Players · B · 1B · 2026 regular season
Michael Busch
- Age
- 29
- B/T
- L/R
- Height
- 5' 11"
- Weight
- 210 lb
- Number
- #29
- Born
- November 9, 1997 in Inver Grove Heights, MN, United States
- MLB debut
- April 25, 2023
- Drafted
- 2019, round 1
- College
- North Carolina
Compare with…vs Fernando Tatis Jr.vs Kyle Tuckervs Nick Kurtz
- dbWAR
- 8.7 Regular season, 4 season(s)
- PA
- 710
- AVG
- .242
- OBP
- .352
- SLG
- .393
- wRC+
- 111 100 = avg
Michael Busch is a first baseman for the Chicago Cubs. In 2026 he hit 20 home runs and knocked in 77 RBIs, notching 145 hits across 710 plate appearances in 160 games. His batting average was .242, 1.0% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .352 clip and slugged .393, for an OPS of .745, 3.7% higher than the league mark of .719 — 5th of 13 on his team, and 147th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.3 mph off the bat, hit 39.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.7% of them and made contact on 74.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 111 wRC+ puts his offence 11% above average. That comes to 2.3 dbWAR — +10.3 runs with the bat, -0.3 for the ballpark, -1.4 on the bases, +0.3 on double plays, -8.8 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.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +22.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
WAR by season
Batting Regular season
Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.
Separate from the regular season
Postseason Postseason
Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.
Postseason batting
| Season | Team | Round | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Post | CHC | Wild Card · through Sep 30 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | .000 | .286 | .000 | .286 |
| 2025 Post | CHC | Postseason total | 8 | 31 | 27 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 | .296 | .387 | .741 | 1.128 |
| Wild Card | 3 | 12 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .400 | .500 | .700 | 1.200 | ||
| NLDS | 5 | 19 | 17 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 0 | .235 | .316 | .765 | 1.080 | ||
| Career | Postseason total · 2 Octobers | 10 | 38 | 32 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 0 | .250 | .368 | .625 | .993 |
Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 204 | 173 | 42 | 7 | 24 | 43 | .243 | .348 | .422 | .344 | 21.1% |
| vs RHP | 506 | 427 | 103 | 13 | 68 | 122 | .241 | .354 | .382 | .333 | 24.1% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.
Loading 440 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 439 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 7.7% 34 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 88.3 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 109.2 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 39.9% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 36.6% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 15.5° average
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.
Situational hitting
How Michael Busch hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 710 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .242 | .352 | .393 | .336 |
| Bases empty | 368 | 318 | 78 | 14 | 15 | 44 | 90 | .245 | .348 | .431 | .347 |
| Runner on first | 155 | 134 | 26 | 3 | 9 | 18 | 46 | .194 | .303 | .313 | .287 |
| Runners on | 342 | 282 | 67 | 6 | 62 | 48 | 75 | .238 | .357 | .351 | .324 |
| RISP | 187 | 148 | 41 | 3 | 53 | 30 | 29 | .277 | .401 | .385 | .356 |
Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.
Compare Michael Busch with…
Side by side with up to three others.
Or read one already written — Michael Busch against:
- Fernando Tatis Jr.2026 Wild Card Series
- Kyle Tucker2025 Chicago Cubs
- Nick Kurtz2025 first basemen
- Bryan Reynoldssimilar 2026 seasons
- Jackson Merrill2026 Wild Card Series
- Nico Hoerner2025 Chicago Cubs
- Matt Olson2025 first basemen
- Lars Nootbaarsimilar 2026 seasons
- Ty France2026 Wild Card Series
- Pete Alonso2025 first basemen
- Kyle Karrossimilar 2026 seasons
- Xander Bogaerts2026 Wild Card Series
Similar players
Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.
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.