs RHP391342821346100.240.330.404.32725.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 338 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 335 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
7.5%
25 barrels
Exit velocity
89.3
mph average
Max exit velo
112.7
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
45.1%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.1%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
7.2°
average
Barrel rate7.5%
Exit velocity89.3 mph
Hard hit rate45.1%
Contact rate73.3%

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.

.227.143.167.089.19021 AB.31029 AB.21428 AB.26453 AB.24549 AB.34144 AB.21637 AB.33351 AB.23738 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 Lawrence Butler 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 situations539——————.237.326.394.322
Bases empty31128364992780.226.296.367.297
Runner on first11995254122230.263.407.421.375
Runners on229190488533459.253.366.432.355
RISP11095234411229.242.321.442.333

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.

Lane ThomasKC
wRC+
93
HR
11
AVG
.224
WAR
1.0
Very close
Brandon ValenzuelaTOR
wRC+
93
HR
9
AVG
.226
WAR
1.1
Very close
Christian YelichMIL
wRC+
92
HR
12
AVG
.235
WAR
0.3
Very close
Dylan BeaversBAL
wRC+
93
HR
9
AVG
.228
WAR
0.3
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.