DataBaseball
2026
Francisco Alvarez headshot

Players · A · C · 2026

Francisco Alvarez

Age
25
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
233 lb
Number
#4
Born
November 19, 2001 in Guatire, Venezuela
MLB debut
September 30, 2022
Salary, 2026
$2.4M
dbWAR
6.6
5 season(s)
PA
416
AVG
.235
OBP
.312
SLG
.403
wRC+
100
100 = avg

Francisco Alvarez is a catcher for the New York Mets. So far in 2026 he has hit 16 home runs and knocked in 43 RBIs, notching 87 hits across 416 plate appearances in 111 games. His batting average is .235, 3.6% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .312 clip and slugged .403, for an OPS of .714, 0.6% lower than the league mark of .719 — 6th of 15 on his team, and 205th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.8 mph off the bat, hit 48.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 14.8% of them and made contact on 65.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 100 wRC+ puts his offence 0% below average. That comes to 1.3 dbWAR — -0.7 runs with the bat, +0.3 for the ballpark, -0.6 on the bases, -3.5 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.

wRC+100
wOBA.317
ISO.168
BB%9.1%
WAR1.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +12.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-0.7Ballpark+0.3Baserunning-0.6Double plays-3.5Position+3.8Replacement+12.9
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.11.00.02223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026NYM111416871643038128.235.312.403.168.3119.1%30.8%.317-0.71001.3
2025NYM7427763113202773.256.339.447.191.3219.7%26.4%.345+6.91212.1
2024NYM9134273114713086.237.307.403.166.2918.8%25.1%.312-0.11011.6
2023NYM120423802563234110.209.284.437.228.2228.0%26.0%.310-3.5961.6
2022NYM514211024.167.286.500.333.14314.3%28.6%.340+0.31250.0

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 LHP1191052231340.210.303.314.28233.6%
vs RHP29726565132588.245.315.438.33029.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 244 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 244 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
14.8%
36 barrels
Exit velocity
90.8
mph average
Max exit velo
113.7
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
48.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
34.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
10.4°
average
Barrel rate14.8%
Exit velocity90.8 mph
Hard hit rate48.0%
Contact rate65.2%

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.

.077.241.036.093.26715 AB.30333 AB.22722 AB.33330 AB.33339 AB.31332 AB.40015 AB.34335 AB.13023 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 Francisco 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 situations416——————.235.312.403.317
Bases empty2362145114142172.238.309.472.340
Runner on first83731713722.233.317.288.284
Runners on180156362291756.231.315.308.285
RISP9783191261034.229.313.325.286

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

Head to head

Put Francisco Alvarez beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Francisco 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.