DataBaseball
2026
Victor Mesa Jr. headshot

Players · M · RF · 2026

Victor Mesa Jr.

Age
25
B/T
L/L
Height
5' 11"
Weight
195 lb
Number
#25
Born
September 8, 2001 in Havana, Cuba
MLB debut
May 26, 2025
dbWAR
1.3
2 season(s)
PA
253
AVG
.243
OBP
.315
SLG
.478
wRC+
118
100 = avg

Victor Mesa Jr. is a right fielder for the Tampa Bay Rays. So far in 2026 he has hit 14 home runs and knocked in 31 RBIs, notching 55 hits across 253 plate appearances in 72 games. His batting average is .243, level with the league average of .244. He reached base at a .315 clip and slugged .478, for an OPS of .793, 10.3% higher than the league mark of .719 — 4th of 13 on his team, and 86th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 87.0 mph off the bat, hit 40.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.1% of them and made contact on 74.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 118 wRC+ puts his offence 18% above average. That comes to 1.2 dbWAR — +5.4 runs with the bat, -0.1 for the ballpark, -0.2 on the bases, +0.7 on double plays, -2.0 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+118
wOBA.344
ISO.235
BB%9.1%
WAR1.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +11.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+5.4Ballpark-0.1Baserunning-0.2Double plays+0.7Position-2.0Replacement+7.8
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.20.60.02526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026TB7225355143192351.243.315.478.235.2539.1%20.2%.344+5.41181.2
2025MIA1438616055.188.297.344.156.19213.2%13.2%.291-0.7870.1

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 LHP645817259.293.349.431.34614.1%
vs RHP18916838121842.226.303.494.34422.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 178 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 178 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
10.1%
18 barrels
Exit velocity
87.0
mph average
Max exit velo
110.4
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
40.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
32.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
20.1°
average
Barrel rate10.1%
Exit velocity87.0 mph
Hard hit rate40.4%
Contact rate74.0%

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.

.071.100.360.360.3339 AB.28621 AB.30813 AB.06316 AB.33324 AB.33312 AB.18816 AB.07128 AB.30813 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 Victor Mesa Jr. 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 situations253——————.243.315.478.344
Bases empty1531373611121524.263.340.562.387
Runner on first49451025417.222.286.356.288
Runners on1008919319827.213.276.348.278
RISP51449114410.205.265.341.269

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

Head to head

Put Victor Mesa Jr. beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Victor Mesa Jr.

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.